some of you may remember that yellow 01 tahoe we put a STS kit on a while back. well long story short, the owner boosted the turbo up to 12 psi on the stock short block with no tune and ended up blowing the motor.

needed a rebuild, so he bought a 383 stroker kit with forged eagle rods, forged eagle crank, and forged pistons. had a few other things done like high flow oil pump, head studs and cometic gaskets.

well about a week into his new motor, his motor had sever blowby and this is after the rebuild. a few weeks later, the blow by goes away, thought the motor was finally broken in.

and soon enough his boost went away. thought the turbo was faulty had it replaced via STS warranty etc.

matt went to install it and what we found was that the turbo starved for oil, the blow by went away because his BRAND NEW motor stopped building oil pressure so his rings ARE STILL MESSED UP, the reason the blow by went away was because his motor didnt build any oil pressure.

this motor was built by another local reputable shop. after the rebuild he was told there was no warranty because he brought them his own parts. now id like to know what warranty has to do with shoddy workman ship.

ive said it before and ill say it again, DO NOT TRUST LOCAL SHOPS AND BUILDERS!!!!! all they know is gen one SBC....if even that.

so this guy needs his motor to be rebuilt AGAIN, you can t just replace the oil pump, or pickup, the lifters werent getting any oil, and most likely the bearings are all messed up to, crank may need to be repolished.

so to those who like to trust local shops/builders and think its just another small block think again , you cant build ltx's and lsx's like any other small block. and thats even assuming these places can build em in the first place.

 

what a crappy situation

 

gayness .. I saw the truck on cambie .. i was cruisin by it and the engine sure sounded like it was running like crap .. they hadnt even adjusted the rockers properly .. i could hear the rockers over the exhaust and turbo .. what a jip

 

i know lots of good engine builders, you guys just seem to be picking all the ****ty ones i guess. we've been through this before, theres no difference between a gen 1, 2 or 3 small block build. and besides theres lots of factors to why stuff failed. if his rockers werent even adjusted right then i dunno what to say about the rest of the install except get a new engine builder

 

That info is no good unless we know who it was

You can't call out every shop, I have seen some local engines done really well but that being said I would only go with HPE locally

 

Sorry for your bad experience, but don't stereotype every shop. You just found a bad one. Shops are just like people in real life, there are good, bad, and okay ones. You should choose a shop because they have a good reputation, and build fast cars

 

precision valve and crank in north van is really good too.

 

this is like the fourth shop ive seen failed to build a proper gen 2 or gen 3 block. they ALL SUCK!

 

how many ltxs and lsxs have you had built??? can you seriously say theres no difference, then how come we have yet to see a local one built right. and misadjusted rockers have didley squat to do with his oil pressure problem.

if you think the gen 1 2 and 3 blocks are the same then whatever, you got your head up your *** on that issue. ltxs have different clearances and torque specs, you cant build em like a SBC. and lsxs are a whole different story.

next thing your gonna tell me is the turbo buick blocks are just like the rest of the 3.8s. FYI there not and theres only a handfull of builders in the US that can build a proper turbo buick block, but thats another story.

come back and talk to me when you build a ltx or lsx from a local shop and it lasts longer then a year.

 

all you need to know is not to trust any of them. id only go to HPE for machine work and thats about as far as i would trust them. id prefer to build it ourselves.

 

I think its an easy out to blame the shop. Sure some are not as good as others but overall I think the local shops are pretty good. I was at Richmond Racing Engines today doing some of my own research and saw a 400rwhp 97 SS there. Its owned by one of Duek's execs and has locally ported LT1 heads, emissions cam and is a 383. Also, Mike made great power I'm told and Jaz's vette seems to run pretty strong...both motors built locally.

I think half the battle is research and not to chinz out on anything. You get what you pay for.

Andy

 

ummm 400rwhp on a emmisions legal cam on a lt1, this is unheard of. especially from a local porter. ill believe that when i see it.

richmond motors is another shop i wouldnt trust.

and whens the last time jazz actually drove his vette for a solid year??? and i cant even remember which one of those guys has whos motor, they keep trading/sellign parts.

 

Jazz's engine is built by HPE and his car is done by Taylorwood Performance. They have done a really good job. The set-up has been together for a few months. The Track, Dyno and Time will tell

There is the same horror stories from every shop, even out in the states, a lot of factors play a role, it is too easy to blame every shop and say they can't do it. There has been a lot of horror stories locally but a lot can be contributed to people driving there cars without proper tuning and just expecting drastic changes to work.

 

Johnny - where/who is HPE?

 

Sorry to hear of the problems but an engine is just an engine. They are held together by nuts and bolts and work on the same principles. Yes, they have different specs, big deal. All engines have different specs but that doesnt make them exotic and confuse a good builder. It is always best to have someone who has done several of the specific engine beacause as with any job, you do get a bit better with them and things go smoother. An experienced guy will be able to squeeze the last bits of power out of the engine as well. This goes for ANY engine, whether is a sbc, LS1 or a honda. There is nothing in a LS1 that is a new idea, or will confuse a good engine builder. It makes good power for an OEM engine, but compared to a race engine its just a low revving pushrod engine with huge factory tolerances.
Not difficult as far as engines go.

BTW what failed on this engine?