I kinda hate to post this after seeing Demicks post. But, I got my heads and some other goodies back from Jake. It's gonna be hard to put together cause thy're so pretty to look at.

The business side. Looks like 44 X 36

Intake

Exhaust

Oil Pump

Rockers with 911 swivel feet

Pushrods

Even an adjustable push rod to set valve train geometry

Bearings

What type of build is this for?

Jake will do heads and kits? If so how long of a wait is there?

Peter
1974 2L 914

he doesn't do the heads in house. He determines the specs they require and they are done by HAM or HFM I think.

dr

How much for the kit ? and is it for a 2270 motor? and how long was the wait?

His Kit included Nickies- So it was not cheap..

I do not do cylinder heads in house, I have a very close relationship with two different head technicians that build the heads 100% to my specifications. It works best this way as theycan concentrate only on heads, and I can concentrate only on the rest of the build and machine work. Those heads are particular to my combo- the combo will not work withiout the heads and the heads will not work without the combo!

The wait time on a kit is about 5 months, reason for this is that I treat the kit just like an engine I am going to build here, and do all machine work and etc.. when all preparation and mock up work is done its all boxed up instead of washed up and assembled.

It takes about 30 hours of labor to get a kit on the Fed Ex truck!

Just think how much cheaper these could be if you could train somone in China to do this work. Rather than paying $3000 for labor you'd be talking $300 I'm surprized no one has setup engine building shops over there.

Jake, those look like iron guides on the exhaust, or is it just a bad angle.
Also do you use inserts on the plug holes?


Nice looking stuff Dave.

If the heads have ANY cracks around the plug holes we core them, weld them up and then re-insert 12mm plugs.. Dave had good heads that had no cracks- very odd - so we used a copper insert just like BMW uses.. Works great.

As for China:
NO WAY IN HELL WOULD I PUT MY NAME ON SOMEONE ELSES WORK! ESPECIALLY SOMEONE FROM CHINA!

Everything we do is made with pride right in my back yard, in the same shop I have been working in since it was a Hog pen!

Must be the fact that he is from the northern states.

Up here our heads rarely have cracks, you're more likely to have some dumb-ass PO that dropped a screw down the intake.

All it takes is an idiot that uses 5th gear too early...

Fifth gear is the head killer- guys! I won't use mine till I'm rolling atleast 75MPH!

You dont like people in China? I know plenty of great people there who could easily learn how to build an engine to your specs better than most people in the US.

But I would agree with your approach. You're better off staying low volume production where you can command great margins and create a specialty niche.

Jake... Please don't take this the wrong way, I mean it please don't.

All your stuff seems pricey from what I've seen, believe me I am sure that it is worth every penny from all that I have read on your site and elsewhere.

I guess my question is.... Is there anything that the average joe can get that will improve performance / start to build or improve an engine that is in the joe schmo budget range?

Hmmm...this all sounds odley familiar.

I'm sorry did I miss something.

It was just an innocent question thats all nothing more. Just looking for some guidance from someone who knows.

I'm sure at some point in time Jake started out knowing just a little, we all do. Of course I may be wrong maybe he was a child Type IV prodigy.

No problem..

The reason I said that about China is simply because I HATE production in any form or fashion with these engines.

My stuff is more pricey, but its put together in as low of volume as possible. I am happy if we do ONE engine per week here, not 11-12 like other shops that do close to what we do.

I have no standard engine. EVERY engine or kit that I build is configured for the driver, the car, tranny gearing, the altitude and the overall climate. You will not find this at any other aircooled engine shop- guaranteed. Most places have a few combos that work okay, but I have several hundred to choose from that are all different- every customer is different..

No where else will you get a FULL ENGINE BLUEPRINT with 50 pages of info about your engine, including the data logged into our database- no guessing about the specific parts inside your engine.... ALL other shops MIGHT give you a single page with generic specifications- and leave you wondering.

A styandard engine takes a combined effort of me and the assembler, between the two of us I rack up EIGHTY HOURS of labor in each engine, no matter what size it is. This is from the electronic configuration, to part design and machining all the way through assembly, dynoing and packaging. Some engines are well over 100 hours. (Do the math and see if I'm getting rich) There is no quick or easy way, it requires time and if doesn't get the time its a failure- a statistic.

I do not compete on price,(not at all) we don't have a single competitor, no one else offers the services that we do, thats why we send engines all over the world. The competitors that are close have zero drive and have not tested a product in 25 years! They just come in at 9, and go home at 5- Not me. This is a life, and I'm damn sure gonna get paid for my efforts! (most people think that what I do is WAYYYY more expensive than it really is, because they don't ask me- they get it as hearsay)

I started working on these engines at age 9, in the corner of a 40 year old barn that had a drt floor and hogs on the other side. I threw a lamp over a rafter and used that to tear into my first engine. Hell I could not find all the bolts to get the case apart so I hooked a tractor to one half and tied the other half to a tree, and split the case...... Little did I know that one nut was still tight! I have blown up, screwed up, and wasted THOUSANDS of bucks worth of parts- I call it "Risk and development" and Its the ONLY way to learn, and remember.

I have had ZERO formal education on these engines, but there isn't a soul on the planet that has put more into learning than I have- I'm confident of that. The only engine I ever was "Schooled" on was the GE T-64-10 Turboshaft, I aced the class simply because the damn thing ran just like a VW! It has 4 stages instead of 4 strokes and its aircooled, hell I can drop one of them as fast as a VW engine!

As for budget, SAVE YOUR MONEY! Don't do anything half ass. These engines last a long time- just drive the stocker and save, save, save- then do it once.

Anyway, this thread was about bad ass parts! Those bad ass parts originated right here, and I'm proud to have supplied them to Dave..Lets don't hijack it.

I posted these pictures because I was excited. They are truely beautiful to look at, the pictures don't do them justice. Looking at them a couple of things jumped out at me. One, a lot of thought and experience went into them and two, great care went into the cleaning, assembly and packaging of the parts.

I'm used to seeing fine craftmanship everyday in my dental practice. The lab guy that does crowns and bridges for me has 30 years of experience and every single one is hand made and finished. Titanium implants are machined so precisely that it blows my mind. We torque gold screws down to 20 Newton/cm with torque wrenches that are 4 inches long. When I openned the packages I expected a bunch of nice clean car parts. What I got was work that was equal to what I see in my office.

Jake mentioned that my kit wasn't cheap. That's true, in fact, I suffered buyer's remorse and wondered whether I was doing the right thing. This is my first engine build so a lot is on the line. But, from the start this has been a project for my son and I to do together and I wanted to have the best chance for success I could arrange. The opportunity to do something really challenging together was something I just felt compelled to do. No father wants to look like fool in front of his kids and that led me to Jake. He offered his kit with much of the delicate assembly done and all of the planning done. Had I been doing it by myself, I might have started down a different path, but under the circumstances I felt Jake's kit was my best solution. Kinda like the commercial 2270 $$$, time with son priceless. The real payoff will be years down the road when Gerry says " Dad, Do you remember the summer we built the 2270? Let's go take it for a spin."

So, I'm into this thing for a bunch of loot and I got a pile of pretty car parts. People are probably wondering some things. Am I nuts? Maybe, the car's certainly not worth the money. Then again maybe I'm not nuts, the kid's priceless. Can I put it together and have it last? I think so, I'll keep ya posted. Is the pile of pretty car parts worth the money? I'll let you know in 5 or 6 years. Did I get my money's worth? I'd say without a doubt. It looks like the guy puts his heart and soul into the stuff.

I thought that I would have 2 challenges with this engine. 1) Getting it together with all the parts in the right places. And 2) keeping a 14 year old focussed enough to finish the build this summer so it doesn't interfere with school. But, Jake raised the stakes. It's going to be a challenge matching dilligence and care Jake displayed in the parts I got. It's about more than the money now.

For all of you guys that read all of this , thanks

Dave

Dave,
Thank you for the kind words.

The cost of the kit is definately worth the satisfaction you will get when that chill goes up your spine when the first cylinder counts off on the first start up. I still get that feeling thousands of engines after my first one- when that goes away I'll quit working on these engines!

You can do this kit no problem! With my video it builds just like a stock 2.0, except the compression ratio and rocker geometry- I'll walk you through those on the phone when you get there.

I have had a 15 year old build one of these kits with no extra assistance- that 15 year old is now 23 and his engine still runs and drives everyday- he attributes his experience with the engine kit to him becoming a mechanical engineer.

I built my first 2270 when I was 16, and didn't have a kit- just a few tools, grinders and saws!