Want to sell the rotating parts from the 2.1?

 

I called Slowboy and emailed them with the problem. The response was lacking... If I emailed the wrong department then why was my problem not forwarded to the right person? If I spoke to the wrong person why wasn't I transfered to the right person? I even stated before you made a post on here how I was frustrated because I did not receive any help:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...9&postcount=11

Your first message to me was that I did something wrong. You did not really offer any assistance at all. Then this thread went to crap and you started arguing with some other customer of yours. A bunch of stupid crap was said between you and him and of course all those posts were deleted.

So after waiting 3 months for my kit when I was told the parts were in stock I build my motor and this happens. Now it could have been my fault or the parts were defective. **** happens I am not asking for a refund or anything but I received crappy service when I ordered the parts and crappy service after.

 

sold them already.

 

Just wanted to add that I was contacted this morning about Pat's tune and not sure where the confusion was but I was told there is nothing wrong and that he is very happy with what I did on his car......

I was also contacted by SBR and was told that they were not trying to start any crap about the tune.

Have good days.

 

The main and rod caps provide what is commonly called "crush" on the bearing. This crush comes from final assembly of the block and only after the mains and rods have been fully tightened to the end builders spec can crush be properly measured. This is why the engine builder should place all the bearings in the motor and assemble the engine minus the crank and then measure the inside of the bearings in order to verify that the correct clearances will be achived.

 

I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I have done business with SBR for years and never have had any problem. You made the mistake of putting the motor together and not checking for the proper clearances. Why should SBR have to call and apologize for this? The parts were not faulty, and even if they were, there is no implied warranty that goes along with them. This is the nature of engine building. This is exactly why assembly should be left to professionals (i.e. machine shops), who actually know what they are doing.

 

Post 85 is good to read, along with most of the thread.

 

I have to agree here. The rod bearings were the problem and the crank, rods, and bearings were static here. If you buy a "kit" then the bearings should have been the right ones for the crank supplied.
Plasti-gage is not accurate. The crank journal should be measured and the rod should be assembled with the bearing and measured to determine the clearance.


IIRC those are Mitsu bearings and come in (IIRC) 3 different sizes. How could can a bearing be supplied if no one checked the crank journal size and big end size with bearing to determine which bearing to supply?

joeymia,

Those rods can be reconditioned if the bearings did not actually spin in the rod which it appears they did not. A lot of shops can't recondition rods nowadays because the don't have the equipment.

I'd be willing to bet that Manley could recon those rods for you.

 

Why is this his responsibility? If you purchased a "kit" wouldn't you expect matched parts? Rule of thumb is you don't include bearings so the customer has to measure and buy or you include the bearings as part of the kit after you've made that determination.

 

I think you are wrong on this one Timzcat. When assembling an engine that will be used for a race application, measuring before assembling is a must. You dont see the pros just pulling stuff off the shelves and throwing them together without measuring clearances. If that was the case, you could just buy any number of products, torque it down and go (we all know even torque numbers are subject to change on a built motor.) But in reality you cant do that. The manufacturer can get away with it because there is quality control that will inspect incoming parts before assembly and there has to be QC checking at various steps along the way in an assembly line, as well as a final inspection.

At least this is my understanding of the process. When youread thru some of the posts here you find that you must assemble all the parts more than once during the build process and record your measurements for each rod/bearing/bolt. This includes clearances as well as torque values (when proper rod bolt stretch is being achieved)

For a home builder without calibrated tools I dont know how accuracy can be maintained. Some of the measurements are into the ten thousanths (.0001") Same thing for a torque wrench, who knows what quality of tool people are using and how well they maintain their tooling. Calibration is cheap for tools, usually under $25 and is something that needs to be done.

 

Couldnt agree more. We supply parts needed. EVERY engine we build here in house gets double checked on clearnaces and other specs and are recorded in a file. We even change out bearings, polish a crank, hone the rods to achieve proper clearances. We sell parts required to do an install, still maintaining the concept "to be installed by a professional". Thats like buying a home entertainment setup, rca cables everything even getting instructions. Blow something up because you hooked it up wrong. Should that be sonys fault? or even the shop that sold it to you? Maybe they should have gotten a installer to do it for them. Spending thousands on a motor, never did it before, or really know enough to do, should have been taken to a local machine shop/engine assembler to be put together.

Mark
SBR

 

I'd measure everything, like I always do. I've learned it's a safe step to duplicate what other people are supposed to do, and that sometimes people with the best of intentions put the wrong parts in the box.

That having been said, I looked at the Slowboy destroker page, and they include the following:

"Kit Includes:
Brand new Mitsubishi crank
Manley 162 mm rods
Wiseco 9.0:1 or 10.0:1 piston
ACL bearings"

Assuming that the crank was brand new, Mitsu factory tolerance ranges are pretty small. That leaves only the bearings or the Manley rods as the remaining factors in the rod clearance equation. Either the rods were oversize, the bearings were out of spec or the wrong part altogether, OR the failure was due to improper assembly, torque, or improper use after assembly. Any of the above are possible. The buyer said that the motor was fine for the first 1000 miles, but ALL the rod bearings spun when he got on it the first time, with RPMs of 7500... Would a motor have lasted 1000 miles if the clearances were really tight? How about really loose? All spun at once? We don't know much about the assembly methods used, but that's certainly important...

Anyway, back to the point. You'd think that it would be reasonable to assume that since the vendor is selling all of the parts, including the crank, in a "kit" that they are sending you parts that are compatable with each other. I'd bet, though, that no vendor assembles the rods/bearings and checks crush clearances -- they just pull the "correct" boxes off the shelf and put them in the box to send to the buyer. Measurement of stack-up clearances by the end user is thus essential, because you're not just double checking the work someone else already checked, you're checking the tolerances from three different factories to see if they result in a final match with total clearances you find in the range you want.

This builder, though, apparently didn't know that. If he'd measured everything as noted above, and if the problem was clearance related, he would have found the clearance mismatch and corrected it.

Assembled short blocks from most vendors cost substantially more than the sum of the parts -- they are covering both their assembly costs and their "warranty" if something goes wrong.

 

I agree with you completely. I guess the real issue here is the terminology and the use of the word "kit" If it is represented as a "kit" then it should be ready to install, as is. Essentially a short block minus the block itself.
If it was just a collection of parts off the shelf then you should have the expectation that everything needs to be "size" to fit.

It doesn't look like it actually spun the bearings. It removed the babbitt from the bearings which I would guess was from too tight a clearance. If he was taking it easy then he was getting away with it. As soon as he spun it hard to a high RPM the now excess clearance showed itself. He never confirmed whether the bearings actually spun in the rod or not.

 

If I have learned somthing from this whole post i believe that it is i will nevvvvvvvver buy a single item from slowboy racing just to avoid what seems to be a group of very un caring people that dont care if they have return customers. Me personally i dont want to deal with a company that practices this kind of business. I work in customer service if i am contacted even if its the wrong department i will forward that person to the correct department and make sure the person talks to the person"s" that they need. Just to say that he didnt make a real attempt to contact you after 2 phone calls and what sound like numerous emails is a joke. He contacted your company and it seems that you need to take a real look @ your staff and wonder why they didnt pass the message on to you. What i see is 2 failures very similar in nature which makes me wonder.. In the end SBR will end up hurting themselves with this post. I have known joey for a little while a very friendly and helpful person all that SBR comes off as is someone coming of very defensive and admits to no wrong ever... Anyway if this matters or not, I'm sure others share my views......

 

If you are building a motor, kit or no kit, you have to measure ALL clearances. If you don't, then you are ASSUMING that everything is perfectly built to spec, which we all know is never a good thing. Even if he bolted everything together perfectly and checked all clearances, the argument is still pointless. When an engine breaks, there are simply too many variables out there to be able to accurately place blame on someone. This is why there is never an implied warranty on engine parts. If something breaks, it is automatically the builder's (or tuner's) fault for not inspecting the parts more carefully or for running too lean and destroying the engine. It is too hard to determine what the real source of failure is. It would not be profitable for anyone to sell engine parts if they had to issue a refund to every idiot who blew up their engine due to an improper tune or assembly error. I imagine every once in a while there is actually a defect in the manufacturing of the parts, and the failure indeed is due to a faulty part. This type of situation is very unfortunate because failures are almost always considered to be due to a faulty tune, or bad engine assembly. The lesson of this story is: If you want to play around with building engines, prepare to accept some type of financial responsibility when it explodes prematurely (as many machine shops do). Slowboy Racing was in no way responsible for this incident in anyway.