Todd, what happened with your original shop?

If I could make a suggestion, i wouldnt be lookiing for the best price on something like engine bulding. I would be sending it to the best person for the job...period.

 

CJ-motorsports is building a couple engines right now. www.cj-motorsports.com

 

I would choose CJ or SGP...thats about it for right now.


Todd, what stage of the motor rebuild are at right now?

 

as far as what i know, the cylinders have been bored, the motor just needs to be balanced and reassembled...

i agree, the cheapest is not the best, i'm just trying to get an idea of how much one would charge to simply balance and assemble the block, ship it back to me and have my shop reassemble the heads and throw the motor back in...
the current machine shop here is pissing me off beyond belief, i want to have a back up plan if they give me the same bullsh!t response when i ask them how much longer to expect, "we'll get to it when we can"

i have expedited main studs, rods, paid for overnighting of the bearings to have this machine shop sit around with their thumb in their a$$!

charles: what do you think shipping would be if i sent my block to you? what do you think the turn around time would be?

my motor may very well be getting close to completion, i'll find out monday morning, but at this point, even if i have to pay shipping, i would feel better knwing that progress is being made!

TODD

 

I know its difficult, but try to be patient and work with what you have. Machine shops and egine buliding in general is a very slow and meticulous process...under the best of conditions. You cant expect a precise timeline from these guys.

 

I am having Light Speed Performance build up my motor right now. I am doing a custom SSR Twin Turbo kit, Light Speed Performance stage three race heads, AEBS 8.5 to 1 stroker kit, custom Light Speed Performance Exhaust, Tilton carbon/carbon triple disk clutch, and so on. Light Speed has installed and tuned Greddy and APS kits too. I know they have installed SC as well. They are also doing another motor build right now using the APS kit and fully building and assembling the motor.

 

Sharif, Todd and I have been more than patient. I realize that you don't know the full story so let me just give you an idea how long the machine shop has had my parts starting from the oldest to the most recent.

Block....2 months
Pistons/rods....1.5 months
New Crankshaft...1 month
ALL BEARINGS....3 weeks

I mean, they have had the block, pistons and rods for more than 1.5 months. This is ridiculus and to top it all off the set of lame excuses of why their not done is never ending. Only recently they figured out how to overcome some issue they were having on how to bore out our blocks. Todd and I are really fed up and are are willing to ship are block and internals to the two shops you mentioned. We will know by Monday what the latest excuse is why the blocks aren't done.

 

So they have had all of the parts for 3 weeks? It shouldnt take more than a few days to do the machining.

 

plan for my next motor rebuild (if ever):
negotiate the proce up front, let them know if they finish on time they will get a bonus of xxx amount of dollars...b ut on the flip side, given all parts are in, impress upon them the time issue, and set up some sort of money docking schedule for every day they go over their estimated date.
sharif:
i understand this shouldn't be rushed, but at this point that isn't the issue, the issue is that these guys don't know their a$$ from their elbow and they think it is ok to take their sweet time..
the satisfaction of shipping my block elsewhere and reduce the amount of funds i have to pay these idiots would be pricless!

 

If they can't figure out how to bore out the block I would be picking up my parts ASAP. What else can't they figure out??

 

that's actually worth asking a question about...
they said something about their machine used to bore out the cylinder ran into a problem because of the dynamics of this block..tell me, is there anything that POSSIBLY makes the block of a vq35 any different than any other block in reguards to boring of the cylinders..
i can't remember what they called it, but they said that the boring machine could not go straight through, they had to figure something else out...please comment

 

The only thing I can see them having a problem with is the step at the bottom of the bores .....that's what they are referring to.....but any shop with good equipment can get around that. A V6 is a V6....it's no different from a shop being able to do a V8. If they can't figure it out then I think you guys are wasting your time with them. Just my 2c.

 

EXACTLY!. Know I think you know where were coming from.

 

I was a "gage maker" machinist in Detroit for 10 years (paid my way through business night school).

I would guess that it would be very difficult for a machine shop to line up the boring machine so that the bores are absoulute true and parallel to the crankshaft....especially on a motor they have no experience with. Do they line up the block using the main journals? What is the tolerance capability of their machine?

Also, since this engine revs to over 7000 rpm, the importance of maintaining a specific tolerance must be very very high.

They may need to make a torque plate specifically for this engine. If it is steel, or a material significantly different in properties from the block, it could distort the block preventing a really good and true bore.

All of you should ONLY use someone who has done this on this engine!

 

too late...we'll know for next time

 

I asked my machine shop how they actually more the cylinders. He told me they dont take the entire .020 overbore in one big jump. He will rough bore each cylinder to like ,017 over, and then gradually switch stones until the finished bore is preceily within spec...top to bottom...while maintaing the required .003 clearance needed for the Arias pistons we are all using. It is a painstaking process to do correctly. If the machine shop rushes this process, there is the potential for disaster. After speaking to several good engine buidlers, I am a huge advocate of the trq plate. This alone, Todd, might be reason enough to send th engine to SGP.

 

again, too late
but, the update, as of like, 4:00, today, the blocks are bored and balanced...tomorrow they will begin to assemble and check all the clearances and whatnot...they will build ernie's and my car side by side, they expect to have both of our cars early next week
(reality translation: multiply by 3, divide by 2, that is the actual time)
Getting close, i'm having dreams about driving my car, this is getting bad, i will be going on a little under 3 months!!!

it hurts every month when i make my car payment and i know it is just sitting in a shop (at least now i know something is getting done!)

 

Want me to merge this thread with your Engine Build-Up thread?

 

you are the merge-master...

i guess this thread has gone back to that topic

 

Merged.