This is the one and only time I will post on this topic and after that you will not hear a single word, I do not need to defend myself.
Let me start off by saying, that yes, it does suck that Ken’s motor went south, but before you begin passing judgement on me the builder (Don’t need anyone to blast me GENERAL LEE - as a matter of fact you can scroll to the bottom of this post as I have addressed you)
You have to have ALL the facts in line.
First off, Ken you did not pay me $3800 for the motor to be rebuilt. The $3800 was the cost of removal of the engine and engine tear down for inspection, and the patch adams rebuild that you said is all you could afford. Cost was for heads that were poured and ported with new springs and retainers as well as oiling mods, intake manifold, scoop, high capacity oil pan, rebuild of the carburetor (which I told you was too small especially without proper tuning), oil re-locator, MSD coil, 10.2mm Taylor spark plug wires, all NEW stainless steel fasteners, new head bolts, clean up engine wiring mess, etc. You were on a budget and YOU decided that you did not have the additional funds to pay for machine work. My recommendation was to over bore the block, and install new pistons as well as resize the existing connecting rods with new botls. YOUR BUDGET could not afford block machine work, new pistons, and resizing the rods and new bolts, which would have added an additional $1000+ to the bill. The good news is I have a lot of this correspondence in text messages as I always kept you informed throughout the entire build.
Instead of proper machine work (which I recommended), block was hot tanked, new cam bearings were installed, and standard cylinder bores were honed. Crank was turned 20/20, new main/rod bearings were installed, new piston rings, cam, timing chain, and new high flow oil pump.
Additionally, I insisted on numerous occasions to go out with you free of charge and tune your motor and each and every time you declined.
Throughout this process, I indicated that your gauges were reading improperly and that you needed to re-do the Mickey mouse wiring (first time I have ever seen a fuel pump grounded to a tach gauge) in which you once again indicated that you did not have the money. Then I indicated that your single bow mount fiberglass tank was delaminated and could be detrimental to the motor, that you would need to replace the tank, you again indicated NO MONEY. Additionally, I told you that you MUST do an oil change, especially after the motor had undergone the break in process, and you clearly didn’t have the funds to do the $60 oil change yourself. You could not follow a simple direction. The fram oil filter that I mounted is clearly visible in all of your break down photos.
How do you expect me to warranty internal engine items that were never machined or replaced??
Prior to you coming to pick up the boat, the cam was broken in for at least a half an hour and it was running like a champ. I have the video which I sent you to prove it. When you came the next time with your battery selector switch problem, we also ran the boat for at least a half an hour to re-charge the batteries. Then when we both went to the lake that Saturday, you spent the entire day on the lake, blasting around all over (picture below look familiar). We will count that for at least four hours, in which we spent half hour at the dock when I jumped your boat, because again you were reluctant to change the original 35 amp alternator which did not have the capacity to charge your dual batteries.
The preceding weekend you took the boat out in the morning, and only notified me of any problems at 2:30 PM. We will count 3 running engine hours for that outing. So right here, we have at least 8 hours...all on the original start up oil!!!
At that time you stated that the motor had lost oil pressure. You then said that you went and “putted it around” because you thought that your gauges were mis reading as you also noticed that the fuel gauge was not reading either. I asked you a series of questions relating to temperature, sounds, etc, in which I did not hear an answer back until almost 3 hours later when you sent me a video of the motor knocking. You indicated that you “limped” the boat back to the dock with the motor running in foul condition. I immediately came over to your house and assessed the situation. A quick over view of the motor showed evidence of a major overheat... Burnt exhaust ports, blued head bolts, collapsed exhaust hose... This led me to open the jet clean out where we found tangled up clumps of lake grass and fishing line which tied in with when you were saying that the boat would not rev and seemed stressed (no propulsion = no cooling water).
So this is what I concluded: oil got extra hot, got thinned out, oil pressure vanished, and damaged the bearings and the non- resized connecting rods did not help. When I was at your house, you understood this, but decided that at 3AM (when you to started texting me) to go through the denial phase, and began researching improper plumbing, when that clearly is not the issue. You offered up to me why my plumbing was wrong with the most ludicrous explanations. Sometimes we have to learn from our own mistakes, and I hope that it works out for you and that your motor comes together nicely with your own hands, Just a simple tip: don’t cheap out on yourself this time and do the correct machine work - you will soon see, it’s not as easy as it all looks!. I am even willing to give you another crank and some extra connecting rods free of charge as I know that you will need them.
Also just a friendly note: More Power is very knowledgable and knows his shit, wanna know why? because I tutored him about Olds 455 all the while that he was building his motor.
