After 40 years of messing with cars I'm somewhat grateful for the hack jobs that I've purchased over time. I hated them when I got them, but they have all been learning experiences.

The first stroker kit I bought came from Muscle Motors and it wouldn't rotate. They sold me stuff that didn't fit together. The rods wouldn't fit in the pistons since the top of the rod hit the bottom of the piston before the pin could be installed. They ended up fixing it but their work was really low quality and I never bought anything from them again. I learned from that experience that just because someone advertises in the magazines they might not actually know what they are doing.

Around the same time I bought some rocker shaft hold downs from Hamburger. Now Hamburger was this big time NHRA guy so I figured his parts must be good. The hold downs that I got were a joke. They wouldn't fit, they were not square, total junk. I kept them on my desk for a few years just to remind me that even with lots of advertising and a big name these guys sell junk. I called Hamburger to complain and got nowhere. That told me that they were jerks and so I never bought anything from them again.

And of course I have some Indy stories that go the same way and I have a collection of Mopar Performance stuff that was complete junk when it came out of the box. Spark plug wires that were too short to fit. (oh yeah, that is known problem) and stuff like that.

But I learned how to make my own parts, I learned how to double check and triple check dimensions, I figured out that "not everything works with everything", I became a lot more skeptical about most everything, etc.

I also learned over time that there are some really good solid vendors. Jesel, Meziere, ARP, etc. There are people who really try to do a high quality job on everything thing that goes out the door and if they screw up they take it back, learn from it and make it better.

On the flip side, I've also learned over time that some customers really shouldn't be working on cars. I've been selling parts for a long time now and 99.5% of the stuff works great but I run into a customer once in a while who I don't think should be working on their own stuff. For example, I had a guy call me up and get super angry with me since my motor plates have the engine offset. He told me that he had worked on Mopars for 30 years and Mopars do not have the engine offset in the chassis and that I didn't know anything. I told him he should return the parts because he was too stupid to know how to install them and that was the end of that.

So I guess I've been on both sides of the fence.........