Inline Pro Engine #3 dead - It's actually over this time.
 

Hi, me again.

I completed 4 successful track days since getting the new head gasket/BNIB cylinder head on the car: https://www.s2ki.com/forums/s2000-fo...1208408/page2/

I noticed my coolant temps on the last track day jumped about 15 degrees from normal and the car was running rich, so I decided to pull the plugs. All perfect except cylinder 3 which was grey with soot. Leakdown test showed 55% leakage on cylinder 3 so off came the head.....

Annnnd cylinder 3 is eating it's own rings or whatever these chunks are. I'm investigating a K24 swap at this point. I don't even know what to say anymore. Ha.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.s2k...d9a97e684.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.s2k...b131f08f2.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.s2k...b4ca7f3af.jpeg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.s2k...55d523b50.jpeg

Yea....People can say whatever they want based on past experiences with ILP @ this point....you're batting 0 for 3 now....no thanks. Only person I'd trust to build an F series now is Jeremy Allen personally, who left ILP and is doing his own thing. Whoever they got now and whatever they're doing just ain't it.

Read your last thread start to finish the last time you had issues.....even a lifetime of them feeding me steak dinners wouldn't be enough. I don't even want to know how much money you spent through all of this. You have my sympathy dude, this is BS.

Damn....

Are new short blocks still available?

Thank you. Yeah, I've been in touch with Jeremy personally as I thought I had an exhaust valve/valve guide that needed replaced so I pulled the head planning on sending it to him for the guide replacement and this is what I found.

Fortunately he said the cylinder head repair will be no sweat for him. I need to do some further investigation of the block to see if it can reasonably be repaired. From the pictures and my experience the scoring *looks* light and repairable but I havent actually ran a finger over it to see yet.

From what I've seen, people are still able to find them in random places but they usually end up having problems since even BNIB the blocks are still old at this point. I've seen a ton of threads of people swapping in new shortblocks just to have issues with rod bearings, thrust washers, etc.

Damn man! Has a solid reasoning for the issues ever been pinned down yet? Does Jeremy have any insight into what could have happened with the build or could be going on?

On a side note..... Do you know when Jeremy left IP? I'm worried now that he wasn't the one that built my engine back in mid 2016 and my car is in Indy at Carey Bales shop being built now with that IP engine build that hasn't been run yet.

I can't tell you exactly, but I'm 99.9% certain Jeremy leaving is a much more recent development than 2016, but I haven't had a motor built (a rabbit hole I refuse to go down) so I'll wait for others with more experience to chime in. I still follow these things closely, regardless of if I'm doing business with them or not.

With Kyle ^^^ on this one.

My first motor build with them began 12/6/2019. Just looked at the paper invoices I still have in my desk. At that time I don't believe Jeremy was working with them. I'm 100% sure he wasn't with them then, but I'm also 100% sure that inline pro outsourced the engine machining/headwork somewhere as they didnt have the capability in their own shop.

Ouch! Hope you get it sorted the way you want quickly.

What tuning solution did you use?

Since new short block was mentioned, I can share that I was able to find a new short block from Honda near the end of last year. The engine ran great (even did many 1/2-mile runs). The long block is now out of the car since I swapped in a built 2.5L.