Alright so here is the story. I took the block after teardown to get cleaned, cylinders honed and new cam bearings installed. All well and good, so I thought. I build the motor (anyone who has built one of these motors knows that it's not cheap to do).

I install the motor and tranny. Get it home finish all the wiring and hoses and fill all the fluids and at first starup it fires right off. I can tell something isn't right and oil pressure goes to 20 psi. It will go higher but at cold idle it's at 20 psi. Cam sensor stops working, no tach and low oil pressure. So I pull the motor and tear it down. Way too much money invested in this to just run it like that or put it a thicker oil to bring up the oil pressure and here is what I found. Total run time on the motor is around 5 minutes, maybe 10 trying to find out what the tach problem was.

I had to literally beat the cam out of the block from the back of the motor.

Should they be responsible for new rod bearings and bolts, main bearings and bolts, head gaskets, head bolts, oil pump, cam bearings etc...since oil went through the motor carrying lots of metal and all of these were new?
My cam looks ok. A small scratch in it but I believe it'll polish out.

Odds of the block being ok after spinning cam bearings?

Tell me if the cam bearing looks right to you...

 

My $.02..[And you probably won't like this.]
If they did the machine work, they should have been involved in the tear down/inspection....My guess is, you put it together, and that shifted responsibility from them to you.
Furthermore, that oil pan looks to be far from clean. 5-10 min run time on a "clean" engine, didn't put that crap in there.

Sorry for the mess...

 

If you built it, the machine shop shouldn't be responsible. The builder is responsible for cleaning the parts before assembly and oil pressure issues are usually bearing clearance related, which is also the engine builder's responsibility.

But your machine shop might be cool and help you out with the rebuild.

 

Rod and main bearing clearances were within specs. I didn't put in the cam bearings but I did put the cam in carefully and didn't have to force it in. The black areas in the pan and on the pickup tube will not get any cleaner. I cleaned everything as it was installed just in case and I even had them clean the parts before the build. The only thing they didn't clean was the new parts that were put in.

The car never left the driveway.

 

Might just be Big Block Chevy time.

 

look at the cam bearing. See how small it is compared to the size of the journal. It is flush on the far side. Doesn't look like the right bearing. And all that dark dusty looking stuff in the pan is very fine metal shavings from the bearings not dirt.

 

From the picture it looks like the cam bearing isn't center in the journal???if I'm seeing it right that should be the culprit.

 

Stock rods? Is the "barbell" in place?

 

Did you check the oiling hole alignment for the cam bearings before you put the cam in? I've seen this over looked many times. Also where did all this bearing material in the pan come off of? Did they size the cam bearings to the cam? Did anyone check the cam bearing clearances?

 

Typically blame is on whoever assembles everything.
Good luck though

 

I completely tore everything down this weekend. Luckily since it didn't run long the crank is fine and the valvetrain is ok and the 1k pistons are fine. 3 of the four cam bearings are not lined up with the oiling holes. The cam bearings are where the majority of the metal and bearing wear came from. They're all toast. I'm downloading pictures now. The #1 and #2 rod bearings evidently took the most hit from the metal shavings as far as rod and main bearings go but luckily the bearings did their job and saved the crank. Well, the short runtime probably saved the crank honestly. The rods were all in place. Everything that I assembled was fine.

The machine shop had all the parts, cam included. It's not like I took it to a rundown machine shop either. They build race motors and came highly recommended by a lot of people around here.

At this point I'm just hoping my block isn't screwed. I would be happy if it was ok and they just installed the cam bearings correctly or the correct bearings (whichever they did wrong) and cleaned all my parts again so I could just move forward and build the motor again.

Stock rods and yes I checked all the tolerances on everything as I was assembling the motor. Everything. Most of the time I checked 3 or 4 times just to make sure.

 

I think that there is two oil holes in each cam bearing . Were both of them off ? Did you use assembly lube ?

 

Fer christs sake go to a different shop!

 

Both holes were off except for in one bearing and it wasn't completely covering the oil hole. I used Lucas Moly assembly lube. Liberally too.

I dropped it off yesterday and when they saw it you could see it in their face they knew they messed up. They're pulling the bearings which they believe were wrong when installed. So fingers crossed the block is ok.

 

The machine shop did install new cam bearings at no charge. They also cleaned the parts and checked the block. All at no charge.

I had to buy new head gaskets, new rod bearings, crank bearings and rod bolts but I'm just happy it's running.

Motor has around 60 psi at idle and close to 80 psi at wot.

After building the motor again I had more issues but they weren't motor related that are now fixed, fuel pressure issues (fuel pump), o2 sensor issues (completely reiwred the harness), nitrous issues (got a new system coming now), running rich and fouling plugs, pcv issues (got a catch can now).

Motor is running good, needs a new tune but all things considered, I'm releived. Can't wait to get the new n2o kit and spray this sucker and see what she'll really do. Here's a video of the motor sound before and after the build. It's a big difference.

 

Glad you got it all handled!

 

Good deal, you can go now. lol Glad it worked out for you.

 

Exactly. Deep sigh of relief. I mean in all reality. they could have just said it tough ****! I was just glad the block and cam were ok. God I wish the spary was on it already!

 

Why did you have to buy anything!

 

They said they would honor "their" work which was the machining of the block, the cleaning of the parts, installing the cam bearings, etc... With me being the "builder" the ultimate responsibility for the motor build was mine. Even though everything I did was correct and to spec, they were not there for the teardown of the motor either. I tore the motor down at home.

They did tell me that if the block were damaged they would replace it with another LS6 block. Luckily it didn't run long enough to hurt the block.

If I were me being the machine shop, I would have covered everything. Especially after removing the bearings and seeing that they didn't "spin" they were installed wrong. I can however see their point of view as well since they didn't watch the assembly or disassembly of the motor.

Will I go back to them for the next motor build? Nope!