GoWesty 2.5 engine failures-what would you do?

[connorsvw2]

A question for the group, esp the WBX builders-

A good friend of my father-in-law bought a fully redone Westy from GoWesty, including their 2.5L engine. He absolutely loves the van, but here's the issue:

in 30k miles of driving he has now had 2 engine failures, most recently while driving on the highway-sudden loss of power and unusual engine noise. Van is at the mechanics now, unclear what the problem is save for loss of compression. He does not know what the post-mortem on engine #1 was either. GoWesty will replace his engine.

GoWesty is treating him very well; thankfully he has the extended warranty and they are covering his next engine (#3).

Question is what should he replace the 2.5 with? All of their larger engines appear to use a modified/?welded crank, and forged JE pistons with decreasing CR's as the displacement shrinks (9.7:1 on the 2.5). Their 2.4 also seems to use a special crank and smaller pistons than the 2.5; the 2.3 looks like a shorter stroke and same pistons as the 2.4.

Owner states GoWesty feels he is not driving the van properly, ?lugging the engine which he very strongly denies. This makes me suspect the issue may be with the pistons/CR, and the most recent failure at highway speed with loss of compression makes me wonder if a detonation issue destroyed a piston crown, rather than a crank/rod failure which should have been obvious to his mechanic (i.e. hole in block). Knowing the owner, I'm sure he has not skimped on fuel quality.

He will likely need to stay with GoWesty for engine replacement-I doubt they will refund his money at this point (otherwise I would have him contact 10cent immediately for an engine). His mechanic won't work on Subaru conversions, or I would steer him towards that option as I have done.

What would you all recommend he do? Get another 2.5 (9.7:1 CR), drop to 2.4 (9.4:1 CR), 2.3 (9.0:1 CR), or even the 2.2 (8.7:1 CR)? Too bad these engines don't have knock sensors-I'm currently rebuilding a 2.0L 16V GTI engine with 10.8:1 CR and 2 knock sensors which would alleviate his detonation problems but it's going into my A2 GTI.
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'85 Westy Wolfsburg camper/2002 2.5 Subaru since 2003.
'85 GTI 1.8L 1-owner 8v-gave up on 9A 2.0L 16v transplant. Keeping her stock!
'99 Passat 1.8T Variant-AKA "The Money Pit". Still limping along...
'09 Subaru Outback XT 5-speed, 245 hp rocket (wife's car)

[D Clymer]

I think before a judgement can be made about what to do for an alternate engine, it would need to be known what kind of internal failure happened to the GW 2.5. It would be important to know if it is piston/ring related, or if it is a main/rod bearing oil starvation issue. It would also be good to know what caused the failure of the first engine.

Another possiblitity, aside from having GoWesty install one of their lesser engines, would be to have them replace the 2.5 and then post it up for sale. If it sells, then your friend can go the Subaru 2.5 route. If not, GoWesty can continue to warranty the engine if it fails again.

I certainly don't buy into the idea that the engine is being driven wrong. An engine being offered to the public needs to be tough enough to handle different driving conditions and styles.

David

[noganav]

Is it just me, or does this same story come up quite a bit on here.

Even on the GoWesty site they have a couple stories of multiple "freak" engine failures with their engines. The infamous red syncro had at least one at the end of the warranty, and they initially were re-selling with a new engine, but without an engine warranty. I've read at least one other on their site, plus one multiple engine failure horror story from a list member here.

Is it because there are so many out there, or is this a case of where there's smoke, there's fire. I wonder. Might be worthy of a poll...

[fredn]

Shorepig had a ton of problems with gowesty.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=358928&highlight=gowesty+problems
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1982 Air Cooled Vanagon Carat Weekender Interior

[mtwrench540]

does any body know if luca is still involved with gowesty,i heard that there had been some major changes there!!!
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87 wolfsberg,74 181w/1915 and lots of patina! learned to fix vw's from hot vw mag in 1964,VWOA instructor,DSM,69 to73,service mgr at different porsche-audi dealers etc,etc,now retired!!! first vw new 64,transplanted 356 eng in 65,400characters are not enough space!!

[r39o]

[fredn]

A partial summary of the never ending problems in Shorepig's thread:

"The saga to date: - first 2.3 gw motor w/all related expenses $9000
(got about 1000 miles out of this one)
- second 2.3 gw motor / related expenses $2200
( got about 6000 miles out of this motor)
- second 2.3 gw motor / new piston set $1700
(hopefully this one will last, not counting on it)

So I certainly wouldn't call that a deal, would you? After a year and a half of breakdowns, stress, and a total cost of $12,900 we will come out of it with what has proven to be an unreliable motor than MIGHT last....for a while...or maybe a long time. At this point all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I'm trying to stay optimistic..believe it or not."
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1982 Air Cooled Vanagon Carat Weekender Interior

[connorsvw2]

Owner does not know what happened to engine #1 except that it was suggested he was "lugging" the engine. Engine #2 is at mechanics-perhaps he will hear more from them soon. Not clear to me if the mechanic is to do anything more than send the engine back to GoWesty. I may ask the owner to see if the mechanic will speak to me directly about what he has found.

The Shorepig link was very interesting. Really makes me wonder about the detonation issue. The GW home page shows they are now using JE forged pistons, which are US-made pistons with a good rep in the inline-4 VW world (they make one of the few available piston types for my 9A 16V engine) and ARP rod bolts-all good stuff. However, no getting around the high CR with no knock sensor-it would be great if a stand-alone knock sensor (like my KE-Jetronic GTI has) could be added to this engine like with the older A2 K-Jetronic models.

As this van was completely refurbished before being sold by GW, any of the ancillary engine components used (dizzy, ECU, etc) were installed and inspected by GW. As I noted, they have been very good to the owner in terms of doing right by him, but his question is what to replace the 2.5 with.

I know that 10cent does not build a 2.5, and I assume this is for good reasons. I personally am leaning towards recommending the owner install the GW 2.3 engine, as I THINK this is the largest size 10cent builds.
_________________
'85 Westy Wolfsburg camper/2002 2.5 Subaru since 2003.
'85 GTI 1.8L 1-owner 8v-gave up on 9A 2.0L 16v transplant. Keeping her stock!
'99 Passat 1.8T Variant-AKA "The Money Pit". Still limping along...
'09 Subaru Outback XT 5-speed, 245 hp rocket (wife's car)

[D Clymer]

[connorsvw2]

The one other big difference is the 2.3 has a 9.0:1 CR, whereas the 2.5 is 9.7:1...

I'll see if I can speak with the mechanic. I agree it would be very helpful to know what happened, even if he can only guess. His mechanic is a well-respected Vanagon mechanic here in town who by all accounts knows his stuff.

Is Shorepig the only other GW engine failure on the Samba? I probably should do a search. After reading the entire post, I'm still not quite clear what happened-sounded like detonation and blown piston, followed by late bearing failure (?secondary to high loading from detonation).

How/where does Porsche mount their knock sensors on the water-cooled flat 6's?
_________________
'85 Westy Wolfsburg camper/2002 2.5 Subaru since 2003.
'85 GTI 1.8L 1-owner 8v-gave up on 9A 2.0L 16v transplant. Keeping her stock!
'99 Passat 1.8T Variant-AKA "The Money Pit". Still limping along...
'09 Subaru Outback XT 5-speed, 245 hp rocket (wife's car)

[Howesight]

My two cents:

For $400 wholesale, GoWesty could buy and then for $100 of mechanic's time, install and set up, the J&S Safeguard knock control system on all their high-compression engines.

Fewer returns, lower warranty costs, higher customer satisfaction and - - restored reputation. I have used the J&S system on a Toyota turbo project, and it truly is remarkable.

http://www.jandssafeguard.com/index.html

Vanagons have so much competing wind, road and gear train noise that it really is hard to hear knock.

If GoWesty won't do this, maybe the OP's friend should consider installing one him/herself.
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[D Clymer]

[Zeitgeist 13]

holy cow, $7k for a WBX? That's insane
_________________
Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?

[connorsvw2]

I spoke with the owner this AM. First 2.5 was an earlier version without oil squirters, and was already installed/used in the Westy he bought from GoWesty with unknown service or break-in hostory.

Sounds like failure mode on that engine was a loss of compression (85 PSI) with 80% leakdown in 1 cylinder.

He only uses premium fuel.

He told me GoWesty told him to consider an aftermarket knock sensor...Has anyone successfully installed an aftermarket KS unit (I looked at the one referenced above, looks nice) on a WBX, due to the concerns David raised above?

He'll call his mechanic today about current engine. I asked him to inquire about compression, leakdown testing and possible borescope inspection if 1 cylinder is the problem again.

As an aside, GoWesty's engine page mentions they require Magnafluxing of their welded cranks, and reject 0.5% of these cranks. I was always under the impression that welded cranks were virtually impossible to Magnaflux due to the multiple stress risers welding and offset grinding creates. I personally would prefer that a welded stroker crank to be shot-peened and/or nitrided for additional strength.
_________________
'85 Westy Wolfsburg camper/2002 2.5 Subaru since 2003.
'85 GTI 1.8L 1-owner 8v-gave up on 9A 2.0L 16v transplant. Keeping her stock!
'99 Passat 1.8T Variant-AKA "The Money Pit". Still limping along...
'09 Subaru Outback XT 5-speed, 245 hp rocket (wife's car)

[buildyourown]

Kinda off topic, but I'm curious how knock sensors work on an engine with a distro. On an electrical ignition, when knock is sensed the computer retards timing, correct?

[r39o]

[PDXWesty]

http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=1452

Everybody loves to bash GoWesty, but I know a lot of people with GW engines that have never had a problem. Like they said, when you have sold thousands of engines, there will be some people with problems. it's unfortunate but there isn't a product out there with 0% failures. They report a 2% failure rate which seems pretty good to me (as long as I'm not in the 2%).
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89 Westy 2.1 Auto

[r39o]

[Zeitgeist 13]

@ $7k per unit, I'm not sure I'd characterize this engine as being anywhere near available to the "masses". If I'm gonna damn well spend that kind of cash on an engine, it's gonna run on purified mixture of mink's blood and puma piss.
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Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?

[dubbified]

I think Zeitgeist hits the nail on the head.

at 7K.. uggh.

I'd convert my entire engine to a diesel, and strap it with boatloads of KermaTdi mods.