rrussell said:

Vinny Ten... A must watch video.

Note: I'm not saying that your dealing with a fake shop also. This video answers a lot of questions when it comes to building and tuning and the owners part.


Vinny Ten Calls Out Fake Shops, F****d Up Cars & Frustrated Tuners!

Click to expand...

That video is just full of win and epic. Very well said!

Wow Vinny's behind is still around? Lol! I have not seen him in years.

I remember you asking about the shop on here and i was the only reply, I've always known them to be reputable but this year i've heard several bad stories and even had a past customer who's car i refused to tune until it was correctly done and put together and he went there instead of fixing his problems and had to trailer it home blown up. .. I actualy have repaired two of his custom manifolds this week as well..

anyway, on topic, there's not much gonna come of it, I've seen a shop here in town blow up at least a dozen cars during tuning and their most common reply is 'that's what happens when you build a race car" No one i know personally has been able to get moeny out of them either through court or any other litigations, the best thing to do is to try and start reasonable and lay the cards on the table and tell them yo realize it's a chance you take but they hid thigns from you and that isn't the way to conduct a proper business.. Then ask them how much they will work with you on the repair (and don't except labor as their "half of payment" that's expected free on your end IMO, you want PARTS! paid for by them, assumne that you'll spend some money but what you really can expect at best is them to help you recover your loss..

if they won't do that go straight to the BBB and file complaints, sometimes this gets them on their feet because the BBB will call and let them know or send them a letter.

Anyway, good luck man, but unless you've got a lawyer in the family or as a friend you'll lose more than you'll gain going that route, you'll have spent enough to build another engine only to not get a damn thing from the shop, so i wish you all the best and if you some way have some legal recourse in your state that you can use to stand behind go for it, but here in NE, the customer is screwed in this case because the fact that the car is iunteneded for "off road use only:" unless you want to pay the fines for the EPA violations and DOPT violations your car could incur if it were ever inspected in a manner consistant with enviromental laws (like they do in california)

again, good luck

be like most of us. suck it up. buy more parts and go at it again. you screw up when you let some shop that does not know about dsm experimented on your car. build your own car or take it to one of the top dog on here to do it for you. you can not prove that he blow up your car. who to say that the machine shop you got putting the engine together for you did not suck. you might not even have the correct parts to make the power you are trying to make. regroup. consider your option and come at it again full force. the first honda you bust up at the track will be well worth it.

Well there has been a lot of good advise on this thread so, I will just say good luck OP. IF it is MKC, I Hope it works out in your favor.

Hope you get it sorted out but as the old sayin goes. "if you want somethin done right, you gotta do it yourself"

Hey, I have a set of Ross pistons +.030" and rods that came out of my engine when I rebuilt it. If this shop won't do parts you can have these for free, just pay shipping. PM me for details.

Can't spell disappointment without DSM.

Did this shop build the shortblock originally? From what I am reading I only see that they had the head of which isnt related to the failure. What were the clearances on the motor if you happen to know? There is always an explanation on what happened.

I have seen customer supplied shortblocks last 2 miles because of PTW being too tight, ring gaps being to tight and cracking pistons (independent of timing or fuel), rod bearings fail within 120 miles because of improper crankshaft prep or even worse turning the crank, etc. There are always reasons and 90% of them really have nothing to do with the tuner, especially if its on good fuel.

I was just there for an Evo event and had a chance to talk to Chad (not sure who tuned yours). I am reasonably sure I even have pictures of your 2G. Chad is not a dummy, he does know how to tune cars and I am not willing to say that about just anyone. I know when I am talking to someone that knows what we know or not. Bad luck, it sucks, but all this talk about taking it out on the shop is HorseSHIZZLE when the cause isnt even known yet or the tuner didnt even put it together.

My 2 cents

After reading through your build, it seem like you got some good parts on the car. However it seen like you got some clearance issues or poor engine assembly for your engine to come apart and make crapy power at 30psi on E85. PTW clearance is likely too tight. Unless your tuner lean out the car severely or the knock sensor threshold(rpm) in ECMlink is set too high, it is unlikely his fault that it blew up. Stock ecu will pull timing to base timing if you start to knock. Lean run on the dyno up to 14:1 afr might not do anything harmful unless it is around 6k+ rpm for a long time. If it is too lean on the dyno, it will generally shake the car really bad and any right minded tuner will let off the gas. Even with the factory timing table, your car should make somewhere in the 600hp+ at 30psi if the afr is decent. You might want to consider the engine builder to be the cause of your problem. Maybe his machine work sucks or he did not clean things like he should. Trash and poor clearance are the killers of engine.

Well, I found a nice 2.4L long-rod short block (with all billet Magnus rotating assembly) for a very good price on the Link forums with the help of Tim Zimmer. The shop stood by their word and pulled the original engine that they killed on the dyno and had the new engine inspected assembled and installed/tuned for a very reasonable (highly discounted) price. The new engine made almost 600awhp on a conservative tune at 29psi with my big heavy 19" Axis Seven clown shoes on. Once the new engine is broken in completely I'll probably crank up the boost and go for broke with some smaller/lighter wheels and tires and see if she'll break 700awhp.

Glad to hear you've got it back together. Enjoy driving it

It's interesting that Arkansas STILL doesn't have a decent shop with an AWD dyno. A few friends and I tried to start a shop back in 2010 and the bank told us no one would ever need anything like that.

Glad that everything got worked out for you and the car made decent power. Did you find out what the cause of engine failure was in the first place??

As a shop owner to many people like to place blame on a shop so they don't have to pay out of pocket for the mistakes they made. Coming to a shop with (especially my shop) throwing around lawsuit when its not our fault is a quick way to find yourself walking down the highway empty handed. When it comes down to it, even if its not our fault and you come to us with respect we will sometimes go out of our way to help out the customer and prevent the issue from happening again. And to throw out BBB at us is such a joke since they have no affect on a business. The place is a rip off and all they do is get paid by businesses to have reports about them. All they are is a business trying to make money like anyone else. They are as bad as the credit card companies.

Primary cause of the original engine failure appeared to be rod#2.. it gave up above 500whp and trashed the crank and the rest of the engine along with it.

I might've missed it, but what internals where in the engine that blew??

The old shortblock was a 7 bolt 4g64 that was built by a reputable machine shop in Springfield MO. It was fully balanced and blueprinted and assembled with a custom torque plate etc. Internals included a polished mitsu 100mm crank with wiseco pistons (9 to 1), crower rods, plus all ARP fasters and ACL bearings etc. It made 450whp at 25psi on an HX40pro a couple years ago. There were probably under 3000 miles on it when it let go.

Which shop built it? I lived in Springfield for a while....