Man do I feel for you Mike!
I can't count the number of times I had to go through this with a friend or
customer. And believe me, you feel like hell when you have to tell a guy his
motor is trash and he wasted a bunch of $$ on incompetent work. Just before I
left Les' back in October we went through this with a guy's 510 2.5 Trans Am
engine. He had just picked the engine up from the builders and brought it over
to us so I could check it out. There had been problems with another engine built
by these same guys for his friend, so he was very suspicious of their work and
wanted some peace of mind. I think he thought I'd find a few problems and he'd
have to spend another $500-1000 to get the engine in race ready shape (having
just spent a wad of cash this was painful enough I am sure). As soon as I pulled
the valve cover I found problems. And sadly, things just got worse as I got
further into the motor. Long story short, the only pieces that could be saved
from the whole motor were the crank, rods, some timing parts and the oil pan.
When I told the guy, I felt awful. And I felt a little guilty telling him he was
looking at another $5000 or so to build a race-ready competitive engine. At that
price I was giving him a heck of a deal, but I still felt bad. This shop also
has all sorts of high tech tools and trick stuff to show off, and they build
some very potent motors. But they aren't L series specialists and they aren't a
quality-driven shop, they're what I call a customer-driven shop. They're the
sort of place that in order to get the job, will let the customer dictate how an
engine is built even when they know that some of the stuff the customer wants to
do is not going to work. They also will build to a price if they need to, again
to be sure they get the job, even when they know that a quality engine can't be
built for that price. To me, both of these are signs of a shop that is happy to
put out crap and take your money, not the sort of thing I would want from my
engine builder or machinist. This particular place gets a lot of business from
folks who have been turned away by other shops, shops who would rather loose a
customer than put out bad work. Even so, they have a good reputation in many
circles, just not with the real craftsmen. In fairness to this shop and others
like them, they did tell him what it would cost to build it right (I am not sure
they knew how to do it right, or could have done it right if he'd wanted, but
they did know what it took to do it right) and he then started looking for ways
to cut the costs and save a few bucks. Their failing was in saying okay to him
on most of this stuff (and on taking a job on an engine they weren't familiar
enough with, and on doing some basically shi_y work...).
BTW, after having gone through all this, you would have thought he'd learned his
lesson, but no. He tried to do the same thing with me then, bitching about the
costs, wanting to rush the job, and I (having learned my lesson a few years
back, finally) told him to find another engine builder. I understand that the
costs of a well built engine, especially a race engine, can shock folks, but
somewhere we as a society have developed an us vs them mentality with our
mechanics and engine builders that leads folks to assume the engine can be built
just as well for a lot less and the builder is just trying to take advantage of
us. Now I know there are places like that, and it sounds like you bumped into
one Mike, but in my experience most good engine builders are just the opposite,
they don't charge enough because they feel for their customers. Often the good
builders end up going out of business, not because they are crooks, but because
they can't get enough business, don't make enough on each job, and are unwilling
to tell the customer what he wants to hear if they know it isn't true. Most
often it is the places that quote low ball prices, or those who are just a bit
less than the best, or those who are as accommodating as they could possibly be
when selling the job, that are the riskiest. For example, I won't mention names
but there are two engine builders in NorCal. Both have good reputations with the
public. One builds an IT engine for about $6500 and the other builds an IT
engine for about $9000. The first will accommodate you anyway you want and will
get the engine out by a given time, no matter what, the second insists on
telling you how things will be done and won't deliver an engine until it can be
built to the highest standards. The first is very successful and yet of the
dozen or so of his motors that I personally know of, better than 90% have
failed. The second is a fringe business that will in all likelihood go under,
yet of the dozen or so engines of his that I personally know of, none have
failed.
I guess what I am saying is that these sorts of things will tend to happen more
and more as we put good business out of business by doing business with those
who will tell us what we want to hear and will quote us a price we are happy
with. I am not saying that's what happened with you Mike, I am just saying that
the likelihood of a shop being incompetent or shady keeps getting higher because
so many people will not do business with the real craftsmen. And this is not
limited to engine builders either. The exact same process is taking place in the
automotive repair industry, the auto restoration industry, the performance parts
industry, etc. We don't see the long term costs of cutting corners immediately
and so we fail to make the connection. But there definitely *is* a connection.
datsunmike wrote:
>
> As many of you know my car, specifically my engine, suffered from a major
> disaster after having been recently rebuilt (900 miles). Welllll, I brought
> it to another machinist a few weeks ago to get re-rebuilt and boy was I
> surprised by what he said and showed me!!!!!!
>
> What the other machinist didn't do, or what he did do, completely screwed my
> engine and furthered my engine's demise and caused more damage.
>
> He cut the very ends of the rod caps but didn't hone them to the correct
> size or to any size. The machinist showed me all he did was scuff the
> insides on the rods. The new machinist showed me on the back of the bearings
> the out-of-roundness of the rod journals which showed up as shiny metal
> points. My clearances, which he measured for the hell of it, were also way
> off - way too tight. Same with the wrist pins.
>
> The coup de grace however was what this SOB did to my head after the new
> machinist performed a leak down test on it and discovered the problems. He
> used stones to cut the seats and scored them so badly that they either have
> to be replaced or get custom made slightly oversized valves so he can use
> another area of the seats that the butcher didn't butcher. The upside of the
> custom valves is that they will breath about 25% better than the stock
> valves and he can save my valve stems too. Ohhhhh, did I forget to mention
> that the SOB didn't put in new valve guide liners like he promised to do
> after I showed him the abnormally large clearances, which also didn't help
> the seats.
>
> I asked all the right questions of the SOB, saw his vast array of machinery
> and was recommended to him by a mechanic. I guess having all the fancy
> machinery is still no guide to the crappy machinists and poor quality work
> emanating from his shop.
>
> My new machinist will assemble my engine while I look on and help with the
> reassembly to show me how to do it correctly.
>
> I wrote this so you will not be snookered by some incompetent machinist
> also.
>
> Mike
>
> PS - After I get the carefully written bill I will bring it to the SOB and
> demand that he refund my money for the machine work and to pay for the
> damage to my head. If he declines I'll meet him in small claims court and I
> have never, ever lost there and I won't this time also. FYI, the #1 reason
> people go to small claims court in NY is for auto mechanics who screw them.
> I have that survey and will show it to him. Courts are not very friendly or
> sympathetic to incompetent or dishonest mechanics nor should they be.
>
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--
Marc Sayer
82 280ZXT
71 510 2.5 Trans Am vintage racer
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