FiveCar

Not that I could tell. When I last went, and was a Diablo SV owner, they treated me just like any other tourist. Others on the forum might have had a different experience, though.

My Aventador SV, purchased in the US, is due to be completed in early 2017. However, I'm living for a few years in London. Does anyone know whether there's a way to drive a US-spec Lambo in the UK for two years without going through all the crazy import/export emissions stuff, and without VAT shenanigans? Research on the internet and in LP doesn't seem conclusive. Seems like a US citizen can drive a European car, purchased in Europe, without paying VAT, for six months only. And then the car has to go back to the US with you. But it also seems that a US citizen can import a car from the US to the UK, without paying VAT, if the car's already been registered and taxed in the US. But in both cases, it seems that emissions and other cross-country spec-matching need to be done... and I'd rather not go through all that hassle unless it's absolutely necessary. Have any US citizens imported their US Lambos into the UK? Or bought a US Lambo while living in the UK? I'd like to get your advice on how best to proceed. Thanks in advance.

I will be doing my Ad Personam at the factory tomorrow (literally Monday June 5th). Do you want me to buy the belt? PM me offline, and let's arrange.

As some of you might recall, I sold my 98 Diablo SV four years ago in a feat of spectacular financial folly. Never mind that, though. I'm getting back into Lambo, this time with an Aventador SV coupe. I'm traveling tomorrow to Bologne to do the Ad Personam visit. For those of you who've done this before, what are your tips to get the most out of the experience? And what should I avoid? Thanks in advance!

That may or may not be true, but 5-10 years is the worst part of the depreciation curve for rare cars, right? The same happened to the F1 during its first 10 years -- basically a financial disaster. I think what really causes appreciation is that the then-15-year-olds eventually become 35-year-olds that have money, or the then-35-year-olds become 55-year-olds undergoing midlife crises... that's what causes performance sports cars to appreciate, on rare occasion, only 2-3 decades later, right? Exhibit One: Countach.

I'm of course partial to Konami codes, so would prefer U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R-A-B-Select-Start. @RaginBull: I do think the competitive field is a big concern, and also the rate of technological advancement. Top cars just can't stay top for a long time these days. So the biggest drop may well be in the first 10 years, where the alternatives are just much better performing. It's only when the thing you're "rare" about is no longer performance (like in the F1's case, what's rare is the market-defining last-of-a-generation aspect of it; in the 99 Diablo, it'd be the last-to-be-welded-together-non-VW-Audi-ness of it) that price starts (in some cases) moving back in your favor. I certainly don't have $1.3M to drop just for the fun of it. Can't afford several hundred thousand depreciation in a few years. Not sure I would be willing to hold it 20 years to recoup some of it (if ever); and also not sure whether maintenance during those years will easily wash away any gains. Compound it with the risk (real or perceived) that McLaren Automotive may not be around to make good on the repairs a decade from now... it's mostly stacking up against completing the deal.

Great points, Fortis. I don't primarily think of it as an investment (in that I'm not looking to ~make~ money off it), but I wouldn't go into it if chances were good that I'd lose my shirt. I have the money, but certainly not enough to flush it down a drain and feel no loss at all. The other difficulty is assessing the odds of the company not being around. Such a limited-edition specialized car would essentially become a great-looking brick in the driveway if McLaren Automotive were to go bust. Given the number of repairs I had to do even on a 10-year-old Diablo SV, I'd be truly worried keeping a P1 running myself into its 20th year.

I've just put a deposit down on a P1, but am uncertain about completing the deal. The main thing on my mind is depreciation, especially given that new MP4-12C's are selling well below MSRP (and many barely-driven units are even cheaper). The F1 dropped in price during the first years of its release, but eventually rose in value. A few things are different in the P1's case, though: When the F1 was released, it was in a league of its own. No other production car came anywhere close to its specs. The F1 is pretty much considered the pinnacle of pre-computer tech. There won't ever be another car like it. The F1, during its day, had no credible competition. The P1, however, has a handful of credible contenders. It's not clear to me what happens with McLaren if sales don't pick up in the next few years. It'd be a pity to be stuck with a $1.3M car with no repair options. I realize the question of "will its price depreciate by a metric boatload" is essentially one of opinion, and is not definitively answerable at this time. What I'm far more interested in is whether there are any additional factors I haven't considered yet, which may end up influencing price (including, for instance, the fact that car tech seems to be advancing at an increasing pace -- top cars hold their top position for shorter and shorter times, really good performance can be had at a fraction the price, etc). Thoughts?

Brake Pads: Carbotech Bobcats. They're street pads that don't produce anywhere near the amount of brake dust as the OEMs. Good stopping power, smooth predictable braking. http://www.ctbrakes.com/pads.asp?Make=Lamborghini I got the 1521's.

Shamile -- I ended up using Carbotech Bobcats for pads. They're street pads that don't produce anywhere near the amount of brake dust as the OEMs. Good stopping power, smooth predictable braking. http://www.ctbrakes.com/pads.asp?Make=Lamborghini I got the 1521's.

FWIW, SV owners should know that the SV door panel, unlike the standard one, is actually riveted in under the top seal. I kid you not. I had to drill those out to deal with a window motor. Don't ask me why the designers thought this was a good idea. (Um, wait -- I know -- forces most people to end up at the dealership!)

Just wanted to close out this thread with an update. I put the engine back in about a month ago and have driven it 400 miles with no problems at all. It now runs super-smoothly and shifts great. The whole thing went back in with not a single extra part or missing screw. The things I did while the engine was out: Installed a kevlar clutch, new flywheel, and new pressure plate Did a valve adjustment (48 valves = not as bad as I thought) Got the starter rebuilt Changed spark plugs Changed O2 (lambda) sensor on exhaust Changed transmission output oil seal Upgraded valve cover and intake manifolds to Viton seals Replaced engine oil, transmission fluid, and power-steering fluid Saved about $6000 Things I learned along the way, with helpful guidance from the great people on this board: Things are usually not as hard as they seem If something seems hard, work on something else for a while and come back to it The engine and transmission together weigh less than 1000 lbs, so a 1/2 ton cherry picker is just fine Have a system for labeling things. I put all screws/nuts related to a specific part in a labeled sandwich bag. I put labeled blue tape on both ends of every connection. This may seem over the top, but it sure makes the job worry-free. Record the order in which you removed things. Some things don't go back in just "any ol' order." Purchase replacement parts early. Much of the project was spent just waiting around for parts to arrive. Almost all of the job can be done by one person, with the exception of actually lifting the engine/tranny out. Buy tools that make things easier. Even simple little specialized tools can help. Putting it back is faster than taking it apart. Your mileage may vary on this, but it took me far longer to disassemble things (labeling carefully, looking around at what to remove) than it took to reassemble things (which was mostly a function of pairing up wires and following my notes on what I removed). Perhaps one of the most unexpected things I learned was about engine mount resonance. When I first drove the reassembled car on the road, it would always make a humming noise at exactly 40mph (+/- about 2mph), and at no other speed. The pitch of the hum was correlated with the gear -- so the higher the gear, the lower the pitch of the hum. This was pretty fascinating, given that these two facts seem to suggest opposite things: a hum that always happens at a specific speed suggests a component after the transmission output, but a hum whose pitch depends on the gear suggests something before the transmission output. I was completely baffled by this, and misguided by various people (like a car parts clerk who told me that the drive shaft needed balancing)... until one brilliant hobbyist suggested that an engine mount could be the problem. "Either too tight or too loose," he said. "Engine mounts can cause resonance because of their rubber component. Judging by how the gear seems to affect it, I'd start with the mount closest to the transmission." Soon after, I loosened the tranny mount just a little... and no more resonance! Thank goodness I didn't have to get the drive shaft balanced, which in a Lambo is almost certainly an engine-out job. Final thought: I have no idea what I'd do without the Internet. This job certainly wouldn't have been possible without it. Thanks again to all of you for your support and help throughout this process. If any of you have questions, or are considering doing a similar job yourself, I'm here to help! Just reach out.

On spark plugs: I recently installed NGK (4772) DR9EIX Iridium IX Spark Plugs (from Amazon). They're tricky to gap because of the fine tips, but they seem to run nicely. I've only had them in for about a month, so I can't say much about how they do long-term, but they run very nicely so far.

I just put in NGK Iridiums (recommended in another post). I'll report back if I actually notice a difference. Gapping them was a pain given the fragile tips.

Great. I hope to get back on the road myself. Engine's already put back in -- just need some fluids, reattach the clutch rod and muffler, and I'll be good to go too. Glad to hear that removing the clutch cylinder worked. In the end, what was making it difficult to remove? Was it literally stuck to the bell housing?

Awesome -- thanks, everyone, for your kind words. This board has given me a ton of help, both in cyberspace and also in real life (e.g. huntnphool loaning me his engine hoist and brackets). I honestly don't know what Lambo owners did prior to LP. I guess they just paid through the nose in those days. In any case, thank you all for your continued support!

@dallas: I have a Rotary Revolution RTP9 lift (Rotary's the main company, but their Revolution line of lifts are the "pro-sumer" line of them). It's rated to 9,000 lbs, and is one of their smallest two-post lifts. The posts are spec'd to be 113" high, and are reportedly installable in 9'5" of clearance. I have a 10' ceiling, so it all works. I went with Rotary because they are ALI-certified. You can find much cheaper lifts with all sorts of configurations (possibly even fitting in 8' ceilings) without the certification, but I didn't feel comfortable doing that, given that I'd be under the lift and what not. To each his own, I suppose. Note that the RTP9 has arms just long enough to fit the Diablo. With many lifts, the arms will be too short to reach where you need; also, you'll need to make sure your lift has enough side-to-side drive-through clearance so that you can get the wing mirrors to fit. When you net all that out, there are only a few lifts that fit the bill. You can always go with a MaxJax -- @328-5700 recently just posted a photo of his Diablo on one (several posts above). They seem to be versatile, allowing you to put away the lift whenever you don't need it. However, you'll not be able to stand under them since the highest they'll lift is several feet off the ground -- perhaps enough to sit on a crawler. Not a major inconvenience, though -- between having a lift and having no lift, I'd much rather have even a sit-under lift than no lift at all. A MaxJax will definitely fit in 8'. With my installation under a 10' ceiling, I can stand completely under the car. I'm 5'10". It's great. And doing the engine-out job myself pretty much paid for the whole lift, which was just around $3,400 USD installed -- about $500 less than labor on an engine-out job. Note that although an RTP9's arms are just barely long enough for a Diablo, they're too long to fit under an S2000, even in their shortest configuration. You can't have it all, I suppose.

Did you end up getting it out, @328-5700? FWIW, when I removed the clip ring (as you already have, from the photo above), the slave cylinder slipped out fairly easily. As a test of whether it's loose enough to slip out, you should be able to spin the cylinder while it's still attached to the bell housing of the transmission.

The two purple braces were custom-made for huntnphool, I believe. Solid metal weld, powder coated. The adjustable blue balancer (that connects the braces to the lift point on the hoist) is from Harbor Freight. The only adjustment you need to make during hoisting is via the blue balancer, which allows you to easily change the tilt of the engine. The purple braces are just there to keep the chains the proper distance apart so that you don't scratch the intake manifold.

I'm amazed at how poorly designed some of this Lambo stuff is. You can't adjust the steering column while the car is on?! That's ridiculous, man. Good luck, Shamile.

What I ended up finding was that the project seems overwhelming when you think about it as a whole, but then I found that every individual step was easy enough (once again, with the help of people on this board). There were indeed a few times when I felt a bit exasperated (like when I thought I'd have to get the Lambo valve adjustment tool for $220 to make progress). But these are balanced by moments when you of victory when you discover that a $4 Harbor Freight tool plus a $40 grinder pretty much solves the same problem. The other amazing thing to me about this process was learning experientially that a Lambo is, after all, just a car. Yes, they charge $40 for a tappet spacer when normal ones cost $1.50. Yes, they'll sell you a shock for $2000 when the real market value is more like $400, or a $400 thermostat when a completely compatible NAPA part is $23. But it all works under the same principles... except the Lambo is in general less reliable. Other than the price and the reliability, it's all fixable, just like any other car. Sounds obvious when I say it that way, but I certainly didn't expect that when I first became an owner.

Update: Rebuilt the starter, as everyone suggested. The guy who did the job (AlStar in Woodinville) used to do a bunch of work on Astin Martins and Ferraris, though he hadn't seen a 98 Diablo starter. Fortunately, all the Bosch parts were available. Apparently the carbon brushes were in awesome shape, but the solenoid itself was close to failure due to dust from the clutch. Good thing I got it rebuilt -- thanks, everyone, for the suggestion. Also did the valve adjustment, which I detailed in other threads. Went ahead and replaced a suspicious O2 sensor ("lambda sensor"). Replaced the oil seal at the end of the transmission's output shaft. Replaced the clutch with a Hi Tech Exotics kevlar one. Replaced all rubber seals with higher-temp Viton seals. The engine is now ready to be lifted back into the car. Thanks, everyone, for all the help and support so far. This project wouldn't have been possible but for the help that many of you have given me. Especially for huntnphool loaning me an engine hoist and custom-welded metal harnesses.

Screwdriver in pipe bender would have been pretty sweet, actually. I even had a screwdriver that was 7mm wide. The trouble is a few things: a) I don't own a pipe bender, I'd still have to grind down the sides, and c) I'm not sure all screwdrivers would bend instead of snap. Perhaps if I had a torch. @TheAmericanStig: never go back to watch MacGyver. I had fond memories, so I went back and watched several episodes about a year ago. Couldn't have ruined it any better than to go back to re-watch them. Just like with "V", Airwolf, or any other 80's show, leave them pristine in your memory.

Hehe. I figure if I keep up the good work, I might weasel my way into honorary VIP status through shameless brown-nosing.

I've completed this write-up in a more complete thread here: http://www.lambopower.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=53321