94jedi

Hey guys, so I'm getting closer to pulling the trigger on an e55. Rather than buying a garage queen for $20k, I think I'm going to buy something with a bit more miles, closer to $13k, with documented maintenance records of course, and then mod it.

My question is this - assuming decent maintenance, are these cars still reliable once you start modding them? I've had other heavily modded cars in the past and it just seems things start to go south with the more you do. Is the general consensus, if you do it right, things should be fine? I've done plenty of research but I keep asking myself, these are solid cars right?

sexyxe

Mine is no more or less reliable FBO than it was before.

A clutched pulley and a strong gearbox kinda makes these cars good to go, for both daily use and hard out hits.

E55Greasemonkey

What is "FBO"?

94jedi

Full bolt on. I.e. stock supercharger. Basically everything you can throw at this car, within reason, that would be considered "bolt" on without going into fabrication, custom stuff, etc.

It's a loose term but generally accepted as what i noted above.

RobE55

Thanks for asking Grease, I googled and got "Full body orgasm" ...

Tavs

That is a funny predictive search history. I get all kinds of crap about "fixed-base operator", something to do with the airline business....

tw2

A good tune and working fuel pumps and you should be fine.

oneslow55

Nothing is more reliable then stock.more mods the more fr gets prone to have issues as parts failing faster and engine wording down.Not such thing as the question you asked.

JoeJErnst

My wife has ridden in the car on numerous occasions and she never once experienced a FBO, so I guess from that perspective they are completely unreliable.

HOWEVER, I think the OP means will a car with Full Bolt Ons be at risk of breaking things. I had the same worries when I started modding my car, since it's also my daily driver. I worried about things like broken rocker arms, spun bearings, chunking a rod through the block, grenading the rear end, breaking an axle, etc. After a ton of research (mostly just reading this forum all the time) I saw very few such failures. The only thing that really concerned me was the rear subframe mounts so I fixed them proactively. (see my sig for a link)

I started racing my car three years ago and I have a stack of timeslips too big to count (probably over 175 runs at this point), and, *knock on wood*, I haven't "broken" anything yet, and I still drive it to work most days.

Of course, there's always the general maintenance type failures that these cars have whether or not they've been modded.

As far as I'm concerned, you won't find a better platform at this price point to get you down the 1/4 mile in sub-12 second fashion. Just be prepared for the expensive "normal" stuff that always needs attention.

94jedi

Thanks @JoeJErnst, that's exactly what i was asking.

GM_Lover

I've only owned my E55 for a couple of months (bought at 113k miles for $14k + $700 shipping), but from everything I've read, an FBO E55 is, practically speaking, no less reliable than a bone stock E55. There have been some issues with aftermarket pulleys (both supercharger and crank), but those might just as well be from bad installs vs any inherent problems with the products. Most of the problems I've read about on these cars are all pattern failures which exist on bone stock cars.

Anyway I highly recommend this car. Love mine. My E55 literally cost 1/3 what my Chevy SS did, and it's just better in every way except handling and the lack of manual trans. With about $20K invested (car price, taxes, tags, title, repairs, STAR, mods, etc), you can have a clean, luxurious, and pretty quick car. It's a monster bargain. Only better bargains out there are probably the S65's that people on Youtube are finding for like $3-$4K and fixing up for like next to nothing.

MB RUSH

I had the same worries as you. I bought mine in late 2014 with 104,000 miles. Have gone the full bolt on route, has 113,000 mile now. The only failure has been the torque conv overheating and taking out the front seal. 2500 repair. Car had better 60 ft after replacing w/ stock rebuilt unit so pretty sure it already had issues not related to racing. Trans shop fully dismantled entire trans and said everything else looked almost new. IMO these cars offer tremendous value for what you get and then w/ bolt ons it just gets better.