This evening I was tearing down my old 350 engine. A friend and I were working on this, planning to put this in his '84 Bonneville, after putting in a new camshaft to liven it up, and decking the block to raise the compression. I had this motor built by a local machine shop back in May '99, at the recommendation of my neighbor who had his '69 vette's motor rebuilt there. When I removed the motor from my car, this was the first time it was out of the car and taken apart, and it had 212,105 miles on it. Upon getting the motor back from the machine shop and re-installing it, which was supposed to be a "mild performance" rebuild, with 9.5:1 TRW hypers, headers, "mild performance cam", poston intake, carter AFB, stock TH350 and stock 2.73 posi rear, ran a best of 15.83@89, trapping one MPH better than my brother's stock 150K mile 350 2bbl w/headers, TH350/2.56 open rear skylark, with about 3 MPG less. I put about 20,000 miles on this engine and about 50 1/4 passes before I got fed up with it and put in a 455 this year. I thought all that was wrong was pistons installed "in the hole" a good bit, and a mis-matched cam. Once I opened it up I found alot more! The pistons were REALLY down in the hole, just by looking at it I'd be suprised if it had 7.5:1 compression..... No wonder it never knocked, even on 87 octane! I pulled out the lifters, and found one was collapsed, and another that was on its way to collapsing (had an oblong dimple in the bottom). I pulled the pan, and found lots of metal shavings in there. Now I was starting to get worried. After pulling the pan, I pulled the pickup and windage tray, and then pulled the #2 main cap. Agh! COPPER! Then I pop the bearing insert out and look at it, to see what cheap brand it was. No brand listed, just the date (12-97) and the size.... STD! Standard?!?!?!?!??!? Who uses standard size bearings and doesn't turn the crank on a motor with 212,000 miles!?!?!?!?!? At that point I came in and wrote this message. I was sick of bad suprises for the evening. Does anyone else think this is a joke of a rebuild and that I was ripped off by this place? I guess they figured that I would prob wreck the car or sell it before their POS rebuild broke.... I'm tempted to stop in there tomorrow after work and give these clowns an earfull....... As a side note, my neighbor, who did an original resto on a '66 toronado and had his engine "built" at the same shop in 2001, had to have his Olds 425 rebuilt twice before they got it right, the first time the motor seized after about 150 miles, and this motor, with 75 more cubes, is even weaker than my 350, it can't even chirp the tires, whereas the stock motors could put them up in smoke! Sorry for the length guys, just venting these wonderful frustrations!!
That's cool Scott. It just ain't right man. I mean you bring your motor to a "machinist". What is this guy, someone who read a couple of books. Is he on drugs or what? If I spent a large amount of time and money on something, trusting another persons work and they can't even do things right. Man I would go over there in a hurry a start raising some serious:blast: . I've seen and dealt with people like this and believe me Scott I blew my top too!:stmad: Try to be nice Marc
Scott, I'm heading down to my machinist's tonight. I've never used this guy before (1st rebuild in this city). I used to be over cautious with machinists, some good experiences may have made me soft. I'll be on my guard again now that I read this. The first shop I went to I asked `em point blank "You gonna be here in 3 years if I have to tear this thing apart?". These jerks seem to think I *won't* show up on thier home doorstep again.
