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  #1  
Old 10-31-2006, 04:05 PM
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Ray Bell Ray Bell is offline
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Default The Machinist

Just reading in another thread about machining gone wrong in engine rebuilds... it seems to crop up fairly often on various fora. Makes you wonder.

Tomorrow my nephew, benno318, is going to the funeral of the guy he's trusted to do his race engine machining for some years. I recall he told me early last year that he just gives everything to this guy and he always got it right.

Fortunately, the son will be carrying on the business and presumably he, as he worked alongside his father, has the ability to carry on the good work.

But how commonplace is it for there to be exceptionally good, and also bad, machinists?

Who do you rely on? Have they ever made a mistake?
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Old 10-31-2006, 04:22 PM
451Mopar 451Mopar is offline
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I alaways ask around to get references for machine work.
The first engine I ever built, I took to a lousy machine shop and they lost some of the engine parts. I ended up taking the engine to another shop.
I found out many machine shops are not "full-service". For example, many shops send the cranks to a crankshaft specialist to have them ground.
Many shops also don't have torque plates for Mopar engines.

So a Shop with all the right equipment is nice, but you really want to find a person who knows his stuff. I have had some work done by small one or two person shops where the guys really know what they were doing. They were sort of speciality shops, one I used to ballance the engine, and the other to do the cylinder heads. This was many years ago in a smaller city.
Where I live now there are two shops I trust that can do pretty much everything. Only problem is they are alaways busy. In fact the good shops alawys seem to have more work than they can handle. At one shop it took almost a month to get a fairly stock 440 machined. The other shop (a bigger name race shop) took several months to machine a 360, but the 360 had some un-stock stuff like off-set stroker crank, quench pistons, milling the block and heads, align honing the mains, etc.
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Old 10-31-2006, 06:00 PM
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67satty 67satty is offline
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Default How I Picked My Machinist

He's an old guy, shop's been around forever, his name is Smokey. If that's not enough, he let's me hang out in the back of the shop, explains everything he's doing to my motor in minute detail, and he's got all kinds of signed photos of customers' drag cars pulling the front wheels hanging up arpund the shop. He's not in any big hurry and neither am I. He let's me pay as I go when I can afford to.
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Old 10-31-2006, 06:22 PM
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velocity_vixen velocity_vixen is offline
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I picked mine from word of mouth in 2 states. He's done engines for some NASCAR guys and has the photos to prove it. Also, he was a metallurgic engineer before opening up this business. Can't say I've heard of any other guys in the same business with that kind of clout. Unfortunately, he recently sold his shop to one of his prized employees and moved because he was offered some sort of awesome high paying job up north. But, at least he sold his business to one of his 2 prized employees, who had also worked on some of my engines and I have no complaints. Like a sign I once seen somewhere: "Got any questions about us, ask any of our repeat customers."
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Old 10-31-2006, 07:20 PM
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I found my guy word of mouth. he's really not a mopar guy per say, but his reputation was excellent. No problems with my motor going on 8 years now.

One thing that swayed me in his direction was a story he told me when I went to meet him the first time. He said that one of the local car dealers wanted him to rebuild 302's for them to sell as "remanufactured" He stopped doing them because they would not pay for the necessary time/machine work to make them "right" they wanted him to slap them together and push them out the door. he cared too much about his reputation to do that, and he was not cheap.


I have noticed that the good ones I have seen are not getting rich doing it either. thankless business if you ask me. people bringing their own "mystery" parts in and then probably bitching to high hell when it blows up.

I am a cheap bastard, but when I brought my block/crank/rods to him, I just told him to make it right and let me know how much. paid off so far.
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Old 10-31-2006, 09:25 PM
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Who you go to? I was told good things about Elsasser.
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Old 11-02-2006, 10:13 AM
Dr. Righteous Dr. Righteous is offline
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I'm lucky enough to have Hensley Racing Enterprises local for me. They don't touch anything but MoPar. All great but they are EXPENSIVE!
The first time I took a engine into a machine shop ('70 440 out of my GTX) they screwed the cam bearing installation up. When I picked it up and was installing the cam it wouldn't seat. Got it about half way in and then it was way too tight. I called them back and they actually told me to get a wheel cylinder hone and hone the cam bearing until the cam would go in.
Can you believe that????
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Old 11-02-2006, 06:56 PM
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Low oil pressure city if you don't get it just right...
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Old 11-03-2006, 11:06 AM
BJSracing BJSracing is offline
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I will only have to drive 300 miles to go to my engine builder. I have had my last spat with engine builders. I'd rather load it all up and take it to someone I know and trust then have to go through the crap I went through the last time.
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  #10  
Old 11-03-2006, 08:57 PM
Shaun Shaun is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Righteous
Got it about half way in and then it was way too tight. I called them back and they actually told me to get a wheel cylinder hone and hone the cam bearing until the cam would go in.
Can you believe that????
That's pretty common,the first time it happens,though-you think something is definately wrong.
The alignment of the cam bore can be corrected(even better than factory) and it is a good idea,but you have to have a good machinist. But the alignment,actually the mis-alignment is corrected during break-in.This is really the more crucial part of a cam break-in(the cam seats in to the bore),but when it doesn't go in,you must find the tight bearing,which side and(I use scotch brite)take her down a little.
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  #11  
Old 11-04-2006, 02:02 AM
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Anyone tried Chenoweth Speed & Machine's "Block-in-a-Bag"?

If you have tried the "Block-in-a-Bag", how was the quality of the machining?

http://gearsandrears.com/CREflyerpage.htm

http://gearsandrears.com/ShopMachines.html
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