Well I have now tried to complete a motor swap 3 times now and no luck. 1st time had clearance issues and destroyed the whole engine. Second time i had a local machine shop assemble it and it blew a head gasket with in 20 miles. So i pulled the heads off and had them checked and they checked out fine minus a bent intake valve ???? dont ask me how ???? so i had them replace the valve pressure test them and installed it all again. It started perfect fixed an issue i was having with the idle and every thing. The battery died so i charged it and started it again the next day and it was shooting water out of cyl 4 spark plug hole. I have decided i have just about the worst luck. i went back to the shop complaining and they said to tear it down and they would come over and check it out with the heads off.

Sorry about rambling on just had to vent after another day of hell with the car. Started this project the 10th of sept last year and im now tearing it down again.

 

Check for a crack somewhere.
If it was clearanced for a stroker check there. The bottom of the cyls is most likely where it is.

 

Then tell them to come over and tear it down theirself. I wouldn't be slaving over that thing from their mistake except for the pure fact that would probably screw it up worse...

 

Well, if you could get them to do it, god damn stright, thats WAY too much work to be doing.

Blew a gasket the first 20 miles??? WTF ??????

 

your telling me this is crazy if i cant get them to cover it im sending it somewhere else for sure. any suggestions on a builder that can get it right the first time?

 

https://www.horsepowerengineering.com/shop/

And I 3rd the notion of having RPM come over and tear it apart themselves. If they don't then don't ever set foot in that shop again. Considering the stuff I've heard about them other then what's happened to you, I'm surprised they're still in business.

Jason

 

He came over today his reason for the first headgasket failure was that i used arp head bolts instead of head studs. His answer for the second time was the same plus i down graded the gaskets to stock.

Thoughts on these excuses?

Thanks chris

 

Sounds like BS excuses to me!! I'd be pissed and tell them to fix it or tell them you're taking them to court (if and after they said the wouldn't). There is no excuse for that.

 

There's not a snowball's chance in hell that ARP head bolts properly torqued down would allow those Trickflow's to "shift" enough to let coolant past the gaskets when the engine did nothing more then idle in neutral and maybe saw 3000 rpm once. It never even ran more then 10 minutes total. Even your original 136k LT1 never had any coolant burning issues despite having been nearly overheated more then once.

I may have been nice to him since he was trying to do what he could with the motor still in the car by spraying the cylinders for cracks, but I still think he's full of crap. He even admitted to getting a dozen passes on his stock block 302 running AFR heads (6.5's in the 1/8) with ARP bolts before having to "pull the heads" and change the gaskets. Even if he was using top of the line gaskets on his Ford, that still wouldn't explain why your motor started burning coolant the first time back from the shop with maybe 15 minutes of total run time and a 1/4 mile drive vs a dozen 7500 rpm track passes.

Jason

 

Sorry to hear about your situation. Please feel free to give us a call, and we will get you fixed up. We can definately get it right the first time.