I don't know where to start so I'm just gonna lay it out there. I called John back in the last weeks of July and told him that I was going to do a ground up on my bike and that included fixing any problems with my motor. We discussed a few things about what I wanted and such and the time period it would take (2 weeks from the time he got it to the time it shipped). About the first week of August he received my motor, called me and we agreed on a R&D race cut trans, new clutch, bore out my 54tb to a true 54tb, new valves and springs, port match my head to a 54tb, bore a stock head to tb boot to fit the WK tb, he also wanted to send my Barker crank off to get balanced and new bearings if needed, replace the rings in the jug, he also wanted to take a little out of the left chamber of the head, which I believe he did. The object of this build was to build me a tank of a motor with all my parts or replaced parts with new. I had hoped to gain a few hp/tq with the TB and a few other things considering that my motor had hundreds and hundreds of hard use on it, but if I had the same numbers as it it did when it went in vs when it came out, I would've been cool with it.
So problem number 1, it took more like 6 weeks verses 2 weeks, OK I can handle that because most vendors tell you want you want to hear so they can get the job. I understand it, just don't approve of it, it's called bullshitting a customer.
Problem 2, when you ship a motor, chances are that crate is mad for one trip and done for. My motor came back to Preddy all beat to hell in the same shitty crate he used. Again not to big a deal TRF did the same thing to me 3-4 years ago. What I don't understand is why would a vendor do that? Charge me if you have to but don't ship a $5000 motor back in something it's gonna fall out of. Can you imagine getting a 350 crated back to you in a something the UPS guy can roll up like a bouncy ball? Oooor what if a bought a sweet 69 VW and the shipper had the carrier load it on it's roof? Not cool.
Problem 3, The boot wasn't properly bored to match the tb/head. I'm not sure if John sent a new one or if Preddy had to fix it.
Problem 4, The o-rings for the oil lines were not sent with the motor.
Problem 5, I was sent back springs for 613 TRX build, verses my Ferrara springs.
Problem 6, The base gasket has a definite leak in the front of the motor. Thats just plan fuuked up!
Problem 7, major coolant leak. At first I thought it was a water pump, because of the fact we have had a few around here go out. I was kinda upset because I knew I had put a new one on before we sent the motor and it just sucked that I thought I was going to have to buy another.
Problem 8, Clutch.... Was not replaced. I haven't received a receipt yet so I don't know If I paid for it or not. When we put the bike on the dyno we got 2 pulls before it was totally trashed. Preddy mentioned to me that John told him I still needed a new one. However If you going through a motor and agreed to replace any part that is even slightly questionable, then you do it, especially when the clutch was questioned up front by the builder.
Problem 9, when changing out the clutch we found that the hose between the water pump and motor was only hand tightened, which lead us to believe that was the coolant leak. However after further investigation (thanks Pleasureburban) we found that the water pump didn't even have a ring gasket on it. Coolant leak was solved.
Problem 10, Found a couple of the tabs that hold nuts not bent over on the crank and balance gears.
This build cost me $2929.00 well under my budget. I have not recieved a receipt yet so I don't know how things panned out as far as prices. Before all the problems I was totally happy with the price and even if he he hit me with a $5000 invoice I still would have been happy. After the fact and seeing all the problems after the fact, Im still happy with what I spent however I'm totally beside myself on all the problems. The only problems I had when I handed Jason the motor at TRF for $4000 was a shitty crating job, that was it.
When Preddy got this motor shipped to his house he was a little upset about the crating, the oil line o-rings, and the TB boot. So he was in the chat
room around 10pm later that night or the night after and was asked what he thought about RE, his retort was simple.. RE sucks. We'll there was about 3 people in there and 3-4 lurkers, one of those lurks felt like he had to be a bitch and run and get John on the horn about this. So a little bit goes by and John is calling Preddy cussing him up and down the block about slamming his reputation. In my opinion, Preddy was out of line on the remark. John was way outta line for calling somebody at 11pm at night and making it into a single sided cussing match. I to am a business owner with thousands and thousands of clients. I do take it personal if somebody attacks me, but that's business. You aren't gonna win them all and you sure as hell don't call them up and vent on them. Bad business John, you know it, I know it. Preddy was my employee during this, which means if you had a problem with him, bring it to me. (I do have all the history in chat on RS if we need to address it)
I had called John to see if I could have Preddy call him about what order he wanted the motor primed in. He told me he wouldn't talk to him and that rather just give me my money back and wash his hands of it. I told him I didn't need his money, but I did need for him to make sure I get this motor running properly and in the order of how he(john) wanted it started in. Needless to say after the phone call I was pretty pissed about how John acted about it and was unwilling to help. He did call me back about 5-10 minutes later and changed his attitude for the better and told me to have Preddy call him. I felt like John was trying to get over what Preddy had mentioned in the chat previously and moving on with it.
We finally got a clutch and the coolant resolved, enough to at least get the bike on the dyno and get it tuned. My numbers before Racers Edge got it were 87hp/62tq. The numbers after they had returned it back to me 84/59. Wrong direction but same ball park. I can't complain about it, but I want to really really bad. Lets just say I got my butt hurt over it a little bit. I was expecting the 87/62 and hoping for 90/63. It was dynoed in the same temp and humidity and was double checked with other bikes. So the numbers stick. I'm sure we could have gotten up to 90hp if I wanted to cheat the dyno, but I'm all about the A/F ratio and being a solid tune over bragging. I've got a big enough motor that it speaks for it's self on dyno numbers.
This bike was presented at the 3rd Little Sahara Rally. About 100 people had the chance to look this bike over. About 5-10 got to turn wrenches on it for various things. So I imagine there is going to be a few haters on here, just remember there was about 100 witnesses that I imagine will stop or chose to never do business with Racers Edge. Me being one. I believe in John and Racers Edge, but this was unacceptable.
My build
R&D race cut tranny
Hinson billet basket
slingshot lockout
OEM fibers
EBC steels
Barker 6 mill crank
106 cylinder
106 JE 12:1 piston
Originally was a Barker +2 valved head (tampered with by RE), can't claim it as a Barker head anymore.
kibble White +2 valves
Kibble White Springs
54 WK TB 54 through and though
WK big intake
PC3
Dynatek with KDS curve 2
84hp/59tq
I'm sure the numbers will raise up as the motor gets broke in.
