Seth (if this is Seth),

First, please comprehend what I said.

Second, I stopped talking to you because I do things my way and not your way. You seemed intent that your way was acceptable and I realised I couldnt change your mind. Your issues with your then customer are yours to take care of and show the community that you are an upstanding business that gets things done and takes care of issues.

The question was never the R/s as I agreed even a 1.47 should be fine at 8000-8200. The issue I had was with the skirt sticking that far out the bottom of the block and the skirt collapse that I felt was related to that.

This is was not meant to be underhanded, this was a statement that I made and I thought I was very clear that it was small stuff. Continue to sell your motors and have fun with them. While you are doing that, I will continue to build motors that use Manley or Wiseco 1400HD pistons with better R/s ratios because I feel thats whats needed. For the 4B11 I think that means 2.0 or sleeved big bore motors. I dont think that the 4B12 crank seems to be the answer. That is my opinion in regards the engineering of the 2.3 with 97mm crank and short rods. I build motors that take what I dish out as evidenced by my signature so I feel my understanding of the "engineering" involved is adequate.

Aaron

 

Piston run with one 1200 clogged and flowing somewhere between 900 and 1000cc. 500+whp stock turbo, 50 passes, melted the strap twice which is why we started investigating closer. This is what lean on E85 does to pistons.

 

Another thing to remember Erl/Seth is the day before the motor was tore down the motor made 530/490 with a 12.0 afr and was tore down due to excessive oil use And before that I have 38 tuning sessions worth of vdr graphs with logs of afr's that took place over a 3 months and 3500 miles from beginning to the end of the motor I have all the tuning notes and all the downloaded logs are timestamped. Did I have fuel pump issues? Yes.. Were they issues that caused me to run long pulls and melt a motor? I doubt it.

 

i would just go with a different shop for sure

 

Unfortunately 3dman has had a bad experience, and er has been part of it. But for every extremely vocal issue, there's several very happy customers. Hollywood and hotdog have erl stroke kits that are performing great. A Ms has tons of erl sleeved engines out there. And countless Hondas are running massive power on erl blocks. They're a good shop, just like every other one mentioned here.

 

The difference for me (watching right now) is that ERL made a thinly veiled attempt to discredit ER when in actuality ER was kinda sticking up for them. You can't come on a forum and talk about how sterling your reputation is and imply that the only failure you've had was "probably" due to something else unrelated to you. Even if you think that you basically stated you are just going through the motions with Wiseco and regardless of what they come back with you are sure it wasn't you.

Lack of communication regardless of who or what the situation calls for is another no no. their post seemed a little arrogant (can't be our engineering but we'll check anyways). The customer of said motor and ER having no reason to be nice anymore def makes this thread go in a different direction.

One thing I can say about the shops mentioned in this thread (even BR, for the bad rep he's gotten as quick to anger individual at times) BR, AWD, STM, ER, IVEY, FFTEC, JMS.......you never see them involved in this e-drama for the most part and even if there's a flare up online (because let's face it you can't make everyone happy), they are usually quick to respond and resolve.

And they've been an active member in this community. New guy on the block........gotta earn that good will. Sounds like this mightve been a one off..........hope it gets resolve to the satisfaction of both parties

 

I think the whole issue really boils down to this^
When your quick to take a order and build a engine for a customer but totally drop off the planet when something go's wrong, and wont return phone calls and emails for months you have a serious customer service problem. They probably do build great engines. But you have to be good on both sides of the job.

 

We have nothing further to say (but have plenty of reason to still be nice ) in this matter other than I agree and I hope for the owner of the motor it is resolved in a fair and equitable manner.

aaron

 

I could care less about the money I just want to Finnish with this deal and move on. The customer service at English is at a whole different level than what I'm recieving from Erl so that's where I will be doing business for now. For example I just hammered thy syncros in my tranny and English racing is going to pick my car up 200 miles away from home and take back to thier shop. That kind of service makes me happy.

 

Seems like everyone that is having issues with ERL is running the 4B11, I can't imagine it being too difficult to build a 4G63 stroker and not have it blow up with the correct tune/fuel.

 

For now I will say I'm running the same 4B11 stroker Ryan was running and at this point I have several thousand miles on my motor with absolutely no signs of any wear and tear and I continually run my car to 8500+ rpm.

The pics below are from when I tore my engine down because on a 30+psi tuning run on my PTE5857 (AMS 750R) I broke my crank pulley and smashed my valves in.
Even after decimating my valves and timing chain everything is pristine looking.







There is no issue with ERL engineering or build quality. I will also mention in my motor I'm not running the squirters and my oil pressure is at 100psi in the high rpms.

 

The one coment i have for hollywood is i have followed your build quite closely and i have serious doubts to the thousands of miles you are claiming. But that is besides the point. The pictures i have of my motor when we tore it down look just like yours I also have no visible signs of damage or detonation. If you pull out your pistons and measure every thing this would be the only way you would know without a doubt that there is not a simular situation. My pistons are not visibly damaged from the top. THere is no reason the squirters could not be used there is room to have the squirters i have them in my 2.0 and still make 100 psi under boost with the larger clearances of a built motor. Hollywood had squirters in his 2.3 at one point so i know they can fit in there. one of my biggest concerns looking back is why they use the weak sauce pistons they used in the build in the first place and not the wiesco hd pistons that are designed for high hp turbo aplications. The fact that still remains that the results may come back in erl's favor and if they had kept me in the loop and returned my emails and called with status updates weather good or bad i would not be here bad mouthing them i would be taking my lumps and moving on. I however will not except speending 8000 dollars on a build that lasts 3000 miles and being blown off when i have questions.

 

.... standard weisco pistons are not weak sauce. The HD are apparently better (why?) but I don't buy that standard weisco are an issue. I do question the k1 rods, but that wasn't your problem so I guess they're doing ok so far

 

3dman - any chance you can use paragraphs?

I am genuinely interested in what you say, but I can't be bothered to read 30+lines of continuous text

 

do you have any dynamic failsafes in place (lean protection, knock retard, etc.) with your engine management system that guarantees that your $8,000 motor won't bust next time when there is a fuel injector or pump failure though? If not, I would recommend spending your money on something that can guarantee it.