I talk to this engine builder today and ask what is the cost of assembling my sbc 400 from pan to carb. He charge $475.00, however he does not give out any warranty for anything over 400hp. Is this the norm when you start going into high performance engines over 400hp, or maybe because I bought all the parts and the only thing he has to do is assembly the engine. All the machine work has been done and all the parts have been bought new from Summit, Lunati(cam), or Ebay. Since I will not get a warranty should I just assemble the engine myself and save the 475.00. He also ask did I want him to polish my AFR heads since they are just out the box. He said he used to work for AFR for 18 months porting and polishing heads. Is it a good idea to polish these heads out the box for street engines. This Engine builder has won with Boat motors races record times and Drag Cars in the low 9's, but the lack of warranty puts fear in my heart. I have talk to the guy and he is very knowledgable and I have seen some of the engines in his shop that LOOK awesome but have not seen them run. He also charge $200.00 for the dyno break-in of the engine, to maximize the output and tuning. The guy have a lot of trophy's in his shop
from racing cars and boats, now he just own the speed shop and build engines.

If you do put it together yourself, at least have the machinist check the parts out for you. They usually don't charge too much if you've had them do work for you before. Its cheap insurance. I got burned on a set of aftermarket heads that had the guides sized too small. I didn't have the tools to check it but learned the hard way when all the exhaust valves were galling. Sometimes its worth it to have someone down the road you can come back to rather than mailing parts back and hoping you get them back right. As far as the warranty goes, I think it would be difficult to get a machinist to stand behind machine work he didn't do. My experience has been that the machinist will only cover machine work that comes out of their shop.

I think that is reasonable. Typical applications for such engines call for hard use. I mean if he gives you a 5000 mile warranty does that mean it is good for 20,000 qtr mile passes? If I had someone assemble a race engine for me and I needed a warranty, then that tells me I don't have enough confidence in them.

On the other side, if something did happen, and it was because of negligent work that was obvious, I would assume that a good builder would show some responsibility.

Also remember that IMO 70% of a good engine is the machine work, the other 30% is good assembly. Good assembly can't make up for bad machine work. Of course if you assemble rod bolts incorrectly or something like that then you are in for trouble.

Personally I know of a small few people I trust and do all assembly myself.

if it wont come off the dyno in one piece,whats the warranty? will he stand behind it that far?

I'm actually suprised that he is willing to assemble your shopping basket of parts and pieces - most every builder I know has some strong preferences on parts and combo selection. One of the shops that I deal with will not dyno a freshly built engine unless they built it.

Who did the machine work - Summit? If he is good like you say he is, he'll probably find some of the critical machining measurements to not be what he would like. Do not be suprised if he advises additional machine work, or some parts changes.

As for warranty, the typical hot rod is built to be beat on - missed shifts and over-revving during burnouts do happen. When my latest engine, the 496, was on the engine dyno for the first full pull after initial run in and adjustments the following scene played out: dyno operator (John Beck, Pro Machine) as he is pushing the throttle lever forward "your warranty is over", me "let it rip", dyno operator for effect "your warranty is OVER", me "I know, let's see what it's got". I say you should relax about the warranty thing - any builder that winning racers use probably knows his stuff better than the average builder.

Good luck, Thomas

I used the machine shop that he recommended to me and where he gets his machine work done. I think he is not the type of guy who's out for a buck, he have taken me on a tour of his shop and the best thing that I found is he have a very clean room where he only assemble engines. The 4 garages is for working and tuning. I will let him do the assembly, but I have to do the clearance of the block w/6" rods. He charges $60.00 hr and thats too deep.

Let's see, you bought the parts from somebody else who made a profit on those parts, you had the machine work done by somebody else who made money on that, and now you want this guy to assume responsibility for (warranty) this multi-thousand dollar engine when all he stands to make is 475 bucks? Wow.

How dumb do you think this guy is? I wouldn't let anybody dumb enough to buy into that deal touch my stuff.

Tom

Let the guy clearance the block and do it right for $60.00/hr. He has the tools and knowledge to do it right. Let him assemble it and dyno tune for $675.00 more. You grind the block for hours and possibly ruin it,assemble it yourself, put it in ,fire it up, find leaks, pull it back out fix the leaks, put it back in, tune it for a couple hours breaking in the cam,adjusting timing and fuel.The guy has to eat, it sounds like he has a good reputation and your hassle factor goes way down. Do you want the money or the peace of mind?
If you're real sure of your skills, go ahead. Otherwise protect your investment and let him do it.

Both the assembly work and dyno work are a steal.

Sure, you don't want to pay the assembly fee, but do you have the inside and outside micrometers to check the crank, rods? Do you have a dial indicator? Are you willing to do a trial assembly to make sure everything is exactly right? Assembling an engine isn't just screwing together a bunch of parts, you might get away with that - once!

Getting an engine on and off a dyno is a pain. A dyno is very expensive! If he has a dyno and an exhaust analyzer, $200 is a steal.

Nobody is going to warranty parts that they didn't sell in the first place.

Why would they ?

Sometimes a few od our customers have just not been able to understand why we won't warranty stuff they buy elsewhere and have us install but we tell them beforehand what the deal is.
If there is a problem, we will take it back out and charge for the time it takes, they take it back where they got it and get it replaced, we come back and charge them to install it again.