Mikelly

Late Summer 2013 a friend of mine had heard I was considering building an LS motor. I already had an LS1 block, heads/cam/rockers/crank/Rods... MOST of a motor... But he had a good experience with this company, Dahmer Powertrain and he advised that I chat with them. He sent me a couple links to stuff they had forsale and to their website, so I called them. I spoke at length over several weeks with Bob, one of the sales reps for their performance division. We spec'ed out what I remember as being an LS3 build with Callies Compstar Rods and Crank, SRP forged pistons, L92 heads, Bullet cam, and everything was supposed to be machined and fitted properly. For $6K shipped I got a long block minus tins (no TC cover, no valley cover, no oil pan, no valve covers. So I paid the $6K in Early October and then I waited. Early December the motor arrived at the depot and I took delivery. Nothing seemed amiss, but shame on me for not doing the basic checks on the components. Over the next 9 months I worked to fit the motor into my Datsun Zcar track project. The motor was going to be fitted with an AC Nutter drysump, longtube custom headers, a T5 transmission, and LS3 induction components. An XFI standalone was used as the ignition source and in August of 2014 I managed to get the car to fire up 3 times for less than 10 seconds each. As requirements creep happens, I opted to upgrade the rear to an 8.8 and the transmission to a T56, so the car ended up back in limbo after those 30 seconds total run time... Until February 26th of this year. I was within days of sending the car to Matt Shue in Ashland, Va. to have the tuning done when, while doing a once over to make sure everything was buttoned up, I discovered a crack at the drivers rear of the block... Further examination showed cracks on BOTH SIDES of the rear of the block. I then ended up finding more evidence of cracks in the block at the rear face of the block.

For those speculating, the first thing I thought was "I did drain all the water out of it, right?" I indeed did... As I posted on my facebook in October of 2014 reminding those who follow me to do the same... I'd even disconnected all the water lines, unbolted the T-stat housing and turned the motor over to pump what was left in the block out... I'd also tilted the motor on my lifts (*I have a drive on lift and twin post lift in the same bay which makes doing this nice) to force any trapped fluid out... When I pulled the motor on Feb 27th what I found was more cracks in the block. Upon further dis-assembly I found bearings that looked hammered beyond use (remember less than 30 seconds run time) in both the main and rod journals. And the kicker? I found Eagle Rods and EAGLE Crank instead of my Callies Compstar components. Yup, the wrong parts were in the motor.

So I contacted the folks at Dahmer Powertrain and to their credit they owned up to the issues with the crank and rods and wanted to make that right immediately. However, they wanted no parts of any ownership in the block. Regardless of what my investigation found and what Lamar Murphy saw when I shipped the block out to him... The block was hammered and clearly not a square suitable block to use in this application. Bottom line is I was left with finding a new block (thanks to Lamar for sourcing it for me), and new pistons (Again thanks to Lamar who threw in the rings for free and prepped the block for me at no additional cost.)

So I'm out a lot on this, with pistons, block, additional hard parts to swap everything over, and my purpose in posting is just to say "Buyer beware" when buying a crate motor. Do your homework and make damned sure you know exactly what every part is going into your motor and then prepare to verify. I got lazy and trusted total strangers. You truly don't know what you're getting unless you're prepared to disassemble and verify everything on the build sheet. A $6000 "Deal" longblock has now cost me about $8000 and a lost season. To say the least, I'm more than just a little disappointed in how this has turned out. The money stings but the time lost, at my age, you can't make that up...

BIG THANKS to LAMAR Murphy at M&M Motorsports for trying to help me out of a really bad situation.
Mike

flintwrench69

iTrader: (11)

I feel your pain bro. A buddy had a BBC built for his chevelle & he went through this. Real shitty work, stripped out block & egg shaped cylinders just nothing but problems & $$$$$. Probably had less than 500 miles on it too! Am putting an ls3 together for mine now, all new block, heads & rotating assy.

3 window

iTrader: (1)

Scotch Bright the bearings and throw you're other "800hp crank" in there and rock on! Nothing wrong with the way any of those parts look.

slogo

What did I miss, maybe wrong thread, confused.

gnx7

iTrader: (28)

For $6k shipped if you factor in about $1200 for machining, balancing, file fitting the rings, and assembly they are making diddly squat. Add head gaskets and bolts plus the cam and price out the other parts.... You can't build a quality motor as a company and sell it for a decent profit.

Sadly their machine shop sucks. There are vendors on here that go thru phases with machining issues.... And it's mostly the budget ones with screaming deals. Sadly a shortblock is something you don't skimp on.... As it's a pita to deal with later.

got-a-ls1

iTrader: (12)

I can only guess he's on mobile.. I'm reading this on mobile and the original thread and now this thread gets lumped onto the same page..I was reading and thinking why is this guy telling us about his crate motor experience. Lol dumb setup really I can see this hastening a lot