A&Q about 350Z
Q:
Has anybody had any bad experiences with Euro car parts exhaust valves for a 20v turbo engine (AEB)?
One of the mechanics at work had an A6 with a snapped belt and bought a couple and fitted them. Started the car up and it went bang! After taking the head off, one of the exhaust valves had snapped and dropped into cylinder 3! Called ECP who said that there was a common problem with these valves being fitted incorrectly and that the repairer had to cover the costs. In the mean time, we've sent the snapped valve to ECP to send back to their supplier for testing, just to see if it was a duff one. We called a friend who works at ECP and he said that they had a bulletin about it and everything! He faxed a copy to me at work but nobody here (VW dealership) has ever heard of it or had any problems fitting these valves.
Anyone had any bad experiences with ECP valves? I've sold shedloads of genuine valves at work and never had any problems or anything like this. It just seems a bit odd that ECP are the only supplier sending out this memo with their valves - its almost as if they know that they're of dubious quality.
Any info greatly appreciated.
Cheers
A:
I used to work at an engine building place and we had a letter that came from KS i think and it was about this problem, apparantly the lower spring seat had a 3mm lip arround the outside and alot of people had fitted it so that it wasnt located inside of this lip and so the spring seat was wonky, fitted the springs and caps, tappers in but then minure the engine is started the spring goes coil bound on one side or soemthing and it will immedietly break the end off the valve.
It didnt make 100% sense and i havent had the valves out of a 20v head myself but there was defintly a letter circulated arround 12-18 months ago
A:
We called a friend who works at ECP and he said that they had a bulletin about it and everything!
So are Ecp reimbursing you for the rebuild?
Belt went on my s3, but luckily it went to audi for the work.
A:
You have to be very carefull when fitting 1.8t valves as above if the spring is not located in the head reses they snap the top of just where the collets sit.
A:
The rebuilding of the head won't happen as the head is now knackered beyond repair, as is piston 3. Managed to get an AGU head second hand for a very good price, as it is the same as the AEB. Had to get a new piston in, but other than that its just cost us time.
Have sent the valve to the supplier for examination to try and establish that its a manufacturing defect, but this could take over ten weeks to get an answer.
I know you need to be careful when building up any head, let alone a 20v one. The thing is I could understand this if it were the first time he's ever had a 20v apart, but as a VW technician he's done more than you'd care to remember, with no problems ever before. I work in parts at our place and have never had any complaints about genuine valves, and i've sold hundreds of the things.
Cheers for your help though guys. The saga continues