L98IROCZ89

This is true, we are all human. It's how you handle it.

Joe_G

That is quite a nice thing to say. It was admittedly a quite a bit 'holier than thou' for me to post what I posted; I did as I empathize with the OP, and I thought it might be worthwhile it to point out to folks how their posts might be interpreted. I think this is the first time someone took my comment in the way it was intended, that their words might be hurtful, intended or not, and they might want to look at it another way before posting such things.

My hat is off to you for having the honor to post this.

Joe_G

My friend took his car to my favorite shop for a cam job; the cam bolts backed out, lunching the lifters and in his case pretty much ruining his engine as IIRC one of his lifter bores broke.

He called me and we discussed it. His plan was to flatbed the car to a well known shop in another state for a new engine. I strongly encouraged him to call the shop owner and have a man to man talk to him. At least give the owner a chance to make things right.

He ended up with a stroker engine for a low price he was very happy with.

The shop ended up doing tens of thousands of dollars more work from him, and got probably hundreds of thousands of dollars of referrals from him.

Things go wrong. They always will. It's easy to drive a boat in calm seas. It's how the boat is captained when the seas are rough that I look at.

And...sometimes it's better for a business to eat a few bucks today with the long view in mind, even if blame is hard to find. And, the flip side is, many customers try to get things for free that are undeserved, they go beat the beejesus out of a car and expect a warranty for life. That's not right either. Based on the story to date, it doesn't seem we are seeing the latter here.

So there are two sides to every story. I hope we see an equitable solution to this one.

JUIC3D

Exactly Joe. I could not agree more. Here's hoping for an agreeable solution for all parties involved

DOUG @ ECS

I think the moral of the story is that the ECS street tune of your bolt on mods made great power prior to the cam install, sorry to hear about the rest.

Boomer111

It is a Catch 22 scenario.

wazslow

I'm sorry to see its gone in this direction Chris. I installed the same cam that Chris originally had installed. The cam is NOT to big at all. I had no trouble installing it myself and Doug at ECS tuned it and it ran and idled great!

Like was already posted I'm wondering if the cam dowel pin wasnt properly aligned with the cam gear when the cam gear bolts were tightened...

Frans96ss

I will state a few facts. After this noise occurred i told chris to not start the car at all and to tow it down here. Shortly after this he sent me this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=hjJ9wTTAFFQ

Which i told him was a terrible idea to rev the car or even start it. I feel a lifter simply collapsed and by driving and revving the car it caused the lifter to break apart and do 99% of the damage that you see in the pics.

Chris told me he took the cam to two other "experts" and they said the cam was installed to far into the motor. I asked chris how this was even possible? He wasnt sure he said i paid you guys to know that. I said yes and its IMPOSSIBLE. Still to this day i asked him if he can show me how a cam can be installed too far into his motor i would give him a refund. I have yet to still be provided with that info.

I 100% agree mistakes happen. I am ALWAYS the first person to say its how the situation is handled that makes those situation comfortable for the customer. Most of my customers will tell you im the most straight forward person you will ever meet. I feel i gave chris the best deal i could. We put a new clutch in it for free, Diff intake manifold, and retuned it for free and gave him $850 off the bill. Its so hard to actually say what happened to a motor when it comes apart. It did take longer than i expected going back together bc we were waiting on the machine shop for some of it and we are insane busy right now and im sorry for that. There were a few times to where chris emailed me and i couldnt reply right away bc it was a LONG email. I didnt have the time to answer it thoroughly for a few days. Few other times after he emailed me he called and talked to bill which answered his ?'s so i didnt feel the need to answer them again. Couple other times i emailed chris to check on things and never heard back and emailed him again to see if he got my last email and he didnt so i had to send it again.

I know this is a terrible situation but stuff like this does happen when modding a car. Lifters are a known problem in LSX engines and this can easily happen. Its unfortunate that this happen but if i warrantied stock gm parts failures on cars i wouldnt be in business.

Im sorry that it had to come to this but i cant eat 3k dollars on a situation like this.

Also you said your not out to bad mouth and just want to tell people the risks of modding your engine? registering on 3 new forums you have never been on just to post stuff like the pic below seems like you have a diff moto.

JUIC3D

Am I understanding the events correctly?

1) Cam was installed at RPM
2) Car was tuned and driven with no issues at the time of install
3) Chris drove around after install and ~250 miles later, the noise from that video started
3) Pulled the motor apart and the pictures are the result?
4) Motor was toast?

By that description it sounds like an already weak lifter started to let go and when it did, it took everything else with it?

I'm not trying to argue or defend any one side, just trying to understand the possibilities.

Frans96ss

That is correct. Motor wasnt toast. We pulled the motor to find all the pieces of the lifter then put everything back together and its been fine.

We basically just put a diff cam in with new lifters etc.

JUIC3D

My mistake then. Toast might be an extreme word to use. Thanks for the clarification.

The whole situation sucks for everyone involved.

Spoolin8

What about the rest of the parts he requested back? With it occurring within 250 miles of the install... sounds too suspicious to be a coincidence. I would assume the 3k would be cheaper to eat then the 10k worth of the publicity.

JUIC3D

If the lifter was already weak to begin with, the extra lift/strain from the cam could likely have sent it right over the top.

I remember when I was doing my cam swap in my garage and I was so paranoid about the first fire up and the first time taking it up in the rpm range. A buddy told me, "if it's going to break, it'll break very quickly and within the first 500 miles or less. After that, you should have smooth sailing."

Well, 20k miles, 160+ drag strip passes and so far so good (fingers crossed)

nullpointer

I was the same way after my HC swap. 1500+ miles later I am finally relaxing

Frans96ss

Im the type of person that if i know im not wrong im not going to just "Eat: 3k dollars bc that means im admitting im wrong. Knowledgeable people will take it for what it is and make their own judgement.

glenB

Having lifters fail after a cam install is a well known fact, for some reason people believe that because it's a roller they can reuse the old lifters, and yes, some have gotten away with it, me included, but, I only had 15K miles on miles. That is why I asked how many miles were on the lifters when the new cam was installed. With that said, I have heard of new lifters failing as well.

The lifter failure issue is just slightly more common than the LS7 dropped valve issue ...

It's too bad that it happened, but it does. If the cam gear bolts backed out then there would have been a sqealing noise when the bolts start chewing into the cover.

I still think RPM handled it fairly, money wise, but poor CS

CDaniel525

Your definitely right about that Doug! I should have called you guys for the cam in the first place. lesson learned, not always best to go with the cheapest price out there. Rather pay more upfront and have it done right the first time!
I'm sure I'll be back for more work in time when I recoup this lost money for some gears and retune...

Excellent point spoolin, add in the lack of communication and dodging my questions makes you really wonder.

You're right Fran, knowledgeable people and even those that are not when it comes the motors, will make their own judgement and they should simply keep in mind the way you handled the whole entire situation and your communication, or lack thereof as there's volumes to be said about that in itself, in addition to not giving all the parts back. There's simply way to many unanswered questions with this whole thing. Like someone else said, it all sounds way to convenient... fishy, like you had something to hide.

1fastbob

I wouldn't be able to make a judgement as to who's fault this issue was based on what I've read here in this forum. I am sure there are frustrations on the customer as well as the vendor side. There are always 2 sides to every story and usually the truth is some where in the middle.

If this happened to me there would not have been e-mails sent as I would have made an in person visit to the vendor and if necessary I would have jumped up and down on his desk to get his attention. Also I would NOT have started the car after it began making noise!

On a side note...looking at the pictures of the cam it looks almost as if the cam was ground on the wrong blank (perhaps wrong length) causing the rollers not to be centered on the lobes. Don't know if this possible, or if there is even a different cam available that would be the wrong length or spacing.

Just my 2 cents

Bob

CDaniel525

Definitely another possibility of the many out there. yet that's still not an error on my part, and should be covered by the vendor because they are the 1 who supplied the cam.. and it would be their responsibility to go after comp cams!

Dale1990

Out of curiosity, would the failed lifter(s) have caused the nicks on what appears to be both pistons in the pic in post 7 or would the reverse be more likely? I'm not an engine expert so I'm just asking.