Jake Raby engine rebuild videos....experiences

Hi Does anyone here have any experience with the Jake Raby M96/7 rebuild videos? Are there any alternatives as there is not a lot of information on rebuilding these engines (unlike the 993 which was easy to find guidance on). All the best Berni

Hi Bought them, so may do a brief review in the future. Berni

I've not seen them, are they just video's of how to rebuild the engine?

Don't know if you've seen this series but it's really informative Man In A Tiny Garage https://youtu.be/ccb6yHU5EtY

Finn is learning as he goes along and has had to rectify a few mistakes, Lee from Hartech has pointed him right a few times so I wouldn't follow everything he does to the letter He is building a 3.4, which is similar until you get to the cams,

I like the intro...

He's a condescending c***. I'm sure he knows his onions, but having seen how he interacts with people, I'd not want any dealings with him

I realised that 10 years ago when researching the foibles of the 996 engine and came across some of his ramblings

Hi https://www.theknowledgegruppe.com/ Its a total end to end rebuild series, we got the whole shebang including the DVD's book, and torque settings books. At £572 inc shipping not cheap, but cheap compared to making a mistake. We will see! All the best Berni

As part of the deal Do you get access to tech help from Jake Raby?

Hi I don't think so, but apparently its not required. I would think that if the DVD and book do not cover a particular aspect though I would expect some help! Time will tell. Berni

:yeah:

Lol

Jake is certainly very knowledgeable and we often compare technical issues. We find a lot of commonality between us and also between our reaction to and from different customers. But the market in the USA is at least 5 times as many cars sold and probably taking into account the fact that the UK usually runs 10 to 20 years behind America in trends etc (and more people over here now run track cars) and their higher disposable income (that allows more of them to spend on their cars) this means probably a market 10 times larger than ours. This has enabled/encouraged specialist suppliers over there to develop a lot of new products, manufacturers to make them in larger volumes (benefitting from scale on costs) and sales and marketing costs to be spread over a much higher turnover - but it also means the specialists can be more selective of the people they want to do business with - and still get enough work to survive. It is more difficult in the UK. A lot of our very successful racing parts cannot be made here in enough quantity to keep set up costs down and so we can never justify stopping engine work to make large batches and rarely get round to making small batches (and don't even advertise them for retail sales just make enough for our own racing engine customers). Opening up markets outside the UK would help us invest in larger quantities - and we are looking into this by increasing our exposure abroad (currently limited to Germany and Canada). Most of our customers are a delight to work with and we are very lucky to be dealing with a lot of professional people who appreciate the quality of our work and the reputation that results - but there are some that frankly just waste a lot of time, will not have a proper job approved, want lots of other work done for free - and we get used to recognising them early on and sometimes wish we could respond by being more selective. Typically they take weeks to approve the rebuild and then want it finished the next day (despite us having booked in several weeks work while they have been pontificating). I think if we had 10 times the demand we might well become less likely to put up with some of them and more like Jake in our responses - so I kind of understand why some people find it off putting - I think it is meant to be that way to apply an automatic selection system to those more likely to want a good job done his way and therefore result in more success. We don't always agree but although I have never looked at his videos at length I am sure they help a lot of people who might otherwise be unable to repair their own cars. Perhaps it is time for us to try and make some orientated to to suit UK customers? That is if we could ever find time - lol. We have just filmed a few unrehearsed and unscripted videos on a couple of subjects that will be available soon. They will not match the slick Rennvision ones in professional editing but do try and explain important issues directly (and will be available FOC soon). However - we ourselves forget all the little issues we deal with daily after rebuilding on average 4/week for the last almost 20 years, and all the special tools we made to overcome those problems, and all the tricks we apply to avoid typical issues in the future and no matter how good a video is they can never enable a first time builder to do as good a job as a professional team who have done nothing else for years (and hence the occasional slip ups of those like Finn - who are trying their best). So if you are not experienced at engine building or engineering I would always recommend you get someone reliable to do that work for you and make sure you are not duped into what starts out to be a cheaper option elsewhere but ends up more being expensive for a lower quality result. Baz