Screwed Over & Picking Up the Pieces: My 1000hp 5th Gen Rebuild [COTW 8/31/15]

[Blk-Ice]

Any reason you didnt go with LMR...just curious? They are a great group of guys and they do a lot of high HP builds on Foreign Super cars and Domestics.

[Cart7381]

All I can say is WTF!

[hammdo]

Originally Posted by Dmpsix

Yeah but you know what, you're a smart guy and a really patient one too.

It was pretty awesome to see your response, I'm located in SATX so I feel for you being a local Texas guy. It's sad to see what happened to your car when there really are soooo many solid shops out there.

I hope everything goes well for you though! Looking forward to this beast!

You should nickname your car Phoenix... risen from the ashes!

+1 from a fellow Texan. Damn shame. Best of luck and keep us posted...

-Don

[hazy]

Originally Posted by mariojmoe

Are they in west houston off highway 6?

there is another shop with a 'less-than-stellar' reputation over off 6, though - ARD, can't recall the guys name but they're right around the w. little york/hwy 6 area north of 10

[hazy]

wowowowowowow.

I tried to keep my opinions to myself in the other threads to let everyone calm down and get their respective sides of the story out there.

These pictures are all that was needed. That is seriously shoddy work, and considering the $$ you have already into this, I think you should seriously look at all available options to recoup some of this. HOpefully folks looking around will see all of this.

Perhaps you should also post this on some other performance sites. I know that they are not a 'camaro only' shop, so folks on the vette forums, and mustang forums should also be aware of this.

Good luck. I hope you'll keep us updated as to how all of this works out.

[jayno20]

This kind of stuff always makes me sick to my stomach. I have had a few cars that I put a good bit of custom work into (no where near this much, but still a good bit) and arrived to the shop doing it only to be disappointed with their "work."

Anytime that happened I always got the same disgusted/sick feeling because they literally made it worse than it was when it went in.

To spend this amount of money and have that hack job returned to you? I would literally be throwing up. It is so unfortunate that places like this exist. It really makes it extremely hard to get work done right. You pay that much money and all you're asking for is to have it done correctly.... I'll never understand why that is so hard for some places to get.

Quick story to justify everything else I typed... I had a shop put 4 tires on one of my previous cars for me and while doing so they scratched a ring into every one of my rims so needless to say I was mad. When I returned the guy who put them on literally told me there wasn't shit he could do for me and that if I want tires put on and to not scratch the rims I have to specifically ask for my rims not to be scratched.... I was blown away... I said "why the hell can't you guys just ASSUME I don't want my rims scratched instead of assuming I do?" The most ridiculous thing I ever heard...

When something needs done on my car that I can't do myself I have knots in my stomach knowing that I have to trust the possible moron to do it right and not mess everything up....

TLDR: I feel your pain, OP and it sucks that anyone has to go through that.

[lcrosss]

Thanks, guys.. appreciate the support!

Well, the heads are screwed. Someone hogged them out with a sanding drum, and the valve train is not what's supposed to be in there. There goes more money..

[t&t moyer]

Holy f'ing hack job!!!!! It makes me sick to see this kind of stuff.

OP, I hope you sort things and good luck.

[lcrosss]

Oh.. You guys think it was bad before? The engine was torn down today.. Let's just say that on top of what FAST Automotive did, ARD completely screwed us on this engine. I have tons of pics to post and will do so later. This is complete bull shit, and I'm pissed!

[mlee]

Originally Posted by lcrosss

Oh.. You guys think it was bad before? The engine was torn down today.. Let's just say that on top of what FAST Automotive did, ARD completely screwed us on this engine. I have tons of pics to post and will do so later. This is complete bull shit, and I'm pissed!

Can't say I'm surprised. ARD is a horrible shop. Worst in Houston. Have pics as well.

Sure wish we would have talked about shops before you started this build.

[lcrosss]

It's a hard (and expensive) lesson to learn. That's for damn sure! :(

[Sales @ CAI Inc]

Wow man, I really hope you get it all worked out, sounds like a horrible situation. I think the hair tie tells us everything we need to know. :/

[lcrosss]

Ok.. You guys ready for this? Here's the damage from improper engine assembly at ARD, and crappy tuning from Fast Automotive. More pics and info from the shop working on the car:


Well Larry, it doesn't look good. We got the engine out of the car and torn down. Given the state of everything up to this point, I can't say that I'm surprised. There is major damage throughout.

As discussed previously, the heads were left largely stock, with some drum sanding/hogging out of the intake ports. Guides, valves, chambers, and exhaust ports are completely stock. The intake port work is questionable at best; showing only modest gains (15-18cfm at .500"+ lift). That in and of itself is "fix-able", however, the heads showed 20+cfm losses in the low lift flow area (.100" to .300" or so) on the intake side. This means that someone hogged the port out, and made it lazy at low lift. This is why the car is a dog and lazier than it should really be, even with the Procharger.

The head gaskets show signs of scouring, due to block and head flex. This is what caused the engine to push coolant. As we discussed, to stock LS3 block, and stock 823 castings with standard size studs is not adequate for 1000+whp.

As we dug deeper into the engine, we found some very disturbing things. First off, when we turned the engine over on the stand, we heard some clunking and banging around. "Interesting", my shop manager said. We pulled the pan, and sitting on the baffle was a used OEM spark plug, and a m6 (10mm hex head) bolt. Flipped it right side up, and they clunked into the pan. Also, in the pic, you can see a piece of plastic wedged into the oil pickup tube/screen area. This looks like a piece of a stock guide or something.. It's mangled and mashed into the pickup. I'm really at a loss for words here:





Do you see that bolt above? Yeah, that's supposed to be here:


That's your oil pickup tube, where it connects to your oil pump. There is an o-ring in there, but anyone who's ever built an LS engine will tell you that the o-ring seal at this juncture is critical. Even the slightest gap or leak will cause air to get sucked into the pump. This causes cavitation, and a loss in oil pressure. The bad part, is that you still make SOME oil pressure. So, it doesn't set off a warning light. But, it's not ENOUGH pressure when you start trying to drive the car or make any meaningful amount of power.

The end result is oil starvation, and damage to components. Unfortunately, damage occurred to almost every rod bearing, and 2 of the 4 sets of rod journals on your crank were damaged:



Unfortunately, the crank is damaged. It's possible to turn it to a smaller size, but I'm hesitant to do this when we're trying to make over 1000hp.

Also, in your notes, you said you paid almost 3K for a nice billet crank? Well, unfortunately, you didn't get what you paid for. This is a Callies Comp Star crankshaft, which is an 850.00 crank. It would probably hold 1000whp for a while, but it's not designed for this power level for sure, and definitely not what you paid for.

Moving on to the piston damage. The car runs so rich, that it's washing the oil out of the bore. It's diluting the fuel enough so that your E85 is turning the oil into something the consistency of chocolate milk. Inadequate lubrication in the bore has caused the thermal overload in the skirt area of the piston(s). This causes the skirts to "grow" in size. When this happens, it makes contact with the bore(s). As a result, galling and abnormal wear occurs. You can see a few small black streaks in the aluminum where it got very hot and scorched the skirt in the pic below. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea. We measured wear of .008" in some areas of the skirt. The worst piston measured .010" out of spec from galling. As a result, these pistons are not reusable:



The block will need a good honing, at the very least to clear this up:



In summary, I am appalled by the level of incompetency here, Larry. On all level, this car is a complete disaster. I cannot make the decisions for you, but I feel that you need to go after the folks that did this. At the least, this needs to be spammed on every car forum you can think of, so that no one else has to go through what you guys went through.

We'll get it fixed, and we'll continue to document everything for you.

[lcrosss]

Originally Posted by Sales @ CAI Inc

Wow man, I really hope you get it all worked out, sounds like a horrible situation. I think the hair tie tells us everything we need to know. :/

Quite telling.. isn't it? lol

We've actually filed a complaint with the credit card company, and we've won. So, the money will be coming back to us from Fast Automotive. I'm not even sure if ARD is in business anymore.