[petergozinya]

im thinking of buying a long block from speedomotive and was wondering if anyone has had any problems buying from them?

[HemmiGremmie]

Never bought from em, but I hear there pretty good people.
Theve been around for some time as well. HG

[edge]

Originally posted by petergozinya
im thinking of buying a long block from speedomotive and was wondering if anyone has had any problems buying from them?

Yes!

I bought a 383 short block. Upgraded to the 4130 rods, ARP studs, etc.

Lifted the engine out of the crate and installed it on the stand. I immediately noticed that a few of the rods had gaps between the cap and rod, a few as much as 1/8". I had discovered the rod bolts were basically finger tight!

Called them about this and got the run around. They actually tried to blame it on the shipping. Yeah, maybe a fully torqued rod bolt loosened up during transport

After a few weeks I finally got to talk to a VP. I questioned the QA/QC aspect of their operation. I never received the spec sheet that they sell as part of their advertising. Were the rings checked, and how about the main bearings? He understood my arguement and refunded my money on the assembly portion so that I could pay a local to check it out if desired. I checked a few main bearings with plastigage and took a chance on the rings. The loose rods bolts appeared to the be the only problem.

Now, just imagine if I had bought an assembled engine, with the pan already installed. What would be my recourse when the engine destroyed itself?

My advice, avoid SOM at all costs. Ed www.edgesz28.com

[camaroman7d]

Ed,
Sorry to hear you had a terrible experience.

I have done business with them and they treated me very well. I however didn't buy a complete engine. I bought the parts and built it myslef (I always build my own engines). They have some very good prices and some quality parts. It really depends on what you're looking for. I would buy an engine kit from them in a heart beat. I wouldn't buy an assembled engine from anyone, so take that for what it's worth.

I had a uddy pay big money for a professionally built engine, made two passes (1/4 mile) and on the third pass the engine blew up during the burnout. we pulled it apart and I would bet my house they didn't torque the rod bolts, most of them could be taken off with your bare hands.

My point is mistakes happen, it's up to you to check it out. You caught the problem beforehand (thank goodness). Other than them forgeting to tighten the bolts it sounds like you are happy with the engine (not that forgeting to torque the rod bolts is ok). If things were out of tolerance (bearings, clearances) I could see bad mouthing them.

If you deal with many places you will see that getting the run around is just the way business seems to be these days. No body wants to admit a mistake, that is just poor customer service. This is the one bad part about mail order engines, if it was a local shop you could have hauled it back down there and there is no way they could have given you the run around.

If you do buy the long block just be sure to look it over good, pull out your toque wrench and double check things a few minutes up front can save you major problems down the road.

[Mighty Mouse S-10]

Camaroman just gave the best advice you can get. Never take anything for granted or assume the best when it comes to your motor. I double check everything anybody else has done and triple check anything I did myself. Good luck with your motor. Dave

[boson]

I know this is an old thread, but I have to add my experience for anyone considering using Speedomotive. I purchased a blown, injected Chevy 540 from Speedomotive.

When I opened the crate and pulled the valve covers, there were shards of metal laying everywhere in the heads. The pushrods had never been properly clearanced and were rubbing against the heads on 6 of the pushrods. Four of the pushrods were bent right out of the crate. When they dyno'ed the engine, it was rubbing itself apart.

Before I purchased the engine I spent time on the phone explaining it was going in a dragboat. It HAD to pull strong from an idle - the boat has no clutch. But the entire fuel setup they sent was wrong. It would just cough and die when it was in the boat. It was SOM's fuel and ignition setup but would never work.

After never getting the boat to leave the line, I started noticing much piston slap noise. I had a reputable engine builder pull the engine apart: the bores were egg shaped and the tolerances were all over the map. The pistons were slopping around in the bores. I had to bore a BRAND NEW engine .030 over and put in new pistons.

The workmanship in this engine was terrible. This was a big bucks engine and I got garbage machine work. I had to spend another $6000 to rebuild the new motor to get it to a reasonable state.

George (SOM owner) was a complete jerk about any of it. I sent photographs of the metal shards throughout the engine and he had the gall to say that was no big deal. The pushrods were already bent and the Jessel valve train was now potentially damaged due to the bent pushrods when I received the engine! Thankfully I paid with a credit card. When I wrote the credit card company and refused to pay for a defective product, George finally decided to talk to me. So I shipped the motor back, they reclearanced the heads and shipped it back to me. I would have been SOL (short on luck) if I had paid cash. Unfortunately, I had not checked the piston/bore clearance at that time so I got stuck with that lousy workmanship and therefore needed to rebuild a NEW motor.

So I would STRONGLY recommend against using them. They built an engine for us a few years ago and it was fine - but at that time they were farming out the machine work to Keith Black (at least that's what they told us). Now that they are trying to do all their own machine work, my experience is that the quality is terrible.

Buyer beware. Probably OK to buy parts from, but I would stay away from their machining and assembly.

[JeffB]

I can't understand why a company that has been in existence since the early 50's would want to flush their reputation into the toilet So many of us want to buy American and return to good old-fashioned service,but it makes it hard when people put attitude in place of using the brain they were given.

[boson]

It was my own darn fault that I went with Speedomotive.

I was trying to save a few dollars by going with a low-cost supplier. In the end, I spent WAY more money than I should since I had the Speedomotive motor rebuilt again before I was able to use it.

I found a local engine builder, a one-man shop, who is a perfectionist. I would have gone with him in the first place but he told me it would be six months to get it done.

Speedomotive said it would be a couple months. In the end, Speedo took way past the six months! And then I got garbage.

So I learned my lesson. I now have my local machinist do everything. And when there are problems, he has stuck by me. No questions asked. I just have to be patient because he is a one-man shop.

So let this be a lesson to us all.

DO BUY AMERICAN!

And buy local. It may be a little more expensive in the beginning but it pays off for everyone in the long run.

[JimmyJoe]

I know I'm reviving a really old thread here, but I figured I should tell you guys my experience with Speed-o-motive, especially if helps someone else save some money and aggravation.

A while back I had SOM build a 390 FE for my 64 Galaxie. I was looking for about 350-400 hp, aluminum heads and intake with decent idle (maybe a little lopey). Nothing too radical. "no problem" George said. We discussed the options and came up with a parts list. He quoted me a very reasonable price and gave me a 30 day time frame for the build.

The build took closer to 90 days, but I was in no rush, so I didn't really mind. I got the engine and noticed the timing marks were not lined up. I took off the gears and noticed they had also used a cam spacer which was only used on the early FE's. If I had fired it up like this the lifter would have been riding on the edge of the cam lobes! Disaster averted, or so I thought. (probably should have torn it down further at this point. hind sight is 20/20 they say!)

I get it fired up and broken in. But over the next few days it started running worse and worse until it died: flattened cam and torn up lifters. "no problem" George said. He offers to rebuild it for free, I just have to pay for a new cam, lifters, oil pump, bearings etc. This sounded like my best/least expensive option, so I took him up on it.

A month later I got the second build back and started to do a tear down. Took off the rocker arm assembly and the rocker shafts are still full of my old oil and metal shavings from the first cam and lifters!!! I don't think they even tore it down, just slapped a new cam and lifters in it! Then I took out the cam and found ALL of the bearings were installed wrong. Including #1- the slot to feed oil to the timing gear was facing into the block! Seemed like a total lack of attention to detail, not something you want in an engine builder.

All this stuff prompted me to take it to another place where I insisted they start from scratch. They thought I was crazy until they started doing the crank bearings and found that the crank was .010" under and the bearings were standard bore. "No problem". Yeah, right!

To make a long story longer, I went down to Speed-o-motive with a list of problems that I or the other shop found and presented it to George. He asked why I took it to another shop because they would have rebuilt it, but now he couldn't help me!!! This really pissed me off and I gave him a piece of my mind. He just stood there, like it happened everyday. His only response was "we built $30k drag racing engines. You expect me to believe my guys messed up your engine?" No, you messed it up twice!!!

Sorry for the long winded rant. On the bright side, this whole episode motivated me to do a stock rebuild on the 352 that the 390 replaced. It's up and running with no issues. Now I'm planning to do a more radical stroker build on the 390.

[motorhead454]

has anyone bought from shafiroff racing engines? I am getting ready to buy a motor from them and saw this and thought I would ask.

[ericnova72]

My cousin bought a Shafiroff 582 for his mud racer. It has been perfect, no prblems, and he's happy--932 hp mid 600's torque. Shafiroff isn't cheap though, dyno'ed and delivered was about 15 grand Dominator carb to oil pan.

[SSedan64]

I can only say, Never buy an assembled engine Mail Order or Local. My brother and I had a nightmare with a 632 BBC. Basically anything that could have been screwed, was. So much so I don't even want to repeat it. And as usual it was a reputable shop. OH! We build all the drag & circle track engines around here. Blah,Blah, Blah,Blah,Blah..................

[LS1-IROC]

Reviving and old thread again..lol

Speed-O-Motive is total junk. About 11 years ago I bought a 406 long block from them that lasted for about 1500 miles before the bottom end of the motor consumed itself. I too got the run around from them when I called to complain....Even though I remained calm on the phone the guy flat out hung up on me! Talk about stoking the fire...I realized I was not going to get anywhere with them so I let the dude have it on the phone...he hung up on me again.
Wow...11 years and I still get worked up about it Stay far away from that place.

[jmortimer]

I added to this only to save someone else the misery described above. Had a 383 built with AFR heads etc. i bought most of the parts so i know they were good including na trip to ADF to pick up the heads and dropped them off. Sales guy was rude and poor customer service. Paid to have the engine dyno tested and they screwed that up blaming my SMI Quadrajet for not being able to run the test. They could not even get their own dyno to work and it was only a couple weeks old at the time. What a "surprise" when after about 8,000 miles on my truck one of the pistons blew up and cracked my AFR head. It was a mild street engine for my truck around 400 hp/400 ft lbs. Stay away at all costs.

[hpjunke]

Originally Posted by jmortimer

I added to this only to save someone else the misery described above. Had a 383 built with AFR heads etc. i bought most of the parts so i know they were good including na trip to ADF to pick up the heads and dropped them off. Sales guy was rude and poor customer service. Paid to have the engine dyno tested and they screwed that up blaming my SMI Quadrajet for not being able to run the test. They could not even get their own dyno to work and it was only a couple weeks old at the time. What a "surprise" when after about 8,000 miles on my truck one of the pistons blew up and cracked my AFR head. It was a mild street engine for my truck around 400 hp/400 ft lbs. Stay away at all costs.

excatly what he said here I also have had my share with these clowns around the same time of jmortimers build . Got my engine back with not the same parts back I'n it so they decided to try and pull a fast one on me.

Are you going to pursue this I'n anyway?