I set out yesterday at 7:30 a.m. to get the oil changed and then head off to the dyno to have the car tuned. This is the second time. Something always goes wrong. I spent the last several weeks finishing the fuel system, new intake, bigger injectors, etc. I was pretty sure I had everything in order this time. Here's what happened:

7:45 a.m. Run out of gas. Apparently the gas gauge is off since the installation of the new fuel pump.

9:00 a.m. FINALLY get the car started. I input the 72 lb injectors in the F.A.S.T. system but with no tuning experience, it still didn't like them very much.

9:35 a.m. After stalling at every redlight from the highway to almost halfway to the shop, the starter won't turn over. I'm thinking battery is now not putting out enough volts.

10:30 a.m. Tow truck arrives to get me out of the middle of the intersection.

11:15 a.m. Arrive at the shop. We push car up on the dyno. After hooking the battery to a battery charger to boost it we find out that it's not the battery. The starter is fried (It was brand new and put on the night before along with a new Optima battery).

12:00 p.m. Owner of the shop takes me to get some racing fuel and exchange the starter.

12:00 to 1:00 p.m. the guys are at lunch.

1:00 to 2:20 p.m. the owner and I have lunch.

2:30 to 5:00 p.m. All hell breaks loose. Starter installed. Plugs are fouled. Clean driver's side plugs. Car starts. First pulls are to dial in the F.A.S.T. system in the low end. First hard pull - Oil is pouring out of the back of the engine (rear seal?) and smoking horribly(rings?). Determined to be the intake. Car doesn't make power beyond 4,100 rpm. Stop the session and make arrangements to repair AGAIN. Now it gets good.

5:30 p.m. Handed a bill for $659 (I paid $450 out of the agreed $600 the first time around with these guys. I understand the additional time wasn't their fault but no one told me I was being charged for time the car was just sitting on the dyno. If I would have known that I would have pulled it off as soon as the starter was found to be bad.). I was always under the impression that a "dyno tune" included dyno time. Anyhoo, I decide what things need to be done and decide to not do them myself. Here's the list and the quote I was given. Let me know what you think:

Labor:

Plugs 2.0 hours
Wires 3.5
Intake gskts 3.0
Leak dwn test 1.5
ARP Head bolts 1.5 (builder used same HBs from stock motor)
valve cvr gskts 2.2

TOTAL LABOR: 13.7 hours = $959

Parts:

Plugs $ 39.60
Wires 110.00
Intake gskts 26.72
Valve cvr gskts 30.00
Head bolts 145.00
8 wire heat shield 69.95

TOTAL PARTS: $421.27
TAX 33.18

GRAND TOTAL: $1461.40

Is this fair?


P.S. That is the short version. The NICE version. It was a nightmare. I'm about to give up on this car. I have just under $10,000 MORE dollars in it in the last 6 months. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles

It appears that you might want to break out the KY before bending over.

Those labor estimates seem kinda high for a reputable shop, some of them might be fair if I was drinking beers and taking my time but geez 2.2 hours for valve cover gaskets 3.5 hours for wires

Sounds like they're making money on the parts too.

Do it yourself and order the parts from Summit, your wallet will thank me later

Marc

 

Doesn't seem fair to me, which is why I always try to do the work myself - beats being put at the mercy of a shop. Does your F.A.S.T. system have the WB O2 option? If you're in or around Houston, I can probably get it dialed in pretty well for a 12pk or two of diet coke.

 

Sounds like alot to me but the car was on the dyno for a while...

Anyways here are some random thoughts:

$70/hr seems a little steep for labor. I could be off but I thought the going rate was ~$50hr.

Some of their labor estimates seem "liberal" at best. 2.2hrs to change valve cover gaskets?!? That should take ~45min at the most. I can't see changing plugs and wires taking 5.5hrs either. I was thinking closer to 4 with them taking their sweet time.

Some of the parts prices are pretty inflated too. Plugs are <$2.00ea, a nice set of MSD wires is ~$75 (I think), intake gaskets are $18 from GM, and ARP head bolts are ~$50 a set.

Again I think you're getting screwed but I've always done my own work so I dont know what the going rate is for this stuff. Perhaps someone else will chime in...

 

13.7 labor hrs are outrage. If I were you I would not do any more business with them. They are way over charged on labor.




Bruce
93LT1 Conv w/ZF6
383ci Procharged

 

First off i bet your rear seal is fine. How can they say the valve cover gaskets are 2.2hrs and the intake is 3hr . That makes no sense i just painted my valv covers the other day and it took 10 min off and 10 on. $110 for plug wires(i paid 50 for MSD)!!! 145 for head bolts( i paid $68 ARP) you can buy all those parts from summit way cheaper.


Sorry to hear the problems, but i really dont think your car is as bad as you think. I would get another opinion. Are you sure that much oil is coming from intake gasket. I would check the sending unit.

A good program would not hurt.

 

I dunno. I can't do the plugs and wires in less than 5.5h. I'd say give them 6h. 1.5h for a leakdown test is a little high but there are 8 cylinders and some of them are hard to get to, as we know. It would take me maybe an hour. 5.2h to remove the valve covers, heads, gaskets and replace and torque the head bolts is also on the high side. Let's say 4h (2h per side). I'd also give more like 2h for the intake.

Plugs+wires 6h
Head and valve cover gaskets 4h
Intake 2h
Leakdown 1h
Total I get is 13h, 13.2 isn't very far off.

As far as labor rate, this varies from area to area and with the reputation of the shop. In this area, good shop go from $62/h on up. More $$$ does not necessarily mean better work, but the guy who charges the least does so for a reason. If your motor had been done right in the first place, wouldn't it have been worth a little more$$$?

You may be able to get parts cheaper, if so, go for it.

Charging you for the time the car sat on the dyno seems unreasonable. Unless they told you they had other work waiting and that your car had to come off or you would be charged.

Good luck.

Rich Krause

 

prices i found on cz28.com vendors within 10 minutes

plugs $16
wires $50
intake gskt $23
valve gskt $20
head bolts $55
heat shield $46

$210 plus shipping.

just the fact that they are chargin you $40 for plugs would **** me off, that is a huge ripoff (unless you are using some sort of fancy iridium/platinum plug)


looks like you should buy your own parts.

 

As far as the time to do each job, the shop is probably pulling those times out of a manual that specifies general time to do the job. When my brother was working at the Ford dealer, that's how they came up with the estimates. In one instance Ford said it should take something like 6hrs to do ball joints on an Explorer, when in reality it only took like an hour. So the mechanic and the shop get paid 6 hrs, for one hour of work. It's a racket, but it's how they all do it.

 

Slo-Ride,

Bring the car to my house (apartment). If you help me I wont charge you a dime. I'm in south Austin though. Anything that can't be done here we can do at my buddys house.

email me christricoast@hotmail.com

 

What a guy !

 

Hey Slo-ride

I know the frustration. Fortunately I've had a number of board members handy to help as I too have had a lot of teething problems this year with my new set up.

I too have a FAST and I have basically NO experience tuning but so far so good. I still only have it tuned to about 2500 rpms as I'm going very slow but honestly I think you can do it 90% perfect before going to the dyno for finishing up. I assume you have the WB2 option?

One thing I have learnt after all my troubles is that until you have the hardware 100% perfect, the tuning time is a waste. I understand that sometimes it takes the tuning time to reveal the hardware problems.

That seems like a rip off by the dyno shop. If nothing else they are not showing any compassion for your problems. i had a dyno guy who had a rep as a hard *** only charge me for 1 hour even though we were there for about 2 hours and I discovered my injectors and fuel system were nopt up to snuff.

My advise is to get on your regional CZ28 board and get some help. You already have had offers. Until this year I spent a lot of money on labour lacking the confidance to do it myself. But, with the help of friends, this year I took out the motor, tranny, rear end and gas tank. I have learnt a lot and can how do most things myself - although I like the company.

Even now I am having a problem with a fan motor not working and I keep overheating if I'm not moving.

Good luck and stay in touch with that ride. It is very similar to mine.

 

I pretty much agree with most of what Rich said but don't think plugs and wires should be 6hrs. Maybe 3. I also don't agree with the fact that they are charging you seperate labor time for head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and intake gaskets. Guess what, all of the above have to come off to replace the heads gaskets anyway. Why do you also have to pay to replace the them seperately. It's not like they are going to repalce the head gaskets, put it all back together, then tear it down to replace the intake, peut it all back together, and finally tear it down to put the valve cover gaskets on. I would think total labor should be about 7-8 hours for everything. At $65/hr, that come to $455-$520. Add in the saving from parts quoted above and you have knocked the original quoted price in half. Of course, you could probably do the work yourself and save more $$. Before you have any work done or buy any parts, I would question their diagnostic ability. Nothing in your original post indicated to me why they thought your head gaskets needed replacing. Definatley get a second opinion on that. As far as the work, heck, you already have T-trim in Austin volunteering some help and I am in the same vacinity, bring it down. We'll get it done in no time. Just a thought,

Kyle

 

Wow. I'm blown away by the responses and offers to help.

I went to the shop and picked up my car on Friday. After being yelled at and told "I don't want to see you or your GD car here ever again!," I took it to a more reputable shop run by someone I trust. I'm trying to get the car finished and tuned to run in Super Chevy in Ennis, TX in mid May. I can't afford to miss anymore work messing with the car so I'm going to pay someone to do it for me. I'm not that familiar with how long it takes to change head bolts, etc., so you guys have been a great deal of help in determining a "reasonable" amount of time to have the work done.

T-trim, I wish I would have read your response sooner. THAT'S an offer I don't get very often, if ever. I've already dropped the car off at B&P Racing down here. We're going to go over estimated costs, etc. today. I'll give you a shout if things don't go well.

Let me clarify a couple of things:

As far as the F.A.S.T. system goes, I do have the WBO2 option. Someone offered help with that as well. I'll take you up on that when the time comes (hopefully soon).

The head gaskets should be fine. They are copper and the heads and block are O-ringed. The problem is that the builder used the head bolts off of my original motor instead of new ARPs. I'm assuming they will stretch(or ARE stretching) under the stress of 15 lbs of boost. What do you guys think? I'm at 10:1 CR as well.
I just thought that the smart thing to do would be to replace the stock ones with ARP.

Thanks for the responses and offers!

 

The head bolts are torque-to-yeild, so they're one time use only. It's definately a good idea to change them.

My offer still stands. The little things that you get nickel and dimed to death for are things you could easily learn to do yourself with a little help.

Keep this in mind if thing go wrong in the future (knock on wood).


Chris