Looking for recommendations in the North Florida, (Tallahassee), and South Georgia area for good machine shops. Need a block performance prepped, splay 4 bolt mains, line bore/hone, square decked, torque plate bored/honed and possibly some intake milling to ensure proper seating.

 

What are you doing here???

Can't recommend any good shops up there, but I know of a really good one down here...

Marty

 

Answered your own question. Spun a couple of lifters in the new block, <1000 Miles. Sure as hell ain't going to use "you know who". Just hoping for some good recommendations. I might go back to HiTec in Albany, they seemed like they were pretty competent, just very slow.

 

Wow, that sucks, any idea how that happened? Stuck lifter or was the retainer loose?

If you don't feel comfortable with anything up that way, you can try:

Eisele's Automotive Machine
9220 East Broadway Avenue
Tampa, FL 33619

(813)621-2979

Ask for Debbie and tell her Marty sent you. Let me know how it turns out.

Marty

 

Thanks man I might just do that. Tampa is a bit of a ride, but not totally out of the question. Not totally sure what happened. The retainer finger was certainly bent allowing the retainer plate to flop around, but I'm not sure if that was the cause or an effect. Might of lost the lifter and had it force the retainer plate up bending it, no real way that I can think of to be sure. I'm probably just going to get another block done, I've got the money and I just don't feel like waiting another 6 mos to get the car back on the road.

At any rate thanks for the kind words, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Mark.

 

Who did the work in your current block?

 

Hitec in Albany and they are good, but like any other good machine shop, extremely busy. I'd be looking at a minimum of a month, probably more. In town is Kevin's, very reasonable, but not someone whom I'd trust to do a high performance block.

As an update I'm probably just going to get the lifter bore fixed and I'd trust Kevin's to do that, problem is he's backed up as well, not as much maybe two weeks, still a long time to wait for a lifter bore.

 

mark you can't go rong with castles in cairo

 

Thanks Andy. Got the motor out yesterday and tore it down to the short block. Pulled the cam and got the stuck lifter out. The lifter bore is fine of course the lifter is completely shot - the roller has a big chunk missing and both sides of the lifter housing as well. Long story shot it looks like I'm going to get away without having to have the block machined. I gave it a good wash down and then covered it with WD-40 and bagged it. I'm going to pull the oil pump apart and clean it just to be sure. Found a couple of chunks of metal in the pan but the cam journals look fine - major damage is to the lobe that controlled the bad lifter. At any rate Bret Bauer is hooking me up with a new custom cam, Morel Lifters and Beehive springs. I've got an issue with the intake manifold sucking some oil into the intake passages so I may need some machining there.

 

Good to hear it Mark! Got lucky with that one.

Marty