Visceral

iTrader: (1)

hrm. Cam timing is my #1 thought. Ive also seen a Flowmaster muffler cost a car 55 hoursepower. Im not kidding. We just took the muffler off the back and the next run yielded 55 more HP. The thing felt like it was hauling a trailer. Plugged cats would do either the same or actually worse. Compression ratio isnt that costly.leakdown is fine, but if all the numbers look OK, and when you take the oil cap off its not huffing, that would be alot to lose to bad rings.

As far as the car taking more money than he thought... Thats the mean, not the exception

chris

Scott Turvey

What I meant about the additional cost is, if it was the original installers mistake that is causing the problem, it would be incumbent upon him to make it right. However, as he is dead, that would be an option not available to the owner, as I understand it.

DaleMX

iTrader: (4)

If the heads he got have a custom valve job that sunk the valves into the heads abit (this happened to me) then he may have too much preload on the lifters holding the valves open. I ended up shimming my stock valve train .050 to get it right. Got YT's now and still had to shim the crap out of it.

99 Black Bird T/A

iTrader: (4)

What was the final verdict on this one?

SSInnovations

iTrader: (8)

Did you ever figure this out???

99 Black Bird T/A

iTrader: (4)

Me? No clue me in if I missed something please.

Scott Turvey

Still waiting for the guy to get his car back in...

JZ'sTA

iTrader: (23)

Everyone has great suggestions but here is one more.
Check the tune and make sure that it isn't in the "low octane" setings.
This could *** some chit up.
Have fun and keep us up to date.

strokedls1

iTrader: (1)

I know the shop that built the engine and they did bad work. We get our parts from the same guy so it is possible that he has the parts, but they are installed incorrectly. I have the same rotating assembly parts in my car and it runs very well. My guess would be stock heads, no valve work, and incorrect tolerances on all bearings as well as incorrect valve train set up. I would tear the engine down and go through everything. That way I could verify all the parts. I'm sure that is not what the customer would like to hear, but that would the direction I would go.

Whistler

iTrader: (46)

Were all those nice aftermarket engine internals balanced correctly?

SSInnovations

iTrader: (8)

Thats what I would be betting on as well.

LS1x2

iTrader: (11)

My vote is for the cam timing and/or valvetrain setup.