Okay...I'm about as pissed as F***. It's been 2 months now since my block has been in the shop. All I wanted to do was have him get my stroker kit, clearance it, bore it and balance. First I was going with the cast parts cause I wasn't gonna go with FI. 3 weeks into it he tells me he had to order forged parts because the cast would be too hard to balance with the heavy metal for the LT1. Fine. I tell him from the get go I need the block back by end of Sept. Long story short he tells me it was gonna be done by this week so I can put it in on Saturday. Got all my crap together and called the budz. Today I call him and he says the piston skirts are not clearing ... he gotta shave them....the cranks counter weights aren't clearing...he gotta shave them. Now he can't even tell me for sure when its gonna be done! I'm about through!!

The kicker is this guy came highly recommended by everyone I talk to...local racers and dealer included. What's up?????
I thought that most kits came ready to throw in? And is he gonna charge me extra for all this crap he's doing???? Is the motor actually gonna be balanced after he shaves all the crap?I'm just in total disgust.

 

sounds like a bunch of crap to me.

 

Sounds like he is dragging his feet.

Go down and see the motor. Bet its sitting in the corner somewhere with hardly any work done to it.

 

I didn't know that there were only 2 guys who rebuilt their motors in here.

 

How much have you paid him? If it's little or nothing, pick up your block and find a new shop.

It's too easy to find a balanced rotating assembly that is ready to drop in. If you check out www.cmotorsports.com you can find about a half dozen choices. Pre-balanced and ready to go. BS not included.

 

i work in a race shop and it shouldnt take 2 months. there is also no reason for the forged parts.my shop has built about 30 lt-1 stroker motors and in all we never had any balancing problems with cast parts. in the shops defense the parts companies do jerk off with sending parts and many times they need to be fixed because they are machined wrong or way out of balance, too be honest this happens a little to often.still shouldnt take 2 months. you should however go down to the shop because when our customers come around too much it gets annoying and we get their engine out as soon as possible.as far as the forged internals its not a bad idea if your gonna make some power with this motor. the cast stuff is no better or stronger than stock parts, ive seen enough broken to know. good luck

 

Hey Darkz...so your telling me that they actually do some off balanced when they're suppposed to be? Also....not only the delay but is he gonna charge me extra for this??!!! He's already charging me 190.00 to balance the motor. He quoted me around 2400 for all forged parts, complete work (hot tanking, balancing, clearance, decking, etc. ). Complete short block.

 

That couldn't be farther from the truth. The head of School of Automotive Machinists calls Scat's cast stroker crank "semi-indestructable". I personally know of one 600+horsepower car that has lived for the past 2 years with it. Its in my car!

Broken parts are more often the result of poor machine work, improper assembly, mismatched components, bad tuning, or poor judgement by the driver. I'm certainly not advocating cast pistons in a performance application, but to lump all cast components together is an error.

 

Sounds like he's giving you run around......I know because I had the same problem with my shop.....3 week turn around turned into 3 months. Things didnt get rolling for me till I started going down there everyday. $2400 for complete forged shortblock is a good deal though. Mine was $2300 with all forged parts and 4 bolt main caps. Biggest excuse was always waiting on or got the wrong parts.

 

what shop on long island? S&K? Lizard? mercle (sorry if i mispelled that)
they are the only guys that i can think of off the top of my head that would have 30+ LT1 strokers

edit: shops tend to treat you like **** when you dont know wtf you are talking about.

if someone woulda gave me that forged ****, i would have explained to him exactly what forged is, exactly what cast is, exactly what balancing is and exactly how he can put my block in the bed of my truck

 

Must be SOP with them then. That's the excuse I got the first 3 weeks into it.

 

 

i work for merkel

 

I hate to burst your bubble but 90% of the cracked aftermarket cast parts ive seen are scat. typically their crankshafts. you can run a stock crank with 600 hp as well if you like but put them through a magnaflux machine and if you find a crack in a stock crank you are probably gonna find one in the scat as well,nothing against scat just what ive seen from experience. "semi-indestructable" could apply to anything,its not indestructable

 

Dude, I would seriously be getting my stuff away from that guy. It's not that hard to balance a crankshaft and a set of pistons/rods. The reason those counter weights aren't clearing is becuase the guy probably didn't notch the block correctly for them. I would go down and take a look myself, there should be a notch in both sides of the block for every counter weight, and not just enough to barely clear them, enough to allow for a little flex since the thing will have to clear spinning at 6k rpm. Oh and that crap about needing forged parts is a load of well... crap. A cast crank should fit in there just as easily as a forged one. The dude is just soaking your for $$. I would make sure you get your receipts for these "forged" components (the receipts from the company who makes them, not the builder's receipts) and make sure he isn't stickin you with cast components at forged prices.