inspector12

Oh ok Now I know who your talking about.

beavisr1

At least he has something to show for the money he spent, not saying that it’s great but better than what I have.

Mopower2007

You paid him in full 2 years ago and he tells you he must get paid for another motor before he can order your heads?

I don't think many people would dispute the fact he's a great engine builder and has an incredible amount of knowledge, ability and contacts. His business practices? Not so great.

RACER7088

John,

Yes I have been almost totally broke for the last year and had WAY too much work here left to do with just me and one part time employee and then virtually no money unfortunately so all is true. I got paid this last week for 2 engines that had sat here for 3 years and one guy is bring back some outlaw Ford stuff that is over 15K in parts so I have money now to buy stuff.

In 13 years I have never made any real money at this but the last few it's been horrible with so many shops going under and or customers not paying. It's mostly picking up again but it's my fault for letting this stuff build up over the years and not getting a collector or a lawyer myself. I have 5 guys on corvetteforums alone here that owe me together over 13K and it adds up.

You guys are all absolutely right I wish I had a business manager and after my move I am going to start over and ONLY do stuff like John's who do pay all parts up front. Sometimes, like now, I am lending out over 100K on parts for people and then some wait 12 months to pay. I wish I could go back in time and correct a lot of this but I can't do that so it's slowly getting caught up here.

We have your shortblock together but no heads until next week but I did order them so that is rolling John. I have been in and out a lot trying to get paid and trying to finish new shop that is half the overhead of this place. I also just got back from a 720 mile round trip to down near the border to get some stuff to a customer and get paid but it was worth it.

Word to all who read this, DO NOT START YOUR OWN BUSINESS. It's basically like being in hell 90% of the time. I doubt 1% of people on this forum would put up with what I have for the last decade plus. I do own all my own stuff now so I just need to make bills but 90% of the other shops I started with are no longer alive.

As far as Bo's shop I wish him luck and he is a very competent, experienced and knowledgeable guy that I still like and I see every few days and sell him some parts etc. He has a full tile job at Cameron as well which is the right thing to do as you will never make that kind of money or get benefits etc. doing the stuff I do.

BLOWNBLUEZ06

I should have mentioned that I really like Erik. I don't think he'll deny that he's the cause of the delays even when customers pay in advance. He's incredibly smart, but also ridiculously disorganized. (except when it comes to the engines themselves). Disorganized with regard to gathering parts and communicating. Beau was left in charge of an already established establishment of chaos, not some well-oiled machine that had momentum that he had to merely maintain and it wasn't missing the janitor. It was missing the president, CEO, owner and 30% of the staff. I know for an absolute fact that Beau busted his ***, working crazy long hours trying to keep things together and keep motors moving out of the shop during Erik's absence. I am aware of some of the motors that moved out during that time and not through Beau. Mine was one of them.
Erik is truly a crazy-gifted engine builder, a genuinely nice guy, but I would be shocked if he claimed to be organized on the business side of things.
See you soon.

Darion

Wow, I don't think I have ever read a more candid response from a vendor that has screwed up on this forum. It's not easy coming into a public forum and putting it all out there like that. At the end of the day though gatta get your customers taken care off, no excuses from their perspective.

OP, hope to see this get resolved soon and would seem to be on track now. Can only imagine how frustrating this has been for you and ya have way more patience than I do.

Good luck to all involved,



Pat

Da_Whistler

Its interesting this hobby of ours... We put out money and trust someone to complete the job we asked for. So many builders and shops screw customers out of money and completed projects. I went thru something like this with Mustang shop here in NJ called Crazy Horse Mustang.

But I have NEVER seen a shop owner/builder come on a forum and admit their shortcomings and acknowledge their wrongs. And while its sad to hear his clear dismay and disappointment. It's awesome to hear the truth from the horses mouth and what he intends to do and is doing to fix it.

Best of luck to the OP and Builder.

slow ride

Erik's one of the few big engine guys to come out and help us average guys on the forums. He always helps out on ls1tech on different subjects helping others (like myself) better understand the ls platform. I hope in the end everyone gets what they need and Erik gets the shop up and running 100% and making good profits with fast turn around times. I'd always make people pay for parts up front for sure. I can see the machine work needing to be complete for those charges.

Dave concrete

I'm not here to lecture this man since he is down on his luck. But it's not being buisness is what his problem is, it's not knowing how to run your buisness. The key is not to take too much on without giving the customer a false reality when the project will be finished. If you take deposits on materials plus a small piece for running cost, the key is to move the product and once you screw that up and start robbing Peter to pay Paul that is when hell breaks loose. At this point since this man has the talent as everyone agree's he now needs a buisness manager and silent partner to keep him afloat and get back on track.

c5mtl

I could not agree more....I know so many people in this business with so much talent but need sooooo much help on the business side....I got an engine from Eric 3 years ago....been fighting low pressure since then......makes me wonder what kind of parts went into it and who really did the work?

road pilot

Pay in advance for a service ,it would never happen.
Wait 2 years for the service to be completed--no way.
End of story.

beavisr1

Erik,

I hope everything is final on track and I see my engine in the near future. I don't like handle things trough forums but in this case I felt I had no other choice.

inspector12

And I'm Erik's friend as well. I am by no means knocking Beau and that he busted his ***. I have a customers car his name is Shannon his car at my shop and Beau talked to him at length during the build and there were hold ups on it as well and so don't think I don't like Beau cause I do. We talked at the last TI. I'm just saying it could have been handled better by him as well. I know that Erik getting hurt REALLY didn't help things for sure. No excuses for him. He's explained himself very well. And for the guy that said it was mismanagement etc... Erik already took responsibility for that as well. But he's honest about it and I've never caught him in a lie. I'll take the honesty over being lied to any day of the week. He is scatter brained as he gets overwhelmed easy cause he does take major pride in his work. He may not put every motor together himself but he does over see and inspect almost every aspect. GL! Talk to you soon Brett.

RACER7088

No problem John. It sucks that its been so long but it will be done now pretty asap as I got paid by quite a few guys in the last 5 days.

No cash flow can and did put a big damper on everything in this last year. I have a huge amount of money in open invoices right now but had even more 12 months ago so I have sold some stuff off and collected from several guys to pay bills and stay alive.

These forums can be useful in many ways for sure although just going through some threads here there is so much misinformation it's crazy on here almost worse than tech but not quite!

I am trying to get a high school guy or girl or anyone even semi knowledgeable to just answer phones but at this point the last year there has been no money to do that with me being out several times and now moving.

430 hp 70

We all know that there are three sides to every story, so id like to hear eriks side of the mismatched/used parts. I fully understand the business issues, but just want to hear that everyone is getting what they pay for. Overdue can be acceptable, underbuilt is not. I dont believe it to be true, just want to hear the truth.

RACER7088

I guess I don't know what you are saying?? Are you talking about the guy above with the oil pressure that wondered? Parts don't have anything to do with that in general. We usually have somewhat lower pressure due to non OEM clearances.

Oil pressure being lower is common with larger clearances used in a much more powerful or performance engines. It's just the way it is. OEM clearances are from .0005-.0015 when you take these apart and performance clearances are double that. I wish it wasn't that way but we use the newer OEM style pumps that are higher volume and they make more pressure which makes people happier usually.

For instance we redo many OEM LS7s that spin bearings and lock up. We have maybe 7 of these burned up cranks and rods even now. I can double the rod clearance and add a lil more on the mains and then they never blow up even with the same parts. Just the added clearance. They do now have lower oil pressure though of course.

LS1s especially aluminum ones have fairly large clearances when hot especially on the lifter bores and they hemorrhage a lot of oil so the pressure is always lower when hot. We run aluminum block mains a lil tighter because of this but always run the rods at least .0025.

All the oil drain back in an LSx is also right down on the spinning crank and they have a lot of air entrained in the oil as well all making lower pressure eventually after a lot of time at rpm. It's just the way they are made unfortunately.

You can run everything super oem tight (.001) and you will have much higher pressure and you will also start seeing spun bearings etc. ala oem dry sump LS7 failures or all the others at a much higher rate. We fix these all the time.

The low power deals you can run much tighter and/or the oem cranks as they are perfectly round and flat and have a rolled fillet but the aftermarket stuff withe the large fillets are not as nice and need more clearance to run right. I have seen some brands of cranks we have to even send out to the crank shop to have trued up they are so bad or we'd have to run .004 clearance on them.

Unfortunately lower oil pressure is just going to happen with the same pump volume and more clearance but like I said seeing these engines back in they look great whereas the tight ones not so good. Most shops do not even check clearances so they wouldn't know. You can always see if they did when we take them apart and most of them do not check anything or only one rod and/or main checked at the most.

430 hp 70

Erik, thanks for the reply. This is what I was asking about and what worries me.

RACER7088

This is the internet and have no idea of what he is talking about? Most stuff we do is new parts we order ourselves but all people and shops are different. We do engines for a lot of people. Some use their own parts and some reuse parts and some buy stuff off ebay etc. so I couldn't tell you. Most people use "mismatched parts" but you cant tell them anything.

I have some 1300.00 dollar "new" 170 miles on them full anodized Diamond pistons that are already cracked on 6 of 8 under the pin boss and came from one of the most expensive shops on this site. That engine has blown out thrust bearings as well as some upside down oil support rails.

After being around a long time I can tell you that there are always people that are not satisfied and nothing will ever change that ever. We are not perfect either but we do a LOT of real race and endurance type engines that last forever. On the internet though a single problem is sometimes heard round the world and the other 99% are not.

Parts on this engine from the well known and respected shop are not necessarily mismatched and no tuning problems on the piston tops but some massive assembly and machining problems. Piston pins have like .005 clearance on some? I have gotten weird stuff like this non stop for 13 years and do not put it up on the net or talk about it publicly as I don't know the true story?

Look at all the cam threads? I have been told on here by no less than it seems 100 "cam experts" that all other "cam experts" are wrong and only they know the right lobs and springs to use ad that all others are mismatched? Then they pm me and stuff we've done that turns 8000 rpm and stuff that makes 650+ at the wheels and ask me 100 times what cam I used.

We've done 350 RWHP 347s to 550 RWHP 347s and so on and so on with all different parts. We've done many over 600 RWHP deals and strokers. Peoples dyno results again are what they are as so much is involved with the tuning and peripherals and setup and actual dyno fake results as goes on here quite often.

I pm'd a few of these guys and have gotten no response but again I have had several cases of shops saying they use me and I have never heard of them and have certainly never even received a single payment from them!

I am not saying that poster is wrong though as after 2500+ engines I can't remember every single situation and customer we have had. For instance we regularly reuse "used" bearings as they do not wear on most engines with correct clearances so why replace them? I reused the same main bearings and rod bearing for 6 years on an 18 degree circle track deal we did that was regularly freshened for those 6 years and they were fine so I re-coated them at Polydyn a few times and kept reusing them. It was a 30K engine and it's still running.

p1bz

I answered Eriks PM, about my post. My post is completely true, BUT his explanation is also true. I am sure that he personally didn't assemble the engine and we the issues he has had, things slip by. I build engines also, and once left a ratchet in a lifter valley. The main thing here is that he stepped up and is doing the right thing and not running from the situation. As far as mismatched parts...I wont even build an engine with customer picked or supplied parts anymore. And yes, mean engines run lower oil pressure...I have to hear about it all the time from Experts who never built an engine.

430 hp 70

Thanks again erik. Thats what I thought. I havent found a builder yet without a few pissed off customers. In all my conversations with you its easy to tell that you know your stuff and are a honest guy. I hope you get it back on track.