No, I was never contacted about any of this this via phone or email etc... & this would be the first I have read about it, as I was emailed this link from another customer. I do not visit or read moparts anymore so I don't have any knowledge of past posts etc.

Only things I am going to say about it is this:

If Brian had contacted me when he first had issues, I may have helped him out... he chose not to.

On the spring choice, yes I ran it further than .050" from Coil bind... alot of valve springs over the years have been ran further than .050" from CB on open & not immediately caused failures. When I put that motor together in the spring of 2008 that is the spring I chose. I felt it was better to have too much pressure than not enough on a roller that would get turned decent RPM. (low 8000's with a 3.79 crank) Today, we do try to run smaller diameter, lower IH springs that are run tighter to CB if possible on our race builds. Brian supplied the valves for those heads & they gave a very tall installed height, which limited valve spring choices greatly, generally to larger OD, larger CB springs. The smaller OD, high pressure, small wire PAC stuff available today was just entering the market 4 years ago, so to sit back today & look at what is available today VS: 4-5 years ago is apples to oranges.

& lastly & this will be my last comments on the subject, but I felt was a pretty relevant one that I have not seen mentioned: Brian supplied the Crane Ultra Pro lifters that failed & if my memory serves me they were USED that he purchased off of ebay or a classified site. He was aware there was risk associated with them, who knows how many passes were on them or what type of engine they came out of (most likely a 410" GM sprint car?) & how much use was on them. To sit there & say that my valve spring choice is what lead to the early failure of the lifters can never be proven... it's speculative at best & especially so when the lifters were used to begin with with an unknown history. I have ran Comp triple springs on several motors over the years including ones that have came back through the shop for freshen etc & have not noticed any unusual valvetrain issues associated with them, even being ran .200" + from CB. That being said, every engine is different in how it will transfer harmonics etc... Sometimes you just "miss" the proper parts selection in the valvetrain.. alot of times this can be caught on the dyno, by watching the raw airflow data & how the motor works at high RPM @ various acceleration speeds... unfortunately that motor never got dynoed.

Now... If I am wrong on the lifters being used, then I apologize, I build about 30-35 engines a year.... Spring 2008 to Spring 2012 means well over 100 have passed through my hands in that time & hard to remember every minute detail of all of them, but I do see on his invoice that we did not supply lifters, I know he supplied them & from my recollection they were used units.

I am far from perfect, I make mistakes EVERY DAY (I think we all do to some extent) but I try my best... not communicating with your builder when you have issues is not the best way to try to resolve disputes etc. & coming onto a public forum & blasting my valve spring choices again after zero communication/discussion about any of this really tells a story in itself.