eltness350
05-26-2009, 08:31 PM
Hey guys, im not one for "calling out" or putting someone else down but after a month and finding out other people have had crappy experiences with this shop i figured i would let everyone know so this doesnt happen to u.
I took my motor to AMS(amsracingengines/west allis) in dec 07. I talked to steve johnson and although he hadn't done that many 350z motors i was confident they could handle the job. I blew up the stock motor(rod through a piston) . I had the motor sleeved by gtm then it was sent to them for a fully forged bottom end. While they were doing that i decided to upgrade the valvetrain/port/polish the heads and have my intake manifold ported/polished. Since putting together the timing cover with the dohc is a pita. I decided to have them do the full longblock assembly to make things simple.
So it costed a lot more then steve had originally quoted me....fine as long as its perfect i said and he agreed. So fast forward a year since i was engaged...that didnt work....lost my mom and lost ambition for my project....Finally this past fall started on it and put a twin turbo kit on it with my buddies. Installed it into the car and started it and ran it for 500miles NO BOOST. Then towed it to atlanta where one of the best tuners in the country is for my car....Forged Performance...
He starts to tune it....not long into the process without one real WOT pull under her belt the motor starts makin a ton of noise! :( They do a compression test and one cylinder fails......
What happened was.... when they installed my intake manifold on top of the motor....there are six bolts INSIDE that hold the lower manifold to the motor. Then a upper manifold bolts to that. Well, those six bolts werent torqued down and rattled out of there spots and were bouncing off of my valvetrain!! So now valves have to be replaced:(
When the were dissasembling the motor there was NO MOLY LUBE on the head bolt threads! I would have had headlift....
The cam caps werent in the correct order! Would have had excessive cam wear....
I went to steve a few weeks ago, just to talk to him and ask if he did a line hone for the cam caps and thats why they were out of order. He said everything was "within nissan spec when it left his shop".....ok....no moly lube on the head bolts...."i always use moly lube"....um ok......then i told him about the bolts in the intake manifold.... he says "thats some big assumptions" I asked him why would they lie and they are taking pics for me. Then he says "i have no power over your motor and what it does after it leaves this shop" while walking away from me and slams the employee only door that luckily locks behind him or else i would be in jail right now.:fire
I did a BBB on him but all it seems to be is a pissing match so i just want EVERYONE TO KNOW HOW SH!TTY MY MOTOR INSTALL WAS AND I HOPE IT DOESNT HAPPEN TO U!
I will show pics when i recieve them and try to get some pics up of the manifold so u can better understand how this happened.
CLIFF NOTES
- AMS in west allis built motor
- They didnt torque intake manifold bolts and they ended up in my valvetrain
- No moly lube on head bolt threads / headlift
- Cam caps out of order/ Excessive cam wear
- DONT USE AMS FOR YOUR BUILT MOTOR!
I took my motor to AMS(amsracingengines/west allis) in dec 07. I talked to steve johnson and although he hadn't done that many 350z motors i was confident they could handle the job. I blew up the stock motor(rod through a piston) . I had the motor sleeved by gtm then it was sent to them for a fully forged bottom end. While they were doing that i decided to upgrade the valvetrain/port/polish the heads and have my intake manifold ported/polished. Since putting together the timing cover with the dohc is a pita. I decided to have them do the full longblock assembly to make things simple.
So it costed a lot more then steve had originally quoted me....fine as long as its perfect i said and he agreed. So fast forward a year since i was engaged...that didnt work....lost my mom and lost ambition for my project....Finally this past fall started on it and put a twin turbo kit on it with my buddies. Installed it into the car and started it and ran it for 500miles NO BOOST. Then towed it to atlanta where one of the best tuners in the country is for my car....Forged Performance...
He starts to tune it....not long into the process without one real WOT pull under her belt the motor starts makin a ton of noise! :( They do a compression test and one cylinder fails......
What happened was.... when they installed my intake manifold on top of the motor....there are six bolts INSIDE that hold the lower manifold to the motor. Then a upper manifold bolts to that. Well, those six bolts werent torqued down and rattled out of there spots and were bouncing off of my valvetrain!! So now valves have to be replaced:(
When the were dissasembling the motor there was NO MOLY LUBE on the head bolt threads! I would have had headlift....
The cam caps werent in the correct order! Would have had excessive cam wear....
I went to steve a few weeks ago, just to talk to him and ask if he did a line hone for the cam caps and thats why they were out of order. He said everything was "within nissan spec when it left his shop".....ok....no moly lube on the head bolts...."i always use moly lube"....um ok......then i told him about the bolts in the intake manifold.... he says "thats some big assumptions" I asked him why would they lie and they are taking pics for me. Then he says "i have no power over your motor and what it does after it leaves this shop" while walking away from me and slams the employee only door that luckily locks behind him or else i would be in jail right now.:fire
I did a BBB on him but all it seems to be is a pissing match so i just want EVERYONE TO KNOW HOW SH!TTY MY MOTOR INSTALL WAS AND I HOPE IT DOESNT HAPPEN TO U!
I will show pics when i recieve them and try to get some pics up of the manifold so u can better understand how this happened.
CLIFF NOTES
- AMS in west allis built motor
- They didnt torque intake manifold bolts and they ended up in my valvetrain
- No moly lube on head bolt threads / headlift
- Cam caps out of order/ Excessive cam wear
- DONT USE AMS FOR YOUR BUILT MOTOR!