My buddy has an 02 SS. And last September or October he had F-body central in MD put what he told us were stage 2 GTP 5.3 heads. Well sure as **** in January one of the head gaskets let loose. Coolant visably coming out the exhaust. He took it back to F body where he thought about going with a 408 but then just desided to put a bigger cam in the car. They told him that the head bolts came loose and that this happens frequently(which I know is a load of ****) So in febuary he tild them to install a TREK cam and a fast intake. Which they ended up flycutting his pistons so they had the heads off again. fainlly after many excuses as to why it wasn't done he got the car back in late may. Had the car for 1 day and had something fall off a truck in front of him and destroy his headers, put a hole in the side of his tranny take out the torque arm and bend a wheel. So 2 friday's ago he finnally gets it back from haveing all that crap fixed, only to have it leaving large puddles of oil and some coolant. so he brings it to me and I notice the the crankshaft seal is visably torn and the water pump gaskets are leaking. So I replace all them for him and take care of the oil leak(last wednsday) so saturday I get a call that the car is missing and making some bad noises. Broken valve spring. So tonight I just installed a new set of comp 921 dual valve springs for him and new vavle seals. We did notice a little coolant under the car and a small puddle on top of the waterpump on the drivers side and a little on right below the coolant temp sensor. We started the car up and let it idle and after a while we could smell burning coolant and the drivers side of the true dual exhaust was puffing white smoke. I guess at some point I will be yanking the heads off the car for him. what a mess.

Oh yeah and this shop screwed some stuff up on another friends car like not comletely tightening the bolts on the rear u joint or the lock nuts on his adjustable LCA's moral of the story never take you car to f-body central.

 

Surprise surprise And don't even think about confronting anyone at FBC about it on the EFA forums either, before you know it people will be involved that had nothing to do with it but somehow "know they didn't screw it up" Good luck in the future man, if you need any help I'm in northern VA about an hour south of FBC.

 

do you know what head gaskets they put on ?

 

No I don't know what head gaskets they used. The guy that owns the car really doesn't understand much about working on cars. I asked him to check some of his old bills to see exactly what they said they used.

 

LOL!!!

I haven't heard hardly any good feedback about that shop... I believe this is one of the many reasons why they're not a sponson here.

I'm about 2 hours from FBC and don't mind helping out either. I've been screwed too many times by places like that to bring my car back to any shop unless I absolutley need to. I have found a good semi local shop, pm me for details if you want.

 

Well I told this guy I can do just about everything he wants excpet for tuning which I think he is gonna take it to rapid for that. I am just venting about this stupid shop and now I have to try and straighten out everything they screwed up.

 

A buddie of mine came across this thread and pointed it out to me. even though this is several months old i want to stress that Jason and FBC as a whole took care of the situation and did everything that needed to be done to correct the problem.

I've been more than satisfied with the work that Fbody has done on my car, I wouldn't keep going back if i wasn't. I appriciate everyone who has ever helped me out with my car but the **** talking has gotta die down.

 

Glad you got it all taken care of.



Now go

 

Good for you, man. Just like every shop, different strokes for different folks. Some have great experiences, some don't.

 

arctic...what 408 are you running? i got a estimate from texas speed today and am going to look around some more

 

HPE built mine. I think it was something in the neighborhood of just under $4k shipped to me. Prices should be even better now since the craze has died down and new motors are coming out.

 

that was for a short block i'm assuming right? im having long blocks priced out so we'll see.

 

Yep, shortblock with Eagle crank and Diamond pistons.