Engine rebuild
Discussion
Cheers, Trev. Keep it under your hat, but we’re very close to finishing now. The engine was started for the first time early last week; without the silencers or air boxes, just in case it needed to be removed again. We’ve bought a couple of pairs of stainless exhaust clamps (Hill Engineering, see here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... ) but we were awaiting the ceramic inserts for these from Lamborghini. They arrived yesterday and the reassembly of the rear end began today.
And then annoyingly, whilst getting the engine up to temperature this afternoon, it sprang two leaks. Neither are from the rebuilt engine or gearbox, but from some of the only hoses that weren’t already renewed! The coolant leak is a cheap and simple fix; it’s just a braided hose with crimped clips at either end. The oil leak is more costly. Just about all of the oil hoses have already been replaced as they were all looking rather “used”. One of the few original oil hoses has developed a leak where a flexible section is joined to a rigid length. Although it’s almost certainly a result of it being disturbed during removal/refitting, it would probably have failed soon anyway. Sooner it goes when it’s on Ricky’s lift, rather than on the road. A new pipe is available from Italy, but is typically pricy, being unique to the pre-LP engine.
The offending pipe is accessible via the nearside rear wheelarch, once the wheel has been removed; so the build-up of the rear end can continue (although we’ve elected to do some last-minute painting of some more components as they were letting the side down).
Running in on the dyno will follow very shortly, once we’re leak free.......
And then annoyingly, whilst getting the engine up to temperature this afternoon, it sprang two leaks. Neither are from the rebuilt engine or gearbox, but from some of the only hoses that weren’t already renewed! The coolant leak is a cheap and simple fix; it’s just a braided hose with crimped clips at either end. The oil leak is more costly. Just about all of the oil hoses have already been replaced as they were all looking rather “used”. One of the few original oil hoses has developed a leak where a flexible section is joined to a rigid length. Although it’s almost certainly a result of it being disturbed during removal/refitting, it would probably have failed soon anyway. Sooner it goes when it’s on Ricky’s lift, rather than on the road. A new pipe is available from Italy, but is typically pricy, being unique to the pre-LP engine.
The offending pipe is accessible via the nearside rear wheelarch, once the wheel has been removed; so the build-up of the rear end can continue (although we’ve elected to do some last-minute painting of some more components as they were letting the side down).
Running in on the dyno will follow very shortly, once we’re leak free.......
Really sorry. I’ve had the car back for several weeks now and it really is awesome. Waaaaaay better than standard! In fact, it’ll be back with Ricky tomorrow for it’s 1000 mile oil change. I’ll re-read the last few posts (to get back up to speed) and finish the thread off soon. Standby.............l
(Hello! And welcome to DIY SOS......)
Oh dear!!
I really am sorry! I’m amazed and flattered at the kind words so many of you wrote about this thread over its course. Thank you. And I’ve left it hanging for nine months. Mea culpa! But please allow me to blame some of it on the strange days we find ourselves in? As a Heathrow-based shorthaul pilot, I’ve been a little underemployed of late, so I’ve had to find ways to keep myself occupied. Not least of which was to finally tackle the decrepit living-room ceiling by completely renovating the bedroom above (as you do).
(The second of those was taken this morning. All my own work so far, but I’m having a professional chippie lay the oak floor. It’s too dear for me to cock up!!) That’s rather taken over, but it really is time that I tidied up here..........
.....not that there’s much left to write.
The “engine tins” on the pre-LP cars are horrid. Really flimsy plastic mouldings, which become fragile with heat and age. So, ideal for an engine bay! Mine looked terrible. And the incomplete set of tolerably-decent second-hand ones that I’d acquired from fleabay over the years weren’t very much better. New plastics are available from Lambo, but they’re expensive and will only go the same way as the parts that they’re replacing. Carbon fibre aftermarket items were available back in the day, but they’re now rare and even more expensive. Or I could take a gamble and buy (still pricey) Chinese carbon?
And then I stumbled across a Polish company called FGP-Stuff ( https://www.fgp-stuff.eu/ ). Now THIS is an interesting outfit. The core business of the parent company is a manufacturer of glass fibre swimming pool and pond liners! But somebody (well, probably the boss) is a Lambo nut. I assume that making pattern parts came first, but now they do both servicing and full rebuilds! But glass fibre pattern parts they do. The engine tins are both very affordable (c£300 for the set of three) and much more durable than the original, brittle plastic. They DID require a little fettling, but look very smart and frame the repainted intake plenum beautifully. There’s a one-page thread in the Gallardo sub-section, here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
The downside of sourcing these from Poland was going to be the shipping costs, so I chose to kill two birds with the same very large, very heavy packing crate......
After 14 years/106,000 miles or use, my windscreen was rather worn. Quite literally! It wasn’t the dozens of minute chips; they were hardly noticeable. It was the micro-scratches arched across the screen by hundreds of thousands of passes of the wiper blades. Fine most of the time, in a low winter sun you could barely see out.
Cribbing the prices from the thread linked to above, when I went looking for a replacement screen last year, OE from Lambo (exclusive of shipping-on from Eurospares or Pangbourne or wherever) was about £2700. There’s a pattern screen available, identical in every respect bar the screen-printed “Lamborghini” in the bottom corner, for about a grand. Eurospares wanted £895 for the screen and then over £100 on top to deliver it from Essex to Swindon (which is probably about right!). But FGP also offered the same pattern screen for €949, which was £832 at the time. They too were quoting about £100 to build a crate and ship it to the UK, but that would still be cheaper than buying one from here and the engine tins could be shipped in the same crate. Job jobbed (as a mate of mine says, irritatingly!).
Finally, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to actually SEE all of this work? I’m not even sure that the glass engine cover was an option when my car was built (late 2005)? Either way, mine didn’t have one and I wasn’t fussed. And then one came up on eBay.......
.......not only complete (spoiler, spoiler motor, air vents, internal plastic covers), which is pretty-much unique among the few available on eBay within Europe, but also in the correct, unmarked (!!) Caelum Blue. AND it was also the last-of-the-line item from the LP560 coupe. That was the only coupe that had the same spoiler as the spyders, with both rear view camera AND hi-level brake light incorporated into the spoiler.
The asking price was too high to justify. So I made a REALLY cheeky offer. Which wasn’t laughed at TOO loudly. Upping it slightly resulted in the seller flying from Uppsala with MY new engine cover in the hold, packed inside the old packaging for a 65” LCD television! I’d already told him that it’d be WAY too big for any sort of luggage allowance, but apparently the SAS ground staff at Stockholm know him; he recently flew to Tokyo with both the front and rear bumpers from a Gallardo, again somehow claiming them to be “luggage”!
My car was also pre-rear-view camera too, although I’d had one incorporated into the rear grill when I’d changed the awful Audi RNS ICE unit for a 7” Pioneer unit. Ricky did the research and was able to hook the Lambo camera into the Pioneer loom, complete with a connector so that the engine cover can be easily removed. The loom was also modified (seamlessly) to power the hi-level brake light too.
And that was it. Car complete.
Thread finished.
Nobody would be interested to read about how it all goes, would they!
Oh dear!!
I really am sorry! I’m amazed and flattered at the kind words so many of you wrote about this thread over its course. Thank you. And I’ve left it hanging for nine months. Mea culpa! But please allow me to blame some of it on the strange days we find ourselves in? As a Heathrow-based shorthaul pilot, I’ve been a little underemployed of late, so I’ve had to find ways to keep myself occupied. Not least of which was to finally tackle the decrepit living-room ceiling by completely renovating the bedroom above (as you do).
(The second of those was taken this morning. All my own work so far, but I’m having a professional chippie lay the oak floor. It’s too dear for me to cock up!!) That’s rather taken over, but it really is time that I tidied up here..........
.....not that there’s much left to write.
The “engine tins” on the pre-LP cars are horrid. Really flimsy plastic mouldings, which become fragile with heat and age. So, ideal for an engine bay! Mine looked terrible. And the incomplete set of tolerably-decent second-hand ones that I’d acquired from fleabay over the years weren’t very much better. New plastics are available from Lambo, but they’re expensive and will only go the same way as the parts that they’re replacing. Carbon fibre aftermarket items were available back in the day, but they’re now rare and even more expensive. Or I could take a gamble and buy (still pricey) Chinese carbon?
And then I stumbled across a Polish company called FGP-Stuff ( https://www.fgp-stuff.eu/ ). Now THIS is an interesting outfit. The core business of the parent company is a manufacturer of glass fibre swimming pool and pond liners! But somebody (well, probably the boss) is a Lambo nut. I assume that making pattern parts came first, but now they do both servicing and full rebuilds! But glass fibre pattern parts they do. The engine tins are both very affordable (c£300 for the set of three) and much more durable than the original, brittle plastic. They DID require a little fettling, but look very smart and frame the repainted intake plenum beautifully. There’s a one-page thread in the Gallardo sub-section, here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
The downside of sourcing these from Poland was going to be the shipping costs, so I chose to kill two birds with the same very large, very heavy packing crate......
After 14 years/106,000 miles or use, my windscreen was rather worn. Quite literally! It wasn’t the dozens of minute chips; they were hardly noticeable. It was the micro-scratches arched across the screen by hundreds of thousands of passes of the wiper blades. Fine most of the time, in a low winter sun you could barely see out.
Cribbing the prices from the thread linked to above, when I went looking for a replacement screen last year, OE from Lambo (exclusive of shipping-on from Eurospares or Pangbourne or wherever) was about £2700. There’s a pattern screen available, identical in every respect bar the screen-printed “Lamborghini” in the bottom corner, for about a grand. Eurospares wanted £895 for the screen and then over £100 on top to deliver it from Essex to Swindon (which is probably about right!). But FGP also offered the same pattern screen for €949, which was £832 at the time. They too were quoting about £100 to build a crate and ship it to the UK, but that would still be cheaper than buying one from here and the engine tins could be shipped in the same crate. Job jobbed (as a mate of mine says, irritatingly!).
Finally, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to actually SEE all of this work? I’m not even sure that the glass engine cover was an option when my car was built (late 2005)? Either way, mine didn’t have one and I wasn’t fussed. And then one came up on eBay.......
.......not only complete (spoiler, spoiler motor, air vents, internal plastic covers), which is pretty-much unique among the few available on eBay within Europe, but also in the correct, unmarked (!!) Caelum Blue. AND it was also the last-of-the-line item from the LP560 coupe. That was the only coupe that had the same spoiler as the spyders, with both rear view camera AND hi-level brake light incorporated into the spoiler.
The asking price was too high to justify. So I made a REALLY cheeky offer. Which wasn’t laughed at TOO loudly. Upping it slightly resulted in the seller flying from Uppsala with MY new engine cover in the hold, packed inside the old packaging for a 65” LCD television! I’d already told him that it’d be WAY too big for any sort of luggage allowance, but apparently the SAS ground staff at Stockholm know him; he recently flew to Tokyo with both the front and rear bumpers from a Gallardo, again somehow claiming them to be “luggage”!
My car was also pre-rear-view camera too, although I’d had one incorporated into the rear grill when I’d changed the awful Audi RNS ICE unit for a 7” Pioneer unit. Ricky did the research and was able to hook the Lambo camera into the Pioneer loom, complete with a connector so that the engine cover can be easily removed. The loom was also modified (seamlessly) to power the hi-level brake light too.
And that was it. Car complete.
Thread finished.
Nobody would be interested to read about how it all goes, would they!
What?
Really?
After twelve pages of honing, decking and rifle files, are you honestly content for me to finish on a post about glass fibre engine bay trim panels? Is GregK2 the only one who felt short changed? This is Pistonheads, not Max Power! Does nobody want to know if it was worth it?
Well!! Sod you all!! I’m going to tell you anyway, and you’ll just have to like it.
But firstly: “worth it”?
I elected at the start of this blog to lay out all of the costs as they came. And I think that I also agreed to run a totaliser at the end? Well...... I’m not going to! I DID tell you all of the major hardware costs as they were incurred. And the cost of specialist engineering work has also been detailed. You can go back and tot them up for yourself if you really need to. I’ve added several pages of receipts to the already-bulging history file(s) of this car (the parenthesis are because I’m already well into my second folder of invoices!). And they detail everything, so I could tot them all up and present you with a figure for the cost of this rebuild. But it would include several thousands of pounds worth of unique-to-Lamborghini oil hoses. And some VERY expensive gear clusters. And the labour to rebuild the gearbox and fit the windscreen and polish the scratches out of the rear lamp clusters, etc.
The resulting figure wouldn’t be the cost of AN engine rebuild, but of THIS engine rebuild.....and gearbox rebuild.......and fitting and wiring a new engine cover....and.....and....and.....
I had a figure in my head of about £20k to do this, long before I decided to bite the bullet. And it turned out that that was a figure that Ricky agreed with. So the one outstanding question is, “How much labour?” And I can’t realistically answer that. Sorry! but there were just too many extraneous jobs included in the project to be able to extract the engine removal/strip/rebuild/reinstallation from the final total. What I will say is that I thought the final bill for the labour MORE than reasonable. I’m certain that had Ricky kept a strict clock running on every hour spent on my car by himself or Karl or Matt, then my final bill would have been much, MUCH greater. Once again, thank you Ricky! And also to all of you who steered me towards him almost exactly two years ago!!!
However, mostly I’m not going to tot it all up because I don’t want to scare myself. But “worth it”? I should coco!!
Coming up.........
Running in, dynamometers and a jaded old Lamborghini technician can only manage to splutter, “Wow!”
thatdude said:
My favourite thread ever on pistonheads.
That windscreen issue is something I think everyone can relate to irrespective of what they drive or even ride. My sub-40,000 mile honda civic has microscratches on the windscreen form the wipers and likewise in winter it is a distraction, can make driving difficult! With my motorcycle visor, I end up changing it now every couple of years, it becomes a big issue particularly at night.
Good stuff 4321go, enjoy the lambo. And the renovated rooms!
Well thank you, Mr. Dude! But there are some far more interesting threads than mine. A couple of the self-built-cars-from-scratch threads are works of utter genius! That windscreen issue is something I think everyone can relate to irrespective of what they drive or even ride. My sub-40,000 mile honda civic has microscratches on the windscreen form the wipers and likewise in winter it is a distraction, can make driving difficult! With my motorcycle visor, I end up changing it now every couple of years, it becomes a big issue particularly at night.
Good stuff 4321go, enjoy the lambo. And the renovated rooms!
As for enjoying the rooms....... Well, my bedroom is finally finished, but I haven’t reoccupied it yet, as I continue to work on the living room below. I’ve been decorating in there for five WEEKS solid now; between five and nine hours nearly every single day! I’ve about two weeks of work left. Just as well as Dave, the carpenter, starts laying the floor in three weeks from today.
I’m desperate to get back to work (this weekend I flew my third and fourth sectors this YEAR; and that was just from Heathrow to Edinburgh and back). But without the time off, I’d never even have been able to start the renovation of the bedroom and (re)renovation of the living room; a room that’s been derelict since it flooded just over seven years ago now!
I’m pretty happy with the results. Here’s a photo of the bedroom taken today, from the same position as the “before” shot that I previously posted:
And the so-nearly-finished living room. The eagle-eyed will spot the mighty focus parked without, still going strong!!
200Plus Club said:
What did it make power wise in the end?
Get well soon Ricky - pretty bashed up after a bike crash.
Some people have absolutely NO patience! It’s only been five months since I teased about writing up the dyno runs Get well soon Ricky - pretty bashed up after a bike crash.
Oh, go on then. But before I do:
Many of you may not know that Rick is a talented bike racer. Sadly, even the very best fall off once in a while. Having gone down in the first race at Brands last Sunday, he was scrambling to safety when he was clobbered by another bike!! So when I pitched up at REP Towers last Monday, to drop the car off for its annual service (yes, it’s been back on the road for a year now!), it was to find that Rick was in hospital, awaiting surgery. I gather that he now has a wristfull of titanium forgings!! Get well soon Rick (cos I want my bloody car back
)!So........
Rick has nicknamed his four-roller Maha dynamometer “The Heartbreaker” (or something similar). It consistently gives results well below what people might expect. Particularly when comparing actual power results to those quoted by manufacturers. Two things are notable here. Firstly, different types of dyno, and different methods of interpretation give different results. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the manufacturers are going to quote the most favourable figures. Secondly, Rick is adamant that his dyno gives realistic, accurate and, most importantly, repeatable results. When you’re tuning and developing, that’s what’s most important.
The dyno graph follows, but a quick recap:
Mine is in effect a stock-plus engine. Standard bore and stroke, so standard 4993cc capacity. Standard rods connect forged Carrillo pistons. The latter are lighter and stronger than standard, so the engine may potentially spin up more quickly, but they were chosen mainly on cost grounds! Lighter titanium valve-gear from Supertech Performance, because they flow the gas better, can be opened and closed faster and yet cost the same as the original Lamborghini stainless steel items. Quite importantly, heads ported by Ricky! And engine meticulously measured, matched and then built by same. And then a suitable map flashed into the ECUs to match the car’s de-catted state and OEM Superleggera silencer assembly.
Actually, the dyno runs of TWO cars are shown here. My car is the bold trace. The thinner lines show the results of a run on the dyno made by a fit, recently serviced, low mileage Gen1 R8 V10. The latter car therefore has the direct-injection 5.2 litre engine that replaced the 5.0 litre engine in the Gallardo for the LP-series cars (because the 5.0 engine could be developed no further, whereas the the 5.2 produces 632bhp in the Perf (Lamborghini’s quoted figures)).
So..... Lamborghini quoted 493bhp for the 5.0 litre Gallardo (513bhp for the later cars, but not mine). Audi quoted 525bhp for the 5.2 litre engine in the Gen1 R8 V10. On Ricks dyno, the latter achieved 465bhp. My inferior, earlier engine is now producing 516bhp! 50bhp MORE than the later engine.
And of course, horsepower figures are only half of the story. Horsepower dictates how fast you can go. But torque determines how quickly you accelerate. Check out my engine’s torque output compared to the R8
(FWIW, the mahoosive hole at 2500-3000rpm is when the exhaust bypass valve opens, allowing the engine to actually do its thang!)Shortly after I picked it up, I took it over to the Lamborghini main dealership who’ve looked after it for me ever since I bought it, eight years ago. The dealer principal drove it and declared that a) it was the best manual transmission that he’d ever experienced in a Lamborghini (remember, Rick rebuilt the ‘box as part of the project) and b) in third gear, it accelerated as hard as a Huracán.
But most telling was the reaction of the chief technician. Dave has seventeen years experience as a main dealer Lambo technician. He’s driven a few! I told him to drive it as hard as he liked. When he returned, his only comment for several seconds was, “Wow!.......Just...... Wow!!”
Edited by 4321go on Monday 26th April 23:36
Bungleaio said:
I thought we were on for another rebuild then!
I’m very pleased to say: No! 
Some two and a half years post-rebuild, I’ve only covered 11,000 miles with the car, where I used to do between ten to twelve thousand per annum. Some of the reduction was due to commuting to work far less frequently in 2020 and 2021 (I’m a commercial airline pilot). But it’s mostly down to the cost: circa £60 per round-trip from home to Heathrow.
But I still try to drive the car a decent distance at least once a week. And it’s still glorious. It wasn’t a cheap undertaking, and it took much longer than either myself or Rick expected, but the results are fabulous.
For what it’s worth, although the car is regularly maintained, with consumables such as brake discs and shock-absorbing coil-overs having been replaced several times over the years, the original build quality of these cars is excellent. I run two sets of wheels, alternating “Summer” and “Winter” tyres. So I swap them twice a year and take the opportunity to wash the chassis.
But this is the original, never repaired or repainted chassis of a 117,000-mile, almost-18-year-old car that’s driven year-round, in all weathers and permanently lives outside (photo taken late last November)!
tberg said:
I love reading a thread like this about an owner using his high performance car as a daily driver and not being afraid to put mileage on it. My daily driver for the past 10 years has been my 600hp 2010 Jaguar XKR. Yesterday, I surpassed 199,000 miles on the big cat, and what a pleasure every one of those miles has been. It's been so good that I don't replace it because I know I'd be disappointed with whatever I would get instead. Congratulations on getting to enjoy yours every day. After all, isn't that why you bought it? Great story.
Thank you for your kind words Ted. Whenever you post about your Pantera, I’m always left drooling 
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