LS1TECH Sponsor Feedback - Texas Speed - New Heads = New Motor

Here is my experience with Texas Speed. Three months ago I bought a set of ported 243's with dual valve springs to lower my compression ratio a bit as my old heads were milled to give 11.3-11.4 CR and I just started running FI (procharger at 4lbs). Fast forward two months I go to start the engine after getting off the highway and the car turns over veeery slowly and huge cloud of white smoke comes out the driver's side exhaust. I immediately shut it down and get the car towed to my mechanic. When we pull the intake manifold off it is obvious that the #5 intake runner on the driver's side head is full of coolant. Right away I know this can't end well.

Upon closer inspection it is obvious that all of the porting was done on one side of the intake ports on the driver's side head. There was not CNC marks on both sides of the intake port. Vacuum testing revealed that the #3 and #5intake ports were both leaking.

As for the shortblock that just ingested plenty of coolant, the #5 cylinder is completely scored and without removing the pistons to inspect the rings it can only be assumed that they are fragged. So now the block will need to be bored over and rebuilt with new pistons/rings.

This is how Texas Speed handled the situation. After calling and explaining the situation they wanted pictures documenting the leak. Instead I just sent the head back to them so they see for themselves because I am not quite sure what I could have taken pictures of since the leak is internal to the intake runner. I then received a phone call back from them indicating that they came to the same conclusion that the head was leaking. They offered to replace the leaking head. I told them was not interested in anymore of their exceptional machine work and requested that my payment be refunded in full which seemed fair since their head costs me an expensive and time consuming motor rebuild.

Apparently they cannot refund the money on used parts and stood by the offer to replace the head and did not offer any sort of compensation for the motor their product just destroyed. They even offered to take back the passenger side cylinder head to clean it up so that I could sell the cleaned up heads as a private sale. So the basic message is we sold you a problem now you have to sell the problem to someone else to recoup your money. I don't know if I can sell these in good faith but keep your eye out in the for sale section.

A valuable lesson was learned here, do not buy parts based on an attractive price as they will always costs more in the end. Also, do not buy into hype like "The new Texas Speed state of the art machining facility" as now I see the capability of this advanced facility that cannot port a set of 243s correctly. The new build is already in progress with quality parts from quality vendors; AES forged 370 shortblock, ED Curtis cam, AI heads with quality valvetrain, and will be tuned again by NicD. Hopefully others heed this warning and I openly invite anyone representing Texas Speed to join in this discussion to validate the facts I have written here.

Doug,

I can see you kept your word that you would bash us if we didn't give you a full refund. Like we said on the phone we would have gladly replaced the cylinder head with a brand new replacement.

As you were told on the phone obviously the heads are pressure checked prior to shipping & obviously didn't leak water for the a good bit of miles. It is possible the heads were run hot or maybe even the castings were goofy. There's really no way of us to know what actually happened. All we could do was offer you a replacement & we gladly offered to do that. I'm sorry to hear you didn't think that was acceptable and chose to bash us online instead...

All we or any other cylinder head company in the entire world can do is pressure check the GM castings prior to shipping. I have no way of monitoring what happens to a set of heads after they leave this facility.

In response to your uneducated claims about our machining facilities. We use 6 CNC machining centers to fully machine thousands of GM castings. To claim the machine somehow forgot or didn't machine one whole wall is actually just a misunderstanding. Smaller runner ported stock castings often have cast spots in the runners where the cnc machine does not always touch the casting. The reason for this is the runners are only being tweaked in the areas necessary to provide air flow without oversizing the runners to much.

If you want a runner that is fully cnc ported in a GM casting I believe GM offers their cnc ported LS6 heads. They are 250cc runners & move the similar air the much much smaller runners your heads have.

CNC machines do not just decide to port only one side of a port, or magically move the port over to cause a coolant leak. It just doesn't work that way. Don't you figure if the machine decided to change this head from the thousands of other heads it's done in the past the intake flange & intake seat wouldn't properly line up to the port work either?

Your theory just doesn't make any sense.

Here's the two theories side by side:

Your theory:
Out of thousands of ported GM castings The TSP cnc machines decided to sabotage two of my cylinders on one of my heads
The machines ported this port incorrectly even though the port entrance, guide, and seat locations line up perfectly.
The head then cracked both cylinders at the exact same time after several months of use.

My theory:
The head has either been run hot & cracked or it simply had a issue in the casting that waited 4 months to show up.


The facts:

One cylinder is leaking coolant
The heads pressure checked fine when they were shipped
The heads ran great for several months before the issue popped up
Texas Speed had offered you to 100% replace the head no matter what caused the head to start leaking months later
Thousands of sets of our ported LS6 style heads are running on this very site with next to no coolant related issues
CNC machines don't just change their mind & make one port not port in the proper location.



I don't know what the odds are that a cylinder head decided to crack on two cylinders at the exact same time for apparently no reason at all, but it's got to be pretty rare. Especially considering the thousands of people on this very site running the same cylinder heads...

This does not warrant a formal response, the only reason I posted is to let everyone know how my situation was handled so they could make an educated decision. Post what you want, you only restated the facts with a different twist and I appreciate that.

This does not warrant a formal response, the only reason I posted is to let everyone know how my situation was handled so they could make an educated decision. Post what you want, you only restated the facts with a different twist and I appreciate that.

That is the response we expected when you can't refute one statement that he mentioned.

A couple of notes to add, although I had the heads for three months this car has not been my daily driver for quite some time and the heads had less than an oil change (<3000) of miles on them. Also, these heads were run with an identical setup as the older heads that were higher compression ratio. I had yet to increase boost as I was still waiting on my 3.7" pulley to come in and have time to swap it. I monitor for knock, AFR, and fuel pressure and all of these parameters were normal at the time the head let go. Last but certainly not least, I realize that Texas Speed is NOT compelled to refund money. However, in this case I felt like it would have been the right thing to do considering the circumstances. When should I expect a tracking number on the new head so they can be sold?

Defects in cylinder heads do not decide to pop up after a few thousand miles of use. No need to rehash what has been beat into the ground. Despite the internet blasting on multiple boards, we will continue to stand behind our original offer to replace your cylinder head. This is what we feel is more than fair and the right thing to do, especially considering the last 24 hours. We will have your replacement cylinder head built and ready to ship no later than a week from today. Once it ships, you will be e-mailed with the tracking information.

I would consider this handled, so admins feel free to lock it at any time.

Trevor
Texas Speed & Performance