Thank you for the rare individual comment. I like that. :unibrow:

Oh and you mean this little gem? I've put 30k miles on it in a little over 2 years. It gets it done. :thumbsup:

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps43f1e0e2.jpg

:wow: It just hurts that you left me off the list. :(

I only left you off the list because I figured you already had one of those cool jackets, unlike the rest of us, you're, uh... very openly Ford.

I'll make sure to put you on the list.

Just can't stop :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I found out this week that Rob does own TWO Corvettes. :_paranoid

Sorry Rob.

Rob owns TWO Corvettes? There is no way he would go that way. I refuse to believe it. In our community that is the equivalent of the Larry Craig political scandal. Let me guess he only bought one of the 'Vettes because it has a "wide stance?"

Matt

Yeah I fear that will be the last secret Rob confides in me with.

OMG! really! <squealing like a valley girl>... that must set a world record..... for ....miniatures.

I'm going to bring this back up to post a rant. NEVER, ever do any work with Turn Key engines, ever. Today I went to get my PRC radiator flushed. When I heard back from the service shop they told me it had a small leak. Ok, no big deal, however they noticed that the cores had expanded. Hmm, couple that info with the fact that they blew my radiator cap, and I'm starting to see what happened. So basically, while under Turnkey's care to get dyno tuned they also destroyed my radiator in addition to ruining my engine, which they built for Rupp, and "freshened up" for him after about a thousand miles when it was pulled. They were the only shop to work on that engine. Never once did they offer to refund my dyno time. I would never ask them to eat the cost of an engine, even if they supposedly checked it out, but come on, when something breaks that badly under your care, you should do something about it. When they offered to help with my new build/rebuild I asked about a set of LS7 heads. They were going to charge me 2500 for a set of used ones coming off a customers car. For that money I could have bought the new LSX ones that the customer was swapping to. Really? Don't even get me started on another BOS customer's El Camino with a Turnkey engine.

So, for everyone out there building a car, and trying to save a little money along the way, don't. Save for what you want, or just bite the bullet and spend the money, because fixing things later costs twice as much, and takes twice as long.

Never liked that place...

It really sucks to hear your engine dilemma is ending up even worse. The thread on "how to get a deal on parts" spells it out just like you say. A deal is when your vendor stands behind the stuff they sell. When things sound to good to be true they usually aren't.:(

this shouldnt be taken lightly. Do it right do it light. Alot of people build their car to only have to rebuild it. Most of the time they end up running out of money and selling the car only to lose the reason why they started building the car to begin with.

plus this was the excuse i gave my wife to let me mini tub, dse subframe, rear quadralink and to purchase my forgelines. lol.

" honey would you rather me spend $1000 now and another $3800 later on rims or just spend the $3800 now?"

if that doesnt work i always use the

" honey im spending the money i had before i met you not our money " lol

Where's my jacket?

:rofl: I've been using the "but honey I sold other car parts to pay for these new car parts"

Sorry to hear Matt, another buddy of mine from this forum is having an issue with thier tune on his Turn-key crate motor.

That would be me. Car wont rev past 2000. Turn key said send them the ecm and tb. They said it had a break in lock which they removed. Got ecm back in car still same issue. Im just going to yank out the marine delphi and go oem ls wiring and ecm. I dont trust a 700hp motor with no o2 sensors.

I can't believe you have been able to pull that one off. I figured it would have been caught by the innate inner Asian accounting gene. I got that gene (well part of it) from my mom and every now and then I am horrified by these cars.

Transam, that is a really wise choice to just ditch the MEFI 4B while you can. I would, but that would open up an entirely new can of worms, and I just want to be driving my car again. The OLC is using a MEFI 4 as well, and I think it has proved that the computer can be reliable behind power, so long as you aren't using a crazy high power, high boost turbo motor, or anything else complicated. One last thing, if your motor puts out considerably less power than advertised, do something about it. My original LS2 from them was advertised as their "510hp" crate motor. Even after spending an additional 3k on better heads and cam with them, which they claimed would give me another 50hp it only made 430whp. Similarly, that El Camino that I was talking about is a 402 with a Kenne Bell on it, and it only made 520/540 on the chassis dyno. While I was unhappy with the power my LS2 made, I can believe that there is that much of a disparity in power readings if they are advertising gross horsepower. If the 402KB motor was mine though, I would be knocking down the door after dropping almost 25k for something that is supposed to make in excess of 700.

I have one last thing to rant about. First, I want to say, I understand that shops make mistakes, I also understand that sometimes things don't go as they should, and that not everything should be blamed on a shop. When we pay a shop to hot rod something, and experiment with parts, etc. there are certainly no guarantees on the outcome. This scenario is different though. When Turnkey put the heads and cam on the LS2 of mine, they somehow lost an o-ring shaped gasket that goes in the valley cover plate that caused all kinds of oil to shoot out of the cone shaped casting (used in displacement on demand vehicles) and get sucked up through the pcv tract. I only found this out when I was transferring parts from the LS2 to the 454. Which reminds me, when I pulled the valley cover plate off Rupp's 454 it only had one, yes ONE, of the eight gaskets in place. I only gave them the benefit of the doubt to tune my car because they had tuned it several times before. Looking back, that was an idiotic mistake on my part, but it probably wouldn't have mattered at that point anyway.

This does really suck. I thought Turn Key had a really good rep.

I am lucky. She admittedly did not get the math gene. I have it in our family. :unibrow:

Mine is the ls2 kenne belle supercharged engine, the guy i spoke with at turn key sounds nice enough,i overnighted the parts to them,didnt hear anything so i called a week later and he said he didnt have my phone number or email or contact info,even though i enclosed a printed piece of paper with all my info. The reason i would like to switch aside from the lack safety in the efi is nobody in my area wants to work with mefi,and the mefi burn is another investment on its own.Also if i go with gm wiring i can control my 4l60e using an oem ecm not the aftermarket controller it currently uses. Its my fault,i shoukd have done my research before i bought the set up. I wish you luck with your car:thumbsup:

FWIW I would definitely change out the MEFI 4 although at this point I'm sticking with it because the next step for me with the ECM is a big step. IF I were to be starting all over with a simple build I would probably stick with a GM piece.

IF you want to give the MEFI another chance, reach out to Mike Norris - he can steer you in the right direction.

That reminds me, Bob (I believe that is his name) who is the man behind the MEFI 4 Burn software is local to Southern California, and told me he would be really happy to work out a solid open-loop tune on my car. He would just tune as i drove around on the street. I remember Mike Norris speaking well of him, and I would have given him a shot after getting a baseline tune had the 454 not taken a dump.

Motec? :hail:

Matt...

For tuning.. take it to Westech.
After the experience i just had with them... i will only let Westech tune my car.
Ernie is the best of the best.

Shoot... i found out they tuned all 4 of Big Reds motors!!!
Ernie got my car feeling better than its ever felt.:thumbsup:

^^ What phillym5 said. :thumbsup:

Recently, I took my car there as well. Ernie is great. Trevor and I had a great time watching him tune the car.

My car has a MEFI 4B. No problem for Ernie. The numbers came back lower than those from TurnKey's dyno. However, he got a 3% increase in both HP and torque; 427rwhp & 434 torgue. More accurate. To a large degree, Ernie was also able to alleviate a backfire issue I had. Under load and stepping on the throttle hard in second gear at about 1,800rpm the car would backfire. My car is much more street friendly now.

Bryan, Josh, glad to hear you both had good experiences with Ernie at Westech. My initial plan was to have them dyno the LS7 454 when it was ready, but since I sent it up to Charlie and Austin at RPM in Santa Clarita, I feel compelled to let them tune it, since pretty much all they do is build and tune LS engines in 'Vettes, etc. Gregg has also had good results there, which gives me more confidence.

I trust they will do a much better job than Corey at Turnkey. If and/or when I throw the Jenvey ITB manifold on it will probably go to Bob or Ernie. Also, if something feels "off" I will take it Westech, or if it needs better street manners, I might send it to Bob at Mefi 4 Burn.

Motec or Cosworth. From a hardware standpoint I think that the Cosworth system is a "better" and "simpler" system than the Motec (since you need multiple components with the Motec setup) but I think that there is more knowledge and ability for the Motec parts.

When it rains, it pours...

I just got a call from Austin at RPM, which was both good and bad. It was good because at least I know they are way more on top of their sh** than anyone else I have dealt with so far. Apparently the machine shop which JR used (Total Performance) overbored the block to somewhere right around 4.186.5. Lovely, right? Both Wiseco and the ring manufacturer RPM uses agree that the bore size is slightly too big for the 4.181 piston which is one of the parts I was actually going to re-use. Now I need new custom pistons because nobody makes a 4.182 piston to stock on the shelf. :willy:

Now I am probably going have to drag my block back down from Santa Clarita, Total Performance which is a full day trip with LA traffic, just so that Total Performance can verify that it isn't right, then I get to spend another day driving it back up!

Starting to look more and more like I won't be making Del Mar after Thanksgiving.

You are snake bit
 

The Camaro is mad you are working on a Mustang.

Seriously, I feel for you man. Would it be easier to source another block?

That's what I'm saying, scratch that block for a quality short block set up.

5.3 at BOS.... You can be up and running by Sunday... Just saying.

Seriously - sorry about the run if bad luck. When it rains it pours...

Jeez Matt, what the heck is going on. Sorry about the string of bad luck your having. I was never crazy about turnkey. Hope everything works out for ya

that sucks but, most of the machinists I know won't bore a block without the pistons...is this a huge FUBAR on your machinist or do you have to eat it ?

x2 even when I was building Jetski motors the machinist wouldn't bore the cyls without pistons.:rolleyes:

JR took one piston down to the machine shop. He never checked all the pistons, although he wants to now. I asked him for four months to check the pistons and all he did was look at them...

Now he wants the block to look at to see if Total Performance made it to the specs he requested because he "thinks Charlie is the biggest hack in the industry." He will probably say that he doesn't know what the problem is and will tell me to just run a bigger ring.

I'm going to spend two days carrying the block around since I need to give him a chance to look at it (I had to pick it up because he was too busy, then went on vacation).

Somehow I have. Feeling this won't play out well...

Hate reading this stuff. :mad: Good luck going forward. :thumbsup:

That feeling is because it already hasn't.:(

For some reason I missed your post until just now. That 5.3 turned out some impressive numbers for a little motor. I still have my old LS2, and while it probably needs to be freshened up, getting new rings, etc. It still does run. I am kicking myself for not throwing it back in the car in March. I was told it wouldn't take long to get a new motor together, but between peoples' busy schedules, priorities, misinformation, and general idiocy it has become a mess. I cannot blame everyone involved in this process, some people have been great to work with and are honest about how they operate, and I'm sure I will work with them in the future, others... not so much.

Lesson learned today: Just about everyone out there knows the best way to do something, so just pick one person, or group that you feel you can trust, and put stock in what they have to say. Juggling techniques, and information on the best way to build an engine is like having too many cooks in the kitchen, only worse!

Lastly, I went up to RPM today to look at my pistons and block and I'm pleased at how professional and organized they are. They remind me a bit of the BOS crew, but with LS engines and Corvettes. They took the time to physically show me the size of the bores, explain the acceptable range in tolerances, and then pull up the data they had collected on their computer of each piston, and corresponding cylinder bore size.

At the end of the day I decided not to bring the engine block back down to San Diego. New expedited custom pistons from Ross are probably going to run in the $1600 range, if I had to guess, and while I would love to get that money back, I can just imagine what will unfold as two, maybe three parties argue over what is acceptable, and who is in the wrong. There is part of me who really wants to do a credit card dispute chargeback, but I'm not enough of a dick to do that.

Anyway, pistons are going to be ordered Monday, and expedited, and the engine will probably be ready Monday of next week. If all goes wrong it will take two weeks to put it back in, and then all I need is a tune. :lol:

Been there and done that - glad it looks like it's going to come together this week! Shame it has to be the hard way.

Wow, just got caught up on your thread Matt. Sorry to hear about the mess, but thank you for sharing these stories and your feedback on different shops. It definitely helps put things in perspective and gives me a little bit better clarity on how I want my ZL built and who I want building it.

I also just got caught up on your fastback Mustang build. Looks fantastic and I really admire your customizations and the labor you're putting into it yourself. It's going to be a great build also. Look forward to catching up with you soon. :thumbsup:

Chris,

Thanks for the kind words, and no problem about sharing a little information about shops. Recently, I've learned a lot about picking where to take work. I'm glad that my experiences might help others like yourself. What I have learned recently from visiting so many engine builders is that attitude and professionalism are two separate, but still related things that are now two of the most important indicators of where I will send work. Word of mouth and reputation are important, but there is still a certain amount of BS involved in hearing about someone's reputation. After this last fiasco, I would never commit to taking work to a shop I had not visited at least once first.

A lot of guys had recently mentioned having a Socal shop and garage tour since it seems like everyone has been taking their cars apart recently. We figured it would be fun to BS and catch up on what everyone has been up to lately. You interested?

Matt