Build Review
Build Review
Well, this has been a long time coming. I kept putting it off, waiting for my car to be finished, but as that seems like it’s never going to happen, here it goes.
At first I was going to start from the beginning, from my days with SBR, but I will just let some things go, and sum it up with this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnBradley
A good bore mic goes a long way. Especially someone that sets up top alcohol motors and has plenty of reason to check various depths in the cylinder.
A crank that has been cut at least .010 and was polished afterward has almost no nitriding left- http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...to/index2.html (specifically paragraph 3) Nitriding is a standardised machine process so its not going to vary between engine makes more than a thou or 2.
The bores were .045, .051, .061, .043 on piston to wall vs brand new Wiseco 87mm slugs.
The bore on one cylinder was .043 at the top, .060 in the middle, and .050 at the bottom of the skirt in 100mm of plunge depth. If you have reasons to doubt this I can PM the number of my machinist and he can tell you what he did. Chances are he will call you names and hang up, he's that kind of guy. I was going to leave this off the net but since you asked I decided to give the info out.
For the record, he (our machinist) is the one that solid fills our race blocks and sets up all our piston to wall, we do final assembly. At this point he has more 1050+whp block builds under his belt than there are likely running in America at this time. Archie is old hat at what he does, we pay a premium for his services, and havent been let down yet on machine work. I pull bearings out of a crank that say .25mm on them I am positive I know what I am looking at is not a fresh crank but a turned one. My mic backed it up when I compared to a known std finish crank.
Now, onto the recent build.
I contacted a few shops, some weren’t any help at all, but on a Midwest forum, there was a highly regarded shop that was helpful, actually took the time to talk the build out with me, etc.
Had the car towed to Modified by KC in Kansas. Things immediately got under way, English Racing got to work building my LR 2.4, tranny and transfer case got sent out to Shep.
During this time, I was getting my parts from Jordan at Defined Performance. First, let me say Jordan has been getting me parts from the beginning. He has always gotten me the best prices, and has become more a friend than just another vendor. I’m sure others can attest to this, but he isn’t finished once the sale is made. Jordan follows up to make sure the parts arrived, helps with info on installs, and just generally checks up on his customers to make sure all is well.Definitely the best person I have EVER done business with.
While the car was waiting on parts, my car was broken into. Before I heard from the police, MKC called and let me know what happened, had a new window being put in, and had my car put in a trailer to make sure nothing else could happen to it.
Aaron at ER was very helpful, talked to me on the phone a few times, etc. It did take a while for the motor to be finished, but the pistons and rods were on backorder.
After receiving the motor, things were a little slow getting my car back together, but the shop was overbooked, and the person I was talking to, wasn’t helping with that.
There were two attempts to pick up the car, setting up flights, only for the car not to be ready, and the second time the valve seals were not the proper size, and the car started smoking the morning I was flying out. The shop reimbursed me for my flights, and got the parts on order immediately after.
When I flew out to Kansas, I was picked up from the airport, and hung out at the shop. There were a few things going on, but I finally got to see my car!
I watched as Chad tuned the car on pump, and was impressed and excited. Before we switched to e85, we needed to change out the stock fuel rail. This was a challenge, but finally got it later in the day. Got the fuel, and made a couple runs on the dyno. Then the clutch started slipping. Or so we thought.
I was running low on $$, and didn’t want to have to drop the tranny and all that. Tried to get a tune for a low boost until I could come up with more money and have everything done right, but that didn’t work either. It was slipping at 200 horsepower.
So, with no other way to get back home to Indy, and a last minute flight being pretty expensive, I went ahead and had the tranny dropped. Turns out, three bolts came out of the pressure plate, causing one side to be pushed into the transmission casing, and therefore wasn’t holding anything.
While I don’t agree that the power I was making caused the bolts to back out, since it started while I was still on pump gas, MKC swapped out my sd pressure plate with a hd pressure plate they had laying around.
This was going on late into the night, and Jordan at Defined was on the phone with me all night trying to help figure out what was going on, sending me invoices, etc to try and help.
The owner of MKC let me crash at his place, helping me save some money on hotel rooms. The next day, the new pressure plate got put in, bolts got retightened, and got the car back together.
Got the e85 tune finished, and was on my way. When I got just outside of STL, I stopped to get something to eat, and was overwhelmed by the smell of fuel. I popped the hood, and felt around, noticing a bunch of gas around the injectors/rail. At 2 in the morning, there wasn’t anywhere open I could get any help. I tried messing with things, and ended up finding the o-ring on the aeromotive fuel rail had popped out a little, and was causing a decent leak. I ended up taking it all apart, and putting back together a couple times before I could get the o-ring to fit right. There was still a very small leak, but with the hand tools I had, I didn’t have much choice then to tighten it as much as I could, and hope for the best. Chad stayed on the phone with me several times helping with things to check, and also checked up on me every couple of hours to make sure I was staying awake and wasn’t having any more problems.
Two days after getting back, I started the car to let it warm up, and coolant started dumping onto the ground. I took the car to a local performance shop, Performance Driven, and had them look the car over. After about 10 minutes of having the car looked at, they come out to tell me that there were a ton of things left loose. My oil feed lines were hand tight, my timing components were loose, as well as other things. Wrong bolts were used, which cause some belt fray from the bolts rubbing against them.
Once the water pump was taken out, we found there was a plate installed, which wasn’t supposed to be there. The waterpump was installed on the block from English, so it was taken apart at MKC, and reinstalled with the adapter plate.
Aaron at ER spent a great amount of time with Dave at PD, and helped get everything back together. There was a bit of confusion about the motor, as the block was not painted, which caused skepticism. But, everything was figured out, and I just happened to get a block that didn’t get painted. ER got a new modified waterpump right out to me, and PD got the belts/bolts replaced, and got everything back together. I would not think twice about dealing with ER. They are widely respected on these forums, and I know from personal experience.
MKC paid for the work, and admitted after investigating around the shop they were indeed at fault.
After getting the car back, it shut off while driving. I’ve replaced the fuel pump and cam sensor, checked all fuses, and still have nothing. So, the car is getting ready to go back to the shop, and that’s where I am now. I believe it is the crank sensor.
Long story short, my luck sucks. I’ve been through hell with this car, spent every last bit of money, and still can’t enjoy it.
At first I was going to start from the beginning, from my days with SBR, but I will just let some things go, and sum it up with this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnBradley
A good bore mic goes a long way. Especially someone that sets up top alcohol motors and has plenty of reason to check various depths in the cylinder.
A crank that has been cut at least .010 and was polished afterward has almost no nitriding left- http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...to/index2.html (specifically paragraph 3) Nitriding is a standardised machine process so its not going to vary between engine makes more than a thou or 2.
The bores were .045, .051, .061, .043 on piston to wall vs brand new Wiseco 87mm slugs.
The bore on one cylinder was .043 at the top, .060 in the middle, and .050 at the bottom of the skirt in 100mm of plunge depth. If you have reasons to doubt this I can PM the number of my machinist and he can tell you what he did. Chances are he will call you names and hang up, he's that kind of guy. I was going to leave this off the net but since you asked I decided to give the info out.
For the record, he (our machinist) is the one that solid fills our race blocks and sets up all our piston to wall, we do final assembly. At this point he has more 1050+whp block builds under his belt than there are likely running in America at this time. Archie is old hat at what he does, we pay a premium for his services, and havent been let down yet on machine work. I pull bearings out of a crank that say .25mm on them I am positive I know what I am looking at is not a fresh crank but a turned one. My mic backed it up when I compared to a known std finish crank.
Now, onto the recent build.
I contacted a few shops, some weren’t any help at all, but on a Midwest forum, there was a highly regarded shop that was helpful, actually took the time to talk the build out with me, etc.
Had the car towed to Modified by KC in Kansas. Things immediately got under way, English Racing got to work building my LR 2.4, tranny and transfer case got sent out to Shep.
During this time, I was getting my parts from Jordan at Defined Performance. First, let me say Jordan has been getting me parts from the beginning. He has always gotten me the best prices, and has become more a friend than just another vendor. I’m sure others can attest to this, but he isn’t finished once the sale is made. Jordan follows up to make sure the parts arrived, helps with info on installs, and just generally checks up on his customers to make sure all is well.Definitely the best person I have EVER done business with.
While the car was waiting on parts, my car was broken into. Before I heard from the police, MKC called and let me know what happened, had a new window being put in, and had my car put in a trailer to make sure nothing else could happen to it.
Aaron at ER was very helpful, talked to me on the phone a few times, etc. It did take a while for the motor to be finished, but the pistons and rods were on backorder.
After receiving the motor, things were a little slow getting my car back together, but the shop was overbooked, and the person I was talking to, wasn’t helping with that.
There were two attempts to pick up the car, setting up flights, only for the car not to be ready, and the second time the valve seals were not the proper size, and the car started smoking the morning I was flying out. The shop reimbursed me for my flights, and got the parts on order immediately after.
When I flew out to Kansas, I was picked up from the airport, and hung out at the shop. There were a few things going on, but I finally got to see my car!
I watched as Chad tuned the car on pump, and was impressed and excited. Before we switched to e85, we needed to change out the stock fuel rail. This was a challenge, but finally got it later in the day. Got the fuel, and made a couple runs on the dyno. Then the clutch started slipping. Or so we thought.
I was running low on $$, and didn’t want to have to drop the tranny and all that. Tried to get a tune for a low boost until I could come up with more money and have everything done right, but that didn’t work either. It was slipping at 200 horsepower.
So, with no other way to get back home to Indy, and a last minute flight being pretty expensive, I went ahead and had the tranny dropped. Turns out, three bolts came out of the pressure plate, causing one side to be pushed into the transmission casing, and therefore wasn’t holding anything.
While I don’t agree that the power I was making caused the bolts to back out, since it started while I was still on pump gas, MKC swapped out my sd pressure plate with a hd pressure plate they had laying around.
This was going on late into the night, and Jordan at Defined was on the phone with me all night trying to help figure out what was going on, sending me invoices, etc to try and help.
The owner of MKC let me crash at his place, helping me save some money on hotel rooms. The next day, the new pressure plate got put in, bolts got retightened, and got the car back together.
Got the e85 tune finished, and was on my way. When I got just outside of STL, I stopped to get something to eat, and was overwhelmed by the smell of fuel. I popped the hood, and felt around, noticing a bunch of gas around the injectors/rail. At 2 in the morning, there wasn’t anywhere open I could get any help. I tried messing with things, and ended up finding the o-ring on the aeromotive fuel rail had popped out a little, and was causing a decent leak. I ended up taking it all apart, and putting back together a couple times before I could get the o-ring to fit right. There was still a very small leak, but with the hand tools I had, I didn’t have much choice then to tighten it as much as I could, and hope for the best. Chad stayed on the phone with me several times helping with things to check, and also checked up on me every couple of hours to make sure I was staying awake and wasn’t having any more problems.
Two days after getting back, I started the car to let it warm up, and coolant started dumping onto the ground. I took the car to a local performance shop, Performance Driven, and had them look the car over. After about 10 minutes of having the car looked at, they come out to tell me that there were a ton of things left loose. My oil feed lines were hand tight, my timing components were loose, as well as other things. Wrong bolts were used, which cause some belt fray from the bolts rubbing against them.
Once the water pump was taken out, we found there was a plate installed, which wasn’t supposed to be there. The waterpump was installed on the block from English, so it was taken apart at MKC, and reinstalled with the adapter plate.
Aaron at ER spent a great amount of time with Dave at PD, and helped get everything back together. There was a bit of confusion about the motor, as the block was not painted, which caused skepticism. But, everything was figured out, and I just happened to get a block that didn’t get painted. ER got a new modified waterpump right out to me, and PD got the belts/bolts replaced, and got everything back together. I would not think twice about dealing with ER. They are widely respected on these forums, and I know from personal experience.
MKC paid for the work, and admitted after investigating around the shop they were indeed at fault.
After getting the car back, it shut off while driving. I’ve replaced the fuel pump and cam sensor, checked all fuses, and still have nothing. So, the car is getting ready to go back to the shop, and that’s where I am now. I believe it is the crank sensor.
Long story short, my luck sucks. I’ve been through hell with this car, spent every last bit of money, and still can’t enjoy it.
Last edited by NickieBlaine; Jan 14, 2011 at 08:27 PM.
What a nightmare...this MKC shop is showing some good business ethic however, reimbursing you for flights and paying for their mistakes to be fixed at another shop. That's a long road you've traveled so far, hopefully everything gets sorted out soon...dont give up
I'm not giving up on this car by any means, but you could definitely say I am far less driven after going through all this. Many have told me just to sell it, and start over. I've made it this far, so I'm hoping the worst is behind me, and things will look better this next year.
Progress will be slow as I'm trying to finish my finance degree, and money is now very short, but this car will be doing its thing here shortly
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Hmm. Well I thought this was a review of the shops I worked with, but I guess not.
As soon as I get my books paid for I'll have the car back in the shop and hopefully have it back within the next two weeks.
As soon as I get my books paid for I'll have the car back in the shop and hopefully have it back within the next two weeks.
