Gemballa is a high-line tuner that does a lot of exotic conversions on 911s for big bucks. They did really outrageous (and ugly IMHO) slantnose 930s with big ducts, pointy airdams and huge wings.
See their stuff at:
http://www.gemballa.com and leave lots of time to get through their nutty Flash intro that you can't bypass and popup weasel site.
It's conceivable that they have insurance to cover these expensive parts; if they were building me a $150,000 car and there was a piece of metal cracked off the engine, I wouldn't take delivery, would you? Maybe it fell off an engine stand, or they dinged it when they were uncrating it.
It's my understanding that you can buy a brand-new 996 engine direct from Porsche for about $9-10k, so this would seem like an okay deal, but it would be a nightmare to put it in anything except a 996 or a Boxster. It would be a great upgrade for a Boxster, actually, and you'd never see the crack.
Vic
88 Carrera