Got the Cobra back last night!!!!
Thread Starter
2nd Gear Member
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 248
From: Iowa
Got the Cobra back last night!!!!
Roughly a year ago I detonated a piston on my 2001 Vortech Cobra, which somewhere on here is a lengthy post all about that.
I decided, that rather than just rebuilding I'd build the bottom end up and just forget having that issue ever again, and in the process also allow myself some room for growth--lots of power growth.
I got the car back in March from the engine builder and I knew something was wrong. There was terrible blow by and smoke was all over the place, but he insisted it was probably just the rings being difficult. But after a week of driving with no improvement, I brought it right back and demanded it be fixed the right way.
That was March, now it's the end of August, but I finally got my car back. There was a lot of hassle because it was race season and I guess my car wasn't as important as all the big name racers he had to work with, so there it sat and no amount of pressure seemed to get any progress.
But alas, my frustrations are over and I now have my car running great again. She was bored .20 over the first time, but now it's .30 and has a forged rotating assembly: Scat rods, Diamond pistons, and stock Cobra crank.
From what I understand, here was the problem. Originally, he received the block and the cylinders were way out of round, so he bored them out. Well, after it was getting blow by, it was taken apart again and found that the actual bore was now egg shaped and that there were actually indents inside the cylinder. The rings seemed to be doing their job, but there was a thick coat of oil on the top of the piston. Supposedly, he had never ran into this before on an Aluminum block, but that he hadn't used a torque plate on the block to simulate the head sitting on it and without doing that it caused all these issues. In the past, not doing this hadn't caused issues, turned out mine did.
I now have about 200 miles on the break in and no problems, so we'll pray it continues this way!
I decided, that rather than just rebuilding I'd build the bottom end up and just forget having that issue ever again, and in the process also allow myself some room for growth--lots of power growth.
I got the car back in March from the engine builder and I knew something was wrong. There was terrible blow by and smoke was all over the place, but he insisted it was probably just the rings being difficult. But after a week of driving with no improvement, I brought it right back and demanded it be fixed the right way.
That was March, now it's the end of August, but I finally got my car back. There was a lot of hassle because it was race season and I guess my car wasn't as important as all the big name racers he had to work with, so there it sat and no amount of pressure seemed to get any progress.
But alas, my frustrations are over and I now have my car running great again. She was bored .20 over the first time, but now it's .30 and has a forged rotating assembly: Scat rods, Diamond pistons, and stock Cobra crank.
From what I understand, here was the problem. Originally, he received the block and the cylinders were way out of round, so he bored them out. Well, after it was getting blow by, it was taken apart again and found that the actual bore was now egg shaped and that there were actually indents inside the cylinder. The rings seemed to be doing their job, but there was a thick coat of oil on the top of the piston. Supposedly, he had never ran into this before on an Aluminum block, but that he hadn't used a torque plate on the block to simulate the head sitting on it and without doing that it caused all these issues. In the past, not doing this hadn't caused issues, turned out mine did.
I now have about 200 miles on the break in and no problems, so we'll pray it continues this way!
Thread Starter
2nd Gear Member
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 248
From: Iowa
Oh I was pissed, but I was kind of in a hard situation.
I won't post names because I don't want to taint names over this, but basically I'll try and quickly explain why I kept my cool over it. The engine builder is a well respected builder and I've known many, many people who've had great success with him and trust his work. From that stand point, I wanted his expertise on my car.
The build did in fact go wrong the first time around, but he promised to make it right, so that was fair. It was also the middle of racing season and beyond his own racing team, he had many other drivers who were "contracted" to have engines. Their whole racing careers were on the line to meet deadlines and so from putting myself in his shoes, I thought of it this way.
He had 5 guys that would be returning and spending big money with him every single year and one guy who's never been to him before (me). If he worked on my car, he potentially loses future business from a racing team, if he doesn't work on my car, chances are I won't be back anyways for a rebuild. If it was me, I would probably work over time and weekends to make sure I made all my customers happy and made my mistakes right, and I let him know that fact after I got my car back.
But, during the whole process, I was afraid that if I got too angry and lost my temper, he may in fact give me a working engine and my car back, but would he do an acceptable job on it, how reliable would it be, and would it have just been quickly thrown together to make me happy? I wanted my engine to be perfect, so I didn't want to create harsh tensions that might affect his performance on my engine. So I waited to vent my frustrations until afterwords, but I did call very often to put pressure on that I wanted my car back, summer was ending, and that he needed to hurry up, but I was respectful in doing so.
But now, I'm just happy!!!
I won't post names because I don't want to taint names over this, but basically I'll try and quickly explain why I kept my cool over it. The engine builder is a well respected builder and I've known many, many people who've had great success with him and trust his work. From that stand point, I wanted his expertise on my car.
The build did in fact go wrong the first time around, but he promised to make it right, so that was fair. It was also the middle of racing season and beyond his own racing team, he had many other drivers who were "contracted" to have engines. Their whole racing careers were on the line to meet deadlines and so from putting myself in his shoes, I thought of it this way.
He had 5 guys that would be returning and spending big money with him every single year and one guy who's never been to him before (me). If he worked on my car, he potentially loses future business from a racing team, if he doesn't work on my car, chances are I won't be back anyways for a rebuild. If it was me, I would probably work over time and weekends to make sure I made all my customers happy and made my mistakes right, and I let him know that fact after I got my car back.
But, during the whole process, I was afraid that if I got too angry and lost my temper, he may in fact give me a working engine and my car back, but would he do an acceptable job on it, how reliable would it be, and would it have just been quickly thrown together to make me happy? I wanted my engine to be perfect, so I didn't want to create harsh tensions that might affect his performance on my engine. So I waited to vent my frustrations until afterwords, but I did call very often to put pressure on that I wanted my car back, summer was ending, and that he needed to hurry up, but I was respectful in doing so.
But now, I'm just happy!!!
2nd Gear Member
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 380
From: Va
Oh I was pissed, but I was kind of in a hard situation.
I won't post names because I don't want to taint names over this, but basically I'll try and quickly explain why I kept my cool over it. The engine builder is a well respected builder and I've known many, many people who've had great success with him and trust his work. From that stand point, I wanted his expertise on my car.
The build did in fact go wrong the first time around, but he promised to make it right, so that was fair. It was also the middle of racing season and beyond his own racing team, he had many other drivers who were "contracted" to have engines. Their whole racing careers were on the line to meet deadlines and so from putting myself in his shoes, I thought of it this way.
He had 5 guys that would be returning and spending big money with him every single year and one guy who's never been to him before (me). If he worked on my car, he potentially loses future business from a racing team, if he doesn't work on my car, chances are I won't be back anyways for a rebuild. If it was me, I would probably work over time and weekends to make sure I made all my customers happy and made my mistakes right, and I let him know that fact after I got my car back.
But, during the whole process, I was afraid that if I got too angry and lost my temper, he may in fact give me a working engine and my car back, but would he do an acceptable job on it, how reliable would it be, and would it have just been quickly thrown together to make me happy? I wanted my engine to be perfect, so I didn't want to create harsh tensions that might affect his performance on my engine. So I waited to vent my frustrations until afterwords, but I did call very often to put pressure on that I wanted my car back, summer was ending, and that he needed to hurry up, but I was respectful in doing so.
But now, I'm just happy!!!
I won't post names because I don't want to taint names over this, but basically I'll try and quickly explain why I kept my cool over it. The engine builder is a well respected builder and I've known many, many people who've had great success with him and trust his work. From that stand point, I wanted his expertise on my car.
The build did in fact go wrong the first time around, but he promised to make it right, so that was fair. It was also the middle of racing season and beyond his own racing team, he had many other drivers who were "contracted" to have engines. Their whole racing careers were on the line to meet deadlines and so from putting myself in his shoes, I thought of it this way.
He had 5 guys that would be returning and spending big money with him every single year and one guy who's never been to him before (me). If he worked on my car, he potentially loses future business from a racing team, if he doesn't work on my car, chances are I won't be back anyways for a rebuild. If it was me, I would probably work over time and weekends to make sure I made all my customers happy and made my mistakes right, and I let him know that fact after I got my car back.
But, during the whole process, I was afraid that if I got too angry and lost my temper, he may in fact give me a working engine and my car back, but would he do an acceptable job on it, how reliable would it be, and would it have just been quickly thrown together to make me happy? I wanted my engine to be perfect, so I didn't want to create harsh tensions that might affect his performance on my engine. So I waited to vent my frustrations until afterwords, but I did call very often to put pressure on that I wanted my car back, summer was ending, and that he needed to hurry up, but I was respectful in doing so.
But now, I'm just happy!!!
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