My experience with TrueStreet

[91GriggsGT]

Quick question....How did the car run after you picked it up after the build and install?

[Mach1]

all of this justifies an issue in the internal balance of the motor. clint diagnosed that after swapping a balancer only. this has nothing to do with a balanced motor. he only thought that was the problem and this was his out and why he wouldnt look at all unless he was paid. the only problem the car had, as it turns out, is dowel pins were not installed, and this was the source of my vibration. the dowels were placed in and now without ever pulling that motor, the car seizes to have any vibration issues what so ever.

did you replace the pressure plate or clutch disc?

[TrueStreetMotorSports.com]

Let me ask you this, since you thought that the motor was the problem and you had those intention's while removing and disassemble we can only assume you would have had the engine balanced at this time?

Correct

Now from what we know there was clutch damage and missing dowels, would this have been discovered and stopped the motor from being balanced? or would the motor be balanced and charged to the customer (since this wasn't your problem to begin with) even if there was still a vibration after it had been reassembled? We would continued with the check of the motor, if motor checked out it would be on our dime, if the motor had a problem then customer would pay

There apparently was clutch damage and possibly dowels missing causing this yet you don't want to agree with this? You want to pull other aspect of the guy into this rather then what may be fact on the engine as to weather or not you stand behind it?

The clutch and pressure plate was used "not new not sold by us" customer Supplied.


Also your tech is saying he put them in, was this as far as 6 months out that the dowels were brought to attention? How would the tech HONESTLY know weather he did or didn't? What tech at this point is going to say "oh yeah i forgot to do that"

If you have every tried to installed with out the dials in, you would know. It would be dam hard to line all bolts up. It would be hard not to Remember IMO

[TEAMJACOB]

Ah.. after I wrote that, I cant even recall ever seeing any dowel pins in the flywheel to the crank, not on a Ford at least.



The part you keep glazing over is that you supplied the shortblock, end of story. Clint has no way of knowing what specs the motor is balanced to, so he'd have no way of knowing what balancer/flywheel 'should' be on there - at least not with 100% certainty. Any balanced motor would likely have a modified balancer or flywheel. For that matter, he wouldn't know if it were balanced at all. You can't 'check' a balancer or flywheel if you don't KNOW what the motor is balanced to - I.e. a zero balance, or a 28oz, or in the case of a 8.2" motor, a 50oz. For example, MY motor is zero balanced, but is a 8.2". You would never know if I didn't tell you, if the pan was never removed, or a spec sheet provided - so you'd be inclined to put a 50oz balancer/flywheel on it. It sounds like this is a stock 9.5" rebuild with forged pistons in which case should use a 28oz balancer/flywheel. After saying all that, he'd have no reason to suspect anything other than internal balance problems, based solely on what you've reported as 'vibration'.

If Clint didn't do the work himself, he might not have even known the dowel pins were missing and that gives even more incentive to stick to his guns, especially after this thread and the other ones.

I think with some tact, you might have gotten this resolved in a satisfactory manner, but that's probalby sunk right now.

as my understanding grows. and i am being sincere to understand this. dont you have to take a balancer, rods, pistons, crank, and flywheel to the machine shop and have them balanced to each other? if i show up not having a balancer, isnt that at the least a small indication that maybe its not balanced or at the least raise suspicion? they ordered my flywheel for me btw

[91GriggsGT]

I am assuming those are the stock pins? I only ask because I know the ones on my Fidanza are just straight dowel pins with no step and are put in with green loctite as well.

[TEAMJACOB]

did you replace the pressure plate or clutch disc?

no my clutch and pressure plate were fine according to the shop

[sonicbluegt]

no my clutch and pressure plate were fine according to the shop

So is the tranny back in car or are u still staring it with no transmission or load on motor?

[Slow Five-O]

as my understanding grows. and i am being sincere to understand this. dont you have to take a balancer, rods, pistons, crank, and flywheel to the machine shop and have them balanced to each other? if i show up not having a balancer, isnt that at the least a small indication that maybe its not balanced or at the least raise suspicion? they ordered my flywheel for me btw

It seems you are accusing a whole lot for someone who is assuming a whole lot while your understanding grows.

Sent from my Galaxy S3

[Blackpony]

i can do this all day. just because you type it does not make it true


like i said, attach my personality but you havent provided anything other than your opinion that supports what you say

globbed silicon, oh you mean the grey silicon on the oil pan that I put there like I do on EVERY sbf motor I build to prevent a common leaking area that cold be taken as a leaking rear main seal. Ask ANY builder with experience with sbf and they will agree. Call Jim at Fordstrokers, ALL they do is sbf, nothing more nothing less, this is something he recommends to do with many many years of experience.

[turbostang]

as my understanding grows. and i am being sincere to understand this. dont you have to take a balancer, rods, pistons, crank, and flywheel to the machine shop and have them balanced to each other? if i show up not having a balancer, isnt that at the least a small indication that maybe its not balanced or at the least raise suspicion? they ordered my flywheel for me btw

All of that stuff should be present, as I don't think you can do it any other way unless the engine is 0 balanced. I have seen, on more than one occasion, where a shop said an engine was balanced and never had a balancer or flexplate with the rotating assembly. Stock crank and rods would be fairly obvious if it's been balanced, or attempted to. I have seen many times where someone has sold a 'balanced' shortblock with no balancer or flexplate because they put those parts on their 'new setup'. In zero balance applications this isn' too bad of a deal, but on a 28/50 oz, it's not truly 'balanced', but likely much better than stock (stock acceptable tolerances are shit).

I've said it many times before, we (shops) all do things differently, and just because I say or do things a certain way, doesn't mean Clint does them the same.

I am assuming those are the stock pins? I only ask because I know the ones on my Fidanza are just straight dowel pins with no step and are put in with green loctite as well.

I havent seen any steel flywheels that use non-stepped pins, that might be something exclusive to Fidanza, or aluminum?

[TEAMJACOB]

Quick question....How did the car run after you picked it up after the build and install?

like a champ, and when i took it back to them for the vibration and they swapped balancers and then swapped them back and they told me it was the shortblocck, which it wasnt, it ran like a champ again. the vibration came and went. it wasnt constant and it wasnt all the time but when it was there, it was more than noticable

This issue I'm having is the car has a vibration. I dont recall it being there on the way home from picking up the first time. When I brought it back for the first oil change, I guess a different ballancer was swapped on it which made it worse and led Toby to believe the vibration is in the short block. Tim told me it would be another $1500 to pull it out and put it back in plus fixing what ever is "wrong" with it. I dont have that kind of money to throw at this car any more. I sold everything I had to get you guys paid and I bet it all on this car to be dependable. A little frustrated I paid for the oil change and arranged with Tim to pick up the car Sunday. The key were stashed for me and after making the trek with my girl and 2 kids, I get to the shop and the car isnt put together. Now Tim went above and beyond to make this right and had the tech come up there and put it back together for me on Sunday but i couldnt wait with a fussy baby so I headed back to Ft worth. Monday I picked up the car and I dont know what changed but the car was smooth as ice through all gears and all rpms. Now instead of a nasty vibration around 3500 rpm, the car only had the vibration when you pressed in the clutch and took it out of gear to coast down after a high rpm pull. I'm not sure how a bad bottom end can not have a vibration upon pick up, then develop one, then go away after swapping the balancer back and forth, and now the vibration is back again. I know that ya'll didnt assemble the block but I also didnt pay a discounted amount on the motor build ($600) or the installation ($1200). I feel like for these amounts, you guys should back up the entire install regardless if ya'll built the short block or not and if ya'll didnt feel comfortable with someone elses machine work, then for the amount I paid it should have been torn down and double checked. I can't pay another $1500 to pull the motor out and put it back in when I couldnt really afford it the first time. I think whats fair is, if it is infact the short block, I would be more than happy to pay for new bearings, gaskets,rings, turned crank,etc etc or what ever else is needed if it does need to be put back together, but I dont think I should have to pay for the labor of it coming back out and in. I brought it to you with 700 miles on the build and it hasnt seen anything over 5k rpms. (had to seperate in 2 pms, was too long)

in the red sent right after i picked it up the second time. doesnt seem like a internal balance issue

[TrueStreetMotorSports.com]

If this is true and the clutch/pressure plate and flywheel were riding on bolts alone, and it was moving so much that it caused the alternator, power steering pump ect to almost fall off the car. There would be a horrific metal on metal sound like parts are bout to fly

How does this shake all the parts off the motor but no damage to clutch, pressure plate or fly wheel.

Sorry but it does not add up.......

[TEAMJACOB]

globbed silicon, oh you mean the grey silicon on the oil pan that I put there like I do on EVERY sbf motor I build to prevent a common leaking area that cold be taken as a leaking rear main seal. Ask ANY builder with experience with sbf and they will agree. Call Jim at Fordstrokers, ALL they do is sbf, nothing more nothing less, this is something he recommends to do with many many years of experience.

so you see that this motor hasnt been rebuilt and im sure some whiz kids on here can figure out when and where that picture was taken, so if i bring my car to ya'll and there is no vibration, will clint make it right?

[89FivePointOh]

all of this justifies an issue in the internal balance of the motor. clint diagnosed that after swapping a balancer only. this has nothing to do with a balanced motor. he only thought that was the problem and this was his out and why he wouldnt look at all unless he was paid. the only problem the car had, as it turns out, is dowel pins were not installed, and this was the source of my vibration. the dowels were placed in and now without ever pulling that motor, the car seizes to have any vibration issues what so ever.

How do you know that the dowel pins have fixed it "forever"? Didnt this vibration happen after a few months? How does Clint know that you didn't put the bottle back on the car, mess with other things under the hood, etc? Short answer...he don't. Seems he offered to suck up a loss to take the motor back out, tear it completely apart, and put it all back together. However, you neglected to take him up on his offer.

I'll say this....Clint and his team don't run 5.20's in the 1/8th because they don't know what they are doing. They are well known around here and do damn good work. Trust me...I have taken them a car with problems, they went above and beyond what I asked them to do, I paid them, and never had any more issues. As a matter of fact, they even identified other issues while it was there and I had them correct it on the spot.

If you don't have the funds to build a car, and repair it when it breaks, then you should find another hobby!

[TEAMJACOB]

So is the tranny back in car or are u still staring it with no transmission or load on motor?

its back together. with zero vibration, and as toby just pointed out, it hasnt been rebuilt.
so if it was messed up and the dowel pins were installed and now its fixed, can the shop make it right?
name your terms what do you need to see?