Reminder of why I don't deal with certain shops any more

I need to mock up my rocker shafts & valve train so I can mount both heads on my short block and verify adequate pushrod clearance. While collecting the parts (checking springs, retainers, locks, valves, etc.) I grabbed a set of lightweight ti retainers I'd bought many years ago for a previous build. I had provided them, along with some other parts, to the engine shop that was freshening my heads and building me a new short block at the time.

These retainers were the proper size for the springs that I asked to be used with the cam that I also provided. Well, the engine builder had a "favorite" spring for solid flat-tappet applications that he decided to use instead... and the ti retainers I provided didn't fit them because the inner step OD was too large for the spring. Instead of letting me know about wanting to use different springs and that my $$$ retainers didn't match the springs, he decided to cut the inner step to fit the other springs.

I'm not exactly sure how he did this modification, but it was a hack job. The machined steps looked like they were done with a hand file, the steps were no longer perfectly round (you could see the waves in the surface) and he didn't even bother to clean up the ragged edges after he was finished. When I got the parts back, I was disappointed to say the least. I tried to fix them by redoing the steps on a friends Smithy lathe, but I had to take off so much additional material to clean things up that they no longer fit the springs properly.

So, all these years later I still have these retainers. I use them for installing checking springs for flow bench tests and jobs like today's where I need to mock up the whole valve train to check "stuff". They also serve as a reminder that I have a known set of businesses who will no longer touch my parts due to this sort of sh!tty work.

Some people, including "machinest", don't know how tough Ti can be to machine
I'm not sure about how titanium is rated as far as quality and material purity or classification like steel and aluminum mixes
It sounds like the guy that attempted to machine your retainers on a lathe didn't have the right tool bit for cutting Ti

Its hard to find quality parts & even harder to find good people for working on anything. just my 2cents.

I'd machine Titanium over certain steels now. It's generally quite consistent, you just need to use the right tooling and cutting speeds.

The ti retainers came from Comp Cams, so I'll ASSume the material quality was good.

I put them on a budget Smithy machine after making my own fixture to hold a retainer and had no trouble machining them. It made me realize how soft ti can be compared to chro-moly steel, and why springs with dampers chew into ti retainers so easily.

The shop appeared to have all the right equipment for the engine building business, but what was done to my retainers was just a crappy job at my expense.

I agree. I've machined Titanium many times. And just like a spark plug reading, the chips will tell you what it wants to cut efficiently.

I have no good shops in my area either. Have to go south to Detroit area or north to Bay City area.

I was sad to see the local guy retire thinking it was the end of good work but his assistant of five years is a real go getter that takes pride in his work and so far ive been very impressed and they machine alot of high dollar parts so my old junk make his job a bit more fun/interesting he says.

Some shops are outright dishonest, and others are simply not competent in doing the work they claim they can do.

Examples:

Dishonest: Shop A charged me extra for honing w/ torque plate, only to find out from Shop B that does my block work now that there was no way the last hone job used a plate. As the current shop owner said: "They may have placed a torque plate on the block, but they sure as He11 didn't tighten it down. The only way the bores measured round was without a plate and they distorted as soon as we actually put ours on prepping it for the hone."

And it turned out they couldn't get my already-.060" over block to clean up properly w/ the plate installed, so they just did a touch-up w/o the plate. Sometimes you just gotta run it as it is.

Dishonest: Shop C offers a nice used carb for sale describing it as "dyno tested" and "ready to bolt on". I bought it, and upon tearing it down to find out how it had been set up found a number of setup issues that told me if it had actually been "dyno tested" it surely didn't run worth a sh!t. And anything can be "ready to bolt on" as long as you assume that phrase doesn't actually mean "And it's going to run right", too.

I called that shop and spoke to the owner and called bogus on his ad's description. He admitted he'd taken it as a trade and "somebody else could have messed with it since we tuned it". Oh, and his backup line was "It's got a 30-day warranty." What I also figured out about that particular shop's work is they weren't capable of properly fixing this particular carburetor. So, IMO, they're both dishonest AND incompetent. I ended up working w/ the carb manufacturer to correct some issues and fixed it on my own, rather than bother sending it back to those clowns.



EDIT: I'm not ANGRY about all this, but I do have LONG memory.

Honesty, Competence, Affordability - seems like you can usually find any 2 of the 3. When you find all 3 in a machinist/mechanic/contractor, hang on to them and treat them well. I still drive 160 miles each way to have machine work done by the shop I used when I lived in the high desert. Yeah its a pain, but worth the drive in the long run.

Brad i orderd and paid in full for a custom built set of 6-pack carbs that were surpose to rund right up on my fresh built 440 ! What whas inqluded in that deal whas new billet jets plates for the outer carbs to be Abel to use screw in jets and a billet jet plate for the center carb whit screw in emulution jets and topt that whit a billet throttel plate for the rear carb whit 45 deg idel mixture so i could set that carbs idel mix whitout having to take it of the intake to adjust and al this whas surpose to have been tested Before delivery...... some kind of a bench test if i recolekt but what i ended up whit whas a crack in the center carbs jet plate that leakt fuel and no what so ever jets in the rear carbs so gues how ritch that engien ran ! I caled the owner up and told him what i discoverd and had issues whit and at first he tryed to some how blame me for the loss of the outer jets like they might had falen of the fuel bowl when i opend up the carb as they might not have been tighten corekt but that ended up whit a human error explanation and he told me that in al his years he never had a crack in any of his billet jet plates for the center carbs toe i pointed out that there were on in mine. That clown ended up whit saying if you need anything else just let us know so gues if i ever buy anything from Pro Max Carb ever again !? No way in He11

Few years ago I had some work done by "The best Mopar guy in the area". He decked a Slant block for me and prepped a 2.5 block as well as ordered parts for it. I told him to make sure to get the right pistons for the 2.5 because there was a change in pin height. (He had the old pistons)

When I assembled the Slant I found the head dowels had been milled off in the block.

When I started to assemble the 2.5 I put a rod/piston in and had about +.250" positive deck height. He'd ordered the wrong pistons.

Fortunately, he is out of business AFAIK.

That was your first clue that you were in trouble.

Wouldn't the dowels make a hell of a lot of noise when the mill starts hitting them?

They usually take an angle grinder to them first and get them close. I've seen it done before. If they can't get them out they just grind them down and kill them off.

There are actually think the dowel pins don't actually do anything except aid in assembly at the factory.

I used to have a highly respected and big-name Mopar guy do my engines: 1st one was great. 2nd one grenaded after 3 easy break-in passes. Post-mortem was shocking, stuff like valve reliefs machined through the deck of the pistons leaving a hole in each one approx .125 x .180...
Never got a straight answer from him, but his kid does well in Comp Eliminator, so maybe his gardener stepped in on my deal.
Went with another builder after that based on recommendations of fellow racers; twice the engine guy at abut 70% the cost, and as bulletproof as they come.

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.........

One thing I should add is that over time, most of the shops that provided me with poor service have gone out of business. I think what that means is that I wasn't the only person who they treated poorly. So there is some satisfaction in seeing the guy who screwed you slowly lose his business even if you do have to wait 20 years for it to happen.

Good write up, my vendor hall of fame also in includes Molnar and Calvert.

Hamburger helped us a lot "back in the day", however we did have to deal with issues like headers and an oiling system purchased from him not working together with out rather significant modifications to the headers. We got a killer set of stocker pistons that were fast until they blew through the valve reliefs.

However I guess there should be another box to check on RMA request forms:

TOO STUPID TO USE PART