a guy at our track has had nothing but trouble over the years with various local engine/transmission builders, and i felt bad for the guy, so i offered my services. i didn't hear back from him until last year, when he asked if i'd build an engine for him. i agreed, and we put together a proposed combination and price tag. he had purchased a rolling chassis, a nice back halfed cuda, and it was pretty light, and he had no experience in anything faster than about a twelve second car, so i didn't want to go crazy. an acquaintance of his warned me that the guy was "different". i just wanted him to have a properly built engine. i built him a nice bracket motor, conservative, "almost" indestructible, and i told him that i would conduct the initial run in (i don't have a dyno). i went up to his house, and was immediately taken aback by all the loose ends in this car. he had described it as "completely ready to go". uh oh. the wiring was a rat's nest. what a mess. we tried to start it, and the braided fuel lines were rotten it had been sitting so long. i told him to replace ALL of the fuel lines. we tried again a couple weeks later. he had only replaced the leaking line. we tried to start it and it had no fire. i traced his wiring (getting annoyed now), and found a connector he installed that wasn't properly done. OK! we now have fire. the engine starts, but the tach doesn't work, and he has no fuel pressure gauge in the car. it sounds good, we break the cam in, and i tell him to change the oil, get the tach working, and get a fuel pressure gauge in the car. i'll run the valves at the track. a couple more weeks and it's race day. i run the valves, set the timing, and he STILL doesn't have a functioning tach in a nine second car! i tell him, "dude! get a [Edited by Moparts - Family Friendly Site - Keep it clean] tach in that thing before you run it!" i also gave him VERY specific break-in instructions. he's never driven the car. EVER. he doesn't know if the brakes work! steering? i hope so! i told him to just drive it down the track first run. short shift it (powerglide), and then roll into it in high, and back off, on, off, until he gets to the stripe. just to put load on it, and not get going too fast. the moron launches full throttle, runs it up on the chip in low, hits second, and the car falls on it's face. i talked to him in the pits. i asked him what the hell was that? "what?" and still no tach. he said "it layed over at the big end." fuel pressure? "ida know" so he does it again! i told him he gonna torch that thing if it's lean at the big end. he gave up at that point. next tnt in two weeks. plenty of time to get the tach working and check the fuel system, and replace all the fuel lines. of course, two weeks go by, and he shows up, still with no working tach! i told him he was on his own. he then proceeded to run it out of fuel again. hmm. he checked the fuel filter, and it was completely plugged with chunks of neoprene. from the lines he was supposed to change. he may have just left the element out, i couldn't watch. it flooded at the line next run. it hydro locked. they pushed it back to the pits, took the plugs out, and cranked it. with the ignition energized. it caught on fire. BIG fire, from what i hear (i was making a concerted effort to be nowhere near the circus). they got it extinguished. they made two full passes. first one he was approaching the stripe when he did what any card carrying imbecile would do- put it back in first! i was on the return road for that. i knew, this would be the day i have my first major engine failure. but no! it still runs! he pulls into the burnout box to hot lap it. he starts his burnout. they shut him down. water leak. he called me last night, irritated. he has a water leak, and he traced it to a giant crack in one of the heads. for the sake of my sanity, i told him why this happened. did he think i was kidding when i told him he's gonna torch the thing after the first run? i don't know how you guys do it for a living. thanks for letting me go off. i spent 6 months building him a REALLY nice engine, and he killed it. in one day.

The real shame is he is probably spinning a different story to his buds and bad mouthing you as a builder

Try and do right for someone only to have them destroy your efforts with their incompitance

LOL... he's a real MORON.... he'll end up hurting himself
or someone else... keep your distance from him

I work with over 150 engine builders on a daily basis.

I RESPECT EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!

Sure there's glory for the performance achived but all it takes is a few of the LOOSE CANNONS to hurt your good reputation.

Gald I'm just a lowly 'ole gasket manufacturer

And build my own motors for fun

I have a similar story except my coustomer never followed through to build the engine. 3 yrs ago someone asked me to buil them a nice small block for a 71 charger. A stroker was agreed on and I gave him a detailed price and parts list and he left a deposit. I got him a nice std bore block which was paid for with the deposit then.... nothing for a year. He calls again brings a few hundred bucks then nothing.Another year goes by and he calls and wants a price on the engine again. All of the origanal prices have changed since the origanal quote so I do it again.About 8 months go by with no contact. Now he wants to know whats going on and another price or just give him his money back! So I called him again ... 3weeks ago. The point is you know you did nothing wrong. Eff him don't loose any sleep over it.

just about every year i get some new idiot in like that!(usually a honda/toyota fart pipe owner) just as fast as they come in they go out the door, i have made it a point over the years that if i find some one on the outside talking crap about me my business or my family , no questions asked i just go jack them up !

if i was in your situation i would not pay any attention to him, i am sure that most people already know that he is stroke and expect him to do what he has done with your engine build and his car.

you should get him a large FAIL sticker!

Been there done that. To bad we even have morrons like that in our great sport of our Mopars. Ron

thanks, you guys. it was beyond belief. you got the short version! and, yes, mr p. i'm staying hella far from him. my job is done. several people came up to me and said they couldn't believe it was still running! thanks again. i love you guys!

You have no control once engine is out of your hands... it sucks, but it is way it is.

Most of my customers know how to take care of an engine & have properly setup stuff, just for simple fact most of engines I do are a bit more high $ than most, but even still every once in a while you get guys that don't know what they are doing (or even worse they think they do when they really don't) & stuff happens... It would be nice to babysit them all, but that's impossible. I actually love customers who are somewhat self proficient, & when some small issues pops up they can take care of it themselves without even bothering you about it.

Local shop I dyno @ just had a 610" Ford destroy some rockers/pushrods on dyno last week, mostly because of stuff the customer supplied/insisted on in the build.... & then the customer has the audactity to be pissed because something failed that he was responsible for??? It definitely can be trying to say the least. Race engines are highly complex, very expensive pieces & if not treated properly @ all times you can not expect to have happy ending.

this is the kinda stuff that happens when you do work for broke dum people. i like to work for people with a little bit of money and just a little bit of brains. those are the ones who you dont have problems from.

You cannot fix stupid!!!

See you at the track.

Since I only made it out once this year this must have happened some other day? What color cuda so I can stay far away!

Once you get burned a couple times you can pick out the problem children pretty easy and quickly. Took me three times and four figures worth. Unfortuntely, it's made me a harder person to deal with because being nice generally leads to having someone take davantage of that trait. Just let it go and duck when the car goes by.

Some people you just can't reach. I have been building motors now for just a few years and am still learning as much as I can. I started advertising a little to see if I could help out some locals. No bits and I'm kind of relieved about it because of all the headaches it would produce. I'll just keep building my own motors since I baby them anyways.

I don't know how you guys do it. A lot of good engine builders put one together, sell it to someone who has no clue and then get the badmouth put on them.

It happened to one of my close friends...he built a Hemi for a guy, a big dollar one. First, it ran just as well as it should have, This guy just screwed it up royally....they had the MSD and distributor screwed up running 60 degrees of advance and just ruined the motor. Of course, he didn't accept the blame. And, the engine builder, who we all know, went way above and beyond for this customer, way, way, above and beyond.

I don't know how you guys do it, I really don't.

Well 60* is fine if you're burning nitro...

AND, just for a footnote, Maximum Entropy, aka Karl Lindgren has built 2 motors for me and 3 transmissions, I have had zero problems with any of it. The motors are very strong, have excellent oil pressure, run cool, always start, perform flawlessly and didn't even have so much as a leak when we broke in the cams. The guy can do it all and in a most reliable/professional manner. End of story!

Well there is a small upside.

I had my car at Madras over the weekend for the first time in about 4 years. Must have been around 10 people that came up and told me about this yo-yo catching his car on fire at the previous race.

Not one of them said the engine builder had anything to do with it.