My negative experience with a machine shop

[southernsteel]

I know I don't post a lot on here and am not a power user by any means, but I feel like this needs put out there. Mods, I put this here for visibility since the SE forum doesn't get a whole lot of traffic. But if it gets moved, I get it.

This is rather long but I feel like it needs to be known. I'd like to share my experience with any enthusiast who will hear me. I am in the midst of building an s13 hatch with a ka24det as the powerplant. Given the nature of the motor, I sought out a machinist who would be able to build the motor for me and build it correctly. I was referred by a friend to SMS (Specialty Machine Shop) in Childersburg, AL.

I dropped two engines off at the same time. My d21 pickup block was returned to me within two weeks. My S13 block was returned me over a year and a half later and I have only just retrieved the head after countless back and forth with Robert Vinson, the owner. The head is incomplete, missing parts that were with it when I dropped it off and now has to be redone. The block appeared to be complete but upon further inspection, I found that was not the case.

Immediately after unwrapping it, I found it hadn't been vatted. Freeze plugs were also the old plugs. The block had not been decked as well. So at this point, the only thing I can be sure of is nothing at all. During disassembly to have it decked and vatted, I found metal shavings resting on the underside of the pistons, rod caps loose, studs over tightened with the end of a fastener even beginning to round, windage tray bent and upon further inspection, the motor had been assembled with gear oil, not assembly lube. There was trash on the journal side of the mains and the gear oil was on the underside of the mains. The biggest kicker is that I was told line bore was done and yet, standard size bearings were used and the marks on the girdle and bearing side are quite obviously not a line bore. Maybe it was honed, but definitely not line bored. The disassembly was done after cutting all ties.

When I asked for money back for work not done, I was called a liar and he threatened to "beat my a**." He continually tried to convince me that he was an honest guy. After showing proof that my block had not been vatted and not decked (again, before disassembly) I was refunded $100 for not being decked and told that "nothing gets assembled with being vatted." I then questioned him about the timeline since no motor takes two years to build and was told that "s*** that don't pay gets put on the backburner, you see what I'm saying?" He then told me that he did me a favor and that $1700 ($1600 after $100 refund) was cheap to have a motor built (I was doing the final assembly, block and head were supposed to be ready to mate).

I paid upfront and got screwed in the end. Countless times I was told it would be ready in a week or later that day. And when I returned it wasn't ready. And every time, there was some excuse. Basement flooded, wife is in the hospital, I'm in the hospital, I've got kidney stones, helper is in the hospital, helper's wife in the hospital, foot burned at nhra, emergency at the airport (apparently he has his pilots license), basement flooded again, cnc machine broken, cnc machine still broken, tech for cnc machine never showed that day.

I'm a pretty understanding person and had my own stuff to go through with these past two years. My car has been put on the backburner in my own life, but at no point, especially after being paid, should a customer have to deal with what I went through. The general disrespect and poor attitude is atrocious and I think anyone who wants or needs a motor built needs to hear about it.

[65ShelbyClone]

Why did you wait 72+ weeks to get your parts back? I would have been down there after eight unless I was told up front (and agreed) that the wait would be long.

Usually when you threaten to come get your stuff unfinished, they offer to finish it immediately in an effort to keep the billables. Don't let them. They'll feed you a line of BS about their guy working on it "as we speak" to buy some time. What I find usually happens is they slap-dash the engine together, cut a bunch of corners, and do a generally crap job as you have also found.

I know it's not easy running a small business, but that guy handled the situation badly.

[blkvrtswp]

I feel for you man. I have had issues with machine shops too. "If you ask me when your Sentra SE-R LSD install will be done one more time I'm throwing it out in the street." This was after 6 weeks on a 2 week quote. I picked it up a half hour later - me and 4 of my bigger friends. Shut that little pipsqueak a-hole down real quick.

On the other hand, my current go-to machine shop guy does all the headwork for the local Honda dealers. That guy would stay up late at night to get your engine perfect. He came to my HOUSE once!

Good luck - build that engine and then go leave a huge donut in his parking lot.

[southernsteel]

I know I posted this forever ago, but I haven't been able to check on it since my work life has moved me across the pond temporarily. As for why I waited, I just had a bunch of stuff going on between fixing my truck, fixing things wrong with the house, fixing the wife's car etc etc. Other things contributed though. It's an hour drive from my house one way and getting time off to go down there took a lot of coordination. I don't think I mentioned it up top, but the work on my truck block was solid. I was confident in his abilites and got burned in the end. Everything Shelbyclone said was what happened. He did handle the situation badly and I let a lot of people know about it.

I found a solid machine shop who turned everything out in a week for me. They were super cool, super professional and had their stuff together. I was able to get the engine built and dropped into the car before I had to take off because they were good enough to turn it out so fast. They'll be my go to guys for the next engine(s) I have to build. They even wanted to see the car when I got everything done.

Another good shout out for the guys at FRSport. I was able to call them up and get everything I needed ordered and to the house within a couple of days. After a little mishap with UPS, they were super helpful with that as well. So that was nice.

[ricardo.benin]

Dang, sew the guy for work that was not done, I went through the same thing, I have built a few rotary engines for my fd rx7 and the guy that I had press in new rotor bearings egged the heck out of the bearings and got my crank and counter weight mixed up which also meant that my balance was going to be way off. Anyways beware of engine shops, I had a machinist lift a cast iron engine block by the main cap and broke the whole main cap and webbing and said that it was already like that after I saw him do this from his office window.