I am really starting to wonder if its cheaper to just buy a long/short block and install it as opposed to doing the work on you oem block....

 

hinson super cars

 

Doing stuff right is what usually keeps people coming back. I know of a huge number of "engine places" that had awesome customer service that are dead and buried long ago and a few that will leave this year. It's nice to have great customer service depending on what that actually means but there a lot of people that are awesome salesmen that have absolutely no idea of what they are doing or talking about and they will return your call in 5 minutes. They need the money!

You definitely need both for the best experience on your end but don't confuse "customer service" with quality or getting something that will actually do what you want. We have people wanting us to tell them what they want to hear and I won't do that. I am on the phone an average of 6-9 hours a day sometimes and still can't catch 1/4 of our calls and all we do is build decent stuff with the right parts for the application yet we have been swamped for almost 10 years in a row with no advertising whatsoever.

I just hired another guy to answer calls but still I would watch out for someone that can speak to you any time you want as they may just not have that much to do and that may be for a reason. Also the weirder the engine is in question the more you need an experienced engine builder that has been there done that for real otherwise you are likely to have issues. FWIW we have a lot of "Big Spenders" and they don't come to us because of customer service really.

At one time these longer stroke deals in the stock block would not work with shelf parts very well if at all. Now the newer shelf pistons seem to do alright but we still do not run any. We run our own custom pistons with a different skirt and longer rod and only do them in NA form. In a longer sleeved aftermarket deal we can do much more due to longer bores. Again not the answer most want to hear but the ones we do seem to run very well.

 

Very nice reply Erik
Couldn't have said it better myself...

 

Erik Can the 427ci be built out of a gen4 iron 6.0 block? I assume the l92 based 427 is 4.065 bore x 4.125 stroke?

 

Yes we have dome some 4.060 X 4.125 stroke iron blocks and they seem to work for NA use.

 

Can it handle low boost of 7-10 Ibs from a turbo?

 

Maybe but I would not sell it for something like that as the piston is not usually thick enough for a blower deal like that but I am sure it could work if you had very mild tuning.

 

racer7088

I will respectfully disagree with your view of customer service not that I think it is wrong nor is it correct. In other words I don't believe answering the phone or not qualifies the builder as a quality builder or not.

I will add this though, if communication is difficult initially I'm very concerned with will happen should problems surface.

Many will define customer service as what will you do for me @ no cost. The customer is always right, always first, your very best customer so the world should stop blah blah............BS!

Myself I try to research products & services & make what I believe to be the best decision. Price as with many is factor, it is not the only consideration.

Communication & respect of each others valuable time is key.

 

Good post and I agree with it all CTD. We are trying but I had to hire another guy to help us out which will mean higher prices as answering the phone was killing the part of customer service that we were behind on already and that was getting stuff out the door faster.

A lot of shops will get stuff out the door at any cost or sub in parts that are not appropriate just to finish up a job and people actually think it's great customer service until the results of that catch up with them.

I have a guy right now that said I was taking too long to order his Jesel rockers. He got them from another shop on here the same day he called them and canceled with me. I was changing 5 options on those rockers and have used them 100 times before on the exact heads he has and now his do not work and are wrong for 1750.00.

The rockers I specced and sold his friend go right on and clear 7/16 pushrods and have the right geometry and larger stand bolts and are offset back the correct amount for his valve length etc. and he paid the same but could wait a week. The initial guy on here now is trying to sell those first Jesels so he can order yet another set and he still has three things wrong he will do all over again.

I get 80 calls a day just myself about stuff like that and no way can answer them all and do anything else even working 60+ hrs a week. I can tell you this though if you put no thought into what you are saying and just look up parts you can answer a hell of a lot of phones and fast as well. This is the kind of customer service I just don't care about in our current situation and yes it costs some customers for sure.

What some people on these boards do not understand is the difference between a parts supply house and an engine builder and one guy answering phones and a shop with many dedicated guys answering the phones as their only job. There are several great shops in both categories on this site that rock but the small shops it's hard to catch even a quarter of all the calls if the phones really start ringing as opposed to working on paying customer's engines.

 

For the OP, here is a thread for a HKE, LS3 based, 427.

We've been very happy with the build. FWIW.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/dynamomet...ack-times.html

 

I've heard a lot of good things/researched and HKE are the best from what I've read and talked about. I wasnt able to get a hold of him but CC Performance was pretty quick to reply and answer my questions. Looking at them for an engine for my conversion. I have a 4.8, not sure what I can do with it.

 

Email is by far the best way to reach us or use someone like CC but at this point we can not answer all the calls anymore. If you email us I have a new guy that should get back to you although we are fairly backed up at the moment.

 

Yea he was very helpful, told me what your user name is if I didnt want to go through him. Very helpful guy.
www.ccperformanceparts.com