Pissed at Lingenfelter

[kcobean]

BTW, AR Fabrication sent me pics that I can't post here because I've used all my "space".

Not to stray to far OT, but you know as a VCA Member, you get 500Mb in the gallery. Membership has its' privileges.

 

[Martin]

I would definitely expect more from a company like Lingenfelter than that - if they said that they deburred everything, cleaned everything, etc., then they should have. That's why you bought the engine in the first place - because of what they advertised. What you received wasn't representative of what they promised.

If it were me, I'd be pissed, too - but honestly, that stuff probably wouldn't have caused any damage. If I were Lingenfelter, I would dyno test all of my engines so that all the crud in them gets blown out and things like this don't happen. Just think about how much crud is in the engines of our cars when they get built at the factory. I used to cut open the oil filter at the first oil change, and you wouldn't believe the stuff that comes out...

About your best bet is to work with them in good faith and try to reach a reasonable settlement. Perhaps have them cover most of the teardown and cleaning costs. If they don't like that idea, you can always take them to small claims court and get $5k back.

 

[vipah]

I would definitely expect more from a company like Lingenfelter than that - if they said that they deburred everything, cleaned everything, etc., then they should have. That's why you bought the engine in the first place - because of what they advertised. What you received wasn't representative of what they promised.

If it were me, I'd be pissed, too - but honestly, that stuff probably wouldn't have caused any damage. If I were Lingenfelter, I would dyno test all of my engines so that all the crud in them gets blown out and things like this don't happen. Just think about how much crud is in the engines of our cars when they get built at the factory. I used to cut open the oil filter at the first oil change, and you wouldn't believe the stuff that comes out...

About your best bet is to work with them in good faith and try to reach a reasonable settlement. Perhaps have them cover most of the teardown and cleaning costs. If they don't like that idea, you can always take them to small claims court and get $5k back.

I think the probablity of winning anything in court on this is about zero. the simple argument will be that the damage was done during disassemlbly etc, and it would be hard to prove otherwise. It would have been better to fire up the engine and have it keel over and die. Then it would either be covered under warranty or their would be a good case.

Who is going to warranty this engine now? AR?

 

[Cop Magnet]

why after the engine had been installed in the vehicle would you have them remove it and pull the heads? ... I am not sure why they would have removed the studs? You don’t take head studs out to remove the heads that’s one advantage to using them you can just remove the nuts and save wear and tear on the block.

I hate to say it, but he has good questions there...

 

[aries]

I hate to say it, but he has good questions there...

First, the motor was never started or run. It was placed in the car and was awaiting the AEM for full installation. The main studs were removed to tear the motor the rest of the way down after the depris was found after removing the heads. The reason I had the engine taken apart in the first place was because I just had a gut feeling and felt that after spending all the money I have on the engine and other parts, it would be pretty stupid to install it without looking inside. After all, the motor was not bolted in the car and it's a good thing I did because of what we found.

 

[Ricksnake1]

Good Point

 

[aries]

Well guys, if I do not get this resolved next week I will be speaking to an attorney to find out what my options are. The camshaft in the motor is USED and the journals so badly scored that AR Fab says that it can't be used. Nothing in his ad, or the invoice I recieved from them said ANYTHING about a used camshaft!!!! Also, Tim told me that Graham is their "engine" guy and he's been there for 20 years and he's the one that assembles and dis-assembles there motors. Well looking at the invoice, that's a lie. According to it, 9, yes 9, techs worked on this engine in varying degrees.

 

[big-n-italian]

Just goes to show you that you can't even trust the "reputable" shops.

been there, done that.

good luck with your motor.

 

[Bristolrover]

For the time and money put into that engine it should have been ran on an engine dyno first before it ever went into the car. That's a golden rule for ANY exspensive high performance motor....Really bad luck mate. Of course not everyone has the time and know how to build their own motor and even the good engine shops don't have the correct measuring eqipment....

 

[pumpgas]

Holy cow. Other than this sounds like a crappy thing to have to go through, what I can't believe is that you called Lingenfelter a reputable shop. Do you have any idea how many people have been absolutely F'd by them over the years and how many lawsuits John has had filed against him ? I would not buy a lock nut from them.... You need to visit Viperalley.com some more.....

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

After hearing about the cam it sounds as if a full teardown and inspection by a disinterested party is in order. If I were you I'd keep things offline. It will help in getting things resolved and get you the best deal. If they don't satisfy you then post about it.

I'm suprised to hear this. It's definitely not the typical build for them.

 

[vipah]

Well guys, if I do not get this resolved next week I will be speaking to an attorney to find out what my options are. The camshaft in the motor is USED and the journals so badly scored that AR Fab says that it can't be used. Nothing in his ad, or the invoice I recieved from them said ANYTHING about a used camshaft!!!! Also, Tim told me that Graham is their "engine" guy and he's been there for 20 years and he's the one that assembles and dis-assembles there motors. Well looking at the invoice, that's a lie. According to it, 9, yes 9, techs worked on this engine in varying degrees.

good luck with that, but i think you are screwed. if you didn't take it apart you would have a better case to get your money back.

 

[Tabs1]

If you get a chance post up some more pics, like of the journals.

Thanks, these guys do alot of vette work. Check out the corvette forum. Problem is that posts against supporting venders get deleted, so you only see the good.

 

[gtsviper]

Even the pros have issues. I have a Nextel Cup car that I race in club events and the first time out with a fresh motor from a NASCAR engine shop the engine dies... it turns out that the 3 bolts and guide dowel attaching the timing pulley to the cam head sheared. To make a long story short the cam mfg. drilled the holes .050 too shallow so when the bolts bottomed out the builder thought they were torqued. In a 12:1 motor there's virtually no clearance between the piston and valves so the entire top end of the motor needed to be replaced. The team supplied the parts but I ate the rebuild costs. So this happens even in $50,000 NASCAR engines. The funny thing is that the head of the engine shop calls me and says "I'm sorry it happened to you but glad it happened! We found the same problem in the cams in 4 of our race engines and failures would have taken us out of races!". I'm so happy to do development for a NASCAR team! The bottom line.....this ain't a cheap hobby!

 

[HI-NOS-Viper]

Used Camshaft pictures

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[aries]

Thanks again HI-NOS-Viper for posting these pics. Well guys this is the camshaft that came in my $15k Lingenfelter engine. Can you believe that!!!! And Tim says that he can't believe that his engine builder of 20 years would assemble an engine with metal debris in it, he's too professional for that. Well he put a used, unuseable, cam in it, so why wouldn't you think that he'd ship it without cleaning it correctly?

 

[vp97]

That's not good! I wonder if they just shoved a used comp coupe cam in it

 

[ViperTony]

Maybe that was a mockup cam and forget to install the real cam during final assembly? Regardless, ***** and I hope you come OK with lingenfelter in the end.

 

[SSGViper]

Wow... unbelievable! I wish you luck with your battle ahead! I always thought those guys were pretty good. I will be sure to steer clear of them and tell others about this mess they created. With this economy, bad word of mouth can do double the damage. Too bad they won't step up to the plate an make things right.

 

[aries]

Wow... unbelievable! I wish you luck with your battle ahead! I always thought those guys were pretty good. I will be sure to steer clear of them and tell others about this mess they created. With this economy, bad word of mouth can do double the damage. Too bad they won't step up to the plate an make things right.[/QUOTE]

Well I'm still in the process of trying to make that happen. I guess we'll see.

 

[vipah]

What did the bearings look like? the cam lobes look fine.

 

[aries]

What did the bearings look like? the cam lobes look fine.

Well from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, the viper cam spins in the block with no bearings.

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

You're correct. No cam bearings. The cam rides on the aluminum block.

 

[99 R/T 10]

Hey Greg, if something happened (like the cam journals got scarred), they can be retrofitted with bearing, correct?

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

That would only fix the block, not the cam.

The cam looks pretty bad, but often times they're not nearly as bad as they look. That cam could be taken to a crank grinder for a touch up. Most times stuff like that cleans up at ~.001".

We have to do it a lot on the LSx engines because the cams some of the cam grrinders send out are too big and won't go in the block. We just have them ground down for the right clearance.

 

[aries]

Here's my thing, if I had not taken this motor apart that cam would have eaten into the block and possibly ruined it.

 

[X-Metal]

did this engine have an intake manifold on it when you got? there are several ways that debris could have found its way into the engine.

 

[aries]

did this engine have an intake manifold on it when you got? there are several ways that debris could have found its way into the engine.

Yes it had an intake manifold.

 

[Tabs1]

I believe its now run by a different company. LPA if I remember. Guy who runs it is a lingenfelter but I am not sure if there is relation to John. If its who I think, this guy has a nice car collection, maybe an engine swap with one of his. If its good enough for you, its good enough for him.

 

[lankhoss]

I am really sorry to hear about this, and knowing the motor came from LPE, I know it wasn't cheap!

However, you may have hurt yourself by having the engine disassembled. I know if I bought a new Sony TV, brought it home and popped the back off to make sure it didn't have a Funai tube in it, I would void the warranty. I think the same situation is happening here. Now that someone else has put their hands on it, it's going to be hard to prove that they weren't the ones that caused the damage. You probably would have been better off just driving the car. That way if ANYTHING happened, it would have been on LPE with no questions asked.

The marks on the camshaft are definitely suspect, I would love to see what they have to say about that.

Good luck with everything, I hope this all gets settled.