Proformance Unlimited 390FE for #50: a complete disaster.

[knightfire83]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune with your engine. Your doing a great job trying to make it right.

You do of course know that if they get lawyered up they will investigate every aspect of your previous letter, including the reference to fordification. A simple search will turn up everything that has been posted, and they will examine every pixel of these posts.

Performance Unlimited has surely done you wrong, but be sure not to give any info on here that may even give them a .0001% chance to twist things around on you. Think everyone knows how lawyers can turn, twist, and generally screw things up if given even a slim chance.

You deserve your money back, I hope you see every penny of it.

[robroy]

Good day Jamie and KnightFire83, thanks for your great replies!

Robroy, excellent email,

Thanks!

but a suggestion, recommend using the KISS factor.

Emphasize the deal killers, why you need a refund, why it's just a $8995 boat anchor now.

1. Cam failure.
2. Bores scrathed up
3. Valve seats no good.
4. Crank bent.

I think you're right about this! The list wasn't organized as well as it could have been (it didn't put the most important things at the top in all cases).

I wouldn't stress the bad paint too much or bearing sizes out a thousanth (you don't want a pissing contest between builders), makes the complaint sound petty or at least it's something for PU to grasp at and distract you from the big four above.

I think you're right here too! If I wanted to leave them in there for completeness, I should have organized them in to a separate list of "relatively minor problems." Some of them were so minor that they didn't really even belong in that list--they could have been pulled out in to a separate list.

It took me fifteen minutes or so to read the email without the pictures.

Indeed, it's long! Thanks very much for having the patience and interest to wade through it!

Maybe you could / should make an outline on paper with the picture links to go over during your phone call with them.

Good idea! I'll definitely at least have it up on my screen in a text editor during the call, so that I can take notes directly in context with whatever point we're covering.

I think you are doing a great job.

Thanks very much!

Sorry to hear about your misfortune with your engine. Your doing a great job trying to make it right.

Thanks!

You do of course know that if they get lawyered up they will investigate every aspect of your previous letter, including the reference to fordification. A simple search will turn up everything that has been posted, and they will examine every pixel of these posts.

If it comes to that, I'll be counting on it! I think that the things I've written here will actually help to support my position, and establish my genuinely straightforward intentions. Plus, there are a lot more photos here than I included in the e-mail.

Performance Unlimited has surely done you wrong, but be sure not to give any info on here that may even give them a .0001% chance to twist things around on you. Think everyone knows how lawyers can turn, twist, and generally screw things up if given even a slim chance.

That's a solid point! I tend to keep the totally public nature of these threads in mind. That said, my intentions are so straightforward, and I have so much evidence, that I'm pretty sure anything on here would do more to help me than harm me. Of course there's always a risk that something could be twisted around and misinterpreted, but I'll have to deal with that if the time comes--I'm not worried about it for now.

You deserve your money back, I hope you see every penny of it.

Thanks very much!

Jamie and KnightFire83, thanks again for your excellent replies!
Robroy

[Alvin in AZ]

Robroy, excellent email... {x2!}
1. Cam failure.
2. Bores scratched up
3. Valve seats no good.
4. Crank bent.
Jamie

A bent crank in a $8500 high performance engine?
There's just something really sick and twisted about that.
Guys, can you imagine looking down at your engine idling and seeing the balancer wobbling?
That crank being bent is really bothering me.
How could it get bent, did it get bent in a wreck or what?

Alvin in AZ

[eggman918]

Robroy, excellent email... {x2!}
1. Cam failure.
2. Bores scratched up
3. Valve seats no good.
4. Crank bent.
Jamie

A bent crank in a $8500 high performance engine?
There's just something really sick and twisted about that.
Guys, can you imagine looking down at your engine idling and seeing the balancer wobbling?
That crank being bent is really bothering me.
How could it get bent, did it get bent in a wreck or what?

Alvin in AZ

How did they not catch the bent crankshaft when they balanced it,Sloppy workmanship? It would have been VERY difficult to balance it if it were running out more than.001/.0015"

[DuckRyder]

...recommend using the KISS factor.

Emphasize the deal killers, why you need a refund, why it's just a $8995 boat anchor now.

1. Cam failure.

2. Bores scratched up

3. Valve seats no good.

4. Crank bent.

While I agree to a point and perhaps the organization could have been a bit better in the most important to least important category, remember robroy is a "layman" from a technical point of view, he is reporting another builders findings.

It might not be as easy for robroy to organize the technical points and I believe that it is important at least on this initial contact to include all available information, both so that it is clear that the body of evidence is insurmountable, and so that any potentially relevant information isn't omitted inadvertently.

I do agree to concentrate on the more significant issues.

To me the most important issue is that the camshaft failed and scrapped a $9000.00 engine, in my opinion the probable root cause of that failure is that the engine builder failed to properly break in the engine (cam), and seemed unwilling to assist in the disassembly and inspection of said engine.

In my opinion the windage tray isn't even relevant, but even if it were, it was Proformance Unlimited's responsibility to deliver an engine suitable for the application, and seemingly their decision to have the customer perform the required modifications instead of returning the engine to them.

I think they need to Cowboy Up and take care of it...(meaning refund at least most of the money...)

[r71f250]

RobRoy,

After reading that email and your detail, it was like reading the finding from CSI. Even if Proformance Unlimited did "Lawyer up" this would be stupid on their part for a 9K engine. I would do a demand letter for the costs for the new engine, I would then send your letter to Proformance Unlimited by certified mail with receipt of delivery and as per the Fair debt collections act they have 30 days to respond to your dispute and go from there. Continue to be humble, but put it together in the continued professional way as you have been doing. Remember a email and fax is not considered a "Certified Delivery of Dispute" even though email and faxes are helpful. Good luck and keep the faith..

Blessings,
Alan

[70_F100]

There's a good chance that any settlement they may offer may have a confidentiality agreement attached.

Lawyers are good about adding those, as any settlement may be considered "good faith", with P-U ( ) admitting no guilt.

[70shortwide]

70_F100

I dont think a confidentiality agreement would keep him from telling us hes been satisfied, correct? if so we could all assume that they were worthless and didnt make it right, which would be a bad thing for them.

[Caseys71]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune, hopefully it doesn't occur in the future with any other customers of P-U's. That email was very informative I think you were very thorough in your descriptions and explanations of every problem that you have incurred thus far, which wouldn't be possible if you didn't do such a good job at documenting the whole episode with photos and the video explanations. Also something in your defense on the windage tray issue, although the windage tray you put on was scraped by the crank they installed, the installed the crank which was bent as stated which could've caused the scraping on the windage tray rather than it being an error on your part. Hopefully they will see what is right and refund your money without you having to take legal action. Good luck with P-U and your new engine your getting built .

[ForingaMex]

Good evening robroy,
I have been following along on the reports of your ordeal and to say the least I feel bad for you and I hope the outcome of all of this will be fair and satisfactory to you.
I am very impressed with the character you've shown by staying cool, calm and collected and not slamming anyone even though you might have felt like it and it may be deserved. I don't know about you but for me $8500 is a lot of money.
Keep us informed and again I hope all turns out well for you.
Jake

[robroy]

Good evening Alvin, Jake, Caseys71, Eggman918, Robert, Alan, 70_F100, and Jeff W., thanks for your excellent replies!

A bent crank in a $8500 high performance engine?
There's just something really sick and twisted about that.
Guys, can you imagine looking down at your engine idling and seeing the balancer wobbling?
That crank being bent is really bothering me.
How could it get bent, did it get bent in a wreck or what?

Good question! As I understood it from Tom's e-mail and voice mails, the bend was such that the crankshaft couldn't be turned again without making it impossible to balance. So it's possible that the bend was subtle--maybe it wasn't enough to cause the balancer to wobble around! But who knows?

How did they not catch the bent crankshaft when they balanced it,Sloppy workmanship? It would have been VERY difficult to balance it if it were running out more than.001/.0015"

Although I didn't hear the full, detailed story on the crankshaft (I'll probably hear this when I go to pick it up), I got the impression that it was OK before, but that the required, additional turning would have caused it to get in to a situation where it couldn't be balanced any more. This said, I'm not sure if that even makes sense--I might have misunderstood.

While I agree to a point and perhaps the organization could have been a bit better in the most important to least important category, remember robroy is a "layman" from a technical point of view, he is reporting another builders findings.

Indeed!

It might not be as easy for robroy to organize the technical points and I believe that it is important at least on this initial contact to include all available information, both so that it is clear that the body of evidence is insurmountable, and so that any potentially relevant information isn't omitted inadvertently.

That makes sense.

I do agree to concentrate on the more significant issues.

To me the most important issue is that the camshaft failed and scrapped a $9000.00 engine, in my opinion the probable root cause of that failure is that the engine builder failed to properly break in the engine (cam), and seemed unwilling to assist in the disassembly and inspection of said engine.

That is indeed the most important issue, and both points here are in dispute. I've heard from Steve at Proformance Unlimited that he believes my windage tray accident caused the camshaft failure, and that he would have been perfectly willing to have disassembled and inspected the engine, if I'd specifically asked him to.

I also heard from Steve that if he'd known that I ran the engine for about ten minutes, he would have recommended that I return it to him for rebuilding, because ten minutes was too long to run it with the sound it was making. I heard from Steve that he was under the impression that the engine had run for 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

Note: I remember telling Steve that the engine ran for around ten minutes, but this may not be a super important point.

In my opinion the windage tray isn't even relevant, but even if it were, it was Proformance Unlimited's responsibility to deliver an engine suitable for the application, and seemingly their decision to have the customer perform the required modifications instead of returning the engine to them.

That's reasonable!

I think they need to Cowboy Up and take care of it...(meaning refund at least most of the money...)

Indeed, perhaps that's the right thing to do.

After reading that email and your detail, it was like reading the finding from CSI.

I suppose that's a good thing, thanks!

Even if Proformance Unlimited did "Lawyer up" this would be stupid on their part for a 9K engine.

It seems so, indeed.

I would do a demand letter for the costs for the new engine, I would then send your letter to Proformance Unlimited by certified mail with receipt of delivery and as per the Fair debt collections act they have 30 days to respond to your dispute and go from there.

That's an interesting option--thanks for letting me know about it! I believe that if it comes to this, I'll probably be acting under the guidance of a lawyer. That way I'd know that I was operating in an appropriate, completely legal fashion. But this is a great option for bringing up with a lawyer, for sure!

Continue to be humble, but put it together in the continued professional way as you have been doing.

You can count on that! Beyond my personal inclination towards this type of conduct, I have no motive to behave otherwise.

Remember a email and fax is not considered a "Certified Delivery of Dispute" even though email and faxes are helpful. Good luck and keep the faith..

Okay, good to know! Thanks Alan!

There's a good chance that any settlement they may offer may have a confidentiality agreement attached.

Could be! I haven't seen anything like this yet, but I'm not very far in to the situation yet either.

Lawyers are good about adding those, as any settlement may be considered "good faith", with P-U ( ) admitting no guilt.

Yes, the "good faith" type of thing was mentioned to me already (more on this soon). Thus far they're unwilling to admit anything at all. They're message to me, so far, is that they delivered a top notch quality engine.

Sorry to hear about your misfortune, hopefully it doesn't occur in the future with any other customers of P-U's.

Indeed!

That email was very informative I think you were very thorough in your descriptions and explanations of every problem that you have incurred thus far, which wouldn't be possible if you didn't do such a good job at documenting the whole episode with photos and the video explanations.

Thanks! My natural inclination to document every bolt I turn and share it on here has really been to my benefit, in this case.

Also something in your defense on the windage tray issue, although the windage tray you put on was scraped by the crank they installed, the installed the crank which was bent as stated which could've caused the scraping on the windage tray rather than it being an error on your part.

That's an interesting point that hasn't been brought up yet--that's a possibility.

Hopefully they will see what is right and refund your money without you having to take legal action. Good luck with P-U and your new engine your getting built .

Indeed, and thank you!

I have been following along on the reports of your ordeal and to say the least I feel bad for you and I hope the outcome of all of this will be fair and satisfactory to you.

Thanks for your interest and good thoughts!

I am very impressed with the character you've shown by staying cool, calm and collected and not slamming anyone even though you might have felt like it and it may be deserved.

Thanks! Thankfully, so far I haven't felt like slamming anyone, nor do I think it's deserved. Things are going well so far, and the story's not over yet!

I don't know about you but for me $8500 is a lot of money.

Yes it is! And if y'all knew what I had to do to earn that initial $8,955, and this additional $8,500, you'd probably feel even more strongly about the situation. That money was earned at an ultra high pressure software company, where I worked for three years in the Indian outsourced engineering division. They'd frequently push me (and other engineers) to work from morning to past midnight (and even later) on conference calls with engineers in Bangalore, India. This continued straight through many weekends too! It was insanely demanding, and didn't allow for much sleep. So the money didn't come easily, needless to say.

Of course, I don't mean to imply that others have it easier at all! I know lots of us work super hard for our money.

Keep us informed and again I hope all turns out well for you.

Thanks Jake! I'll definitely keep y'all informed.

Yesterday I called Steve and Proformance Unlimited and spend an additional thirty minutes on the phone! I have some interesting results from that call, which I'll post next (I need to organize my notes in to a coherent, digestible format).

Alvin, Jake, Caseys71, Eggman918, Robert, Alan, 70_F100, and Jeff W., thanks for all your excellent replies!
Robroy

[70shortwide]

used your fancy "wayback machine" I believe that this is the motor you ordered?
http://web.archive.org/web/200804170420 ... 425hp.html

notice that H beam rods are included with that motor. they owe you for H beam rods no matter the fate of the engine. they sold you a motor with H beams, you should have a motor with H beams! while this is rather insignificant with everything else, it proves without doubt that you did not get something you paid for.

I looked it up on august 5th, 2008. the day you ordered the motor.

[70_F100]

A bent crank in a $8500 high performance engine?
There's just something really sick and twisted about that.
Guys, can you imagine looking down at your engine idling and seeing the balancer wobbling?
That crank being bent is really bothering me.
How could it get bent, did it get bent in a wreck or what?

Good question! As I understood it from Tom's e-mail and voice mails, the bend was such that the crankshaft couldn't be turned again without making it impossible to balance. So it's possible that the bend was subtle--maybe it wasn't enough to cause the balancer to wobble around! But who knows?
Robroy

There are two things to consider here, IMHO.

1) If the crank had been bent PRIOR to engine assembly, it either had to be done before or after the crank was turned. If it was bent prior to being turned, then there is no way that it's concentric. That bend would throw everything off, including the mains, rods and balance. This COULD potentially have been at least part of the source of the irregular wear on the main bearings. If it was bent AFTER being turned, it means that they most likely dropped it at some point prior to installation.

2) If the crank was bent AFTER assembly, it was most likely done between the time the engine was assembled and when it was crated. However, it could have happened during shipment, but there would definitely have been damage to the crate. Robroy, was there any indication of damage to the original shipping crate?

used your fancy "wayback machine" I believe that this is the motor you ordered?
http://web.archive.org/web/200804170420 ... 425hp.html

notice that H beam rods are included with that motor. they owe you for H beam rods no matter the fate of the engine. they sold you a motor with H beams, you should have a motor with H beams! while this is rather insignificant with everything else, it proves without doubt that you did not get something you paid for.

I looked it up on august 5th, 2008. the day you ordered the motor.

I just followed the link and noticed a couple of things:

1) "Edelbrock 750 CFM Carburetor W/ Electric Choke (Upgrade To A Holley Or Demon For $300 " So, a Holley is $300 more than an Edelbrock???

2) "A Set Of Cast Iron 390 Cylinder Heads (We Hand Assemble Each Head To Achieve The Proper Spring Pressure & Installed Height To Match The Exact Application Designed For Your Engine.)" NO WAY did they check the installed height with the condition those valves are in!!

3) "As We Assemble Your Engine We Take Several Pictures Throughout The Building Process. And Then We Send Them To You Via E-Mail, So You Can See The Quality Of Parts And Workmanship That Goes Into Your Engine." Robroy, did they send the photos, and do you still have them? If so, those should provide additional evidence of some of the sloppy workmanship.

[Alvin in AZ]

What do you guys think of Robroy sending the pictures of the cam and lifters to Comp? :)
And asking them what their opinion is on what caused the cam failure?

Alvin in AZ

[DuckRyder]

What do you guys think of Robroy sending the pictures of the cam and lifters to Comp?
And asking them what their opinion is on what caused the cam failure?

Alvin in AZ

I sent pictures to Comp, but never received a reply.