After reading this thread I would like to share my experience.

Ordered an AES 390 and paid upfront in cash. I was told it would take 2 weeks to complete if I paid upfront. I wasn't in a hurry. They asked me how much time I had for the build. They Told me that 2 weeks was plenty of time for them to build the motor LOL.

I live 3 hours away so I drove up there and paid them and took a bunch of my own parts for the top end and etc.
I made several failed contact attempts and as everyone knows they were terrible with customer service.. No need to beat a dead horse here. 78 days went by and I still had no engine. Eventually I wasn't sure if I would ever get it. So I went there and hashed it out in person. I was going to take the parts and put it together myself but they convinced me to leave it so they could assemble it. A week later I got my engine.

I put the motor in the car and it would only run on every other cylinder in the firing order. I spent hours trying to figure out why! I tested all the wiring for the cam sensor and crank sensors. I replaced the sensors, I changed out the PCM.. performed many other tests.. Eventually I narrowed it down to the reluctor wheel. I pulled the oil pan off and turned the motor over by hand. The reluctor wheel was almost 70 thousandths out. The tolerance is 20. Luckily I was able to use a dial indicator and a hammer to straighten it out. I got it to about 17 thousandths after a few hours of tweaking. Put it all back together and it fired right up.

The reluctor wheel was warped from the HUGE welds they put on it and somehow didn't notice! It was warped so bad that you could see it! They balance the rotating assembly with the reluctor wheel off and then weld it on after.

After my experience with them, I would never go back. I am just hoping now that I didn't get these crap valves that others are talking about. I gave them all top end parts except the valves (figures). I was told they were manly but no way for me to check.

Ohh and I never got any kind of paperwork showing what my build consisted of. I am just too tired to deal with them anymore.

Don't make the same mistake as me!

 

Is AES a reputable shop? If so, how did they build a reputation balancing rotating assemblies only to unbalance them again after assembly? jesús cristo

 

Not doubting your experience, I'm shocked they would even throw out 2 weeks lead time for something that actually took 11 weeks. In a similar position I would give optimistic lead times but not outright bs.

Far as the reluctor is the concerned, who told you they balance the crankshaft without a reluctor Most likely they did spin the crankshaft with a reluctor, I've never seen it done without. What most likely happened they may have a 58x reluctor on the crankshaft as it was shipped and swapped it out. I'm sure the reason for the extra welds, the 24x reluctor has been known to split, I recall we would put a few extra welds on them to make sure they stay in place.

 

The aes nuthumper urged me enough to share. Even though I don't have it put together the way I want . but I will share a taste


Two engines went down last November at the same time. We will only talk about one right now as the moral of the story is straight forward

It is rhs longblock that was running fine and was taken down to be refreshed.

Neglecting all the other bullshit and stuff.... The motor finally gets "done" late spring after substantial urging

Moral of story


Engine comes back... Fluids are put in the engine and it leaks water where the rhs blocks tends to crack

Fishy aye?


Well good thing these have serial numbers right??

Yup not his block



But wait I'm sure thats just miscommunication because they still are an awesome shop!!

 

Not a nut hugger or a hater. Just a realist. If true, that's some total bull ****. No way around that one.

Keep labelling though. It's said people of below average intelligence have an innate need to categorize things that are not understood. Like a caveman saying , duh that bush killed my friend, me no eat that bush, when really it might have been a leaf that killed him but the berry was super nutricious in actuality.

 

I'm still keeping an eye on it.
The oil change analysis showed elevated levels of metal elements, specifically aluminum, chromium, iron, tin and copper.
Here are their comments:
We expect metals to be high during wear-in, and since this looks like just the second or third oil change for your vehicle, we're hoping that's what's going on here. These levels of wear metals are still fairly high, but as long as they improve next time, then they're probably just residual from the break-in process. Silicon is also elevated slightly, but that's from harmless sealers. The trace of fuel isn't a problem, and the TBN is 6.0, showing plenty of active additive remaining. Still, stick with ~3,000 miles again next oil, just to make sure things are heading the right way.

So again, I'll keep an eye on how things are wearing, but the fact that it leaks anything pisses me off.

 

not sure how these ******* are still sponsors on ls1tech

 

But, just think how happy the customer is that got your customers old block. One happy customer, one unhappy customer, that's batting .500 in baseball and they'd be considered hall of fame material.

 

use to be when fraser worked for them. I think im the only one that had a good engine lol. I delt with fraser when they built my 427 stroker. made 560 whp/500 tq. think he left shortly after because within the year, all these type of threads started showing up.



and do the guy who was given another persons cracked rhs block, I wouldn't even bother, just get a lawyer. id be livid.