Just talked to a buddy at work about the BBC in his 1978 Malibu. Supposed to be a "10 second car". He has been fighting this thing for a couple of years and not happy with the perfomance of the car. This year, he has no oil pressure so the big block comes out and is taken apart. Turns out that his original engine builder swapped parts on him. My buddy had dropped off a aftremarket crank and Eagle rods and forged aluminum pistons with the original builder. Turns out, the guy dropped in stock pistons, rods and stock crank!!! :blast: The moron has dropped out of sight and won't return my buddy's phone calls. Isn't that nice?!?!? I also know of a engine builder in Oakland county that resurfaces heads with a belt sander!! Anybody else have any horror stories????? Keep the story clean, and maybe don't "name names"!! :af:
Back in the '80's, F*******'s Engine Service in Flint. 1967 Corvette restoration, 427/390hp, convertible, powerglide, air conditioning. Owner paid shop for .030 overbore, line hone, new pistons, recon'ed rods, .010/.010 crank, balance, valve job, new valvetrain. Engine came back three months after promise date, put together & wrapped up, supposedly ready to go. Upon break-in, noticed low oil pressure & what appeared to be a slight rod knock. Couldn't get owner to let me tear it down for inspection, phone calls to the F******* bros were unfruitful. And for some odd reason, though we'd asked for the old parts back, they couldn't be found. Owner sold it a few months later with about 400 miles on the "fresh" engine. Upon teardown by the new owner it was completely obvious that someone ran a hone in the cylinders and replaced the bearings without even touching the crank. No other machine work was performed and no other new parts, either. I believe they're out of business and rightfully so. I told my story to every gearhead in Genessee county after that BS. Devon
I remember Kenne-Bell warning that some machine shops shim valve springs for closed height pressure, BUT forget to check for coil bind at open lift! ou:
On my 455's FIRST build, here are the mistakes the shop made: -Oil Pan bolts were returned without ever being tanked (caked with grime) -TA's bearings were installed perfectly with the oil holes at 3 O'Clock and 7 O'Clock - IF YOU ARE INSTALLING THEM WITH THE ENGINE UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!! They are installed with the oil holes at 9 O'Clock and 2 O'CLOCK! He failed to follow both: the directions I explicitly wrote for this and the instructions TA included in the box, then argued with me that it didn't matter which way they were installed! -Lost my flexplate. -The engine balance was waaaay off. -The main lifter galley was filled with sludge. It may have been tanked, but no brushes were used and it certainly wasn't checked very good. -The front lifter galley plugs behind the cam gear were pressed in WAY too far. Effectively cutting of a good amount of oil flow to the rest of the motor. -One freeze plug was installed cocked. Possible leak. -He charged me for (and even wrote in the bill) cutting the heads for the inner dual valve springs, but never did the work! -My explicit instructions to cut the crank .010/.010 and set the clearances to .002 MAX were ignored. The rods were 1.5 thou but the mains were at 5 thou!!!!
I second that. In 1989 I hired them to build a 455 for my GTO. The machine work couldn't have been worse.
Mayfair in Taylor, MI I took a set of 906 Mopar heads to him. I gave him the valves, springs, retainers and heads. The exhuast valves I gave were 1.88. When I got them back they were 1.81 o No: He said he cut them down because they wouldn't fit with the 2.19 intake valves. CUT THEM DOWN??? o No: :shock: I put the heads on the engine and a few months later the car was ready for some street action. It was spewing coolant everywhere. I found the leak, a 3" crack in the head under the center exhaust ports. I called and asked him if he checked the heads for cracks before doing $1800 worth of labor to them. He said I didn't ask him to so he didn't. Those heads are on the shelf with brand new valve parts, I bought Edelbrock heads instead. Jim Patrick is supposed to be an expert in hi-po port work that is undetectable by NHRA inspectors, I never had the chance to find out with those heads uzzled:
I guy came in the other day asking how much it would be to balance a crank. I told him, though he didn't speak english very well so when I asked what kind of engine it was out of and didn't get a straight response, figured it was because he didn't understand the question. He said he had it in the car so I followed him out to have a look. I wish I had a camera... He made his own crank by cuting up some kind of import crank and welding in throws from what looked to be a small block mopar. The whole warped, twisted thing was held together by about 15 pounds of welding rod. I never got out of him what engine he was trying to put it in.
Here's what happens when you use a local "performance" shop...the noise caused by this spun #8 rod bearing was supposed to be "piston slap"...at least that's what the supposed Olds expert that sold the car told the buyer :blast: :blast: Note: the screwdriver is pointing to the edge of one half of the bearing...which is partially tucked under the other half...this is how the bearing halves were situated when we removed the #8 rod cap on Saturday. Piston "slap" my ass! I thought that story was pure bs the first time I heard the noise.
About 20 years ago I had a set of 396 heads done for my '57, new guides, the works. Anyway with about 15 seconds of run time the engine started backfiring out the carb and missing. Intake valve burred up and stuck in the guide. When I went to get an intake valve, guide and the gaskets to put it together, 'ol Dale E Hunt (Mid America Speed Centers) argued with me about it saying it was my fault. ou: I finally got what I wanted, but it was a struggle. Another time after getting my stuff done at Knights, my Vette intake didn't fit. He tried to blame me. "Now how could it be my fault?" I asked, "when you decked the block, heads and cut the intake?" :Smarty:
this is not exactly a machine shop horror story but an idiot story(me being the idiot for believing him). when i bought my buick 4 years ago i was told the engine was "rebuilt" .. ha. i was playing with a wrx suburu and the rpm's did not go over 4800. i beat him but when i got home it sounded a little funny. went to take off with it the next day to a fathers day car show it rattled at start up and at cruising speed it sounded like a diesel. the following weekend i yanked it and took it apart. spun # 7 and 8 rod bearings and all the mains were wiped out. i had 4 pistons .020 over and the other 4 were .030 . when i droped it off i asked why would it have so much carbon in the bottom end they looked at the "carbon" and told me it was machining chips from the so called "rebuild" .the mach shop called laughing a couple days later and said guess what "big pistons in little holes little pistons in big holes"that explains all the scuffing on the sides of a couple of the pistons i asked about why 4 be that on there. the mach shop was calling often enough with things that were not rite to the point when they would call i would ask what is wrong now. so while it was apart i took the trans to a friend of mine to rebuild and he asked why i had a t 400 torque converter in a t350 .come to find out the former owner drilled the flywheel to make the torque converter work the holes looked as if he did not have the correct drill bit and punched it 3 or 4 times with a smaller one. which explains why it always felt like it had a vibration at higher rpms.
http://tdod.org/merick/hell/ the engine runs good but only because ive since added new carb, headers, dual exhaust, ignitionman dist....I still think they reused the stock pistons etc even through they was supposed to bore it .30 over.
