emergency ls3 cam swap advice!
12-16-2009, 03:34 PM
#22
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First of all jonathan,I do appreciate all the precautions you take before you send your cars out the back door. I have had multiple calls about your business asking what I thought about you guys and whether or not they should let you work on their cars...just to let you know I said good things and did recomended you. Believe me, this thread was not meant to bash you, sorry if it came out that way.I am completely aware of the acountability when the customer supplies any parts(whatever they may be)The ONLY ISSUES I have with tick is MY PRICING..I know what you charge other people like guys who recomended to tick, and it seems a little high to me. I'm not telling you how to run your business, but if you take care of anybody take care of the ones who you know will be back and you know have money to spend as apposed to the guy who has to save up all year so they can bring you their ls1 to put on a set of headers or maybe a cam swap.And by the way when you earn it I am a very loyal customer...leaving it at that jonathan, I think your an awesome lsx builder and mechanic and I have and do have plenty of good things to say about you..Maybe we can work together on some things in the future. And o yeah...LG MOtORSPORTS DOES SUCK..
Very happy with Vengeance Racing. They are more interested in the customer then the profit margin. Don't get me wrong Mike and Ron aren't doing it for free, but you do leave the shop happy and satisfied that you got what you paid for and that the price paid was fair.
Hey Jonathan: I see your points man. I can see how you feel screwed over. But take a look at it from the customers view. He spent x amount of money and got basically nothing for it in performance that is. Your write up does indicate that you bent over backwards to get it done and done correct !!! That says a lot about you and the shop. FWIW, I'll be picking up the Adjustable MC in the spring!!! It should finish my car 100% !!!
12-18-2009, 10:25 AM
#23
What would cause that decision? South Carolina to Mooresville, to Georgia?
tick performance said the clearance was around 10 which was way too close, i call lg personally and they also recomended fly cutting. My shop said sometimes the cams are off sometimes(not in those exact words haha) They also charged my 2300 for labor and parts(not including the cam)holy **** huh!1340 to instal cam and valvesprings and 340 to reinstall camshaft. They sure as hell didnt cut me any breaks, but its all good. Im just getting ron at vengeance to grind my cam and hook it up. From now on...i dont care how far i have to go to get my **** done right...especially if im going to wind up spending thousands of dollars on nothing you know...i spend a lot of money and am very loyal..somebody will take care of me....driving that stock idling vette home on the hour plus ride was the worst ride of my life...and i need a new battery....
I'm sure plenty of shops would have just installed it without checking ptv because word is "it should fit with stock LS3 heads". The fact is, we check EVERY cams ptv clearance. In this case, not checking would have led to bent valves or worse. It litterally had .010" of clearance on the intake. I didn't bother checking the exhaust valve clearance when I found this. Because this cam "should" fit everything was completely re-installed except for the radiator and two valve springs which I had soft springs on to do the ptv checking.
Once we found the issue with clearance, I first call LG. Im told to check valve drop with the piston at TDC which I do and then report back with numbers that are within range. So the heads/valves/headgasket isn't different from factory or an issue.
The guys at LG then say they see around .020" on intake for clearance and the reccomend fly cutting for a car that is raced. Later they say it should have around .050" clearance. Either way, thats too close to run IMO.
I then ask for some basics so I could degree the cam in order to make sure their isn't an issue with the advance ground in...or if its even the correct cam since they give no lobe numbers, no cam card, not even a sticker on the box.
They refuse to give any specs and even go as far as telling me that they will litterally cut our entire area off from LG Motorsports products when I finally got angry and told them I would have it cam doctored.
At this point we have called the customer (redcorvette2000) and told him that the ptv was just too close to safely run. At first, we're going to install a smaller cam for the same money that we re-installed the stock cam I might add. I just don't see how we should have put the stock cam or any other cam back in it for that matter for free when we didn't sell him the cam to begin with. He chose the cam, it didn't fit, and LG wouldn't do anything about it. $340 extra to do another cam install was cutting him a break and to be honest I think we charged 3 hours to reinstall the stock cam which would have really been $240...not $340. If his bill says $340 then I guess we owe him $100 back.
After initially deciding to pick a smaller cam, the customer then calls back and says that he might rather pull the heads and flycut so we qoute the labor to do that and suggest getting some ported heads while they are off and selling the stock heads to re-coup some of the money...afterall they only had 1400 miles on them. By now, LG has totally cut us off and we don't have a flycutting tool for L92 heads/valves.
Besides, thiers was already on loan with no ceartain time back and to us which would just tie our lift up for several days at the least. So in the meantime we're working up qoutes on heads w/ flycutting, qoutes for flycutting only, searching for smaller cams (which is difficult when we have zero idea what a g6x3 cam is anyway) and I'm even posting in the vendor section on here looking for a scrap L92 head to machine for our own notching tool. I lost ATLEAST half a day just searching for this or that while the customer continued to change his mind repeatedly.
There was absolutely no mis-information handed out by us and I can assure anyone that we take every precaution with every install we do. I want every customer to leave happy, but I can't let something fire up and go out the door that I feel has a good chance of blowing up. He had the opportunity to change cams, heads, etc and I was even going to invest our own money toward an L92 flycutting setup but before we even had the chance to do something good for the customer he flew off the handle, took the "screw it" attitude and said put it back to stock.
His "****" was done right here and he should be thankful that it was. And if he had ordered a cam through us he would have got something that would have fit and if not it would have been on our dime...the price of the cam and the extra time spent swaping it for something else. A "loyal" customer would have let us make the situation right...we bent over backwards for him, only charged $240 to install a second cam and a thread like this is our thanks? If thats a loyal customer then I'm not sure we need any loyal customers.
M
att, maybe you should just take the g6x3 to vengeance and let them install it and see what they come up with. We did cam doctor it at Hendricks Motorsports...and the LSA is less than the 111 posted above. 
Lobe sep on every cylinder was reccorded...the top of the sheet says EZCam Version 2.1.0. You should be getting the cam back in the mail if you haven't already, we don't have any use for it and you can send it back to recoup some of the money we stole from you by actually charging you for the install that we did.
-Jonathan
Lobe sep on every cylinder was reccorded...the top of the sheet says EZCam Version 2.1.0. You should be getting the cam back in the mail if you haven't already, we don't have any use for it and you can send it back to recoup some of the money we stole from you by actually charging you for the install that we did.-Jonathan
Jonathan did not purchase the cam FROM US, like you insinuate in your posts.
Tick Performance bought a G6x3 9 months ago.
Something doesnt add up...
Really. I beg to differ.
Again, I will say this- The G6x3 will fit with no flycutting. The specs posted here- https://ls1tech.com/forums/corvette-...w-w-specs.html are not correct. Fake cam? Maybe Jonathan bought a "G6x3 copy"?
Im not sure, either way, its one of the fastest Cams in the country, Proven and effective beyond all doubt.
Take care
Louis
12-18-2009, 02:24 PM
#24
well well well look who finally decided to show up after all the bullshit....i would be more than happy to fax or post the sales reciept for the cam and sprocket....i the reciept and the box.....I also have the reciept for the set of 2009 headers that you didnt even make for my 2009 corvette....what kind of **** is that anyways....really sounds like the guys at your shop know what they are doing huh.....I understand mistakes happen, but everytime i have ever called your shop you are complete ********....I did everything i could do to be an Lg customer while LG did everything they could for that NOT TO HAPPEN...So if you are saying i never purchased that g6 x3 cam you are full of ****. If not correct i believe it was 10/14. Either under jonathon mabry or matt mabry....Would be more than happy to fax the reciept to you! But i guess i have learned a valuable lesson....dont buy **** from anyone unless they are instaling it.....Three purchases from LG.....Three Problems 0-3....I should have left you alone after the first time!!!!But i really wanted to have an "LG" vette......
12-19-2009, 12:27 AM
#26
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Hi Guys
I haven't posted up here in quite a while. But I read your post and I can say that the cam problem was not a cam problem.
Hundreds of the X3 cams have gone in with no issues and no flycutting all over the country. No one has had an issue except for your guy who decided to "Measure" the valve clearance and it appears that he did it wrong.
The valve drop was sufficient. Keep in mind that the intake valve is chasing the piston down and the clearance on the intake increases as the engine passes tdc.
one possibility was that the cam was advanced on install by mistake which closed up the intake V 2 P clearance. But I can not tell you if that is what happened because we did not install it.
on our race cars, we have run as little as .020 on the intake clearance and .030 on exhaust and that is on a race car. Our X3 cam is much larger than that.
So the inexperience of your installer caused him to get cold feet and you paid the price.
The bottom line is that you did not have a problem with the cam, you had a problem with the installer since he said himself that he had a .050 valve drop that he finally measured.
As for the cam specs that you posted, they are not our specs. If that is so, then either the measurement was wrong, or the cam that got measured was not one of our X3 cams. I am not sure which it was but either way, thanks for the props on the cam specs.
I will take responsibility for sending the 08 headers out for an 09. that was a problem that my guys should know better than to do.
I don't think that my employees were as bad as you say. I understand that your inexperienced installer could not grasp the concept and you again paid the price because you put it back to stock.
Then you had so little confidence in your installer, you took your car to another shop in GA. So it appears that you also got a little short tempered with your installer.
The bottom line is that your problems with your cam were not really problems. And all of your energy spent was because your installer did not know as much as you were told he knew.
I am sure that your original installer, that you threw under the bus by taking your car to another shop, was trying to be thorough but he did not have the knowledge base and experience to draw upon.
If anyone at my shop was an ***, please contact me with their name so I can deal with it. That kind of attitude is unacceptable. So please PM me with their name so i can do something about it.
Thanks for your time and sorry you had so many problems. Your situation is not the norm.
Any of you that do business with LG Motorsports, and if you have any issues, please call and ask for me directly.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
I haven't posted up here in quite a while. But I read your post and I can say that the cam problem was not a cam problem.
Hundreds of the X3 cams have gone in with no issues and no flycutting all over the country. No one has had an issue except for your guy who decided to "Measure" the valve clearance and it appears that he did it wrong.
The valve drop was sufficient. Keep in mind that the intake valve is chasing the piston down and the clearance on the intake increases as the engine passes tdc.
one possibility was that the cam was advanced on install by mistake which closed up the intake V 2 P clearance. But I can not tell you if that is what happened because we did not install it.
on our race cars, we have run as little as .020 on the intake clearance and .030 on exhaust and that is on a race car. Our X3 cam is much larger than that.
So the inexperience of your installer caused him to get cold feet and you paid the price.
The bottom line is that you did not have a problem with the cam, you had a problem with the installer since he said himself that he had a .050 valve drop that he finally measured.
As for the cam specs that you posted, they are not our specs. If that is so, then either the measurement was wrong, or the cam that got measured was not one of our X3 cams. I am not sure which it was but either way, thanks for the props on the cam specs.
I will take responsibility for sending the 08 headers out for an 09. that was a problem that my guys should know better than to do.
I don't think that my employees were as bad as you say. I understand that your inexperienced installer could not grasp the concept and you again paid the price because you put it back to stock.
Then you had so little confidence in your installer, you took your car to another shop in GA. So it appears that you also got a little short tempered with your installer.
The bottom line is that your problems with your cam were not really problems. And all of your energy spent was because your installer did not know as much as you were told he knew.
I am sure that your original installer, that you threw under the bus by taking your car to another shop, was trying to be thorough but he did not have the knowledge base and experience to draw upon.
If anyone at my shop was an ***, please contact me with their name so I can deal with it. That kind of attitude is unacceptable. So please PM me with their name so i can do something about it.
Thanks for your time and sorry you had so many problems. Your situation is not the norm.
Any of you that do business with LG Motorsports, and if you have any issues, please call and ask for me directly.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
12-20-2009, 06:16 AM
#27
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Good talking to you the other day Lou. I sure wish I would have been able to talk to you back when my engine was being built, but somehow you never seemed to have gotten any of my messages. Louis never once made himself available to explain what he was doing and never asked what my goals for the build were. Had he talked to me just once and gave a large money, multi visit, "friend" of the shop customer a few minutes of his time I would've never left. At any rate the 402 is holding together quite nicely and up until I put it away for the year was running perfectly. LGM built 402, topend and tune by Vengeance Racing what more could you ask for ?
I'll close by saying "communication" is key. Whether you can talk when the customer calls is not the issue, but at the end of the day pick up the phone and return the call or at least stay in touch via email. It may take an extra hour or so out of your day, but it will prevent people from changing shops.
Good luck in your new racing venture Lou, and thanks again for the conversation the other day. I'm sure you'll iron out the wrinkles.
I'll close by saying "communication" is key. Whether you can talk when the customer calls is not the issue, but at the end of the day pick up the phone and return the call or at least stay in touch via email. It may take an extra hour or so out of your day, but it will prevent people from changing shops.
Good luck in your new racing venture Lou, and thanks again for the conversation the other day. I'm sure you'll iron out the wrinkles.
Will let you know the numbers!!!!!!!!!
12-21-2009, 08:55 AM
#30
Hi Guys
I haven't posted up here in quite a while. But I read your post and I can say that the cam problem was not a cam problem.
Hundreds of the X3 cams have gone in with no issues and no flycutting all over the country. No one has had an issue except for your guy who decided to "Measure" the valve clearance and it appears that he did it wrong.
The valve drop was sufficient. Keep in mind that the intake valve is chasing the piston down and the clearance on the intake increases as the engine passes tdc.
one possibility was that the cam was advanced on install by mistake which closed up the intake V 2 P clearance. But I can not tell you if that is what happened because we did not install it.
on our race cars, we have run as little as .020 on the intake clearance and .030 on exhaust and that is on a race car. Our X3 cam is much larger than that.
So the inexperience of your installer caused him to get cold feet and you paid the price.
The bottom line is that you did not have a problem with the cam, you had a problem with the installer since he said himself that he had a .050 valve drop that he finally measured.
As for the cam specs that you posted, they are not our specs. If that is so, then either the measurement was wrong, or the cam that got measured was not one of our X3 cams. I am not sure which it was but either way, thanks for the props on the cam specs.
I will take responsibility for sending the 08 headers out for an 09. that was a problem that my guys should know better than to do.
I don't think that my employees were as bad as you say. I understand that your inexperienced installer could not grasp the concept and you again paid the price because you put it back to stock.
Then you had so little confidence in your installer, you took your car to another shop in GA. So it appears that you also got a little short tempered with your installer.
The bottom line is that your problems with your cam were not really problems. And all of your energy spent was because your installer did not know as much as you were told he knew.
I am sure that your original installer, that you threw under the bus by taking your car to another shop, was trying to be thorough but he did not have the knowledge base and experience to draw upon.
If anyone at my shop was an ***, please contact me with their name so I can deal with it. That kind of attitude is unacceptable. So please PM me with their name so i can do something about it.
Thanks for your time and sorry you had so many problems. Your situation is not the norm.
Any of you that do business with LG Motorsports, and if you have any issues, please call and ask for me directly.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
I haven't posted up here in quite a while. But I read your post and I can say that the cam problem was not a cam problem.
Hundreds of the X3 cams have gone in with no issues and no flycutting all over the country. No one has had an issue except for your guy who decided to "Measure" the valve clearance and it appears that he did it wrong.
The valve drop was sufficient. Keep in mind that the intake valve is chasing the piston down and the clearance on the intake increases as the engine passes tdc.
one possibility was that the cam was advanced on install by mistake which closed up the intake V 2 P clearance. But I can not tell you if that is what happened because we did not install it.
on our race cars, we have run as little as .020 on the intake clearance and .030 on exhaust and that is on a race car. Our X3 cam is much larger than that.
So the inexperience of your installer caused him to get cold feet and you paid the price.
The bottom line is that you did not have a problem with the cam, you had a problem with the installer since he said himself that he had a .050 valve drop that he finally measured.
As for the cam specs that you posted, they are not our specs. If that is so, then either the measurement was wrong, or the cam that got measured was not one of our X3 cams. I am not sure which it was but either way, thanks for the props on the cam specs.
I will take responsibility for sending the 08 headers out for an 09. that was a problem that my guys should know better than to do.
I don't think that my employees were as bad as you say. I understand that your inexperienced installer could not grasp the concept and you again paid the price because you put it back to stock.
Then you had so little confidence in your installer, you took your car to another shop in GA. So it appears that you also got a little short tempered with your installer.
The bottom line is that your problems with your cam were not really problems. And all of your energy spent was because your installer did not know as much as you were told he knew.
I am sure that your original installer, that you threw under the bus by taking your car to another shop, was trying to be thorough but he did not have the knowledge base and experience to draw upon.
If anyone at my shop was an ***, please contact me with their name so I can deal with it. That kind of attitude is unacceptable. So please PM me with their name so i can do something about it.
Thanks for your time and sorry you had so many problems. Your situation is not the norm.
Any of you that do business with LG Motorsports, and if you have any issues, please call and ask for me directly.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti
LG Motorsports
Also, I never posted that the valve drop was .050". All I posted was that it was in the range you specified it should be. You said it should be around .200" and I actually came up with about .185". PTV was .010", yes ten thousandths. All of this is neither here nor there considering you are now saying that this cam is not your cam anyway.
If I had been given ICL and LSA I could have checked the advance of the cam to see if there was an issue with the cam itself. The cam was installed "dot to dot" with gm timing sprokets and a Katech chain. Without specs I can't check to see if anything is correct. And I lol'ed when your guy said that he'd been doing this 5 years and never seen a cam that was ground wrong. Its very easy to find a cam with an incorrect amount of advance and you know it. I'm not knocking comp in any way, we used them also for all our cams, but its highly possible. Assuming that and all the other variables that can change the advance it is very possible that a cam could be 2 or 3 degrees advanced too much which would have created our issue.
There is no doubt that Jonathan Matt Mabry purchased that cam from you guys, but the only thing signifiying it was a G6x3 was "G6x3" written with a huge black marker on the box. The cam was degreed at Hendrick Motorsports with state of the art equipment. We did sell one of your cams because of the good results posted to customer a while back who did his own install. Its funny you say those specs aren't yours, even tho Matt did purchase that cam from you guys. Maybe it wasn't your cam, but thats all the more reason to send out specs so the installer can make sure the job gets done correct. Comp could have boxed the wrong cam for all I know...people make mistakes and things can be machined wrong. It is just plain ignorant to tell someone like myself that its is impossible to get a cam that was made incorrectly. If your guy hasn't seen a cam that didn't come up to the exact specs its "supposed" to be then I guess your guy has never degreed a cam.
Either way, theres no point is discussing this matter farther. I'm confident in my install and methods you have said yourself that the cam was not a G6x3 anyway. I do find it funny however when another local machine shop we deal with can quote the G6x3 specs without me telling them what the cam doctor came up with...and they are the same. I'm sure Matt will fax you a copy of the reciept to prove that the cam came from you guys but he's already went to another shop and purchased a different cam. FWIW, I'd still do business with Matt if given the opportunity, however I will not purchase or install another LG product under any circumstance.
-Jonathan
12-21-2009, 09:01 AM
#31
We don't have a flycutter head on the shelf for the LS3, only the LS1 style stuff. For whatever the reason we haven't needed one up until this situation. All the cams we have installed into LS3 engines have fit as advertised I guess...
12-21-2009, 01:06 PM
#32
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i stand behind tick performance.... they done my trex cam and told me about my ptv being 24thousands. i called thunder racing and they talked to jonathon@tick and got he situation resolved.... i drive a trex cam everyday thanks to tick performance and thunder racing. i know redcorvette2000 he is a good friend of mine and he trusted lg motorsports to send him a high horsepower cam that BOLTS in, not taking off the heads and messing with the pistons.... lg obviously misinformed tick and matt.... way to sell bad misinformed product
12-22-2009, 12:12 PM
#34
DA was 160. 3000-3500 launch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVpC...eature=channel
Quickest H/C LS2. TF 225 small chambers, G6x3 FAST, installed and tuned by yours truly.
Take care
Louis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVpC...eature=channel
Quickest H/C LS2. TF 225 small chambers, G6x3 FAST, installed and tuned by yours truly.
Take care
Louis
12-22-2009, 02:30 PM
#36
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So Louis, what gears were in the car in your video? What tire you running out back to cut such a nice 60 ft time? Very impressive run, also who was driving ? One last question, how many runs had you put on the car prior to that pass? If that was first run even more impressive !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
12-23-2009, 04:20 PM
#37
DA was 160. 3000-3500 launch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVpC...eature=channel
Quickest H/C LS2. TF 225 small chambers, G6x3 FAST, installed and tuned by yours truly.
Take care
Louis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVpC...eature=channel
Quickest H/C LS2. TF 225 small chambers, G6x3 FAST, installed and tuned by yours truly.
Take care
Louis
What was the ptv on that install? Probably doesn't matter since you're weren't using LS3 heads. FWIW the lift figures posted by Matt weren't the correct ones on the intake lobe...don't know where he came up with that. .380" Intake at lobe, .359" exhaust....238/247 dur @ .050". Still not your cam?
12-23-2009, 05:01 PM
#38
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In the spirit of Christmas, how about everyone just let it go. Things are done that can't be taken back and there are obvious differences of opinions.
Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy Holiday! Be safe on New Years !!!
Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy Holiday! Be safe on New Years !!!
