"sorry you had a bad experience" quoted by schwanke engines
10-21-2009, 08:38 PM
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"sorry you had a bad experience" quoted by schwanke engines Hey everyone. I am the one Ramairws6 has been telling you about. Now you can hear what happened directly from me, Chuck. What Mark from Schwanke Engines said is true, I WAS a long time customer. Here is how the story goes from start to finish...I have had 3 engines built by them, and none of them have lasted. 
The first one was a stock motor, which is understandable why it did not last. Engine #2 I put the good stuff in. After a year of street driving I decided to put bigger heads on it right before winter. We dynoed it at 287 to RWH. The next summer it started to smoke real bad out of the exhaust and drinking oil so I decided to pull the engine thinking there was a busted ring. I was told that the seals on the heads went out. For being only about a year old and 1000 miles on them, I was shocked. We all put trust in our engine builders so I believed him (Schwanke Engines). Engine #3...$8000 later, 525 HP to the crank, back on the road again, and you have to understand that I do not go to the track and race it, it is a street car engine. I question why it took 3 times to get this kind of HP! So half way through my second 55 gallon drum of E98 fuel, my oil pressure started to jump around so I did the easy things like change the oil pressure gauge and stuff like that and nothing helped. Then I knew that it was something internal, so I took it out and back up to Schwanke Engines we went AGAIN where they found out that it walked out a cam bearing. Then I was asked if I changed anything, I said yes. I put on electronic water pump and fan system. They told me that that caused the bearing to walk because the wider gap between an electric water pump and timing chain cover versus stock is wider.
Then I decided to fix it. Schwanke Engines charged me $1000 to fix it. They then listed it and sold the short block for $3600 (I sold the top end for $2600. Then I was told if I do not spend the $3600 there (Schwanke Engines) they would charge me $500 for selling it. Now do the math...THAT IS GOOD GAS MILEAGE!! Now, at this point I am sick and tired of 40-year-old technology. Then I decided to build a 440 stroker LS7 motor. I sat down with Schwanke Engines (Tim) and told him what I wanted, a 12:1 compression stroker 440 with LS7 heads. He tried to convince me to run L92 heads instead of LS7 because of the price. It seemed like during this whole engine build he did not care about what I wanted, rather what he wanted, for example, -8 in the hole pistons (must have gotta good deal on 'em). I started out just doing the short block because of money issues. Everyone knows that LS7 get expensive. One year went by and I asked Tim from Schwanke Engines what it would cost to finish it and it blew my mind. I started to check around for prices on what things cost and noticed that they were almost double than what I could buy them for so I took the short block home and started to purchase things slowly. Like Ramairws6 said, I did not realize they were a drysump engine with no dipstick...and this was not explained to me by Tim. Then I took the short block to Rippie to have a dip stick tube hole machined in and check everything over. Rippie noticed the engine was dirty right away (and that came from Schwanke Engines taking it to their shows and not taking the right precautions for keeping it clean). Rippie tore down the short block and found issues (ring gap too wide, piston ring needed a pliers to pull it out of the piston ring, rods were ground on FOR WHAT REASON I DON'T KNOW, the rear main seal cover was not for a corvette, balancing was good enough for a stock motor but not for a race engine, rod and main bearing clearances were on the loose end of the spec {I guess that is why I never had oil pressure}, when the block was clearanced for the rods they (Schwanke Engines) ground a lot more than what was needed for clearancing. Basically they had an idea where the rod would hit the block and started to grind away, and it had the low end ARP rod bolts. It is not a true 440 either, it is only a 438 stroker.) There is probably more, I just cannot remember everything. I guess I just had a "BAD EXPERIENCE," quoted directly from Mark from Schwanke Engines. 
The first one was a stock motor, which is understandable why it did not last. Engine #2 I put the good stuff in. After a year of street driving I decided to put bigger heads on it right before winter. We dynoed it at 287 to RWH. The next summer it started to smoke real bad out of the exhaust and drinking oil so I decided to pull the engine thinking there was a busted ring. I was told that the seals on the heads went out. For being only about a year old and 1000 miles on them, I was shocked. We all put trust in our engine builders so I believed him (Schwanke Engines). Engine #3...$8000 later, 525 HP to the crank, back on the road again, and you have to understand that I do not go to the track and race it, it is a street car engine. I question why it took 3 times to get this kind of HP! So half way through my second 55 gallon drum of E98 fuel, my oil pressure started to jump around so I did the easy things like change the oil pressure gauge and stuff like that and nothing helped. Then I knew that it was something internal, so I took it out and back up to Schwanke Engines we went AGAIN where they found out that it walked out a cam bearing. Then I was asked if I changed anything, I said yes. I put on electronic water pump and fan system. They told me that that caused the bearing to walk because the wider gap between an electric water pump and timing chain cover versus stock is wider. Then I decided to fix it. Schwanke Engines charged me $1000 to fix it. They then listed it and sold the short block for $3600 (I sold the top end for $2600. Then I was told if I do not spend the $3600 there (Schwanke Engines) they would charge me $500 for selling it. Now do the math...THAT IS GOOD GAS MILEAGE!! Now, at this point I am sick and tired of 40-year-old technology. Then I decided to build a 440 stroker LS7 motor. I sat down with Schwanke Engines (Tim) and told him what I wanted, a 12:1 compression stroker 440 with LS7 heads. He tried to convince me to run L92 heads instead of LS7 because of the price. It seemed like during this whole engine build he did not care about what I wanted, rather what he wanted, for example, -8 in the hole pistons (must have gotta good deal on 'em). I started out just doing the short block because of money issues. Everyone knows that LS7 get expensive. One year went by and I asked Tim from Schwanke Engines what it would cost to finish it and it blew my mind. I started to check around for prices on what things cost and noticed that they were almost double than what I could buy them for so I took the short block home and started to purchase things slowly. Like Ramairws6 said, I did not realize they were a drysump engine with no dipstick...and this was not explained to me by Tim. Then I took the short block to Rippie to have a dip stick tube hole machined in and check everything over. Rippie noticed the engine was dirty right away (and that came from Schwanke Engines taking it to their shows and not taking the right precautions for keeping it clean). Rippie tore down the short block and found issues (ring gap too wide, piston ring needed a pliers to pull it out of the piston ring, rods were ground on FOR WHAT REASON I DON'T KNOW, the rear main seal cover was not for a corvette, balancing was good enough for a stock motor but not for a race engine, rod and main bearing clearances were on the loose end of the spec {I guess that is why I never had oil pressure}, when the block was clearanced for the rods they (Schwanke Engines) ground a lot more than what was needed for clearancing. Basically they had an idea where the rod would hit the block and started to grind away, and it had the low end ARP rod bolts. It is not a true 440 either, it is only a 438 stroker.) There is probably more, I just cannot remember everything. I guess I just had a "BAD EXPERIENCE," quoted directly from Mark from Schwanke Engines. 
