Motor do over!
 

Well, I knew it was a matter of time before I would have to yank the piece of crap out! So called self proclaimed pro engine builder did'nt get this one right, I would love to take it back to him and tell him to fix it. But I don't have any confidence in his ability to get it right. The motor smoked pretty bad on off throttle and down shifting, leaked oil from the back side of the block(wasted my clutch), and the valve train sounded like a singer sewing machine. I kept driving it hoping the rings might seat and I would only have to pull the tranny. And then it started falling on its face, losing boost and power mean while fouling plugs from the blow by. Well when I told the engine builder the problems, he had several excuses such as the afr heads he ordered are junk and the valve seals they used are junk and the valves they use are junk(recommended by him). He did'nt show any interest in getting to the bottom of all this and figuring out what was wrong.

Started tearing things down today and draining the fluids, the oil did'nt look bad. While removing the headers I saw something sticking out of the oil drain and turned out to be part of my Milodon diamond windage screen. can't wait to pull the pan now and see what happened.

And yeah I did a few tests, compression pressures and seemed decent and equal. Leak down test showed some different results, probably a ring problem. I'm going to have someone else tear it apart and I'll probably have them fix it.

Good things from this: I'll beable to really clean the engine bay now! I'm looking to find a better flowing intake and add methanol injection too.

Jack

What a bummer Jack!! How many miles are on it?
Won't any Vortech style intake work? I think the trouble of finding a new intake will be worth it!! Best of luck with the rebuild! :thumbsup:

Wow that sucks. You have a gorgeous Camaro. Good luck with rebuild.

As far as his comment on AFR heads being junk, that is ridiculous.

Jack that sucks! lol Sorry to hear it. Hope it's up and running sooner than later.

:cheers:

Jack, do you know what rings he used in the build?

Jody

It's all good Jack. You built a solid piece but your engine builder wasn't up to your level. This time it will be right and on par with the car.

He's got plasma moly rings marked on the build sheet at $120.00

Just around 1300 miles. The heads are standard not vortech, but the Afr 210cc. So finding an intake that will match a felpro 1206. First fuel injection makes a tpi style that will go that big, t.p.i.s., Edelbrock, Holley stealth, and accel won't. I could go with a Hogan, but money is'nt flowing like it was.

I think World products intake fits a 1206 gasket. In the test by CHP it made the most power of their test. I think they make the intake already set up for EFI.

I'm looking to stay with a plenum style intake.

LMK on the MiniRam

OOTB, fully assembled AFR heads really aren't all that spectacular. They use crap crap components, and if you trust their supplied springs and don't check the installed height; you're pitching a tent on valvetrain geometry disaster. Their castings are superb, but you really need to take the time after the fact and either have them professionally setup, or do it yourself.


Just what I've heard from Jay Allen @ Camshaft Innovations :_paranoid

Well be checkin everything this time around, you can be sure of that!

i have installed a pair of TPIS prepared afr heads ane they werent that wonderfull.. they changed the plug angle and the weld plug came out of one of the old plug holes.. when i sent pictures they claimed to eb able to see from the tan color of the combustion chambers that the timomg was wrong so they refused to exchange them.. so ill never buy AFR again...

the issues with your motor sounds like the ring fit was off or the bores were too smooth... and perhaps he neglected to grease the rear seal prior to instalation..

anyway, good luck with the rebuild

The motor has been tore down, so here's a list of the damage: The windage screen was trashed with about 8 pieces in the bottom of the pan. Turned out that when the pan was bolted on it shoved it up into the rods. The oil pump was studed but it hung up on the main stud and was'nt seating properly, probably lost some pressure and flow. The worst being the piston to bore clearance, instead of boring the cylinders .30 over he went .33 and the piston rocked back and forth scoring the piston skirts and cylinder walls. Not to mention the extra load the rings received. He also decked the block so that the piston came out of the hole .010 raising the compression on my blower motor, would of thought .010-.020 in the hole would of been better for the compression.

The heads checked out fine, could see the results of all the blow by, but valve and guides are fine.

So now I have 8 Ross pistons that might as well be paper weights and a block I don't know if we can salvage. I'm going to see the builder tommorow, but don't expect much from him. He probably won't be happy to here someone else tore it down, but I can't imagine him admitting to the damage. Problem is that if after seeing all the things that were wrong even if he offered to fix it, I would'nt want to take the chance of going through this in another 1000 or so miles!! we'll see how tommorow goes!

Good luck Jack. I hope he owns up to it and atleast offers some part replacement.

That sucks Jack. The good news is, the motor will be tight and run right this time. I can only imagine what it was like to have such a fantastic car and such a messed up motor. Must of been a real buzz kill.

wow that is a bummer. sorry to hear....

small claims possibly with the guy if he won't agree to any compensation?

Sorry guys I got to vent:mad: Went yesterday and spoke with the engine builder, went exactly as expected he blamed everything but himself. He told me the piston scuff on the skirts and above the rings were from metal from the windage screen coming apart. The screen failed from bad welding and metal fatigue. At one point he said the motor was made in Mexico and could have some soft alloys spots. In the closing after about two hours of rambling, he told me to take the piston to Total Seal and talk to them about it. They are only a couple of miles from the house, so I did today.

The guys at total Seal were great, Ed Law one of the sales tech was glad to help. Basically He and others stated the obvious, which looked to be too much piston to wall clearance. So Ed called Pat Oneill at Ross and discussed the piston specs and bores. The pistons are 4.025 and the cylinders are 4.033 with a .008 clearance. Pat recommended a .006 for my application(blown street) Ed even offered to help me out on another set of rings as I was leaving, cool guys.:thumbsup:

So now I call Timm the builder and tell him what the manufactures said and his reply was "Did you take them the Block?" and "It is Obvious the other shop I took the motor to does'nt know how to read a bore guage." Every other person in the trade can look at the piston and tell what happened.
So obviously the conversation went nowhere and I said my peace and hung up on the idiot!

By the way for you Phx guys here's the name of the shop is Tuf-Enuf Performance Engines and the builders name is Timm Jurancie. I can strongly recommend not wasting your time or money with him!! I think he mainly builds boat motors now, probably burnt to many customers in the car related scene. I think he's still writing tech for Hot Boat Magazine, maybe I should post a question or two to the mag, huh?

Thanks for letting me vent!:D

That really sucks Jack. Not enough accountability in this and many industries.

Small claims is free and pretty easy to do. Can't hurt!

Waste of time....sooner he's out of your life the better.

If we are talking thousands in damages like I imagine here, I don't let stuff like that go easily.... especially if it takes very little time to put some documents together and show up for small claims.

This isn't cut and dry like some things. To many variables.

Absolutely agree. But maybe the guy doesn't take the time to show up to court (happens VERY often) and a judgment is awarded to the plaintiff. Like I said, it doesn't take a lot of time and effort to potentially get a judgment in your favor for several thousand dollars. Cost/benefit pencils out pretty nicely.... it's worth a shot IMO.

Good luck with whatever you route you take, Jack. It's a raw deal no matter how you slice it.

Boys.....get a rope.

I'll send the rope its an old anchor line ( kind of fitting don't you think ) If you can, the small claims court sound good . If someone else is thinking of using him and checks him with the state he will be listed. So they will know the problems he caused.

****ty deal Jack, I kind of agree with Todd walk away and cut your losses. :mad:

Here's a few pics of damage, please feel free to let me know if you think this is a result of product failure!! My buddy who referred me to this guy just dropped off his Olds 445 to be done over, after all that I told him was done to mine. He told me that after talking to the builder, that Timm did everything right and that I'm wrong! He has'nt seen the damage so I'm emailing these photo's to him now.

Who doesn't turn over an engine after installing a windage tray? Wow..... All that debris getting flung up on your pistons probably caused the wear. It's not like it could pass through the oil pump and be caught by the filter. It must of sounded like hell when you fired it?

All the screen debris seemed to stay out of everything, none show any signs of being hit and they all fit like a puzzle in the hole. The outer structure was hit so much that the rear mount snapped and the screen fell apart. I beleive the screen came apart at the end and was'nt flopping around, would of noticed it when I changed the oil not to long ago. As far as it being loud, remember there is the blower making some noise also. It really sounded like valve train noise and then I started to here it on shut down.

I am no expert by any stretch, and the fact that I can see damage to the tray from rod impact should make it clear that it's not a case of "product failure". As for the pistons, I had a small block done for me several years ago that was also over bored to .034, not .030. When it was torn down my slugs had the same kind of markings on the skirts. I had shown a few of them to other machine shops and asked what causes that, they all told me it was from rocking in the bore. Again, not product failure. This guy shouldn't be allowed to own tools.
Best of luck getting it resolved.

Jack I am so sorry. Those pictures make me want to puke. :wow:


Wayne....send the anchor along with that line. I've got a new plan.

progress!
 

Well guys its been a slow and brutal process, but soon to be done again. Its hard to spend money on the car, which has slowed the process even more. I decided to just update a few things due to the amount of money it was going to take to get the short block back up to snuff, considered a few different intake options and ended up just updating the Tpi setup with a Big mouth TPIS intake and Slp siamesed runners. I ported the heck out of both shortening the runners about 3" and porting the intake to a Felpro 1206. Then I had to file the plenum to match the runner surfaces and blend together. Brushed the runners and chevrolet lettering on the valve covers and then clear powder coated everything. also made a new throttle body cover to clean it up to blend with the plenum. The short block required a new block, new pistons and few new items total of about 2500 bucks in parts. We splayed the block and studed the heads this time and also went with cometic head gaskets.

Started and drove today
 

Well new engine sounds nothing like the first one, perfect!

http://www.hubgarage.com/mygarage/ja...photos/2053896

http://www.hubgarage.com/mygarage/ja...photos/2053820

The shot of your engine bay looks KILLER!!!
Glad to hear things are working out.:cheers:

Looks great. Glad to see you have it back together

Very nice looking engine bay. Glad to hear that you now have an engine that fits with the rest of the car.

Just checked out your Hub Garage photos. Beautiful car and motor!

Glad to hear it Jack!

Your engine bay looks killer!! Very nice. Nice and clean.
Enjoy that bad boy.:thumbsup: :cheers: