+1

Exactly my point...

 

I think Todd only wanted Sam to determine whether the compression issue was tuning related. Once tuning was ruled out, I think it's rather clear that Todd wanted the motor back.

 

Wow, Sam finally responded. Just so you all know, Sam does't type that well, his English isn't that proper, that in't him responding

But, I'll address the main topic that he haspresented in a mutted fashion.

Sam called me, I'll admit, I was in a bit of a worry/panick when he told me he had diagnosed issues and wanted to open the motor. He admited to me he didn't want to be in this position (at this point in history he and I were still supposed friends) and that he felt bad for me. I JOKINGLY saif, I'm sure you'd never let me but I want to flyout there and take it apart myself. He jokingly declined.

He then went on to try to convince me to just"wash my hands" of it and let him rebuild that engine, and I would be out of the picture. I told him that it would be much less expensive and much easier for me and cheaper for Don if he sent the motor back to me and had me tear and down and rebuild whatever needed to be rebuilt when the issue had been determined.

Sam clearly told me that he would try to convince the customer not to do so and have GTM do the work, because it was better to do all the work in one place. I agree that from the beginning, doing all the work in one place would have been a better choice given the circumstances, but at this point it is obvious why Sam had wanted this outcome= an insanely overpriced $13k engine build and install. I looked at that bill, OMG! a rev up oil pump costs $156 from the dealer Lots of profit to be made, and I guess that was the aim here.

I had some thinking to do, I wrote Don a pm before any engine was opened up and told him his two options as I saw fit and what I was willing to do:

1) ship the engine to me, I pay shipping both ways, tear it down, determine issue, and rebuild/ machine, new rings, bearings, any parts needed, and ship back to him.

2) gtm pulls motor, I send money that I would have paid for bearings. shipping, which would be obviously less than what it would take to fix the engine at Sam's rate, as I pointed this out, because, if it was a machining error, our machine shop here stands behind their work and would rectify at no cost t0 me. I told Don it would be in his favor to send the engine back to me.

Don told me he decided to have GTM rebuild the engine and that was the last I heard from either one of these guys.

Then I get a pm two days ago from Don, forwarding the results found from Sam and Don was requesting a full refund and badmouthing our business, and product.

I responded saying I needed to see the engine, then this thread begins.

This is the TRUTH, I have NOTHING to hide.

 

Again, you didn't write this, so I will pretend I am addressing "Sam"...

I really don't want this to turn into one vendor bashing another, but I do want to explain some of GTM's accusations, as the true story is a bit of a different version:

The cores that I sent you were always for Darton sleeve install, this was the ONLY thing we had you do. We had sent you a few cores in the past that had been out of blown motors that scored the cylinder walls. These were from customers that wanted a sleeve install on this damaged block, because none of the important surfaces were harmed - AT ALL!

The darton sleeveing maching removed any pertinant material and replaced with the sleeve, and the customer was well aware and wanted to go this route to avoid coming up with an additional core. This was fully disclosed the customer. If something was ever sub-par, it would not be rebuilt, I have scrapped several cores because of their inability to be machined.

The reason I didn;t want to pay you $100 cleaning fee is because you knew we were going to perfrom further machining on these blocks, why would we have them cleaned twice, and pay at triple of what it costs us when we had you do two at a time? You like to sneak in the hidden costs on other vendors as well, I remember agreeing to pricies with you and then getting the bills thatwere always higher, I became cautious and knew to refuse procedures that we would perform anyway. Tell the entire story.

Oh, there was the block that we shipped for Gurgen to use, for practically free, as Gurgen is my friend and I was trying to help him out. It was mangled in the shipping, something had happened where the deck was severely off, again this was unmachined, not inspected, I was trying to get Gurgen out of a jam, is this what you are referring to? Gurgen can chime in if he'd like.

And "Sam", you had always joked with me that I shouldn't spend time building motors, just let you do it, I always thought this was friendly competition. Now, I see it was your money hungry, wipe out any competition mentality.

We keep our overhead low, this isn't our full time business. But remember, we were building the VQ35 before most anyone else in the industry. We built them for our personal vehicles, did much of the R&D on many of the released parts and combinations to achieve a successful powerplant, and people were constantly asking questions and advice. That is what spawned BuiltZMotors.

We will continue to build motors, I am glad that we send our blocks Darton for sleeving, I was tired of waiting 3 months to hear back from you, the lack of organization over there blows my mind. This is the same reason other vendors avoid doing business with you. Slow down a bit, take a breath, you are going to be the surgeon that amputates the right leg instead of the left arm because you were under the gun.

And we all make mistakes. Share the story of how we determined your cams were faulty, and how we had already put them in a customers engine in Hawaii. How, I went through weeks of tearing my own engine down because of these cams.

So, not to turn this into petty arguing, the facts have been stated, I know I will go above and beyond what I am obligated to do, and now that we don't have our "friendship" any more, I will stop referring those in Southern Cali that request engines from us to go to your facility, as I wouldn't send someone to a facility that conducts their business in such a fashion.

Best of luck
-TODD

 

At this point it's extremely hard to tell exactly what happened, the real truth always lies between everyone’s story... Todd is being really stand up and standing behind the rebuild! Just send the motor back and have him rebuild it and Sam install and tune it. GTM little jabs about not trusting Todd's rebuild is just BS!

I'm just outside looking in, but GTM seems hard pressed in bashing Todd (in a passive aggressive kind of way) and it's making GTM look bad! GTM has made mistakes in the past, every shop has, so just get over it already.

I get the feeling from reading several of the GTM posts lately that they think they're better than everyone As weird as this may seem to many, I think MRC (yes Julian) has been the most up front with issues they've come across and how they fixed them... Many other shops keep any problems or issues that they come across quiet and only brag about the end result... That really doesn't help the forum at the end of the day, IMO...

 

i think the storys of failure turned into sucess have a lot of value, everybody makes mistakes, sh't happens. BUt how the overcome those issues is what matter in the end.
I agree on your assesment of MRC on this point (i less there is somethign i dunno)

 

wow Philthy... i mean... wow

 

Thanks for the threatening PM, Todd.

 

hahahaha. can I get some? I never get threatening PMs anymore.

 

post it up... i think we'd all like to see what you consider threatening...

 

On a side note, I kinda didn't know what "unenviable" meant.

 

LOL are you kidding?

 

oh c'mon you must get a lot of those

 

ygpmed

 

Todd msg'd me saying Jeremy called him and "told" Todd to make me stfu. Obviously this isn't the complete truth as Jeremy doesn't give a sh*t about forum drama and really wants no part of it, nor do I speak on his behalf.

The truth about it is that Todd has been calling around to all the shops (FP, PF, MRC, etc) trying to get them to log on here and back him up against GTM.

Just another lie on his part, and a big reason why I haven't believed the story he's telling. He did the same thing when he heard Chris was having issues with his motor. He called around to every shop and passed the word around, which eventually made it to Gman who was told to come on here and call Chris/Jeremy out.

He's really just a gossip ***** and will do anything to defame whoever has a complaint with his work. I have a good feeling the reason why Don/GTM weren't comfortable sending him the motor is because they did not trust him to be truthful with a breakdown/analysis. Todd is the type of person that would lie or do anything to save face on the forums, including lying about it being a tuning issue or dropping in a bent valve.

They'd rather just deal with working around the "warranty" he offers and they tried to get an unbiased analysis of the motor. Now BZM is trying to be the "good guy" by offering a warranty that he never intended on honoring before, and is bashing GTM in the process to save his rep.

This is all about reputation, no mistakes here, and a shop that will do anything and everything to maintain it (BZM). I have every reason to believe that GTM IS telling the truth and trying to help Don in every way. They have enough business that they don't need to lie about it. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

/case

edit: fixed typo

 

trying to lighten things up here... english minor btw...

 

As a silent member to this forum meaning that I lurk in the FI forum everynight for the past year reading post after post but not posting, contemplating boost for my sedan, I do know that this thread and some of the recent ones concerning shops across the US shows me the following:

1. When I decide to pull the trigger, everything happens at one shop....
2. It would most likely be at Forged Performance.

My reason for statement #2 is that with all the time, effort, and funds put into these projects, FP and GTM are the only shops that will warranty a project of this magnitude. I am seeing too many horror stories of built motors not making it past 1000 miles nowadays and that is scary when you spent anywhere from $4000 - $8000. And the main reason I am saying FP is just because I am in NY. If I were in the west it would definitely be GTM. I like what I see going on with MRC as well, but the biggest factor is the warranty, which they do not offer. If we take this situation for example, I am shocked to hear that Don is only 400 miles away from GTM and did not go to them initially since they would warranty the engine. Like Sam said and said it best, once everything is done in one shop, there is only one party to point the blame, if any issues arise. Lastly, Don should have just sent the motor back to Todd just like most have said. This thread could have easily been a priase thread for BZM with how great the customer service was and the taking back of the motor to resolve any and all issues. Too bad it had to turn out this way.

Mike

 

actually you are wrong.. Gman's information had nothing to do with Todd.. it came from two sources.. 1 of which was myself.. and the other GMan can choose to disclose if he wants..

Craig.. you should really get your facts straight before you post, because then you end up looking like an idiot when its not true.. and you keep doing this time and time again

 

Not that we don't believe you, but post the actual message then. This interpreting what others have said or implied has already gone too far. As far as phone calls to other shops about "keeping it quiet" is all heresay unless you were on the other line listening in.

I have no stake in any of this and have never dealt with either shop at this point, but am trying to keep the accusations to a minimum and the facts to a maximum.

 

You will never have all the facts. The only people that have those are the direct parties involved. I'm basing my opinion on the character of the individuals and shops involved. Take it for what it's worth. I don't trust Todd or BZM.

Trust me the phone calls happen. There's a network of shops that partake in this forum business and if anything happens, calls go out. Some shops choose to take part in this forum discussion, some don't.

Doug, it's 3rd party information. There were only 3 people that knew everything that was going on, and only one that let any out. That's how it happened.