I'm getting things together for my LQ9/TH400 into 79 Fox 302 Ghia notch, which may be (well as far as I know) the first LS/Fox swap in the UK.

I took delivery of my LQ9 and a TH400 from a Chevy Truck breaker in Maine last month. It was supposed to be a good motor but turned out to be far from it, in fact it's a complete dog that will need a total rebuild including new valves and seats which are totally trashed. What started out as a $1200 motor became a $3000 motor with shipping and tax, and will now be a $4000 motor with rebuild costs (not including any new induction parts).

Well, I thought it's probably good to get the **** out the way early, but no, the saga continues lol.

I just took delivery from Summit today, of my Edelbrock RPM intake and ignition box $940 with shipping and tax~ what a disappointment, the fit and finish is poor to say the least. We're kind of used to American manufactures playing a little fast and loose with quality of fit/finish here, but Edelbrock are normally okay.

The Ignition box is too high so the carb doesn't fit:

The access for the wiring has not been finished right so the plug wont fit through:

The machining for the rubber mounting of the ignition box is wrong, so the mounts can't screw in, note, that isn't why the carb doesn't fit:

The bracket for the throttle cable doesn't fit/lineup with the mounting holes:

The bolt holes are double the size needed, which as a CNC engineer I can tell you is just bad practice:

Another item of note is that it came with two complete sets of throttle cable brackets, but none of the nuts and bolts required to fit them (which it should have).

I fail to understand how a company like Edelbrock can produce a perfectly good manifold for $150 but at the same time turns out this rubbish for 4 times the cost!

The reason I'm pissed about this is, yes I can fix the errors, but hell why should I have to~ and I can't just ship it back 3000 miles for a warranty claim.

So, this build is only just starting and I've $1000s more to spend on parts, but I do hope it's going to improve from here. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Rant over~ for now

 

Here's some stuff on the motor.

Innocent enough looking motor when it arrived on the pallet:

Jump ahead to the state of the heads, intake runners were thick with crud!:

After cleaning I found the valves and seats were trashed:


I'd be interested if anyone has an opinion why the valves and seats are trashed like that. I'm going to have the seats re-cut and fit new valves.

On the up side I got a load of parts from a guy here used for a fantastic price, including Comp Cams 918 springs, ATI damper, Liginfelter GT1 cam (can't use it), F-body low mount alternator bracket and un-used alternator, un-used lifters, pushrods and rockers with steel stands, other odds and ends for $300!!! result.

 

Sorry about your issues with the Edelbrock parts, thats just ridiclulous. If you dont want to modify any parts you can source rubber mounts exactly like those just in a smaller rubber diameter from a Porsche dealer, its the throttle body support bracket mount, and looks like it would be the same thread pitch, and they are only like $7 i think.

Actually your engine looks like it has some mileage on it, the vlave seats look ok to me, just looks like some carbon buildup that you could clean up yourself, get some valve drinding compound and hand lap them if you really want to clean them up nice, but its what i would expect to see on one of these engines with as much oil as they pour into the intake.

Hope this helps!

Mark

 

Sorry to hear about all of your issues.. did the dealer you got the motor from state the condition of the motor, mileage ?.. what does the cyl walls look like ?.. as Marky stated. could just be carbon build up on the upper end ? have you checked the bearing on the lower end yet ?

Dealing with long distant buying over the internet is a problem in general, more so for overseas.. IMO, I would recommend for anyone over seas to be dealing with a know dealer or go new/rebuilt.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

BC

 

Thanks for the posts guys~ the valves and seats are actually worse than they look in the photos, it just looks like carbon build up, but in actuality they're deeply pitted and will need machining. The bores are worn smooth with all the cross hatch worn off.

The bearings are worn through, but I haven't miked them all yet.

The motor was sold as a "great running low to mid milage motor".

Seems the best thing is to buy from fellow enthusiast on sites like this one. I bought some 2011 Camaro manifolds from a guy on camaro5.com who was great to deal with and the parts were not only perfect but he threw in a set of gaskets just to be nice.

I'm going to throw the intake on my Bridgeport and mill the ignition box mounting pads, the wiring access holes, and the throttle cable bracket. I'll machine up some collars washers for the bolts so they fit correctly~ stuff I already paid Edlebrock to do

 

Before you put your time into it, I would call Edelbrock out on those fitup issues. For the ignition box interference, they may be assuming the use of an Edelbrock (carter/AFB style) carb rather than a Holley 4150 style, where there wouldn't be a bowl / accelerator pump there, but I fail to see how the unseated, too-tall standoffs wouldn't cause the interference you're seeing. It doesn't really matter - the sum of those issues should be enough for them to send you a replacement.

As for the engine condition, well that's the luck of the draw. Even the dismantler won't know what sort of condition its in without tearing it down some. All they can tell you is what the odometer reads. That's a risk you take, compounded by being overseas. You can protect yourself to some degree by asking for compression/leakdown testing, more detailed photos, etc, but in the end you are taking a risk.

 

That really sucks, I'd be upset too. FYI, I don't think Edelbrock is currently living up to its reputation. They've dropped part of their product line, they sold to a german "investment group", and their quality seems to be suffering. I bet the guys at Holley love reading stories like yours.

http://motorsportsnewswire.wordpress...brock-0618103/

 

Likely that **** was cast in Ho Chi Min's foundry and assembled in Taiwan..Junk.
As for the engine, I'd be having a real serious talk w/ that guy.
Who's the yard in question? His name out in public could help others to avoid getting screwed.

 

This is why I wanted a core to rebuild from the start....didn't want to get it in and THEN find out it has issues.

Sorry you got shafted by some POS. Hope Karma has a visit with him.

 

How about contacting the dealer and see if they well at least refund you some of the cost. Hopefully they will do something in good faith and service.

BC

 

I agree on quality and fitment on alot of these LS parts suck, I paid close to $800.00 for a set of headers and sure enough I had to clearance them with a hammer in about 3 spots, that pissed me off. I will say it seems about 80% of the stuff I bought to save time I had to grind or hammer or weld or heat up and bend to make it work like it was advertised to in the first place and then realize **** I could have built a better product with all the time I spent making it work right. I don't mind paying top dollar for quality parts but dammit I want the top quality part and fit and finish, unfortunately I usually didn't get it. Sorry to say it but I feel it's true American quality has been put to the wayside to maximize $$$ profits and after that it gets outsourced to China or Mexico then the quality really sucks.

 

Yes sir...that's what I was thinking.
Not trying to defer blame, but the fitment issues look so typical of Chinese crap.
About the pitted valve seats/valves, etc. I bought a salvage yard engine & trans in 2003. The engine had only 31k (1998)! Well, when I started taking apart the heads and stuff, the seats were exactly as yours. Several of the valves needed replacing. There were globs of black mold in the foam underneath the intake...etc, etc. I realized later that that engine must have been sitting in a car with the hood open, and the rain poured in.
By the time I was finished 'fixing' everything, I could have bought for the same cost, a brand new engine with all of the accessories.
So, by default, I was forced to learn and repair (and sulk!).
Sorry this is happening to you. You'll make it great, though!

 

Don't you hate that?
This reminds me of Classic Industries (oops, are they a sponsor here?) 20% off sale. You save money on the sale, then spend twice as much in time and money to make things fit correctly!