well this guy has an excellecnt reputation as a engine builder. I have never heard anything bad about him from anyone. Except that he is very busy and things take awhile. He told me he's gonna give me the forged parts at his cost because of the wholr problem with it and I asked for cast. I think he just ordered the wrong parts because of his workload. The part that got me was I was supposed to have it a month ago at the lattest. I was just curious about the part that he had to recut some skirts and rebalance a lot of stuff. I thought they came pretty much balanced from the factory and just needed some minor adjustments.

 

whats merkel's history. i hear his name thrown around by the mopar boys a lot

 

Before I decided to go forged crank my engine guy told me the same thing about Scat cast crank....he said to use the Eagle cast if I wanted to go that route.

 

jack merkel-used to be a drag racer in the 60's,held national record,he's been in business for over 40 years mostly chevy stuff, real quality work no b.s. or short cuts to save money if you dont mind spending a couple of extra bucks for that kind of thing.

 

ive definatly heard great things about him.... after i built my motor.

I had to go pick my **** up from lizard racing. what a bunch of quacks over there

$550 to balance and assemble bottom end?
yup


2 weeks later :
how are u guys doing?
we should be done in a week or two, we just need you to come down so we can discuss pricing

turns out it was $550 for balancing, + $100 for each peice of heavy metal (needed 3!) and $250 for balancing and some other **** he snuck in.

When i told him i wanted it back, he said "fine take it." and mind you its 150 ft deep in his shop with all kinds of **** laying around. i'm 5'7'', 150 lbs. i had to fight with them to get a ****ing dolly to push it on and for someone to help me put in int he van.

I talked to a few guys and heard they are full of BS anyway. I took it to Ace crankshafts since i was short on time. 1 week later it was honed, hot tanked, balanced and .010 taken off the crank for $475

 

your solution

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...hreadid=183137

sorry i had to

 

good deal

 

Sorry about your problems, once again, who are you dealing with there in Hi. I had some similar problems on a 383 ci I built last spring, but got them worked out. I delt with Genuine in Kailua. He had a hard time getting the balance right with the cast stuff, but did get it, for a nice price of $650 to balance. Most of the cheaper kits do not come balanced, once you start getting into the $2000 range for the forged stuff, they will come balanced.
I'm working on a 396 now and it came pre-balanced, but it's a $2200 kit.


Brian