Hello,

Has anyone had any experiance with GEX.com? I'm looking at their site and I can get one of their "POWER MASTER Series VW Engines" upgraded to 96mm pistons (2100 ish cc) with an electronic balance to my door for under $3500. Seems to be a pretty good deal.

What other options do I have? I'm not looking for maximum horsepower, but I'd like a bigger motor for torque and drivability. http://www.gex.com/16pwrmst.htm

Thanks,
Dan

They have a really bad rep. It costs that much to do it yourself so you know they are cutting corners.

Thanks for the quick reply. It seemed a little too cheep to me, so I figured they might not be a great company. Do you have any links to good engine rebuilders websites?

Check with ShantzMD. He occaisionally post some pretty good deals.

Funny .. I use to drive by their shop in Cali and see the workers use an impact gun to snug up the rod bolts..

That was years ago.. I " hope " things have changed

Do a search here ...


And

This forum and others are full of bad things about GEX. Hoffman Automotive Machine (HAM) a very respected machine shop for Type IV head work won't service heads rebuilt by GEX, so what's that tell you?

Auto Atlanta offers engine at a reasonable price, mixed opinions out there.

http://www.autoatlanta.com/service/engines.php

Original Customs has a good rep.

http://www.originalcustoms.com/engines.php

Might check with other members in your area as to any local shops who might be able to build one for you.

I'm not endorsing gex but the price argument is used a lot and does not make sense since they buy at wholesale or distributor price and not retail.

So your saying GEX has a worse rap than AA?

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but the thread caught my eye because way back when I first got into 914s I considered an engine from GEX too, mainly because I was poor and they were cheap. That was in the days of the Porschephiles email list, and even then they didn't have a good rep. So I learned how to build my own and wouldn't ever regret that decision.

I've had no personal experience with AA, I know those who swear by them and those who swear at them!

I always see people beating up on GEX, but everything is "I heard that..." and "This guy said...". They have a very good rating with the BBB and have been in the game since 1973. How could they be completely bad but still be around? The case I am rebuilding is a GEX and it has screw in galley plugs and seems to be put together well.

And for all the cynics- I am rebuilding it because I got the car from the junkyard, not because it is a GEX engine.

I got mine through JCS. It seems competently done, but others have said awful things about them too.

As with so many services and products in life, it seems you'll always find mixed reviews; I too have gone against popular opinion at times. Hopefully those seeking advice consider all that is given and do their own research.

There are guys that have had vanagon GEX motors that last 1000 to 1500 miles and pow! broke bent or holey!

I think there is one guy that hs 10k miles before it exploded. So 1 out of 1000? pis poor ods.

jcl

I have seen work from both GEX and JCS over the years. I can not understate how poor the workmanship was. The only hope you have with these companies is if they happened to build your engine from a good core. They will build off any core, regardless of the condition. If you read my used T4 head policy on my website you find that I will not even consider heads stamped JCS or GEX for re-manufacture.

I bet you would be hard pressed to find a single person who has bought more than one engine from them, or anyone who has dealt with them who would deal with them again.

If you want to give your money away, give it to charity. At least you'll feel warm and fuzzy afterward and not homicidal.

Guaranteed to EXplode (GEX)

I have a '81 westy that a guy abandoned here several years ago. Blew the engine paid another shop to put in a GEX engine, started knocking just over 1000 miles. I made him pay a down payment to tear into it and quote the job, because I had that feeling...sure enough, after I told him how much it will cost I never saw him again.

Someday I've got go down to the court and start a lien on it, PITA.

Well, I guess here is the way I look at things like this. I agree, everyone has good and bad experiences with these companies, or at least they say they do. The interweb is full of opinions, some good, some bad. There are engine builders with stellar reputations, and it's not hard finding them online. You will rarely if ever see something bad said about them. However, you have this other collection of vendors which have been mentioned in this thread as well as many other Porsche and VW related web boards. Why waste money on a vendor that has so many people saying bad things, when you can spend your money on the vendors that have a stellar reputation? Why even take the chance? It's not like they are the only choice....

Spend the money now, or spend more later. Either way its going to be spent. The difference is how much BS, time, lies and broken parts you will have to endure.

People pay a "stupid tax" everyday.. Thats the penalty paid for making bad decisions.

If you think a quality aircooled engine is expensive, just wait till you see how much a cheap one costs you~

I recently had a customer throw away 14,000.00 on an engine.. Yeah.. 14K.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I love forums because they are such a great resource for this kind of information.
Well, it's looking like it might be less costly to go ahead and do a Subaru (non turbo) conversion than it would be to have an aircooled engine built the right way. Seems like an easy decision really.

Thanks again everyone,
Dan

Hey, I have a Subie too! In my Forrester right where it belongs

Dan
Now your talking. Down in saltlake there is a shop called Metric motors. They are guys i worked with to convert a suby wire harness to a stand alone. Great guys!!

But you have your answer= 24 hours 20 + responds and NO ONE steped up and said "great engines" (gex)

good luck

Thanks for the tip on Metric motors!!! I might have to get with them if I do a Subi motor swap. Did you live in the Salt lake area at one time?

No lived in washington.

I was turned on to them on the AEM forum. They have dynos to tune ecu's and engines on. They were fixing Outfront Motors's tunes.

jcl

+1 for Original Customs... And Mark has a big brain too!

I knew Mark was a Klingon!

I bought a GEX engine 20 years ago. I ordered a 1.7 they sent a 2.0. The engine was ok, but it never really seemed to be all that powerful and I think it was misconfigured; it probably had a bus cam in it. It had a 914 case and heads that my engine builder thought were crap. I Would not buy from them again.

Why not support local shops?? Remember, Reputations are EARNED, ones from the BBB are bought.. As others have pointed out, why take the chance. For the record, I know nothing other that the ads for GEX, and truly had no clue that they were the MM of the VW world, but the others, I have seen 1st hand.

I was going to use a local shop, but they didn't really want to mess with the oldstyle aircooled engine. But of course, I live in the frontier LOL

I went to a reatiler once looking for cylinder heads. There were two available for 2.0 914s, rebuilt by GEX. One of them looked OK to the eye of a total novice--me. The other looked horrible. I'm trying to remember--I blanked most of it out deliberately--but I think the chambers were gouged up, there were divots next to at least one valve seat, and maybe a fin or two broken. That one didn't even look useable as a core, at least to my totally novice eye.

I did not buy them.

It would be interesting to bring my slightly-more-educated eye to bear on those heads today.

--DD

I have inspected heads stamped GEX & JCS and felt violated and wanted to shower immediately.

A few years back I had a pile of 80 engines that I wanted to get rid of.. I made a call to a core buyer and he said he would take them, that he knew of a place that would buy all of them.. I then told him I had about 350 cylinder heads that were missing fins and had water damage, he said not to worry that these guys would buy anything..

Then we found out where they were going when he came to load them all up.. I told him that we would load them for him, so while we were doing that we commenced to throwing them into the truck, with force.. Fins were popping off the heads and flying across the yard like shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade. He drove away and we laughed our asses off.

So, now when we have a pile of junk that needs to go away, we don't call the scrap yard, we call that dude and he hauls it away and pays us for it!

Len has a 55 gallon drum of reject valve parts that we need to ship their way sometime soon..

Well put Jake. Fortunately we have the ability to poll other members about their experiences to avoid duplicating the negative ones.

Yep.. Before the internet these types of companies could just run a big ad, look big and throw out some bling and score all the sales they wanted.

The only "Job" I have ever held was at a local import shop, back in the day we'd buy engines from German Engine eXchange that weren't too bad. Thats before the cores weren't horrible and VWs were abundant. Thats also when someone else held the reins at the company.

whatever you do, do not buy from GEX this company is a fraud that does not warranty their work 200 miles a new engine turn key on it and and it froze up. They will not warranty it You can find the same result over and over again, please don't do what I did and ignore peoples reviews it was a $6000 education for me.