Posted By: Irun5snd8th
Kammer and Kammer treats you right! - 05/03/12 04:20 AM
So let me preface this with the fact that I dropped off a running engine to them a couple months ago. Engine ran 9.79 just a couple weeks beforeI I took it out. I havent really had much time on my hands lately and chose to have Kammer's freshen up my bullet with some new parts. I dropped the engine off and left them a new BPE 4 inch crank (thanks Moparts for the info and Mr. Bloomer for being such a joy to work with), new set of 6.125 rods and the new Wiseco stroker pistons (thanks to Ryan J's post about these last year). Told them the heads were probably worn out and just fix whatever needs to be fixed so I can beat the crap out of it. The rockers were a set that I got from Harland Sharp and only had about 60 passes on them. Keep that in mind as we go forward here. Kammer completely assembled the engine and found lots of worn out stuff as I expected. Those who know me know that I run the nuts off my car. Sometimes literally! So heads were done, new springs, new guides, locks, one of the springs was nearing the point of eating a retainer, and they replaced my pushrods as they didnt like my geometry. I had alot of the stud sticking out of the rockers. Got a very fair bill from them and I am happy and ready to go racing.
Fast forward to last weekend. Take the car out and make the first pass with the car and I am really surprised to see a 6.136 on the timeslip. I have only been quicker than that 3 passes and that was in a mineshaft last year and the air was not that good Saturday. Come back and check everything out and all looks good. Valve lash was spot on. I knew something was about to happen when I came back and there was no fluids dripping from my car
. Nevertheless I go back up and make another pass and the car feels really good and then as I let off the throttle I feel something funny. Turn on the return road and give it some throttle and... Yep I am down a cylinder so I click it and coast back to the time card shack. Get to my pits pull the valve covers and find two mushroomed pushrods with the heads knocked off. Really puzzled with this I just decided to yank the engine back out and take it back up to Kammer's in case I got a valve bent or something. So I roll in unannounced on Monday morning at about 9:30 am Eastern. Yeah I left at 4 am my time. Bob sees me walk in and instantly knows why I am there. I hand him the heads of the two pushrods and he instantly puts three guys on me to get the engine out of the truck and find out what happened. Long story short, after some investigating they find the culprit. Two of my rockers did not have oil holes drilled to oil the pushrod. Only the roller side had a hole. Now keep in mind that if they were new rockers I would say that they should have been checked out a lil better(That idiot would be me last year when I put them on) but I dropped off an engine that had 60+ passes on these rockers and was running good. So during the rebuild they checked them for cracks and cleaned them and reinstalled. Nevertheless they corrected the issue with my rockers, yanked the intake and checked everything there, made me two new pushrods, and reassembled everything. They had three guys dedicated to a guy that showed up unannounced and had me out the door in under three hours and I got home by dinner. But wait... Didn't charge me a dime other than some gaskets that I bought 
Two years ago I hurt the cam in the engine and dropped it off on the way back through from Quaker City and they had my engine completely apart and rebuilt in less than a week so I wouldnt miss a Chrysler Classic race the following weekend. And about 10 years ago I was running a cast crank that windowed the oil pan and I was leading the points. They fixed all my stuff and had me back up and going without missing a single race. Just cant say enough about these guys. When guys ask me why I drive 4.5 hours to go Kammer's; this is exactly why. You just dont find service like that in this day and age!!
Fast forward to last weekend. Take the car out and make the first pass with the car and I am really surprised to see a 6.136 on the timeslip. I have only been quicker than that 3 passes and that was in a mineshaft last year and the air was not that good Saturday. Come back and check everything out and all looks good. Valve lash was spot on. I knew something was about to happen when I came back and there was no fluids dripping from my car
. Nevertheless I go back up and make another pass and the car feels really good and then as I let off the throttle I feel something funny. Turn on the return road and give it some throttle and... Yep I am down a cylinder so I click it and coast back to the time card shack. Get to my pits pull the valve covers and find two mushroomed pushrods with the heads knocked off. Really puzzled with this I just decided to yank the engine back out and take it back up to Kammer's in case I got a valve bent or something. So I roll in unannounced on Monday morning at about 9:30 am Eastern. Yeah I left at 4 am my time. Bob sees me walk in and instantly knows why I am there. I hand him the heads of the two pushrods and he instantly puts three guys on me to get the engine out of the truck and find out what happened. Long story short, after some investigating they find the culprit. Two of my rockers did not have oil holes drilled to oil the pushrod. Only the roller side had a hole. Now keep in mind that if they were new rockers I would say that they should have been checked out a lil better(That idiot would be me last year when I put them on) but I dropped off an engine that had 60+ passes on these rockers and was running good. So during the rebuild they checked them for cracks and cleaned them and reinstalled. Nevertheless they corrected the issue with my rockers, yanked the intake and checked everything there, made me two new pushrods, and reassembled everything. They had three guys dedicated to a guy that showed up unannounced and had me out the door in under three hours and I got home by dinner. But wait... Didn't charge me a dime other than some gaskets that I bought Two years ago I hurt the cam in the engine and dropped it off on the way back through from Quaker City and they had my engine completely apart and rebuilt in less than a week so I wouldnt miss a Chrysler Classic race the following weekend. And about 10 years ago I was running a cast crank that windowed the oil pan and I was leading the points. They fixed all my stuff and had me back up and going without missing a single race. Just cant say enough about these guys. When guys ask me why I drive 4.5 hours to go Kammer's; this is exactly why. You just dont find service like that in this day and age!!
