HiTech Motorsport in Elk River Minnesota
04-21-2016, 09:27 PM
#1
Burning Brakes
Thread Starter
HiTech Motorsport in Elk River Minnesota
Putting this here for posterity. Just wrote another big check to fix the issues that have been ongoing for 7 years now.
It pains me somewhat to write this as over the course of my dealings with HiTech I spent quite a bit of time talking to Bart Wells and thought he was a nice guy. However the fact remains that I have over $6,000 (not including those I didn’t save) in invoices from HiTech and a motor that burns a quart of oil every 50 miles with scored, football-shaped cylinder walls, beat up pistons with scratched and dented skirts, and a new bill to fix everything. In 2009 I hired HiTech to rebuild a 454 that wasn’t running right - whether or not it needed a rebuild is debatable but I’ll accept that it did. They rebuilt it top to bottom to the exact specifications that their engine builder (at the time, no idea if he’s there now) Brian Ebert came up with and with the exact parts they wanted to use to the tune of $6,000. Within the first year it broke valve springs at least half a dozen times which stranded me on the side of the road multiple times and cost me countless towing fees. One of these times a valve contacted a piston and bent the stem. They finally realized that the springs could not run to the lift that they were running them at and changed them out for different springs - unbeknownst to me excessive damage had already been done to that piston and cylinder bore. After the change of valve springs I was able to run the car for the next 3-4 years very occasionally because I was constantly bumping up against major oil burning issues. Some rounds of changes and revisions were undertaken by Bart, others I paid for under claims that they were somehow not caused by their rebuild. Finally in 2013 I stopped bringing the car back to HiTech because it was clear they couldn’t resolve the issue and I was sick of spending more money with them. While the oil consumption issue made it almost impossible to drive the car I didn’t have much opportunity to do so anyway. Finally, in late 2015 I removed and disassembled the engine to determine what the issue was. Almost every piston was damaged from the shoddy bore job and the fact that the bore clearances were not sufficient for the piston expansion. Most of them are dented on the skirt, and most of the bores were trashed from the skirt scraping the walls. This has of course required all new pistons and a complete rebuild of the lower end including boring the block to .100. These are the facts. Brian Ebert may be a great mind when it comes to building engines, but he can’t do basic quality machine work. Bart knew this and cashed the checks anyway.
TL;DR is that you’d have to enjoy pissing away time and money to work with HiTech.
It pains me somewhat to write this as over the course of my dealings with HiTech I spent quite a bit of time talking to Bart Wells and thought he was a nice guy. However the fact remains that I have over $6,000 (not including those I didn’t save) in invoices from HiTech and a motor that burns a quart of oil every 50 miles with scored, football-shaped cylinder walls, beat up pistons with scratched and dented skirts, and a new bill to fix everything. In 2009 I hired HiTech to rebuild a 454 that wasn’t running right - whether or not it needed a rebuild is debatable but I’ll accept that it did. They rebuilt it top to bottom to the exact specifications that their engine builder (at the time, no idea if he’s there now) Brian Ebert came up with and with the exact parts they wanted to use to the tune of $6,000. Within the first year it broke valve springs at least half a dozen times which stranded me on the side of the road multiple times and cost me countless towing fees. One of these times a valve contacted a piston and bent the stem. They finally realized that the springs could not run to the lift that they were running them at and changed them out for different springs - unbeknownst to me excessive damage had already been done to that piston and cylinder bore. After the change of valve springs I was able to run the car for the next 3-4 years very occasionally because I was constantly bumping up against major oil burning issues. Some rounds of changes and revisions were undertaken by Bart, others I paid for under claims that they were somehow not caused by their rebuild. Finally in 2013 I stopped bringing the car back to HiTech because it was clear they couldn’t resolve the issue and I was sick of spending more money with them. While the oil consumption issue made it almost impossible to drive the car I didn’t have much opportunity to do so anyway. Finally, in late 2015 I removed and disassembled the engine to determine what the issue was. Almost every piston was damaged from the shoddy bore job and the fact that the bore clearances were not sufficient for the piston expansion. Most of them are dented on the skirt, and most of the bores were trashed from the skirt scraping the walls. This has of course required all new pistons and a complete rebuild of the lower end including boring the block to .100. These are the facts. Brian Ebert may be a great mind when it comes to building engines, but he can’t do basic quality machine work. Bart knew this and cashed the checks anyway.
TL;DR is that you’d have to enjoy pissing away time and money to work with HiTech.
