Borchards...Everyone please read, very important!

[Red97GTP]

I just want to fill you guys in on an experience that my brother had a Borchards Speed shop. Most of you guys have heard of them, and probably do business with them. Anyways, here's the story.

My brother has a 1984 Hurst/Olds. He wanted more power that the boat anchor 307 so he bought a 350 Rocket last summer and over winter had it rebuilt at Borchards. We ended up getting the motor in early in May. The car ran fine and we had no problems. Everything bolted right in, and it was a weekend job. Early in August my brother is on the freeway and the engine started knocking real bad. My brother pulls over and finds that the oil is a quart low on oil, with only about 2000 miles or less on that oil. He doesn't want to damage the car more so he had the car towed to a friends house. He pulled the motor back out disassembled the lower end. Upon inspection, two bearings had been spun. On both cylinders which the bearings spun, he found that the wrist pins had been set in too tight. Normally, when holding a piston and connecting rod, they move freely. On these, it took some effort to move them.

My brother went back to Borchards and talked with the owner. He refused to take responsibility for this and was blaming it on detonation. If detonation was the cause of this, wouldn't the pistons on those or all cylinders be charred, and possibly melted? There was no sign of detonation, nor could we hear any pinging inside the motor. When the owner of Borchards was hit with that statement, be started calling my brother obscene names in front of his wife and other customers. To this day he refuses to take responsibility for his and his workers screw-ups, and my brother and I have taken action to make sure that we bad-mouth and deter future customers from going there.

My brother has since had his motor rebuilt again, and ended costing another thousand dollars. This is a very pricey mistake. Especially when a little more precaution could have prevented this.

I also ask that this please be made a sticky as I do not want other problems to arise with this company. Also, another friend of ours had a problem with them, though not as severe, and he pulled the owner over the counter by his neck. And this proves that his mistakes happen alot more than they should.

Brian

[GRNDNL]

How did the rest of the bearings look?.....

[JC70SS]

I have heard bad $hit about that place. Pretty much you get Joe blow H.S. kid building you lower price motors and the big $$ motors that go into cars that have Borchardt stickers on them get built by their good engine builders. NVR is the way to go.

[BAD LS1]

Severe enough detonation will leave behind, corners of the piston top looking like they were sand blasted and erroded away, spark plugs wont have and electrodes left let alone porcelan... Thats what i dont understand about some guys that say" i run the timing up till i hear it knocking and back it off a touch" WTF??? :rolf Ive seen at most 6-7 degrees of knock retard in my car and it was NEVER audible!! now the guys that live by this theroy i can understand why they would push head gaskets out and use up plugs in short order!

Detonation can hammer rods to the point where they would spin bearings, but the bearings usually look flattend on the top bearing insert.

Id ask them to PROVE to you why he "thinks" it was detonation, where is the evidence that makes him think of this using my examples from above?? These are questions id be asking "show me the money" in other words.

Usually spun rod bearings are due to lubrication issues namely, whether the thing had the oil pump pick up un covered once while in operation or the bearings werent installed right and partially blocked the oil passage, cold start up beating, i dont know... But as a rule, more than one bearing surface damaged usually means it was starved for oil at one point in its life.

Yeah the wrist pins... "normally" the pistons should rock freely, unless there is something arye with the I.D. of the WP hole in the rod or the pin its self is too big.

Yeah i agree with Keith too , what did the main bearings, other rod bearings, and cam bearings look like??

Engine failures are not a big mystery, the engine gives you all the supporting evidence to tell you what happend.

[GRNDNL]

NVR is the way to go.

I won't bad mouth anyone but if your thinking of having NVR do a motor for you get in contact with me.......

[DocDave]

I had similiar problems with Borchart's about 10 year ago and have not been back there since; except for the occassional performace part. That's all I am going to say about that.

[Red97GTP]

Well, the other bearings were fine, but it also bent the crankshaft which had to get replaced, not repaired. My brother did ask him to prove it, and which point he started the name calling. As I also mentioned, he only had maybe 2000 miles on the oil. And less than 3000 miles on the entire motor. The owner also recommended that he use a 750 cfm carb. My brother did just that, and we're also thinking that maybe that carb was overkill and started to leak gas down the cylinders and mix with the oil, and that probably started to break down the viscosity of the oil.

[Prince Valiant]

...carb was overkill and started to leak gas down the cylinders and mix with the oil, and that probably started to break down the viscosity of the oil. Well, you would have probably had a piss poor running car if that was the case, and the oil would have reaked of gasoline...and even if this was the case, it would have been due to the fact that the carb was in poor tune. A 750 is not overkill on a 350 ci motor.....

I wouldn't condem bourcharts based on what you've told me...most engine failures this soon after installation are in fact installation errors. Not to disparage you and your brother, but lets face it. I don't know how you guys installed it, your mechanical abilities, what steps you took during installation, initial start-up, etc. I've read nothing that suggest to me it was his shops doing.

[SLOWC5]

Thats what i dont understand about some guys that say" i run the timing up till i hear it knocking and back it off a touch" WTF??? :rolf Ive seen at most 6-7 degrees of knock retard in my car and it was NEVER audible!! now the guys that live by this theroy i can understand why they would push head gaskets out and use up plugs in short order!


:rolleyes: I was there

JEFF

[Corvette Jabo]

Another place you may want to look into in the future is AMS Automotive Machine Service, Steve Johnson 414-774-7005, 9426 W. Schlinger Ave., West Allis, WI 53214. Its about 3 - 4 blocks North of Greenfield Ave. I have had about 7 engines machined by him and have nothing but good things to say quality of work.

Jabo :)

[Rocket Power]

Another place you may want to look into in the future is AMS Automotive Machine Service, Steve Johnson 414-774-7005, 9426 W. Schlinger Ave., West Allis, WI 53214. Its about 3 - 4 blocks North of Greenfield Ave. I have had about 7 engines machined by him and have nothing but good things to say quality of work.

Jabo :)
Well You may have had a good experience with AMS but a friend of mine sure didn't. :mad:


On the Olds note. As an Olds guy I would recommend going to an shop that specializes in Oldsmobiles. I have heard of alot of Olds motors getting screwed up by going to people that don't do them that often . Try Rocket Racing and Performance (http://www.rocketracingperformance.com/) they're right in Waterford
John has his 65 442 down to 9.81 @ 134 mph on a 9" tire with a 461 Olds :rockwoot:

Just my 2 cents.

[GTSLOW]

Well this sucks!?! Where is a good place to have an engine machined and built?! The 4.3L is going to be going in soon and I want a trust worthy place!

[Bad-TSi]

Well this sucks!?! Where is a good place to have an engine machined and built?! The 4.3L is going to be going in soon and I want a trust worthy place!
Ever think of C&S?

[MT98Z]

Just going buy what Rob said somthing seemed fishy

[GRNDNL]

Jamie has it right, If you've got a Olds go to a Olds expert if you can........I went to a Buick expert when we did Mandys GS and its been going for almost 10 years with zero problems....

You'll hear good and bad about almost every shop, its just not possible to make every customer happy. You can't expect any shop to uncondtionally guarantee a high performance rebuild, there's just to many things out of there control.

I'd be willing to bet that the tight wrist pin is a symptom of the different problem. How to the cylinder walls and piston skirts look?

I've heard good things about both AMS (built a friends 540) and C&S.......

[Al]

I've been thinking about taking my mustang engine to C&S.

[Anakonda69]

another good place is rod and competition....also in butler right around the corner from c&s....i know the owner pat and he does awesome work.....very well known....its on 125th and lancaster.....just west of 125th....

[PonyKiller87]

I have a similar horror story about Borchards. When I first started workin on my car and knew even less about things than I do know, I pretty much put my trust and about $4000 into that mans shop only to be screwed over. And just like you when I confronted him with legitimate questions, rather than answering anything the obcenities started flying. Brandon was there with me, I was polite and calm about the whole thing even though I was out alot of money, and the guy just lost it. I said thank you I will be taking my business else where. Haven't and won't be in his shop again.

Since then I have been going to C&S, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.


Something I heard from some other people is that with Borchards is that unless you know him personaly or spend alot of money there on a regular basis you will get crappy work and slow turn around. Sounds like a crappy way to do business if you ask me.

[Bad-TSi]

another good place is rod and competition....also in butler right around the corner from c&s....i know the owner pat and he does awesome work.....very well known....its on 125th and lancaster.....just west of 125th....

Does Pat build motors too? I thought he just did fab work and that he does very well.

And for C&S I know plenty of people that had motors built by them including the guy with the green Firebird that kicked all your asses :goof j/p. The only thing I've done with them as far as machine work is concerned is headwork, but I've had no complaints, nor have I heard any. If I do a motor, I will more then likely be building it myself, but I will have C&S machine it without a doubt. Great guys over there, I've been doing business with them for years.

[Anakonda69]

i know he does really custom work and have been told he only does really custom stuff...but i know he builds his own engines for his own cars and i believe he does do engines.....not sure what his limits are though....

[DFJ6000]

I go to West Allis machine shop on like 51st and Lincoln, that dude in there is pretty good, and i havent been jakked once.

[Cryptic]

I go to West Allis machine shop on like 51st and Lincoln, that dude in there is pretty good, and i havent been jakked once.

I went there for a few things too.. small but he did what I needed well

[theavenger333]

Ever think of C&S?
:stupid:

[theavenger333]

Ever think of C&S?
:wstupid:

[lotsals1]

borchardts has always been this way --want it done right take it to mic's
racine

[Red97GTP]

Actually, my brother took it to NVR. So far, it looks like they did a good job on the engine. He got it back on Friday, and on Saturday we started assembling it. Everything was going great until we snapped a head bolt :mad: . At least the bolt didn't bottom out and we got it out with a vise grips. Well, he'll pick up a new set of arp head bolts and we'll continue this week. Wish us luck!!

Brian

[NoJoke83]

good machine shope = Dan @ AME on 124th & Capital

[Memphis]

I dont think you can honestly condemn any particular machine shop, nor can you unconditionally heap praise on them either. Sooner or later, EVERY machine shop will have a catastrophic engine failure, maybe even multiple in a row. Could be a leaker building them, could be a batch of bad parts, could be a machine that is out of tolerance, whatever. Point is, I could give you names of people who have had bad luck at any of the machine shope you mentioned who primarily do motors, and I could give you an equally long list of those who have had good luck and praise for those same shops. Now I agree that when and if something goes wrong, the discussion should be fair, calm, and intelligent on how to make everyone involved as happy as possible. Never jump to quickly to conclusions though as to the cause of failure...an engine may tell you a story, but it can hide one just as well.

I also agree with finding a builder familiar with Olds motors, They are like Pontiac...to many things that you need to do just right, alot of little tricks you can do to make them better (and safer, longer living), and those little annoyances that can really give you grief. Lets face it, they arent a small block chevy or ford motor.

I have never seen a crankshaft bent unless maybe you are running nitro or something and LITERALLY grenade the thing. Scoring, grinding, gouging certainly. Have also never seen one unrepairable having just spun a few bearings and stopping the motor as soon as the problem was noticed. Not saying I dont believe necessarily, just have never seen it!

[Al]

Carquest in Cedarburg is being sued my multiple parties as an individual working there has a paper trail a mile long. If you or anyone you know has dealt with them and found out that they cut corners in any way, let Levy & Levy in Cedarburg know or that other major lawyer in Grafton (ill get the name)

According to many cponygo and MMA memers, this guy has been known to put parts in an engine ofther than what is reccomended. Also, during an impromptu trip to his house in Belguim, countless numbers of blocks were found in his barn/shed along with poxes of unused aftermarket parts.

On of my friends went there to get a 350 stroked and built. He dropped off a 4 bolt and later found through breaking studs that there was a 2 bolt block in his car.

This is a class action lawsuit and the good people at the Ozaukee Justice center are planning on criminal charges.

[Red97GTP]

I agree with you Memphis, about being rational and being able to discuss and resolve problems intelligently. As far as taking the Olds motor to someone that knows Olds motors, I think for that the 4 grand that my brother spent on that engine, Borchards could have at least learned something about it, like torque specs, etc. I have gone there for parts before, and also to use their dyno, so I too have spent money there. My brother says, "He's always happy when you're handing him money."