A warning for anyone buying engine in the US...

weairy · 13-09-2011, 11:03 PM

Hi guys,

A heads-up for anyone who's considering buying an engine cheap out of the States.

We bought a race engine from FastCo Auto in the US (remember the name!). Paid $8,000 for it, seemed to be the way to go. Alloy heads, lightweight crank, 70s style brass block, roller cam/rockers, QuickFlow carbi, Edelbrock alloy manifold, American anti-slosh baffled sump, Mallory/MSD ignition setup. Basically all the nice bits. Hit the dyno and they said they came up with 420hp and 400ft/lb of torque. Great.

Well, we got the engine here after a huge delay and found it was the prettiest little engine we've ever seen, thought it'd be great.

Well, after 2 events in the off-roading, we pulled the engine down. Found the block was cracked (in a way that it would have been prior to machining in the first place), the crank was twisted, the manifold had been fitted wrong and didn't fit tight against the heads and block where it had been decked (which previously had caused a huge vacuum leak and oil pressure issue before it went on the dyno in the states), Pro-Comp heads with two different types of valves and non-matching pushrods, the dizzy had been bastardized to compensate for the failed manifold fitting, the carby was useless and the so-called American sump split in three places and had "Made In China" stamped on it. The ring gaps were something like 40thou instead of 16 and the block had been machined out to 50thou instead of 30thou as quoted. So after a total of about 500km, the engine was a throw-away job.

Tried to sort these issues out with the engine builder only to recieve no replies and no help at all. Ended up building an engine with our trusted local mechanic for a very modest price of around $9k which pumped out 500hp/500ftlb of torque with fuel injection and everything fitting how it should.

In summary, do NOT trust FastCo Auto to build you a race engine. They'll take your money, send you a lemon and then stonewall you at every turn.

/endrant.

gcg2503 · 13-09-2011, 11:23 PM

Was it $8k landed with duties and gst or $8k for the engine alone?

pottery beige · 13-09-2011, 11:37 PM

well all i can say is.. buy local.. cheaper is not always better ey.....

weairy · 14-09-2011, 12:05 AM

8k landed. And at the time, we'd just sold a car with a motor that cost us about 15k to build with less on it and less power than what they quoted, so we took a punt, seeing as we'd hear good reports all round. It's all good and well to say shop local, but where we live, shopping local means driving it to Melbourne and hoping you find someone who actually knows what we want.

gcg2503 · 14-09-2011, 12:07 AM

O'Brien AMS would be close to you surely?

OzJavelin · 14-09-2011, 08:51 AM

Years ago a mate bought a Pontiac with a 421 SD (Tri-power) engine which was supposedly rebuilt by reputable Dandenong (Melbourne) engine builder .. reciepts included. From day one it leaked at the rear seal .. but that was past the warrarnty period (it was never actually driven much after the rebuild). When it was pulled down to fix that by another builder they found the ArmaSteel crank was cracked almost its entire length, the block was also cracked and needed multiple sleeves .. and weirdly it had a mismatch of different types and grades of mains cap and big-end bolts. It was junk .. so much that he located another rare virgin 421 block and crank ..... local ain't always better.

Stefan · 14-09-2011, 08:59 AM

^^^^^ Yes, but with local I can go back to his workshop and politely expain why it is in heis best interest to rectify the situation.

Hard to do when they are on the otherside of the world.

2011G6E · 14-09-2011, 09:14 AM

This sort of thing has been going on as long as I can remember. Back in 1982 when I started driving and hanging around the main street of Bundaberg chucking laps with everyone else, one of the better cars in town was a very nice bright yellow XD sedan with "Interceptor" across the rear spoiler. It was a 351 and four speed and went damn hard.

The guy took it off the road and sent the 351 off to Brisbane to some mob to get work done to it...a full rebuild to "full race" standards...$5000 worth of work. Keep in mind, this was 1982...I was taking home $200 a week working on a farm and that wasn't a bad wage back then, so it was a massive investment in an engine.
So, later on, his "full race" 351 turned up, and he came up the street and showed us polaroids of it in it's transport crate. It looked beautiful. When he finally came up town with it, it looked even better in the car...wonderful deep metallic engine paint, chrome valve covers, polished inlet manifold with a polished and detailed four barrel Holley on it, chrome water pump housing, big Mallory twin point dizzy, big spark plug leads, and many other details. It looked worth every penny.
He admitted that the idle was a bit of an issue...it was very lumpy...more lumpy than you'd expect, and wouldn't idle below about 1200rpm. It sucked fuel like there was a hole in the tank, and didn't "feel" to have the power of his old engine.

Finally he took it to a mechanic and they couldn't figure out what was going on, at first anyway, until they looked deeper.
They looked at the carby first, and found it was a massive 850 double pumper jetted waaaaay wrong. Maybe you could get away with that carb on something "full race" they thought, so they tried to tune it in. No deal, still ran like a pig. They checked the twin point dizzy (a nightmare to try and tune if you don't know what you're doing) and eventually got it right, but still ran rough.
Whipped off the valve covers and discovered that the "roller rockers" were in fact dirty looking old pressed steel standard rockers. This made them look deeper.
They bit the bullet and whipped out the engine, and to his horror found it was completely standard inside, still with old greasy oil deposits in it apparently, and all they had done was fit a huge full race cam, dressed up the engine nicely, slapped on the manifold, dizzy, Holley and extractors, and sent it back...and charged him $5000.
Last I heard way back then, he was going through small claims about it...no idea how it turned out, but I did hear he got his money back.

Sounds like some places are keeping up the tradition...

THE CADBURY KID · 14-09-2011, 11:51 AM

The old dulux rebuild,boss made me do a few of those on old gensets when i was an apprentice.

2011G6E · 14-09-2011, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FREE02

The old dulux rebuild,boss made me do a few of those on old gensets when i was an apprentice.

"Dulux Rebuild"...good one!!!

weairy · 14-09-2011, 12:59 PM

It just annoyed us that they lied through their teeth and overlooked simple things like getting the manifold to sit right. The other reason we sourced from the US was that these guys said they had a lot of experience with building Baja type motors. Which in our gamewould be ideal, as a drag engine wouldnt have the torque or survivability we required to compete.

pottery beige · 14-09-2011, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weairy

It just annoyed us that they lied through their teeth and overlooked simple things like getting the manifold to sit right. The other reason we sourced from the US was that these guys said they had a lot of experience with building Baja type motors. Which in our gamewould be ideal, as a drag engine wouldnt have the torque or survivability we required to compete.

REMACS at Willaston in SA do a fair bit of machining for one of the top sprintcar engine builders... speak to them, no bs straight up guys and quality work...

THE CADBURY KID · 14-09-2011, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

"Dulux Rebuild"...good one!!!

Learned all kind of funny old sayings from my bosses im glad you liked it

jpd80 · 14-09-2011, 05:11 PM

Do we have a sticky thread with reputable engine builders and transmission specialists?

**Burnout** · 14-09-2011, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpd80

Do we have a sticky thread with reputable engine builders and transmission specialists?

Not unless you would want to spend a whole lot of time in Court.......

SteveJH · 14-09-2011, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burnout

Not unless you would want to spend a whole lot of time in Court.......

No reason why there couldn't be a thread where members post who they've had a positive or negative experience with?

A mod or the OP could continually update the initial post with links to posts (both positive and negative) about specific workshops.

Since AFF wouldn't be making the recommendation (or otherwise) but rather just providing a place where people can talk about their experiences, I don't see how anyone could go to court?

weairy · 14-09-2011, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pottery beige

REMACS at Willaston in SA do a fair bit of machining for one of the top sprintcar engine builders... speak to them, no bs straight up guys and quality work...

We've gotten our local mechanic to build us an engine. Because he's borderline OCD and a perfectionist, the thing is amazing. Hand built, hand filed rings, you can sit a beer can on the air cleaner and not rattle it off its that smooth.

But I do agree with the sticky about engine builders/tranny builders. Being a free-speech country there shouldn't be any legal problems, really not much different to posting issues had with cars.

Bad Bird · 15-09-2011, 10:06 AM

I hate to break it to you, but we do not have the right to free speech in this country.

SteveJH · 15-09-2011, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bad Bird

I hate to break it to you, but we do not have the right to free speech in this country.

In this country we don't have the "right" to do many things we take for granted. :P

**ebxr8240** · 15-09-2011, 05:37 PM

That why they are leaving and coming here...
Ooops I did...Lol...

351ciofgrunt · 15-09-2011, 07:08 PM

Procomp heads....that should have been your warning right there

**ebxr8240** · 15-09-2011, 08:36 PM

Plenty of good companies in U.S..
MMR for one..http://www.modularmustangracing.com/
I would go through companies like Summit or Jegs. There buying power is greater and do have good warranty..
http://www.summitracing.com/search/P...?Ns=Rank%7cAsc

I would check through forums like Corral, Yellow bullet, turbo forums etc
Any bad stories gets around real quick..
I would post your grief there too...

RAPID_BA · 15-09-2011, 11:15 PM

A friend of mine in the early 90s spent $11k on a built motor for vn v8 and it was supposed to rev to 7500rpm and have 500hp. He blew the motor in a few runs and it was stripped down as he couldn't get it to that builder. Stock internals just big cam and ridiculous revs.

mickyyyy · 15-09-2011, 11:36 PM

Very sad to hear to what has happened to your engine and a lesson for everyone to do plenty of research of business your dealing with.

There are a few good engine builders in the USA that currently send engines and parts to Australia

Fordstrokers.com
cnc-motorsports.com

Pedro · 16-09-2011, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FREE02

Learned all kind of funny old sayings from my bosses im glad you liked it

Another old saying was "oil rag tune up".
This meant that the valve covers and anything else that had grime on it had been cleaned off with an oil rag and the owner then charged for a tune up.

Jimmyd · 16-09-2011, 09:11 AM

Ever since my first horror story of getting a 'reputable builder' to build me an engine in the eighties I have build my own engines - I know what goes in them and if something fails it no ones fault but my own............

burnz · 16-09-2011, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weairy

Hi guys,

A heads-up for anyone who's considering buying an engine cheap out of the States.

We bought a race engine from FastCo Auto in the US (remember the name!). Paid $8,000 for it, seemed to be the way to go. Alloy heads, lightweight crank, 70s style brass block, roller cam/rockers, QuickFlow carbi, Edelbrock alloy manifold, American anti-slosh baffled sump, Mallory/MSD ignition setup. Basically all the nice bits. Hit the dyno and they said they came up with 420hp and 400ft/lb of torque. Great.

Well, we got the engine here after a huge delay and found it was the prettiest little engine we've ever seen, thought it'd be great.

Well, after 2 events in the off-roading, we pulled the engine down. Found the block was cracked (in a way that it would have been prior to machining in the first place), the crank was twisted, the manifold had been fitted wrong and didn't fit tight against the heads and block where it had been decked (which previously had caused a huge vacuum leak and oil pressure issue before it went on the dyno in the states), Pro-Comp heads with two different types of valves and non-matching pushrods, the dizzy had been bastardized to compensate for the failed manifold fitting, the carby was useless and the so-called American sump split in three places and had "Made In China" stamped on it. The ring gaps were something like 40thou instead of 16 and the block had been machined out to 50thou instead of 30thou as quoted. So after a total of about 500km, the engine was a throw-away job.

Tried to sort these issues out with the engine builder only to recieve no replies and no help at all. Ended up building an engine with our trusted local mechanic for a very modest price of around $9k which pumped out 500hp/500ftlb of torque with fuel injection and everything fitting how it should.

In summary, do NOT trust FastCo Auto to build you a race engine. They'll take your money, send you a lemon and then stonewall you at every turn.

/endrant.

you can use V8sc teams to build your engine..
GRM, for one.
perkins engineering, another.

their would be more that i know of, but they cant afford bad press so lees chance of being stiffed..

jcxr · 16-09-2011, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

"Dulux Rebuild"...good one!!!

Ha Ha, we used to rebuild VW engines in 5 minutes.
A can of " Rings and Bearings " .

rosco426 · 16-09-2011, 10:12 AM

God I've heard some horror stories from my engine builder, that make me wet myself laughing. It'll cost me a bit more to get it done it through him but at least I know it'll get done once and correctly.

This engine builder in Dandenong, I've heard their engines go like a drowned eagle ... haha.