7.3 Engine Build Disaster
- Thread starter Black 02
- Start date
Black 02
New member
Thanks for all your kind words and such everyone! I really do appreciate it. :toast:
This has been one of those worse experiences in my life with a vehicle by far. My truck blew up in October of 2012. I should have just put a used forged rod motor in it and been done with it within a couple weeks. Somehow I thought I needed a high horsepower 7.3L to put my common rail brother and 12V 5.9L twin turbo buddy in their place. I knew it would be expensive, but I planned on keeping the truck for a long long time.
I'll try to keep the flaming to a minimum right now because I don't know where I stand legally with the builder and I don't know how all of this is gonna end up between him and I.
So, after I blew my truck up, I sat on it for a few months. Talked with Dave at Swamps and David Lott. I was going to have one of them build me an engine if I was going to spend the money I was going to spend. Ultimately, I was going to go with a Swamp's engine and was pretty set on pulling the trigger. I spoke with a couple people and they somehow convinced me that an engine warranty is not really helpful when the builder is 3000 miles on the other side of the country if I have issues. Right now I kick myself every day for not choosing Swamps or Lott.
I'm an engineer by trade, so I analyze everything. I don't make any decision lightly. But, after getting several recommendations from people I respect in the area, I decided to go with a builder local to my area. I met with him, discussed the 7.3L with him and he told me everything I wanted to hear. I'm not at Swamp's level by any means, but I know more than most average chip and exhaust only 7.3L owner. The builder said the right things and made me think he knew his thing about 7.3L's. I know he's built several and also quite a few 6.0L's. Anyway, I paid him in April of 2013.
Fast forward all of the petty nonsense and excuses I could bore you all with, but I didn't pick my engine up until May 3rd, 2014. The engine wasn't even close to complete. The heads were mistorqued, some rocker arms were finger tight, all of the big oil rail plugs had old cracked O-rings in them, and the oil cooler was an old one that had been rattle can painted and I was told it was new. I took all of these things apart after getting it home because I was smart enough to look at it all. Decided to pull the pan to make sure I had my carillo rod, swamp's girdle, Riff Raff's piston oilers, and Dyno Proven's badass pistons in the engine. They were.
Along the way, he told me he lost the oil pickup spacer from my girdle. Told me he ordered another from swamps. He did not. He ground on the girdle and bent the pickup to make it work. I paid for the girdle myself. When I pulled the oil pan off of the engine, the pan was a used pan from an international engine. It had over a 1/4" of sludge and particulates in the bottom and sides of it. It hadn't even been tanked. I have pictures if people want to see any of this. I was leary of everything now. So I decided to pull the front cover off of the engine. The bottom two bolts were too short to even thread into the block. They were shoved into the holes and silicone in. Not a single thread holding. Pull the front cover off to find that he welded the cam gear to cam like I asked. Only problem was that the bead was so bad that it was so tall that it was grinding on the back side of the front cover. Cut a groove in the cover when the motor was turned over by hand.
This story goes on and on, but I'm trying to streamline it.......
I bought a new pan, new orings, new oil cooler, new Melling, and etc etc and put it back together myself. Retorqued everything and tried to do a sanitary job like I was taught by my dad. Didn't mess with the internals.
Fire the truck up. Let it idle for 20 min while it warms up for the first time. Pull out of the driveway, go 1/4 mile and blow a rear freeze plug out of the block. Some cheap off brand plugs that were not tight in the hole. So the truck ran for a total of 25 min before the transmission had to come back out.
Fixed freeze plug. Started truck. Ran to operating temperature. Drove about 3 miles this time. Came home. Let idle.... Found there was basically no oil pressure at an idle. Check gauge light kept coming on at an idle because of less than 7 psi of oil pressure at an idle. After asking you fine people about it all, it was determined that one of the small 1/2" diameter oil plugs in the back of the engine at the end of the lifter oil rails had blown out just as several people suggested in my other thread. Transmission out for a second time. Pull the rear cover and fix the plug. Rear main was already leaking because it was installed crooked. Had to replace it also. Fixed the oil plug and ran the truck. So far so good.
Drive it. Runs pretty good. Needs some tuning tweaks, but all in all, it finally was running ok. Figured maybe my problems were behind me. WRONG!!!
Truck has about 4000 miles on it now when the problem above occurred. Changed the oil about 6 times in 4000 miles. Last oil change was about 750miles ago.
I think I have two issues now. I think there is something going on with the injector. The smoking stops when unplugged. Full Force wants me to send them all in. I will do that this week.
The ferrous metal in the oil after that short duration concerns me. I'm just not sure. There wasn't any metal on the plug that I noticed on the previous oil change.
I think I'm going to get the injectors checked, then put them back in and run it. Then I can maybe try to figure out where the metal is coming from. I don't want to screw anything up any further, but I don't want to pull the motor unless I can narrow the issue down.
Anyway, the engine was built by RPM Northwest in Ridgefield, WA. Same name, but not the same person as Scott Boyer's shop up near Seattle.
This has been one of those worse experiences in my life with a vehicle by far. My truck blew up in October of 2012. I should have just put a used forged rod motor in it and been done with it within a couple weeks. Somehow I thought I needed a high horsepower 7.3L to put my common rail brother and 12V 5.9L twin turbo buddy in their place. I knew it would be expensive, but I planned on keeping the truck for a long long time.
I'll try to keep the flaming to a minimum right now because I don't know where I stand legally with the builder and I don't know how all of this is gonna end up between him and I.
So, after I blew my truck up, I sat on it for a few months. Talked with Dave at Swamps and David Lott. I was going to have one of them build me an engine if I was going to spend the money I was going to spend. Ultimately, I was going to go with a Swamp's engine and was pretty set on pulling the trigger. I spoke with a couple people and they somehow convinced me that an engine warranty is not really helpful when the builder is 3000 miles on the other side of the country if I have issues. Right now I kick myself every day for not choosing Swamps or Lott.
I'm an engineer by trade, so I analyze everything. I don't make any decision lightly. But, after getting several recommendations from people I respect in the area, I decided to go with a builder local to my area. I met with him, discussed the 7.3L with him and he told me everything I wanted to hear. I'm not at Swamp's level by any means, but I know more than most average chip and exhaust only 7.3L owner. The builder said the right things and made me think he knew his thing about 7.3L's. I know he's built several and also quite a few 6.0L's. Anyway, I paid him in April of 2013.
Fast forward all of the petty nonsense and excuses I could bore you all with, but I didn't pick my engine up until May 3rd, 2014. The engine wasn't even close to complete. The heads were mistorqued, some rocker arms were finger tight, all of the big oil rail plugs had old cracked O-rings in them, and the oil cooler was an old one that had been rattle can painted and I was told it was new. I took all of these things apart after getting it home because I was smart enough to look at it all. Decided to pull the pan to make sure I had my carillo rod, swamp's girdle, Riff Raff's piston oilers, and Dyno Proven's badass pistons in the engine. They were.
Along the way, he told me he lost the oil pickup spacer from my girdle. Told me he ordered another from swamps. He did not. He ground on the girdle and bent the pickup to make it work. I paid for the girdle myself. When I pulled the oil pan off of the engine, the pan was a used pan from an international engine. It had over a 1/4" of sludge and particulates in the bottom and sides of it. It hadn't even been tanked. I have pictures if people want to see any of this. I was leary of everything now. So I decided to pull the front cover off of the engine. The bottom two bolts were too short to even thread into the block. They were shoved into the holes and silicone in. Not a single thread holding. Pull the front cover off to find that he welded the cam gear to cam like I asked. Only problem was that the bead was so bad that it was so tall that it was grinding on the back side of the front cover. Cut a groove in the cover when the motor was turned over by hand.
This story goes on and on, but I'm trying to streamline it.......
I bought a new pan, new orings, new oil cooler, new Melling, and etc etc and put it back together myself. Retorqued everything and tried to do a sanitary job like I was taught by my dad. Didn't mess with the internals.
Fire the truck up. Let it idle for 20 min while it warms up for the first time. Pull out of the driveway, go 1/4 mile and blow a rear freeze plug out of the block. Some cheap off brand plugs that were not tight in the hole. So the truck ran for a total of 25 min before the transmission had to come back out.
Fixed freeze plug. Started truck. Ran to operating temperature. Drove about 3 miles this time. Came home. Let idle.... Found there was basically no oil pressure at an idle. Check gauge light kept coming on at an idle because of less than 7 psi of oil pressure at an idle. After asking you fine people about it all, it was determined that one of the small 1/2" diameter oil plugs in the back of the engine at the end of the lifter oil rails had blown out just as several people suggested in my other thread. Transmission out for a second time. Pull the rear cover and fix the plug. Rear main was already leaking because it was installed crooked. Had to replace it also. Fixed the oil plug and ran the truck. So far so good.
Drive it. Runs pretty good. Needs some tuning tweaks, but all in all, it finally was running ok. Figured maybe my problems were behind me. WRONG!!!
Truck has about 4000 miles on it now when the problem above occurred. Changed the oil about 6 times in 4000 miles. Last oil change was about 750miles ago.
I think I have two issues now. I think there is something going on with the injector. The smoking stops when unplugged. Full Force wants me to send them all in. I will do that this week.
The ferrous metal in the oil after that short duration concerns me. I'm just not sure. There wasn't any metal on the plug that I noticed on the previous oil change.
I think I'm going to get the injectors checked, then put them back in and run it. Then I can maybe try to figure out where the metal is coming from. I don't want to screw anything up any further, but I don't want to pull the motor unless I can narrow the issue down.
Anyway, the engine was built by RPM Northwest in Ridgefield, WA. Same name, but not the same person as Scott Boyer's shop up near Seattle.
Dmstrucks02
New member
Dam what a fiasco... hopefully the metal is just a lpop or something easy
Derek@Vision Diesel
New member
Let us know if we can help you in any way.
Ryan,
Strongly consider ^^^-- the guys at Vision could handle this.
Its difficult to read this thread but good on you for keeping to the high road. These are nightmares for all of us in the motorsports hobbies but engine assembly errors happen. It leads to big money and more time. However, when the motor comes out and is studied more, I would give RPM the chance to get/make it right. Im sure you will. Its still about the money and you have a lot invested there.
Im less than 10 mins from RPM but I cant say that I've had reason to have met them yet. A good friend worked on the building for them but that's about it... best of luck to you.
Strongly consider ^^^-- the guys at Vision could handle this.
Its difficult to read this thread but good on you for keeping to the high road. These are nightmares for all of us in the motorsports hobbies but engine assembly errors happen. It leads to big money and more time. However, when the motor comes out and is studied more, I would give RPM the chance to get/make it right. Im sure you will. Its still about the money and you have a lot invested there.
Im less than 10 mins from RPM but I cant say that I've had reason to have met them yet. A good friend worked on the building for them but that's about it... best of luck to you.
bruce
Active member
Hopefully somethin good will come out of this. We don't ever see eye to eye but I don't like seein people get worked over like this.
Tom S
Moderator
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Thank you for taking the time to post your story about the build and the problems. This is how this forum should operate in my opinion.
CATDiezel
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Yes... I ran into that very issue myself when I was installing my crowers caught it before I snapped a cap on. Brain was not working at that moment.
But I also pulled a reman engine from ford apart right off the crate for a customers truck out of curiosity, dropped the oil pan and jerked a cap. Darn thing was backwards. This was all due to the engine not rolling over like I thought it should. Needless to say the whole assembly on that rod was in backwards and the bore scope revealed the piston tried to eat the glowplug!
FORD gladly took it back.
To the op... man you have some patience I could definitely learn from.....
Last edited:
Arisley
Moderator
Could this possibly be where the metal came from?
Good luck. My gut hurts from reading this. I can only imagine how you feel.
ThreeFitty
New member
Dang this is insane, its tough to read. I admire your attitude through all this. Hopefully they make right on it
Layson
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Oh man, Joe is going to be all over this on facebook!
backwoodsboy
New member
Sorry OP....but ^THIS should have been the flashing "STAY AWAY!" warning you heeded, lol
bruce
Active member
The one group is closed.
I was not trying to start anything, but someone posted how "stoked" they were to be dropping there truck off at "Bla" shop and the name rang a bell...
So I looked here and the name and it matched so I posted a link just saying "Buyer Beware"... and its like every coal oraling turd in the NW jumped in...
So I looked here and the name and it matched so I posted a link just saying "Buyer Beware"... and its like every coal oraling turd in the NW jumped in...
backwoodsboy
New member
The NWDC group you posted in the first link is a closed group...so the rest of us can't see it.
But it's amazing the number of nut swingers that will defend an obviously failed product/service.
bruce
Active member
That group is full of "bros"
diesel dane
New member
Wow. I just read this whole thing. With not too many details, I went through a similar experience and lost about $10k. My build went for 2-3ish yrs with no progress. Feel your pain. Hang in there. Eventually I had Swamps build a motor and haven't looked back. It's sick, fast, and they stand by their work. But I also live 20 min down the road. But there are lots of guys who are far away across the country using them. Good luck buddy.
