I will be attempting to contact Mark Bastemeyer to see if some sort middle ground can be reached in this situation. I have stated in the past I generally out of these forums and let people express themselves as they see fit but here is my side of the situation:

I stated that we were at fault! What I/we DID NOT do is authorize someone else to do $5000 worth or work on the engine in question.
I do have a question though? Who is James Michaels? I dealt with Mark Bastemeyer. There seems to be a few inaccuracies in the story like: “Sounds good, right? So I took my whole combination up to Michigan, and headed home.” No, I met Mark at St Louis and pick up his disassembled engine from him in September 09.
Or the statement; ”Last fall I killed a piston in my 528. I wasn't that upset about it because I wanted to move up to a 572 anyway. I talked with my regular engine builder, and he didn't think he could fit my project into his winter schedule. In lieu, he recommended Muscle Motors due to the positive feedback he'd heard on here. He gave me their catalog, and I read through it, impressed.” I am assuming he is referring to our catalog where the he also got the title of this thread? I find that statement odd because in the fall of 09 WE DIDN’T HAVE A CATALOG. I finished just in time for the Indy trade show 2010.

Also, the piston didn’t fail, the Mega block that he was using had a cylinder wall collapse and destroyed the piston, block, bent valves etc, real ugly. AND the delay was based on World’s inability to deliver blocks when promised. At the time the World block was the only block in an acceptable price range. If Mark had “only” hurt a piston, we would have used his block. But since the cylinder wall collapsed and broke the cylinder, the skirt of the block and as I recall the main webbing, it was unusable. I would think one would not forget this little fact?
Why do I bring these points up? Because it appears to me that it may not be Mark who is writing these post and perhaps the author is adding his inflection or opinion into to mix???
Did we screw up? Yes, I stated we were at fault before. What I do not agree with or accept is the solution to the issues. I thought Mark understood the protocol based on the carb situation: We had mods made, they didn’t work. The engine ran like crap with the carb work we had done so we finished with a single 4 to verify the engine ran ok. I call Mark and told him this. He shared with me that he had went to several “carb guys” until he found one who could really make the 6 pak set up work. I admitted our mods did not work and asked that (in the name of time) that Mark take the engine and send the carbs back to his guy and ask him to look at them. Then get a price of what it would take to get them back to his spec’s and let me know. Mark did this and contacted me with a price around $700. The outer carbs could be switched back but the center carb needed to be replaced. I said “OK, have your guy do the work”.
When they ran the engine again with the cross ram and the “corrected” carbs, performance was unsatisfactory. Mark, in the interest of expediting the program was told “ have your guy look at it and tell us what he thinks it needs” JUST LIKE BEFORE WITH THE CARBS. Maybe the cam was out of phase, I didn’t know and could not check it over the phone. His engine guy was willing to “look at it” so I authorized him to LOOK AT IT. The next thing I know I get a bill for $4800+. If things were as screwed up as they said I would have paid the engine guy for his time and to crate everything up and send it back!

Why did I send Mark $3000? Because I would obviously have cost in paying his guy for disassembly and crating, shipping both ways, shop hours to clean, bearings gaskets, remachine, dyno and ship back his engine. I would not have $3000 in it but I was trying to make the best of a obviously bad situation.

There have been comments about “not feeling comfortable sending it back”. The reason why Mark came here was not a catalog (because it didn’t exist at the time) or one persons opinion. The Mark I dealt with had talked to many people and heard good things. The reason is our reputation IS important to us and WE DO make every effort to solve problems if and when they occur. Things are easy when everything goes well, what separates a good shop is one that deals with the problems when things go wrong. We haven’t been in business for 21 years by sending out screwed up engines and “ripping people off”.

I will give an example of this. Lets say you buy a new truck, 4 door, Cummins, the works and let say it kicks a rod. This is not normal, this is not what you paid for, you are pissed and unhappy. You are furious that your new truck is not right but you do not take it to you local mechanic to fix it and send Chrysler the bill. You bought the truck because they have a good rep and the do what they say. I do not view our relationship with our customers any different. We are always asked “do you have a warrantee?” I have always said “it is hard to warrantee a race engine because of its intended use but if something goes wrong and we are at fault, we always make every attempt to “make it right”. Incurring unapproved/unauthorized cost without approval and then sending me the bill is not an acceptable solution to a problem

I will not comment on this further and like I said will attempt to reach some middle ground with Mark Bastemeyer directly.

Mike @ MM