Wow...some guys

Rob R

Rob R

Well-known member
Boy oh boy...

I have a fellow who I assembled an engine for crying the blues.
This fellow came to me by way of a really good customer.He came across as one of those Internet experts and I passed on him as it's just not worth it when it comes to guys like that...but my good customer begged me to assemble his engine so I broke one of my cardinal rules.
So he brings me one of those chry specialty house pre balanced rotating assemblies...timing chain...oil pan...a comp solid roller cam..some roller lifters that I've never seen before and a set of Indy -1's .
So I start to check everything...the crank has a little twiddle in it (couple of tenths) two of the rods need need the big ends corrected.And now it starts...I tell him what I think he should do and he accuses me of starting to pad the bill and that everyone on the Internet runs these kits and they have no problem.
So I give him $20.00 and tell him to take his parts and leave and he can get someone on the Internet to put it together.
I've found with this type of person that if they get something for nothing they leave right away and I don't have to listen to how much they know and how things are done on the Internet:rolleyes:
I guess this is the end of part one and I'll continue the rest of the story later as I have to run...
 
Rob R said:
Boy oh boy...


So I give him $20.00 and tell him to take his parts and leave and he can get someone on the Internet to put it together.
QUOTE]
Before I even read this line, this is EXACTLY what I thought about that dickhead!
One of my pet peeves is dealing with someone who won't listen. Sometimes it's good to fire a customer. He can consider the $20 his severance package. :)
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Or you could just sever his package. :D

Good call on your part, Rob. A lot of those stroker packages are claimed to be "balanced" because Manufacturer X says all their rods are within a gram of each other, and Manufacturer Y says the same about their pistons. Yet from what I've experienced in the past, they never are (at least in the case of the rods). Even if they are, that still doesn't account for the fact that the crank counterweights are at best a compromise and certainly not balanced to that piston/pin/rod package (there's that word yet again). If the seller isn't a machine shop that actually tacked on a charge for balancing, I'd consider it mandatory to at least have the balance checked and if the builder doesn't like it, spend the damned money. One of Barton's rules was, "Spend more than you can afford on the bottom end, because someday you're going to want to upgrade the rest, and you'll know the shortblock can take it." It's ultimately cheaper to overbuild it the first time.

The real kicker to this is the guy brought it to you because he doesn't know how to build an engine, then tells you your job. :doh: He'll probably go back to the friend that recommended you and whine, and I'm betting your good customer will set him straight. Even so, the guy will probably pay someone to slap it together and ultimately wonder why it shook itself to pieces in less than a year. Expensive lessons are those from which we learn the most. :D
 
Well back to this tale of woe.
So 3 - 4 weeks go by and my good customer shows up with a short block in the back of his truck.Tells me who's it is and he thinks somethings not right.I tell him I don't care...Then he tells me that this fellow paid someone $500 to assemble the short block and it's a little stiff to turn over.So I tell him that there's probably a couple of rods that are too tight...
My good customer keeps bugging me and I have to say my curiosity got the better of me so I go have a look...
Holy S#!@...LOL...6 of the 8 pistons are in wrong and one has a nasty mark on it like it was dropped and it is way too hard to turn over...it took 85 lbs to start to get it to rotate.I'm thinkin it's to tight even if it has a rope seal in it and a couple of rods are tight so maybe one of the oil support rails has folded over...So I tell him to take it back to who ever built it and get him to try again.He tells me that he is paying to fix it up.
So I take it apart...mother of christ...what a mess...Who ever built it couldn't get any of the Spiro locks in and beat the sides of the pistons to shit...one piston was dropped right on the top edge and closed the ring land a tiny bit just enough to pinch the ring so it wouldn't move.Then there were a couple of rods on back wards.
So now the short block is all together with new locks and new ARP 2000 cap screws with the rods all correct and a fresh hone.
Now it's time for the heads:rolleyes:...I suggest to back cut the valves and cut the seats because it's kinda like free power...that's a no go :huh: OK...then at least let me go through the guides...that's a no go also...Well I couldn't let that one go by and I honed the guides for free as I knew that it would probably come back and haunt me later...at least 4 guides felt too tight with just a quick check and I like them a tiny bit on the loose side for a street car.
Now the heads are on and I suggest that a roller lifter upgrade is in order...not that it has any killer springs on it with only 250 on the seat but when it comes to solid roller lifters on the street what works at the track DOESN'T work on the street...
Well the roller up grade gets Pooh-poohed also...Well at least it's together with all the pistons in the right holes and with all the right clearances.
So now it's on the road and and it's off to some chassis dyno were it's to be set on KILL...
I hear back that the fellow is a little disappointed with the numbers and it doesn't start or run very well.It apparently made 485 ft lbs and 490 hp at the rear wheels..
So I ask how many miles did he put on the engine before the dyno and my customer tells me a 1000...
I tell him without the sheet I can't really tell what might be wrong but it does sound like it's down at least 75...Best guess is the converter is pooched..
That's it for now I got to run
 
That's the difference between a hack and a real engine builder. It's funny, lots of people don't have the money to do it right, but they sure can afford to do it again.
 
v8440 said:
lots of people don't have the money to do it right, but they sure can afford to do it again.
Click to expand...

Very close to a favorite quote of mine, I don't recall where I heard or read it, but it goes, "If you don't take time to do it right, will you have time to do it again?"

:doh:
 
68R/T said:
Very close to a favorite quote of mine, I don't recall where I heard or read it, but it goes, "If you don't take time to do it right, will you have time to do it again?"

:doh:
Click to expand...

"If you don't have time to do it right in the first time, you sure as hell won't have time to do it again." a gem I've drug around since trade skool. Probably spilt that one once or twice here.
 
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On with show...

Now I finally get to see the car that the engine belongs to...it comes chugging up my driveway one Saturday night with my good customer in the passenger seat.It's running a little fast and sounds kinda soft from 75 feet away and doesn't sound much better standing in front of it with the hood open:rolleyes:.I reach in and give the throttle a blip...it's a pooch..!!
Now he's spent almost $600 to dyno it and have it set on kill and it's hard to start and coughs for a second when you stand on it from a roll and it takes off:rolleyes:.Now this is a 512 ci eng with a solid roller and Indy-1's it should make 700 hp...this one does have a tiny roller with 250 something @50 and a soft lobe so it should be able to make 650.
Right now it's pathic...I check the EGTs and their 800 degrees at idle so I jet it up a bunch and put a real shooter in it...It wakes up but the plugs are toast...I fix the ign curve and change the metering blocks out to a set I have with the proper fuel curve I figure it needs...Well it really barks now and it idles like a champ at 900 rpm.It still needs plugs and I tell him he really should get rid of the mopar perf msd 6 box and get something bigger if hes going to drive it in traffic..Roller cammed street engines like the 7 series boxes that little extra voltage at the plugs at 1500-3500 makes all the difference in the world.Plus you can get a little more aggressive with the tune and not have to worry about the oil taking a beating from fuel.
So he rolls his eyes and tells me that they use 6A's in Nascar and I tell him thats true because a 7AL3 would kill a set of wires in about 250 miles at 9000 rpm so I think thats why they use the 6.IMO
Anyway he takes it out into the industrial area close to my place and it must have been better because he asks if I can look at it again after he puts plugs in it...
Sunday morning he's back with my good customer and his car has fresh plugs and my good customers 7AL3 box in it...So I jet it up again play with the bleeds and timing...the thing is an animal according to him.I tell him to keep the oil clean and run an additive because now he buzz's this thing to the moon.
I charge him 3x what I'd normally charge for a set up like that.
Everything is peaches and cream for a week or so UNTIL a roller lifter lets go...
They bring the car back with a rocker problem...roller let go dropping the body on the cam in turn tossing all the crap on the #2 cyl wall from the lifter body grinding the camshaft away...
I tell him to take it out because there's MUCH unhappiness inside his engine...He says it just started to make noise and he only drove it over to my place 3-4 miles...:rolleyes:
Now I've got it apart again...polish the crank...new brgs...hone...valve job with a back cut and a little rub...new cam 260ish270ish@50 with a big centerline...RedZone lifters...PSI springs...and a Milodon pump
Now it's making some Onions..!!...This fellow is happy beyond belief...He tells me that he can't believe the power...it spins the tires in 3th gear...he says first is a waste of time and in second it'll light em up like a funny car at any speed...I think he's happy;)
Well this fellow drives his car for the second half of last year and all of this year (poor as it was)...UNTIL...!!! it breaks a rod...
Gotta run again...more later
 
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon.
We're waiting for the next installment of this tale.
We haven't got all day, you know.
:)

Sounds like this guy can't help being an expert.
 
Usually I'd say some people just shouldn't own cars but then I think, if that were the case, guys like you would lose out on a lot of money lol...would be less frustrating though :D
 
Now the unhappiness begines...

this fellows 512 had a rod fail due to excessive RPM...the rod actually failed at the top of the big end where the threads for the cap screw go into.I've never seen that before...He got very lucky that the rod didn't start swinging around and breaking the cam and block...not that it really matters as the block is finished due to THE most cap chatter I've ever seen...He did have the three center caps replaced with billet ones but that 100 lb crank swinging around in the crank case is just too much for a stock iron block...and if you think one of those girdles is the way to go...think again...this is another one of those whats good for the track just doesn't work on the street...With hard accelerating engines heavy cranks are DEATH...you think that with a balanced assembly weight shouldn't matter... it does...at least from my experience weight of the crank does matter when it comes to block failure..Also you'd figure with the girdle deal it would help...I've found it seems to put more stress on the block webs causing them to crack and fail before the max hp limit I've seen with no girdle blocks...
Now the girdle deal is just my experience with the couple of failures that I've experienced myself and the failures we enough to keep from going that way ever again.
But back to the story...I told this fellow from the start that the parts he bought from this chry specialty house wouldn't be my first choice...But since I talked him into changing out the supplied cap screws to ARP 2000's he figured that his 4340 rods should be no different from Oliver or a Manley Pro billet $1800 set of rods...why...because EVERYBODY uses them on the internet and he's never heard of one breaking.So if no one has ever broken one I must of screwed up when his 4340 rods were resized..:rolleyes:
And if I had installed his girdle like he wanted it would have saved his block from chatter and he wouldn't have to machine up another block.:rolleyes:
What I'm pretty sure happened here is that from all the RPM the engine saw the valve springs went away(the spring cups and VSI washers are beat to death from valve float) and to get the power out of it he just kept upping the msd chip from the orig 7200 to the 8000 that we found in the box.
There's a reason why some rods cost $399.00 and some cost $2000
There is still more to this little story but that the long and short of it... but as biased as my story is there is always the other side.:huh:
 
:(
Judging by your references to the internet experts, I'm betting all those experts will be lining up to hang you from the nearest monitor.
Rob, this sounds to me like you're gonna get blamed for it, no matter what.
I've been there, many times, there is no winning with guys like this. You likely know this as well as anyone, but in hindsight, you should have followed your gut instinct with this dickhead.

Experts. Oy Vaih.
 
Mike...

It's a rod failure plain and simple...it didn't burn up the crank the 1000 hp rod FAILED..!!:D
He beat on that puppy for a year and a half and 2 -3 thousand miles and a 1/4 of those at 7500 plus rpm.I'm surprised the rods lasted that long..
 
I'm with Rob on the girdle. I used one and for the life of me, I couldn't see the benefit, but figured it couldn't hurt. I do a lot of FMEA and when I saw the girdle setup, I didn't think it would be any benefit, it just is a half-assed bandaid. I feel the same way about aluminum main caps as well. You are wasting your $$$ on anything other than main/head studs if you are not a hard core racer. If your ride sees mostly street time, save your $$$. If you are a hard core racer, then an aftermarket block should be in your future, preferably an aluminum one.
 
I'm still not a believer in aluminum blocks, but I agree that band-aids to factory big-blocks are a waste of money. Girdles and aftermarket main caps can't stop the block from splitting the main webs beyond the 850HP mark.
 
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