Wow Todd, great write up.

I confess I bought the crap spilled out on the first thread as I was reading it, however after you had a chance to respond in that thread and give the other side of the story - especially the part about your communication with GTM, suddenly their credibility was shot in my mind.

I couldn't beleive his response to you when you asked GTM to tell Don to bring it back and you would look it over and totally cover ALL expenses if anything was found to be your fault. He flat out refused and instead condemned Don to $14,000 in inspection and new built engine costs. What a bunch of crap. It would have been cheaper for him to just throw your engine away and install a new one. What was it, $6,000 to have GTM "inspect" your engine build and then royally screw that up?

I love how he defended his higher than normal shop fees, because they are "just that good".

I feel bad that Don got such horrible advice, which ultimately cost him thousands. You got your reputation royally trashed, however you have completely redeemed yourself and the real culprit has been revealed.

I had a feeling you would come out on top because after hearing about the back door crap GTM was pulling with you and Don, I didn't trust them at all. Obviously you could have been lying, but, of the two stories being thrown out in the old thread, yours had that ring of truth.

Nice job, you totally deserve the vindication and your credibility should be higher than ever. If I had the money and lived near you, you would get my business!

And anyone that thinks Todd doesn't deserve a little victory dance in this thread, get real, this guy did great work and got royally trashed by a scammer. He deserves a chance to throw a little trash back at someone who actually deserves it.

 

Factory Oil cooler: ALL vq35's run them, not aftermarket...get it?contaminates can hide here...

contamination presented in past photos: can not guarantee they did not come from us, but are about as likely as finding a giraffe inside the combustion chamber... as described earlier, we take many measures to insure our final product is excellent- debris (especially to that extent) would not be congruent with how we operate.

And while JoeDirtPharmD had a very confrontational, accusatory attitude when things spilled out, my number one priority was NOT TO try to go out of my way to help him..why would it be? It was handled all wrong... I first wanted to find the truth, as to what went wrong, I wanted to prevent my reputation from harm for undeserved reasons... and now, after the fires have calmed, and we have a more definitive idea of what we are dealing with, I am pleased that JoeDirtPharmD can see that we aren't as bad as GTM played it out to be. I have outlined what I am doing to help him out, even though not required. Time and money.

And agin, you call our findings biased, odd how 30+ other members disagree, believe what you want, I know that the facts are 100% TRUTH, I'll sleep well tonight.

 

Thanks for the support. Funny how this situation has caused me so much stress, cost me time and money, but I am glad that it happened (not for your misfortune Don-sorry). The tough times like this, I feel, reveal people's true character, I realized that someone that I thought was my friend was the furthest thing from it, and luckily cut our business ties sooner rather than later, in a possibly worse scenario.

My350z has a history, good to see the natives here remember how it all got started, and some of the original hurdles that we all surpassed together. GTM started posting on this site in the past year, coming on like they owned the place. Many thought they were the best thing since sliced bread, but the salesman BS know it all attitude does nothing but turn people off- as evident as that is from the several responses on this very thread.

These clowns will come and go, we aren't going anywhere!

 

DID YOU MISS that I am offering to rebuild the engine free of charge to the customewr, even though the evidence doesn't show us in error?

What other aftermarket/performance company would do this with these circumstances? NONE

 

It's too bad it did cost you all the time, money, and stress, but the important thing is that you not only got your good name back, it's been tested and tried in the fire, so it shines even better now!

How ironic that your "friend"/competitor tried to ruin your rep, but succeeded only in building it up and ruined his.

 

Damn Ultimate_tool ...err tuner sure is trying to stir **** up on something he obviously knows nothing about.

I'd like to see GTM's 'unreleased' findings. The evidence is clear from the tests.

 

+1

 

"As the F/I World Turns"

 

These clowns will come and go, we aren't going anywhere!

Yay!!!!!!!!!

 

GTM is not going anywhere, they got tons of cars in the shop and new ones every day. I have spend a lot of $$$$$ with GTM and they had always treated me right. GTM might be a little more exspensive, but I know they will do it right the first time and save the customers a major head ache.

 

Dude I'm still preaching your stuff here on island. Bar none the best customer service. Got PMs from several people from the original thread, basicly said the same thing since day one. If there is a mistake on your part your responsible enough to admit it and fix it.

Still bar none the best customer suport I've experienced.

 

A heat exchanger is far from an oil cooler. The heat exchanger is POST oil filter. The amount of coincedences that have to happen to lodge any type of contaminent in the heat exchanger is, and i quote.

Once again you tip-toe around the fact that the previous engine did not chew any bearings or did not show any signs of contaminated oil. But you would already know this right, since you rebuilt the engine int he first place?

But lets just assume for one second, and one second only, that this engine has copious amounts of contaminated oil. The bearings in the turbochargers would be shot (causing whinging, seizing, bending, inconsistant boost). The camshafts and cam jourals would be scared. The cylinder walls scared. Piston damage. Overheated bearings. Oil pressure issues. You have NO supporting evidence. You are drawing FACTS from a theory based on assumptions from conclusions that are BIASED.

Once again, the level of bearing wear is consistant with incorrect preparation and incorrect installation techniques.

And im going to re-quote this because its so funny. Apart from your marketing speech, it actually reads.

Why dont you come out and say it, instead of mixing up your words? Dont want to appear as though the case is closed before it was even opened?? Like your 'evidence', and i use the word loosely, suggests.

 

Im wondering this also. We have 'shrunken' pistons, yet ringlands look like new? Pistons look fairly good, no scaring of the skits. No discolouration. How hot do pistons actually have to get, and how quiclky, as to by-pass the over-expanding, bore scuffing stage of overheating? We are talking like so much timing as not to cause detonation, but enough to melt a piston without melting it? Helpme understand. Maybe some massivly retard cam timing, that magically doesnt effect power below 10psi??

How many cases of shruken piston has Arias reported? I thought these were poster-child, sharif approved slugs? What condition were the other engines in when you expert machinist (who has studied thermal dynamics in metals) in when he pulled them out? Where they drag engines, on alcohol fuel? Massive EGT's over a prolonged period of time? Did they have cracked sleeves? Sunk sleeves? Or where they in some poor saps car for 1000miles and not even undergoing enough stress to cause detonation or a cracked ringland or a busted skirt.

Once again, you have come to the conclustion that the pistons shrunk. Based on some hear-say from a guy who u know based on experience with who knows what kind of engine/application. I want to see if the stars align.

Who do we believe, story A ^^^ above, or story B.

Story B goes soemthing like; a lazy machinest doesnt mic the pistons, instead he assumes a certain size based on previous engine builds. He bores/hones the cylinders and you have 0.10" above piston/wall clearence..

 

the way I see it is this.......Arias confirmed with BZM the theory of piston shrinkage. So, Arias beleives that it is a plausible explanation and it must happen enough for them to have seen shrinkage in other pistons. "Story B" had crossed my mind too. That would be lazy, but it would also represent an entire set of wrongly machined pistons from Arias. I could see one being off, but all 6? then, it comes back to the lazy set of rings? what made the rings lose their tension? we still have that issue? so, either it is another set of bad rings from Arias, or the steel lost its material properties due to excessive heat. Just my observations........

 

At the end of the day after the dust has settled down, the question I have been asking myself, was is it really worth it going to bat for a customer to really get into an online debate on a public forum getting called names getting my integrity and motive questioned. Doing what I thought would be the right thing to do. Standing up for a customer that paid good money for a product that did perform as promised.

Original Thread: My unenviable experience concerning BuiltZMotors


I want to start by giving credit where credit is credit due. Todd has done a good job presenting his case here, now I’m not saying he is correct in all his findings, far from that actually, but over all good right up, too bad it is not completely accurate. There are some points that I do agree with, and both our findings are conclusive in reference to piston to cylinder wall clearance deficiencies for example

Now the question of the audience will be why the complete explanation now? Well very simple reason and I think this should make since to everyone. When your perform a tear down inspection on a engine and you find a piston is hitting the head this engine will be condemned bad end of story, short and simple, whether somebody agrees with our analysis or disagrees, it is irrelevant to the outcome, car went to tuner “A” (Dyno Comp) could not be tuned due to mechanical issues since day one after 250 miles on the engine, Dyno Comp experienced the same symptoms of loss of power when raising boost. Car goes to tuner “B” (GTM) same exact results, point is from day one that the engine was not functioning properly, and no one can dispute this FACT.

The one thing that all three professionals agree on BZM, Dyno Comp, and GTM is that the engine does have mechanical problems. Please forgive me for reiterating the facts but I feel everyone has forgotten that this has been the problem since day one. I am glad BZM had a chance to examine their engine so this way he will not be in a disadvantage situation and relying only on another shops information.

Our findings are still the same; whatever we have stated before we still believe is the case. This may seem or appear to be that GTM has a hidden agenda to tarnish BZM’s reputation but the truth is far from that. We are calling it as we see it, bottom line. I want to explain in detail why we think it is still a machining error that caused this problem.


I would like to first start with sharing some background on some of the experience we have here at GTM. Anybody can come in on a public forum with a good education, good writing and communication skills, and present a very well rounded case. But in the real world experience is what really counts. I consider myself a very good diagnoser, troubleshooter, and tuner. I am 36 years old, and have been in the automotive industry working on cars straight out of high school. After high school I went to a local college and have taken 4 years in automotive technology, from that I became a smog technician and a drivability technician for Nissan. My job was to fix cars that don’t run properly, have bad fuel economy, cars that have excessive emissions, drivability concerns, you name it I tackled it. After Nissan I opened my own business (1992) and I am still going at it to this day. In our machine shop we have several machinists combining over a 100 years of experience. They have seen and experienced a lot in their time. So let me share with you again my findings and logic since day one with Don’s car.

Tuning the car:

This was supposed to be a simple tuning session and I think Don can attest to that. A 4 hour deal turned into a day and a half on the dyno. We had tried everything possible (tuning wise) to make sure the problems were not tuning related. We finally came to the conclusion that the car had a mechanical issue based on the way it was acting and the history and problems Don had been experiencing.

Process of Diagnoses and elimination:

I knew this was going to be a touchy car and I knew the world was watching because everybody knew the car was coming to us AFTER all the problems Don was experiencing with the car, prior to performing a compression test on the car I had the technician take the car on a test drive to get the car to proper operating temperature. If you perform a compression/leakdown test on a cold engine you will get an inaccurate leak down test. The thermal expansion of the engine will give you more accurate results even though it is not favorable for a technician to work on a hot engine; we wanted to do everything we could to come back with good accurate diagnoses.

Cylinder #1 100psi
Cylinder #3 142psi
Cylinder #5 145psi
Cylinder #2 138psi
Cylinder #4 143psi
Cylinder #6 141psi

Preformed Leak down test

Cylinder#1 35% Leak down coming from exhaust and intake valve

The rest of the cylinders had an average leak down of 16%-21%

Preformed WET Compression test

This did not make a significant increase in compression to consider a ring issue. So our focus was a vale/cylinder head issue number 1 cylinder as being the culprit. It did correspond with Don’s compression testing when he report low compression on cylinder#1 and a P0301 (misfire code)

Removed valve cover to check all valve clearances, inconsistency was found but not enough to cause the problem at hand.

Removed intake manifold to allow us to look at the #1 valves and we also did what we call a liquid test. You perform a leak down test by applying pressure to the cylinder with the intake valve closed which you can easily see inside the cylinder head, you pour a liquid like solvent inside the ports and bubbles appear showing your leaks if the valves are not sealing. This was a clear indication beyond any doubts that we had a valve sealing issues. This was on number 1 cylinder so this way Todd cannot say that maybe the lobes were not up or not in the right position. One of the easiest cylinders to put at TDC is cylinder 1 because you can rely on the crank pulley, besides having the valve covers off it was beyond any doubt that the lobes of the cam were off the valves. At that point we came to the conclusion that there is a sealing valve issue.

This information was openly communicated to Don and Todd that this is a machining error in the heads to cause such an issue. But a further engine teardown inspection will confirm this if there is any doubt. The only other thing it could have been would be a bent valve which was what Todd was counting on and is not the case.

Once the engine was removed and the discovery of the piston hitting the head was made we stopped our teardown inspection for obvious reasons (piston hitting the head, no reason to continue engine is defective) after the information was forwarded to Don he decided to post on the forum. After the entire feasco on the forum we spoke with Don before shipping the engine back to Todd and we agreed to finish our teardown inspection and inspect the cylinder heads to confirm once more our initial findings which is when we found the following:

Cylinder Heads:


This picture above is from cylinder #1 and shows carbon tracking between the seat area and the valve. The arrow shows where exhaust was leaking from the valve into the combustion chamber. In a normal picture you will see a perfect round circle were the seat and the valve have a 100% mating area.




This picture shows the intake valves from Cylinder #1 also not seating properly. Notice the difference between one that shows to be seating and the other one is not. You can also notice one valve is significantly dirtier than the other.


This picture shows the exhaust valves from Cylinder #1 as you can see the valve on the right is sealing better than the valve on the left. The left valve is sealing much worse than the valve on the left which isn’t sealing properly to begin with.

Engine Contamination:



This picture above is a cam shaft cap from Dons engine.

First Todd says this:

“…you mean normal bearing wear...those bearings look great in the pictures…”
https://my350z.com/forum/showpost.ph...&postcount=189

Then this:“…Upon inspection of the bearings, they did not show any excessive wear due to clearance issues, but did show distinct signs of debris contamination wear, slight grooves carved into the surfaces; this occurs when the debris is circulated through the engine...”
https://my350z.com/forum/showpost.ph...82&postcount=1

 

Pistons and Clearances:

Last time I checked, when sizing pistons to cylinder wall clearances you measure every piston and you machine every hole according to that piston size. This is a very standard basic procedure that any reputable machine shop will tell you they do. There is no such thing as all pistons being one size from the manufacturer. No matter how consistent manufacturers are there are always variances in the pistons. When we measured the pistons and came to the conclusion that there was excessive piston to cylinder wall clearance which Todd and I both agree on ironically. The only conclusion we can draw on this is that somebody did not measure the piston and hone each hole accordingly.

When an engine is in questions and there is a need for clarification as far as what was the actual size of that piston before the build we go back to our build sheet, we don’t pull a new set of pistons off the shelf and compare a new set of pistons off the shelf to a set of pistons that came out of the engine. How can this be in any shape or form acceptable, if that was the case then there would never be any need to measure pistons and hone cylinder according to each pistons size, all you would have to do is honed the block to .020 over and your clearance should be great! But this is not the case! These guys did not pull a build sheet or probably even measure the pistons before building the engine so there is no way to factually say that the pistons collapsed or shrunk.

Here at GTM we keep a build sheet on file for every engine we build, if we have an engine failed and has a warranty claim we will pull our build sheet to see our clearances and exact specs on that engine so we can find an explanation of what happen. Did we make a machining error? Did we have a piston collapse? All this information comes from the build sheet.


Coolant Overheating:

This is laughable, how can a car overheat and not experience a blown head gasket? How can a car absorb extreme heating issues that would cause a Arias Extreme Duty piston to collapse and or shrink but when BZM inspected the heads they were in perfect order. You would expect this type of extreme heat to cause the heads to warp or at least some type of imperfection, yet the heads and pistons are perfect.

Another indication of overheating is having distorted piston ring lands or some sort of markings on the cylinder wall, the cylinder walls are perfect, there is no scoring of any kind on the piston skirts, and you are saying the engine overheated? That does not make sense.

Another thing I would like to mention is that Don’s car was running so cool temperature wise that I had a hard time adjusting his idle with the Nissan Consult tool; if your temperature does not reach 85 degrees Celsius it does not allow you to make idle adjustments, which was the case with Don’s car.


Detonation:

Todd, Lets make this simple, when detonation occurs in an engine I would expect some damage to be done to the piston before the valve. You have a piston that is made from an aluminum which is softer material that the valves which are made out of steel. Please tell me how we are going to see signs of detonation on the valves but not on the soft aluminum pistons? I have never heard anyone say “I have detonated my valves”.

Also how does detonation only happen in one cylinder? One case would be a fuel delivery problem or faulty injector. In this case the injectors were sent out and tested by Don and came back with good results, so again not the case here.

By the way what you call “detonation” are fuel and oil deposits, simple as that.

Here is a picture that should help you understand:



As you can see this engine has suffered SEVERE detonation on the head and pistons, yet the valves are perfect.


High Exhaust Gas Temperatures:

High EGT’s are caused by 2 things, excessive heat in the combustion chamber due to lack of fuel or very retarded timing (not enough timing). EGT’s are not a big factor on light loads they are only important on full load condition. So Todd please explain to me how you can have high EGTs on an engine that is running rich from the beginning as posted by Don many times. Also you state that EGTs at cruise are very important, please explain this? Especially when Don is using a piggy back ECU that the factory ECU is in full control at cruise, Are you saying that the factory ECU is retarding timing to the point of causing high EGTs? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense…

FYI, any piggy back system only retards timing under boost, not cruise or vacuum.
Dyno comp’s dyno graph will show that the car had a rich condition. If you have a rich condition you cannot have high EGTs, the fuel WILL cool down the combustion chamber.

Pistons Hitting the Head:

The million dollar question “Why do the pistons hit the head?” obviously at this point you still do not know why this is occurring. You are blaming it on high EGTs, high coolant temperatures, tuning, etc.

Let’s be objective and give you the benefit of the doubt and ASSUME that your findings of the pistons collapsing due to high EGTs, coolant temps, tuning issues, etc. did happen. Then I would assume that by you rebuilding the engine again why would you have to resurface the top of the pistons? If everything is the way it is suppose to be you would not have to do that. So basically your solution (since you really don’t know why the piston is hitting the head) is to remove .020 from the piston so that THIS TIME AROUND it would not hit the head:

Let me explain to you why the pistons are hitting the head. This is nothing new, we knew this from the beginning, and it is not my duty to educate you I guess Don paid the price for your education… In any boosted street engine it is a general rule of thumb to have .027” clearance minimum, usually .032”, and in some cases even .042”, you are at .023”. This will happen again, simple solution is to use a thicker head gasket, for example a cometic .032” gasket. I would suggest you run a thicker head gasket before you machine the pistons.

In your case a combination of the piston rocking and improper maching brought the piston to .001" above the deck according to your calculations. From that point on the piston was going to make contact with the head.

 

Professionalism


Todd, I do not approve of your technical ability neither do I have respect for it. I have told you that in the past so nothing has changed, but I have never attacked you personally in any way shape or form. You build engines, you claim to be an engine builder, this is what I do for a living we don’t see eye to eye, different companies, with different strategies, that’s business. You keep bringing up my improper English, who is posting, etc. Let me give you a little background since this is so important to you. I came to this country when I was 15 years old and did not speak a word of English. I was foreign exchange student and never went back to my country. I am living my dream, the American dream, I came with nothing a built something, could you imagine what I would have done if I was born here and spoke, read, and wrote perfect English like yourself? As far as editing my post and correcting my grammar I have no problem admitting that, this is why I hire employees. So please stop cheap shots and being a racist.


To the Z Community:

Sorry for not posting earlier but what goes on here every day it is impossible for me to do this. The only time I can really post is late at night, my day started at 7am. You don’t have to like me or my attitude I am not here to make friends. I am here to push the limit, and produce the best product possible for our customers, which I do appreciate greatly and know I would not be here without their continued support.
We will not be responding to anything else in this thread, this is has taken more time that what it’s worth. If you have any questions you can call me personally.
Everyone has seen both sides of the story; you can do your own research, and draw your own conclusion. Which side you believe is up to you and no one can change that.

To Don:

If you feel that we have deceived you or mis-led you in any way, shape or form I would like to know because your opinion is important to me. I want you to want our services because we are the best at what we do and you have faith us. Trust is everything so if you do not trust the people you are doing business with, you should not be in a business relationship with them, therefore you can take the car anywhere you want and we will waive ANY charges you have so far if you have any doubts about us. You owe us nothing if you do not trust us and think we are mis-leading or taking advantage of you. I do not want to work on anyone’s car who feels that why about us or I.

Conclusion:

My conclusion is still the same as day one. Todd never intended to take care of Don; he was forced to do so when Don posted on the forum. This was a bad engine and bad product from the beginning. No one is perfect we all have our share of mistakes what counts is how you handle it and stand behind your work.

Sam

GT Motorsports

 

Very professional and thorough write up also Sam. Kudos for that.

In the end, Joe has to make the call and put his trust in either Todd or Sam.

For the rest of us, while this has taken a toll on both shops, the exercise has provided some insight into the nuances of engine building that members of the Z community would rarely have the opportunity to experience. So thanks to both of you for that. I hope the fact that both your efforts will help to educate thousands of online users makes this negative experience (for you both) somewhat easier to accept and move on.

Learn and try to do better next time - it's what I tell myself when I make a mistake or have a bad experience - it's all anyone can do. The Z community benefits from experienced shops staying in business and providing high quality service and products. Best wishes to you both.

 

So I have to wonder here, if Sam's bill was 1/3 less, would there be as many people ready to throw him under the bus? I don't see anything here that says GTM did damage to this engine. So people are really jumping on them because of their prices and their biased evalutation of the engine. There seems to have been enough wrong with the engine before it hit GTM - what would you expect their report to be? You can dispute some conclusions, but that doesn't change the fact that the motor had problems.

Mistakes happen.. At this point, could have been a bad motor from the start. BZM is going to provide a new engine to Don and everyone would expect it to be perfect. Of course that doesn't make Don whole since he is out install and diagnostic costs. The reality is, even a crate engine from a car company have been known to be dead on arrival (or have serious problems). Mistakes do get made as we are all human. I don't throw someone under the bus for that - I look at how they correct their mistake. At this point, BZM is doing a decent job at correcting the problem. What I don't get is all the self cheerleading by Todd in this thread and vague mud slinging at GTM.

-Mark

*edit* - FYI, I've never dealt with any of the shops in question. This is an outsiders view of these threads.

 

great write up...but flawed, and I am preparing yet another counter... this can go on for days! I will debate with more fact and at the end of the day we have to assume one party is not telling the complete truth and showing the facts..the mere FACT that you apparently withheald information that you are now coming out with is extremely shady...but I will ASSUME this data is factual, and I will prepare my counter-stay tuned

-TODD