Well, I 'was' building a 327i

[Gavin]

I have a Super ETA bottom end, and had purchased an ‘i’ head with the intension of assembling a 327i, to form the basis of a larger project.

I bought my ‘i’ head from eBay. It took more than a month just to ship out, let alone arrive at my door. Now it’s finally here, but I can see that the cam lobes are seriously worn down and deeply scratched where the rocker arms bear on them (the better part of a millimeter in some areas). This leaves me thinking that this head has probably been subjected to a significant oiling issue for a good duration of time, and I’m definitely not going to install it as-is.

This sucks!! At best I’ll have to buy a replacement cam, in which case I may as well have just bought new valve springs, and a new cam, to refit my existing head, rather than buying this piece of junk. I’ll go back at the seller now, but being a few thousand miles away there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do to him (aside from leaving utterly useless negative feedback).

I love eBay’s parts availability, and when you find a good seller it’s a great place to find a deal. At the same time this has happened I’ve gotten great deals on several other great parts. But shit like this really takes the shine off of the positives eBay can offer.



End rant.

[kamotors]

thats ebay. i make sure to stay away from people with negative or nuetral feedback. i bought a gas line once for my dirtbike and it took three months, i bought it for $1, but would of much rather paid $10 and get it within a week.

[FredK]

Bummer dude. Did you at least get a good price on the head?

[smonkbmw]

all the more reason to swap in better performing parts ESPECIALLY the cam!

[Devil Inc]

I bought my "I" head off ebay and paid with PayPal the next day for it. All was cool until the following day, I get an email from eBays Fraud Alert or something to that nature, stating not to pay for the item and if I had to make all attempts to get my money back. They suspended the seller's auctions and such for about a month. I luckily got my head in the meantime. I checked the sellers feedback, had excellent feedback, but they had sold a very, very similar head almost 3 months before. I think that is why it flagged eBay. I got pretty testy with the seller, but then apoligized after I recieved it, so all was good. eBay suspended/cancelled my first account because I sold an air mattress to an individual, and they weren't satisfied with it. And I explicitly stated in my auction no refunds of any kind unless it was damaged in transit. The people even went as far as threatening to sue me, assholes. You know some people, have got alot of nerves, sometimes. But anyway that was my little eBay stories. Sucks that you'll have to sink more cash into you build though. GL

[Gavin]

Bummer dude. Did you at least get a good price on the head?

I did get a good price. But, paying a good price for garbage still only gets you garbage unfortunately.

all the more reason to swap in better performing parts ESPECIALLY the cam!

Amen to that. But it still burns me that if I had bought new parts from the get go it would have been cheaper.

I’ll be sending off my comments to the seller today, I guess I’ll just have to go from there.

[Devil Inc]

Yeah I got it for around 300.00 shipped.

[Gavin]

The seller and I have made a deal.

He will issue a partial refund ($200). I’ll keep the worn head and will contribute these funds towards the refit this piece requires. This has been an aggravating process but at least the seller was willing to make an attempt at fixing the problem. He shouldn’t have sold this part without indicating its condition in the first place, so I’ve got no sympathy for him, but at least I can still salvage something out of this now.

I’m thinking I’ll pick up an IE 272 on a new billet (I hear the regrinds are problematic??), and I’m contemplating whether or not I should buy new valve springs as well. I may even need to think about rocker arms (based on how worn things are when I pull this head apart). Now that I think about it, maybe I should just go ahead and order the springs/cam and swap the whole lot into my SETA head, and be done with it.

If anyone whom has done this before can suggest a better way to approach this, I’m open to suggestions.

[nando]

don't use old rocker arms with a new cam - that's just asking for trouble!!

[eugeman]

don't use old rocker arms with a new cam - that's just asking for trouble!!

Do you think that would go for rocker arms with only 500 km's on it as well Nando?

[nando]

500km isn't too bad - unless somebody really screwed up the cam break in, there shouldn't be any wear. I'm thinking more of using original 100,000+ mile rockers with a new cam.