7.3 Engine Build Disaster
- Thread starter Black 02
- Start date
Main reason I shared your issue with that group is the guy was all excited about having his truck there... and the name rang a bell so...
I do have a line on a complete motor, wire harness, whole thing for $1200... Forged rod motor... Let me see if I can find the info...
Black 02
New member
I have no issue with anything you've said or done Joe. I appreciate your help in the matter.
The guy who you responded to had new pistons and bearings and such put in his engine. The main bearings now went out and the engine is having to be completely overhauled.
Last edited:
TheSmokinStroke2002
New member
So he is having the same luck you are?
Derek@Vision Diesel
New member
What was the name of the guy?
IdahoF350
New member
If inspection confirms both engines failed for the same cause, it's possible it is a parts OR machining related issue, both of which should have been caught during assembly unless the builder trusts his machinist and doesn't measure anything.
On the parts side I've had bearings that were marked for the wrong undersize before, but caught it because I measure everything prior to assembly. A .010" under bearing on a standard crank won't let the crank turn, but .001" under often will. Or you can sometimes get X coded bearings that have additional clearance but are not marked as such. All of this is why my bore micrometer sees every bearing, including the cam bearings when I build an engine. And a standard bearing marked .010" under kills oil pressure on most engines, especially the mains, but when it's the rods, they usually bang around until you end up with spun bearings.
The other side of this is the machining may have been sloppy, inconsistent, or worse. I've had "standard" cranks that were polished so much to clean them up they ended up with .0030-.0045" TOO MUCH clearance, normal bearing clearance ranges these days is .0005-.0025" depending on the engine, and sometimes you can get away with .0005-.0015" extra if it's not oil pressure critical and you're looking for a looser "broke-in" clearance for a competition engine. I've seen journal radii destroyed by machinists, I've seen cranks that were turned down, polished and the oil holes never chamfered, I've seen chamfers done after final polishing where they got sloppy and touched the journal. I've had cranks that the journals were out of round or had substantial taper, because the machinist doesn't keep up his equipment or worse, sets it up wrong. And my favorite are cranks that are bent, machined anyway, and then wipe out the bearings. I've also seen blocks destroyed by being improperly line honed and line bored, getting them out of line, losing proper bearing retention and generating excess bearing clearance, it's run the range of problems over the years.
Again, a truly professional engine builder should catch 95% of this stuff during cleaning, measurement, and assembly. That's why I used to charge $500-$2000 for assembly depending on the engine. My reputation depends on my attention to every detail, and if I'm assembling a $15K-$25k dual overhead cam V8 twin turbo engine, what's $1500-$2000 to have it done right and know everything is correct?
I feel for the OP here. This is a bad deal. Especially when so much effort and financial resources is lost on a failure like this. I can't stress enough, pay a third party to do the teardown and failure analysis. Have pictures taken every step of the process. Take measurements of parts, good and bad. Document EVERYTHING thoroughly and accurately, and get the opinion of your "inspector" in writing, he will be your expert witness, so choose someone with credibility, expertise, and experience with these engines. And finally, if your state (Oregon?) has something like California's Bureau of Automotive Repair, document your issues with them and get them to work with you to resolve this, it may avoid the added expenses of lawyers and court proceedings. Don't waste your time initially with the better business bureau, or online reporting, it won't get you any satisfaction, and it will just make it harder to get the problem resolved if the engine builder can be made to make good on it, save that for after resolution, but be honest about your experience and tell how it was handled to get resolution or whatever final outcome. Best of luck with this, I think all of us hope you can get it resolved and move on with life.
Sent by my right thumb!
On the parts side I've had bearings that were marked for the wrong undersize before, but caught it because I measure everything prior to assembly. A .010" under bearing on a standard crank won't let the crank turn, but .001" under often will. Or you can sometimes get X coded bearings that have additional clearance but are not marked as such. All of this is why my bore micrometer sees every bearing, including the cam bearings when I build an engine. And a standard bearing marked .010" under kills oil pressure on most engines, especially the mains, but when it's the rods, they usually bang around until you end up with spun bearings.
The other side of this is the machining may have been sloppy, inconsistent, or worse. I've had "standard" cranks that were polished so much to clean them up they ended up with .0030-.0045" TOO MUCH clearance, normal bearing clearance ranges these days is .0005-.0025" depending on the engine, and sometimes you can get away with .0005-.0015" extra if it's not oil pressure critical and you're looking for a looser "broke-in" clearance for a competition engine. I've seen journal radii destroyed by machinists, I've seen cranks that were turned down, polished and the oil holes never chamfered, I've seen chamfers done after final polishing where they got sloppy and touched the journal. I've had cranks that the journals were out of round or had substantial taper, because the machinist doesn't keep up his equipment or worse, sets it up wrong. And my favorite are cranks that are bent, machined anyway, and then wipe out the bearings. I've also seen blocks destroyed by being improperly line honed and line bored, getting them out of line, losing proper bearing retention and generating excess bearing clearance, it's run the range of problems over the years.
Again, a truly professional engine builder should catch 95% of this stuff during cleaning, measurement, and assembly. That's why I used to charge $500-$2000 for assembly depending on the engine. My reputation depends on my attention to every detail, and if I'm assembling a $15K-$25k dual overhead cam V8 twin turbo engine, what's $1500-$2000 to have it done right and know everything is correct?
I feel for the OP here. This is a bad deal. Especially when so much effort and financial resources is lost on a failure like this. I can't stress enough, pay a third party to do the teardown and failure analysis. Have pictures taken every step of the process. Take measurements of parts, good and bad. Document EVERYTHING thoroughly and accurately, and get the opinion of your "inspector" in writing, he will be your expert witness, so choose someone with credibility, expertise, and experience with these engines. And finally, if your state (Oregon?) has something like California's Bureau of Automotive Repair, document your issues with them and get them to work with you to resolve this, it may avoid the added expenses of lawyers and court proceedings. Don't waste your time initially with the better business bureau, or online reporting, it won't get you any satisfaction, and it will just make it harder to get the problem resolved if the engine builder can be made to make good on it, save that for after resolution, but be honest about your experience and tell how it was handled to get resolution or whatever final outcome. Best of luck with this, I think all of us hope you can get it resolved and move on with life.
Sent by my right thumb!
Last edited:
elrodalexander73
Member
What Idaho said!!! Document the people you talk to, and when you talked to them, and what your third party teardown inspection reveals. Fortunately for me I work for a large OEM with a complete machine shop in house so we have seen thousands of cranks over the years. Like I had stated before, a good builder with experience knows what will work and what "won't" work. A few years back I helped a guy out with a 6.0 Ford that a Ford Dealer in Detroit had worked on it and due to the sloppy work led to series of catastrophinc failures. If you need a copy of the report you can p.m me and I can get it it for you. I spent alot of time taking pictures, it held up so well that the service manager gave him all his money back and paid the rental fees settled outside of the courtroom. These days it is getting harder and harder to find people who "got it" and people who don't seem to exist everywhere. The patience it takes to build a really sound engine is hard, some of larger engines I've built where the bill goes up over $50,000 take tons of time, every little thing must be right. From the injectors down to the main bearing tolerances and even the geartrain lash. The service manuals released by the OEM's are usually spot on and will explain the engine very closely and if you follow specific instructions you will have a nice well put together engine. Even like Idaho said just simple plastiguaging of the bearings and checking ring gap before assembly can reveal a flawed machinist. It's a painfully boring and time consuming procedure to some but the end result is a beautifully running engine and that is what you are after..
I need to continue to commend Black for his maintaining the high road here and keeping this private with the builder. Hopefully progress is being made. This thread has dealt with issues that are our worst nightmares in this hobby and its been a good one..
IdahoF350
New member
Idaho, you are being exceptionally helpful in this.matter. I would be saving, print :ng, and reading your posts to keep myself on point in resolving this.
Good posts man!
Thanks. I'm not a typical enthusiast, I spent last week working more on the tuning on my 7.3, prepping for my leaf to coil axle swap, installing a new radiator and fixing the air conditioning on a '98 Viper GTS, and installing a clutch, upgrading the blower, and a bunch of other little odds and ends on an '07 Saleen S281 Extreme. When I mention that I've built engines, it's in the hundreds, and they've run the range from nasty little 4-cylinders to 600" V8s, with all kinds of induction and such.
Like any good builder, I've had failures. It happens. If an engine builder tells you he never has failures he's not your guy. You want to hear that, yes, 2-5% of the time he has problems, and that he will stand behind his work, for a reasonable period of time, and under reasonable circumstances. I've had to do that, it hurts profits that month, but you keep your reputation and you can sleep at night. I've also had a few customers that trashed perfectly assembled engines, running them with no oil, or doing things they shouldn't have, it happens, then comes the accusations and fight.
I've also been called on for expert testimony in situations just like this. One in particular was a $50,000 Mustang build that involved some big names in the industry nearly 15 years ago. The engine build alone was $18,000, and the legal battle lasted four years. Sadly, in that case, the customer turned out to be as much of a problem as the engine builder and the shops involved, but because all of the problems actually occurred before he took delivery of the finished car, his constant changes to the build weren't held against him in court, even though they contributed significantly to the failure of the entire project.
So, the advice above has 20 years of experience guiding it, and I hope it helps.
Sent by my right thumb!
lincolnlocker
Well-known member
Black 02
New member
I want to say thanks to everyone for their advice. Idaho, thanks a bunch. I get what you're saying and I appreciate it.
Anyway, in a nutshell, the motor has to come out. I sent the injectors back to Full Force Diesel and Ryan Casserly called me and said he'd like to have told me it was a bad injector, but every injector checked out perfect. Nothing wrong with any of them.
That means that the #3 cylinder has very low or no compression. Since it sounds like a cracked injector, I'm guessing a cracked piston or something along those lines. All I know is that there's a lot of metal in the oil and it smokes white fuel smoke like crazy and has less than 4000 miles on it.
I'm not looking to trash talk anyone or ruin anyone's livelihood. I just want to taken care of as I deserve. This process is going on close to 18 month. I've been more patient than any person should ever have to be. I paid good money for an engine that was never delivered as promised. I haven't publically bad mouthed anyone. I've only stated the facts of what has happened. Some "bros" on Facebook said they knew the story and all about this engine and I didn't have $$ and was getting a short block and bad mouthed me and my integrity. All of this is 180 degrees from the truth and I've decided to not even dignify those clowns with a response. They don't know jack shiz about this. Me and the engine builder are the only people who were involved or know what truly was agreed upon.
Anyway, I need to pull the engine out and figure out what to do with it from there.
Thanks for all of your help and guidance.
Ryan
Anyway, in a nutshell, the motor has to come out. I sent the injectors back to Full Force Diesel and Ryan Casserly called me and said he'd like to have told me it was a bad injector, but every injector checked out perfect. Nothing wrong with any of them.
That means that the #3 cylinder has very low or no compression. Since it sounds like a cracked injector, I'm guessing a cracked piston or something along those lines. All I know is that there's a lot of metal in the oil and it smokes white fuel smoke like crazy and has less than 4000 miles on it.
I'm not looking to trash talk anyone or ruin anyone's livelihood. I just want to taken care of as I deserve. This process is going on close to 18 month. I've been more patient than any person should ever have to be. I paid good money for an engine that was never delivered as promised. I haven't publically bad mouthed anyone. I've only stated the facts of what has happened. Some "bros" on Facebook said they knew the story and all about this engine and I didn't have $$ and was getting a short block and bad mouthed me and my integrity. All of this is 180 degrees from the truth and I've decided to not even dignify those clowns with a response. They don't know jack shiz about this. Me and the engine builder are the only people who were involved or know what truly was agreed upon.
Anyway, I need to pull the engine out and figure out what to do with it from there.
Thanks for all of your help and guidance.
Ryan
Derek@Vision Diesel
New member
Again let us know if we can help you in any way. If you need a 3rd party to do a thorough tear down and inspection we can certainly help!
GO BIG OR GO HOME
Member
Wow is all I can say! I've been trying to read every bit of this thread from beginning to end for a few days now and I've finally finished. My hat is off to you sir for being so patient and confidential with this matter. I can't give any better advice than what has already been given here. Best of luck to you!!!
Sent while doing burnouts somewhere in the country
Sent while doing burnouts somewhere in the country
ThreeFitty
New member
You are a better man than me, props to you man! Hope you get taken care of like you should
DocBar
New member
Ryan, I had similar issues after my big build but luckily, my issues were electrical. I feel for you. I know what it's like to drop that kind of $$ and not be happy.
You're an honorable man by not publicly airing your laundry.
Kamstutz
New member
Any updates to what you found with your engine and compensation from the shop?
Black 02
New member
Sorry for the delayed response.
Well, I'm taking my engine in for disassembly and analysis tomorrow. I pulled it out and stripped most of the accessories off of it. Out of curiosity, I pulled the pan on it since I used the Moroso gasket. On a side note, that gasket is sahweeet. I highly recommend it.
Upon pulling the pan off, I found a layer probably 1/4 inch thick or thicker of metal shavings over the entire sump. Both ferrous and non ferrous. Truly sickening. The engine is junk. I just pray that it didn't jack my Carillo rods up.
I'll be curious to find out what the shop finds wrong with it.
This engine had less than 5000 miles on it and it's basically scrap metal. This fiasco has been a complete disaster.
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