Reputable Hemi/Mopar Engine Builder in CA

The short version is that the thrust bearing in my 426 Hemi crate engine is toast (>.038) so I am looking for a good shop to disassemble, inspect, repair, reassembled and dyno it for me. I live in the San Francisco bay area and would prefer a shop that is within driving distance (5 hours or so). Any suggestions?

The longer version is that I purchased a lightly used crate Hemi that came out of a car with an automatic that was sold after the owner passed away. I checked one rod, one main, thrust and borescoped the cylinders. Everything was within spec so I installed a Mike Jones solid lifter cam, broke in the cam and reinstalled the new valve springs. Fast forward, I installed it in my AMC Gremlin with a Ram twin disc clutch/A883 and loaded it on the trailer to do some shakedown runs at a local autocross event. After four 1 mins runs we noticed the oil pressure was all over the place going from 0-60psi. We loading it on the trailer and started searching when we got it back to the shop. I cut open the filter and there was some copper and way more metal than I like to see so the first thing we checked was the thrust bearing and it was WAY out of spec.

Im assuming the crankshaft wasn't machined very well and it was fine with an auto but my twin disc clutch caused the issue to arise.

member Cab_Burge is within your driving distance (south oregon). he has more than enough hemi builds under his belt to be able to help you

Bob Lambeck


Location: 8810 Yolanda Ave, Northridge, CA 91324
Phone: (818) 772-0200

QMP in Chatsworth CA (Northern LA area)

Penella in Modesto CA

Joey Groose in Lodi CA

My top 3 choices

Dustin Lee, Lambeck, Speigel and a lot of notable others do their dyno work at QMP. All good choices! Mt. View Performance has a lot of hemi experience as well.

Steve wann can help you Modesto ca

Pettis Performance would be my go to guy

You knocked the crankshaft into the thrust bearing of middle bearing when You installed the stick transmission, no end play. More names: Don Little, Westley, CA. Richard Nedbal (He's got an EFI 'bolt on' business but the name escapes Me. But He knows Hemi motors. Bob Mazzolini, Riverside, CA can help for directions. What exactly You going to do with the car/motor? You can spend a surpringly large amount of money on motor re-do if You're not careful.

Thank you all for the quick replies. Looks like I will be making some phone calls next week.

That is possible but I remember check everything twice when I was setting up the bellhousing but it will definitely need to be checked again. I emailed Richard but he said he has been out of the game to long and couldn't really point me in a good direction. I know anytime a hemi gets opened up it is very easy to empty out a person's wallet so I don't want to do this again.

The car is setup as a toy aka to be able to do a lot of events but not really specialized. I plan on autocrossing, Virgina City hill climb, drag race it a little and cruise to a couple car and coffee events. The car is setup with a Control Freak front suspension, Winters quickchange rear with leaf springs, sliders, Caltracs, 285s in the front and 335 rears. The engine is has a Mike Jones custom ground solid lifter cam, lash caps, valve spring, Air Gap intake, twin Holley 750 Street Demon carbs, 3 quart oil accumulator and everything else is basically stock on the engine .

Danny Brewer in Reno NV,DB cylinder heads. He is very good at what he does. (775)292-0951

Wann in Modesto...

What I said was:
Thrust bearing issues are usually externally caused. The crank was pushed by the tranny/clutch. If that's your only problem, I'd just change that bearing shell and fix the source of whatever is pushing the crank around. There are some tricks you can do to get more oil to the thrust surface but that's up to the builder.

If He has 'copper' colored debris in the oil filter, He probably chewed up the journal face of the crankshaft at the minimum as well as the bearing (been there, done that in a dyno session). The motor needs to come apart to do a proper autopsy and get the metal out of the oil passages. It's worse than anticipated right now.

How about Richard Nedbal ??

That's me (Mopar_Rich). Been there done that ... LOL

Plenty of good Norcal names already mentioned.
Lambeck did my Hemi back in 1988, still going strong. We had a good relationship. HOWEVER, about 5 years later he did a race 340 for me that was full of errors & problems - oil pressure (clearances), valve notches machined THROUGH the domes, a mishmash of wrong & under-torqued bottom-end fasteners, etc - that we found on its post-mortem after it kicked a rod out on pass #3. Looked like it'd been built by his gardener, and he charged me $10,000. He said "tough sh*#", but offered me a T-shirt later at the track...

Pettis Performance.............760-244-4415..........

And wrote a book about it !!!

I know this is an old thread but I finally had time to pull the engine to take a look at the carnage. Just as I suspected the thrust bearing is toast to the point the crank was starting to touch the face of the main caps but didnt do any damage to the block. I verified the clutch was not pushing on the crank while disengaged.

I got a little history lesson in the process of the inspection. Mopar increased the face of the thrust bearing in 73 but that didnt affect the Hemi because it was already out of production. Fast forward to the production of the crate engines and Mopar kept the small thrust bearing face. I believe the combination of the poor machine work, small face thrust bearing with a plain flat thrust surface and the twin disc increased pressure on the surface was responsible for killing it.

Now for the best solution? I am waiting for my new crank to show so I can see if the crank has enough area on the thrust to have the block machined to accept the large area thrust bearing or if I am stuck with the small area thrust bearing. If I am stuck with the small area thrust does anyone have any recommendations where I should change to the style with oil passages and thrust pads or the style with scallopes taken out of the inner face while retaining the outer plain face?

A good machine shop can machine the block for a roller thrust.

I thought about that and talked to a friend about it but we agreed that I am not running a 2000hp engine with a converter forcing the crank forward. I am running a pretty mild engine with a reasonable clutch and should be able to either setup to a better bearing like the Federal with the ramped thrust pads that promote better oiling or change over to the larger thrust bearing.

Has anyone seen a hemi modified to accept the large thrust bearing? I dont think the stock crank had enough bearing surface and I have not had time to check my new crank that arrived last night.

Don't fix something that is not broke
There is a reason for the problem on your crankshaft, you need to figure EXACTLY what caused it then fix THAT
Please let us know what you find and how much thrust clearance you have with the new crankshaft and new center main bearing
Increasing the width of the thrust surface on the center main bearing will only add additional wear surface, not stop the wearing
I shoot for between .004 and .010, sometimes up to .012
If less or more then have the problem corrected, bad bearing or thrust surface on the crank

I dont know if it is good or bad but I am definitely not the only person that has had problems.

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbt...ailure-440.html

I think I had 3 things that contributed to my failure and my plan is to address all 3.

1) Plain thrust bearing face.

2) Rough on the thrust face of the crank. When the crank is machined it leaves "star burst" lines radiating outward. Very difficult to polish

3) Excessive clutch pressure (4 speeds). The heavier the clutch, the more pressure needs to be exerted to release it. This force pushes the crank forward against the rear thrust surface. I try not to start my car with my foot on the clutch because there is 0 oil pressure but I have done it out of habit.


The 1st item I plan on changing to a bearing with thrust pads and oil grooves. I have see other forum members and engine build books grind reliefs for extra oiling before the bearings were available.

The 2nd issue will be addressed before installing my new crank.

The 3rd issue is going to be addressed by installing a 3qt accusump connected to the ignition and I am going to have to make it a point to not start it with the clutch engaged or extended periods with the clutch engaged.

I've owned and drag race a bunch of 4 speed cars from 340 bracket cars to a 1970 Baracuda with a legal Street Hemi motor in it in NHRA stock for 2 1/2 yrs, none of them had crankshaft thrust wear problems
The Hemi motor started off with a McCleod 3100 Lbs. pressure plate with a 11 inch clutch on the original 170 tooth flywheel, I tried a bunch of different clutch and pressure plate combinations as well as trying different flywheel size and weight all the way down to 18 lb. 130 tooth aluminum flywheel which would bog the motor instead of spinning the tires on the starting line
I ended up finally weighing it for front wheel and rear wheel weight after racing it for 2 1/2 yrs. it had 2169 Lbs. on the front tires and 1280 Lbs. on the rear tires without me in it
That was the last time I raced that car
I haven't seen a full groove Hemi main bearing set that didn't have the thrust oiling grooves built into them
I have seen posts on here by other members advocating using non full groove main bearings on all types of BB Mopar motors including 426 Hemi motors, not me

I can almost hear the discussion when they were spec-ing out the Hemi crate engines... Dont worry, it will be fine to put a thrust bearing in with no oiling grooves, mot people run automatics and we will save a couple bucks....

Not to discount 8pack's block woes (sorry, buddy) but do keep posting names of good Mopar wrench-turners in CA, please, folks. I need to find a reliable guy to work on my 440 RB. Someone mentioned "Mt. View Performance" and I cannot find them in the book hereabouts (Bay Area). In Silicon Valley, all the local performance shops specialize in tuning BMW's and the like. I need a guy who knows how to work on a real 'Murrican hot rod, not tweaked-out rice burners.

There is much measuring to do when installing new bearings!If you don't have the proper tools to measure you will have to rely on the builder of your choice.

Steve is at Penella's

Mountain View is in Rancho Cucamonga is why you cannot find them. Frankly not sure they are listed in the book anyway. I lived in the North Bay for 12 years and cannot think of anyone in the south bay area at all

Rick Santos is in San Leandro. He was good to me.

We are not in the Bay area, about 2 1/2 hours east of there, Mopar that is our specialty. Full service Advantage Custom Engines

I decided to bring it to Joey Gross from Gross Racing. I decided to bring it there because a member recommended him, has a dyno, returns calls, could do the teardown in a timely fashion and he has another Hemi in his shop right now. I will have more feedback in a week or so.

I agree, the plan right now is to machine the block to accept a post 1973 440 thrust bearing. After the teardown I will have a better idea what the plan is.

Joey is a great guy! You will be happy with him.

Could have Gone with Bob Panella in Stockton.

Should have some hp results in the next few weeks.

8 Pack can give the full story, but the project went out of control...

The engine now has
1. about 2 points more compression
2. 472 cid
3. aluminum heads
4. stage v rocker arms
5. more camshaft

I predict it will make at least 425 hp...

Steve Wann works for Bob Panella Jr. In Stockton, CA. Why so much drama over a simple stock/street motor with ground up thrust bearings? Clean up or replace crank, New bearings, done. This ain't as hard as this guy is making It. Get the motor apart, figure out what's wrong and fix It.

If it doesn't make 600+ HP on pump gas something is wrong with the parts

After seeing how much knowledge Cab Burge has, I would have no problem giving him my engine to build or rebuild!

Well... I hope it comes in low... we have a side bet going that my stock 5.9 magnum will put down more rwhp than 8pack's hemi has at the crank.

Might as well pay that bet right now. Unless your stock magnum is a giant killer and the Hemi sucks eggs, you can't win.

He may have forgot to mention stock 5.9 with a turbo.....

He may have forgot to mention stock 5.9 with a turbo..... [/quote/]
Hopefully your motor will make him want a hemi motor after this