Blew up my motor

[corysmach1]

Wow
Sorry man that's terrible.

 

[Turboba6]

The Best Company: L & M Motors in Hatboro!

 

[DSG2003Mach1]

sorry to see it Don

as for L&M go to the Shelby section and look at the "how little boost for a 1000hp" thread or something similar, lots of pages long...might change your mind

 

[Gabe9195]

I've heard nothing but good things about BES Racing Engines ...
So many companies out there that are hit and miss, but BES always seems to make a quality product

 

[NC85]

That blows OP. I've been on this side of the fence before.

I say it often, but for the Coyote and MOST mild builds, I prefer the Ford Racing Aluminator package over ANY shop's work right now.

 

[SHIFTYBUSINESS]

"I say it often, but for the Coyote and MOST mild builds, I prefer the Ford Racing Aluminator package over ANY shop's work right now."

I have to agree, I've been looking at having something built and after the research I've done I'm going Aluminator. I just don't hear about these problems with them and they can handle decent power. I don't want to gamble with the kind of money it takes to build a coyote.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

I do post here a lot, but have posted since 2000

I don't normally complain about a company, but this time I had to say something

OK, this will be a long post, but everything will be addressed

I ordered a built engine this past winter, was supposed to be 9.5:1 compression, but showed up 11.5:1 I tried to send it back, but they refused to take it back, as it was a custom build.

This couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, the build was quoted as a 10:1 build, and during the process, got changed to the higher compression option for whatever reason. Something, that we still would do today for your combo. Now, the issue at hand is this was something that was not signed off on by you before the job was completed, HOWEVER, you did end up signing off on it. Now, along the way we did offer numerous potential solutions when you expressed your desire to change the compression ratio after it was delivered.

Offer #1. We would have you ship the engine to us, and expedite a change of pistons. being there was nothing else beyond refitting for a custom ordered piston to allow us to freshly hone, and set proper clearance we would be able to do this very quickly. When that option wasn't good enough we let you know we would pay freight both ways. when that wasn't good enough due to time constraints we moved to offer #2

Offer #2. we would send one of our drivers down, from michigan to Florida, to you to pick up the engine, bring it back here, do the above piston change, and bring it back. When this option wasn't quick enough we moved to offer #3.

Offer #3. You would take the engine to the nearest air cargo facility, we would pay to have it shipped via plane, and again, change everything over. Unfortunately, this somehow still wasn't quick enough.

After all of this, and talking with our calibrator over the pluses and minuses, you decided it actually was best that you got the higher compression engine.

So I kept the motor, but it has never been right, It has always been loud, found a bad tensioner, replaced it which helped, but still always loud

Just so we are clear, you had someone else go into the engine because it was loud, rather than sending it in for warranty, and they replaced timing components.

Well recently it just died at about 60 to 100 feet at the track, towed it to a friends shop, and found it broke a lower timing chain gear, which broke a secondary chain, and a bunch of rockers

Again, just to clarify, almost a year later it broke a timing sprocket. Now, it did have OEM sprockets on it, which is still what we prefer on the Coyote, and many other Mod Motors. The only time we see gears fail are #1. detonation. #2. poor quality billet gears Or #1 and #2 together. We have a staggering amount of high HP coyotes running around with stock crank gears that don't fail. That is because detonation rattles the gears causing them to shatter. Now, are there applications that can benfit from billet gears? if they were made right, yes. That's why we are working on our own gears, but until they are released, we are sticking with the stock gears, regardless of output.

So I brought it to another shop, they pulled the motor, and found not only did the lower timing chain gear, rockers fail, but when they took it apart they found the pistons were hitting the heads

There are multiple things happening here. the gear caused the rockers, and possibly the piston hitting the head. But more likely is that the skirts are collapsed on the pistons from detonation causing the pistons to rock in the bore and tag the heads.

The company tried to tell me since I opened the valve cover they won't stand behind it.

No, what we said is you had someone else have the front of the engine, replacing parts, and had another place tear the engine apart. That we don't know if we could warranty it as our warranty specifically states that tearing into the engine without prior authorization CAN void your warranty. With that being said we offered to look at it, and evaluate it. An offer that still stands today.

Also when it got to the new engine builder they found all pistons were different sizes, and excessive piston to cylinder wall clearance

There isn't a piston company on the planet that can build 8 pistons that are all EXACTLY the same size. Now, excessive piston to wall, we know that that didn't leave here that way. But, if you look above, we have 2 tell tale signs of detonation, and collapsed skirts is a big one.

So I start to go through my paper work, and find my build sheet which is 6 pages, only one page is from my build, and has my engine job on it. The other 5 pages are from some other engine build, started before we even finalized what I wanted. Even if that engine job was what they used, the specs of the pistons, and cylinders don't match what the paper work said

actually, this is not the case. What you have are our internal documents. The job # on the invoice referes to the master, custom job number. Since your job was a lonblock, it consisted of the following 5 job #'s

1. main custom number, shown on invoice. this is for total job tracking, and specifically focuses on the "non-standardized" work. Namely, the longblock conversion

2. rotating assembly job number. This is for the balancing job for the engine. It allows us to track material used, and time spent on this aspect of the job

3. shortblock job number. this is the job # that references the machning of, and assembly of the shortblock, including align hone, cylinder hone, piston fitting, ring filing, deburr work, setting rod clearance, etc.

4. cylinder head job number. this is the job number for the assembly of the cylinder heads, including install, and setting lash of cams

5. CNC job number. This is specifically for our CNC department when running the cylinder heads on the CNC machine.

So, as you can see, this is why there are multiple job numbers. unfortunately, since we have such a structured, documented system of building engines, many people mistake it for the exact opposite, since they expect an engine build to be something a little more crude.

I will let these pictures speak for themselves, and you can come out to your own conclusions

Look at the Job number, and the dates, have to do two posts for all the pics

unfortunately though, instead of asking us these things over the last 10 phone calls, you looked at something, and made your own conclusion. If you came in today, you would see every engine job is handled with this level of detail and paperwork to ensure the build is as perfect as we can humanly make it.

rest of pics I have for now. You can see the wrong build number was stared before we even had all the parts ordered, so really have no idea what I even got

I know you take a chance when you race, but when you ask them about using a billet can chain gear, and they say it isn't needed, but that's what failed, and then you find pistons hitting the heads, something was wrong with there assembly and quality control

We stand by our recommendation to not use a billet gear. Unfortunately we see more billet gears come through here failed than stock. But at least when we look at a stock gear that has failed, we can see the cause is always detonation. When we see a failed billet gear, sometimes it's just because they were a low quality part. as for the pistons hitting the heads, again, this is from another source other than assembly. If we built the engine in such a way that the pistons were contacting the heads, it would have never turned over. the pistons hitting the heads came from an outside force, likely collapsing the skirts from sustained detonation.

Sorry last 3 pics

Now, at the end of all of this, you signed off on the 11.5:1 engine. We offered many ways to change this, and it lasted nearly a year, so there is no way that if it were assembled wrong that it would have done so.

When the sprocket failed it caused all the other damage. It wouldn't have run if the pistons were hitting the heads the whole time.

we agree with this, and based on past tear downs, we have always found signs of heavy detonation when we see an OEM gear that has failed.

I had a feeling it was going to be them. I'm local and there reputation is hit and miss. Seems like a lot more misses.

Unfortunately, being local means that you have people that blame us for engine builds done long ago. 15+ years ago? yes, there were some hit or miss builds going on there, but all of that negativity is from back then. Now, I get phone calls from people with 100k+ miles on builds we have done, and they brag about only needing oil changes and spark plugs. That's because we transitioned from just building and assembling engines, to actually engineering our own parts, tools, practices, and procedures. I suggest you ask for the timeline on first hand experience, it's likely approaching 20 years since they have even set foot in our facility.

Just curious as to what Pistons were used in your engine. I had a ticking from my build and seems like I had the same issue. Pistons actually touching the little triangle shaped protrusion between the valve reliefs. Mine were Manley. I actually ended up sending the car off to a friend who took the heads off and milled down just the head side of the protrusion. View attachment 53131

We have our own proprietary pistons manufactured for us. Ross and Diamond are two of the suppliers we use, but we own every aspect of the design.

just so everyone realizes, he is NOT talking about our pistons, he is talking about a MANLEY piston needing machine work. NOT our piston.

It says 11.5:1 in your invoice you posted. I'm sorry to hear about your trouble especially with the amount they charge for their services. When I was sourcing builders, they priced themselves out even with all their top of the line machining they promote. I hope you can get it up and running again.

You are correct, and he did sign off on the 11.5:1 compression even after realizing it changed, after discussing many options detailed at the top of this post. At the end of the day, he was satisfied with this, and we even talked about getting the car here to tune it when he was having troubles with a couple of the calibrators he was working with.

Damn, first I've heard of that. Hope they make it right at this point!

Our offer still stands to look over everything

Wow, wasn't expecting it to be Livernois. I know a lot of guys in the LS world use them and all have fantastic things to say. I actually planned on using their 11.5:1 rods/pistons in my car. Guess I might wanna look somewhere else.

Just to cover something that I posted above. The pistons you are seeing pictures of were NOT our pistons, and NOT from an engine we built. Those are Manley pistons.

Livernois tanked my f150 motor with too much timing then proceeded to throw Stainless Works under the bus with their o2 extensions.. You should have heard the BS they came up with to get out of admitting fault..

Actually, o2 extensions are a serious problem on the 11+ wideband ford vehicles. And as I recall, you had been running our tune for a good amount of time, and then started having a tremendous amount of issues after installing headers. Unfortunately this coincided with the update of our header tune, but since we don't change anything that would have caused your symptoms, and faulty o2 extensions do, it was very easy to pinpoint exactly what transpired. Couple this with the fact that our software changes many things beyond what the average software changes, and the read you got from the PCM is inaccurate. As explained over the phone, commercial software assumes that the PCM's layout is the same as stock. And ours isn't, so their roadmap isn't right.



At the end of all of this, we have always tried to help, and will always continue to try to help our customers, even when we aren't at fault. That's just how we operate as a company. We know that stuff happens beyond anybody's control, but to unfairly blame us, and try to portray happenings differently than reality is not what we expect of our customers.

 

[beefcake]

We lost an engine back in 2010 to 02 extensions,

I've visited livernois several times, and their setup is rivaled by few, Dan and the guys take a lot of pride and are very detailed

I prefer 10.1 on sc builds , I know jpc are fans of higher than stock compression builds, everyone had a way they like to do it, so 11.5 to one could very well be a normally requested build

I'd give them a chance to look at it, sounds like they are trying really hard here to help

 

[yzingerslinger]

I have never seen such a detailed response from a retailer. I'm impressed.

I have always built my own engines and every failure I have experienced was due to mechanical failure of the parts. When things let go it usually isn't pretty.

Sorry to hear about the motor failure bud, hopefully it's back on the road soon.

 

[hitmix300]

Sorry to hear about your investment, OP. That's a real bummer that she let go. If the engine builder would have done a lower compression like you had anticipated I would like to think the chances of detonation would have went down quite a bit.

For what it's worth... I visited livernois about a year ago. They gave me a tour and they were really nice to talk to.. I bought a broken aluminator off the forums here and I dropped it off for them to inspect. I ended up not giving them the work because I was lied to. Basically not only was everything overpriced, but they told me they needed to charge me 3 hours of labor to re-sort the cam caps that were not on the cylinder heads because they didn't know where they go. The caps are marked for LH & RH and are numbered, it's impossible to mess that up. I found that out a little bit later and decided that either they were lying, or had little to no DOHC motor experience. I went and picked up my stuff and moved on with my life and did the heads myself and bought a MMR shortblock for about 2000$ less than what they wanted.

To top it all off I paid them $115 to have my stuff sit at their shop and for them to call me a month later saying everything "looked ok".

:bash:

 

[Russo]

I found that out a little bit later and decided that either they were lying, or had little to no DOHC motor experience.

:bash:

I explained my frustration about my Livernois situation to a big named shop in Maryland and they expressed the same over the phone. I also called Stainless Works (we are a dealer) and they never heard Livernois complain about their o2 extensions, but you'd imagine, how many motors have to blow up before there are improvements in the design?

 

[beefcake]

SW doesn't make extensions, just about every extension used is made by casper. on the 11-14 cars, you don't even need extensions, there should be more than enough harness for pretty much every header out there

 

[sdoo500]

Was this at New England Dragway? I was there that night and it didn't sound pretty, hopefully you get this all sorted out.

Will say I am very impressed by Livernois response.

 

[Blazer707@TBR]

OK, this will be a long post, but everything will be addressed



This couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, the build was quoted as a 10:1 build, and during the process, got changed to the higher compression option for whatever reason. Something, that we still would do today for your combo. Now, the issue at hand is this was something that was not signed off on by you before the job was completed, HOWEVER, you did end up signing off on it. Now, along the way we did offer numerous potential solutions when you expressed your desire to change the compression ratio after it was delivered.

Offer #1. We would have you ship the engine to us, and expedite a change of pistons. being there was nothing else beyond refitting for a custom ordered piston to allow us to freshly hone, and set proper clearance we would be able to do this very quickly. When that option wasn't good enough we let you know we would pay freight both ways. when that wasn't good enough due to time constraints we moved to offer #2

Offer #2. we would send one of our drivers down, from michigan to Florida, to you to pick up the engine, bring it back here, do the above piston change, and bring it back. When this option wasn't quick enough we moved to offer #3.

Offer #3. You would take the engine to the nearest air cargo facility, we would pay to have it shipped via plane, and again, change everything over. Unfortunately, this somehow still wasn't quick enough.

After all of this, and talking with our calibrator over the pluses and minuses, you decided it actually was best that you got the higher compression engine.



Just so we are clear, you had someone else go into the engine because it was loud, rather than sending it in for warranty, and they replaced timing components.



Again, just to clarify, almost a year later it broke a timing sprocket. Now, it did have OEM sprockets on it, which is still what we prefer on the Coyote, and many other Mod Motors. The only time we see gears fail are #1. detonation. #2. poor quality billet gears Or #1 and #2 together. We have a staggering amount of high HP coyotes running around with stock crank gears that don't fail. That is because detonation rattles the gears causing them to shatter. Now, are there applications that can benfit from billet gears? if they were made right, yes. That's why we are working on our own gears, but until they are released, we are sticking with the stock gears, regardless of output.



There are multiple things happening here. the gear caused the rockers, and possibly the piston hitting the head. But more likely is that the skirts are collapsed on the pistons from detonation causing the pistons to rock in the bore and tag the heads.



No, what we said is you had someone else have the front of the engine, replacing parts, and had another place tear the engine apart. That we don't know if we could warranty it as our warranty specifically states that tearing into the engine without prior authorization CAN void your warranty. With that being said we offered to look at it, and evaluate it. An offer that still stands today.



There isn't a piston company on the planet that can build 8 pistons that are all EXACTLY the same size. Now, excessive piston to wall, we know that that didn't leave here that way. But, if you look above, we have 2 tell tale signs of detonation, and collapsed skirts is a big one.



actually, this is not the case. What you have are our internal documents. The job # on the invoice referes to the master, custom job number. Since your job was a lonblock, it consisted of the following 5 job #'s

1. main custom number, shown on invoice. this is for total job tracking, and specifically focuses on the "non-standardized" work. Namely, the longblock conversion

2. rotating assembly job number. This is for the balancing job for the engine. It allows us to track material used, and time spent on this aspect of the job

3. shortblock job number. this is the job # that references the machning of, and assembly of the shortblock, including align hone, cylinder hone, piston fitting, ring filing, deburr work, setting rod clearance, etc.

4. cylinder head job number. this is the job number for the assembly of the cylinder heads, including install, and setting lash of cams

5. CNC job number. This is specifically for our CNC department when running the cylinder heads on the CNC machine.

So, as you can see, this is why there are multiple job numbers. unfortunately, since we have such a structured, documented system of building engines, many people mistake it for the exact opposite, since they expect an engine build to be something a little more crude.



unfortunately though, instead of asking us these things over the last 10 phone calls, you looked at something, and made your own conclusion. If you came in today, you would see every engine job is handled with this level of detail and paperwork to ensure the build is as perfect as we can humanly make it.



We stand by our recommendation to not use a billet gear. Unfortunately we see more billet gears come through here failed than stock. But at least when we look at a stock gear that has failed, we can see the cause is always detonation. When we see a failed billet gear, sometimes it's just because they were a low quality part. as for the pistons hitting the heads, again, this is from another source other than assembly. If we built the engine in such a way that the pistons were contacting the heads, it would have never turned over. the pistons hitting the heads came from an outside force, likely collapsing the skirts from sustained detonation.



Now, at the end of all of this, you signed off on the 11.5:1 engine. We offered many ways to change this, and it lasted nearly a year, so there is no way that if it were assembled wrong that it would have done so.



we agree with this, and based on past tear downs, we have always found signs of heavy detonation when we see an OEM gear that has failed.



Unfortunately, being local means that you have people that blame us for engine builds done long ago. 15+ years ago? yes, there were some hit or miss builds going on there, but all of that negativity is from back then. Now, I get phone calls from people with 100k+ miles on builds we have done, and they brag about only needing oil changes and spark plugs. That's because we transitioned from just building and assembling engines, to actually engineering our own parts, tools, practices, and procedures. I suggest you ask for the timeline on first hand experience, it's likely approaching 20 years since they have even set foot in our facility.



We have our own proprietary pistons manufactured for us. Ross and Diamond are two of the suppliers we use, but we own every aspect of the design.

just so everyone realizes, he is NOT talking about our pistons, he is talking about a MANLEY piston needing machine work. NOT our piston.



You are correct, and he did sign off on the 11.5:1 compression even after realizing it changed, after discussing many options detailed at the top of this post. At the end of the day, he was satisfied with this, and we even talked about getting the car here to tune it when he was having troubles with a couple of the calibrators he was working with.



Our offer still stands to look over everything



Just to cover something that I posted above. The pistons you are seeing pictures of were NOT our pistons, and NOT from an engine we built. Those are Manley pistons.



Actually, o2 extensions are a serious problem on the 11+ wideband ford vehicles. And as I recall, you had been running our tune for a good amount of time, and then started having a tremendous amount of issues after installing headers. Unfortunately this coincided with the update of our header tune, but since we don't change anything that would have caused your symptoms, and faulty o2 extensions do, it was very easy to pinpoint exactly what transpired. Couple this with the fact that our software changes many things beyond what the average software changes, and the read you got from the PCM is inaccurate. As explained over the phone, commercial software assumes that the PCM's layout is the same as stock. And ours isn't, so their roadmap isn't right.



At the end of all of this, we have always tried to help, and will always continue to try to help our customers, even when we aren't at fault. That's just how we operate as a company. We know that stuff happens beyond anybody's control, but to unfairly blame us, and try to portray happenings differently than reality is not what we expect of our customers.

This.

Livernois sounds like they have tried to make it right a couple times and are still willing too. If I was the OP I would let them do it.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

Sorry to hear about your investment, OP. That's a real bummer that she let go. If the engine builder would have done a lower compression like you had anticipated I would like to think the chances of detonation would have went down quite a bit.

For what it's worth... I visited livernois about a year ago. They gave me a tour and they were really nice to talk to.. I bought a broken aluminator off the forums here and I dropped it off for them to inspect. I ended up not giving them the work because I was lied to. Basically not only was everything overpriced, but they told me they needed to charge me 3 hours of labor to re-sort the cam caps that were not on the cylinder heads because they didn't know where they go. The caps are marked for LH & RH and are numbered, it's impossible to mess that up. I found that out a little bit later and decided that either they were lying, or had little to no DOHC motor experience. I went and picked up my stuff and moved on with my life and did the heads myself and bought a MMR shortblock for about 2000$ less than what they wanted.

To top it all off I paid them $115 to have my stuff sit at their shop and for them to call me a month later saying everything "looked ok".

:bash:

While I don't know the specifics of your interaction as I don't know your name, I will say this. If cylinder heads come to us, and they have been partially disassembled, there is no way we are going to blindly trust that whomever disassembled it did their job correctly, unless we did it. Trusting that someone labeled everything properly, and that it's even from the same engine could be disastrous. This goes same for main caps, bearings, pistons, etc. How do we know they actually came from those locations?

We have a standardized teardown and inspect price, and it's much higher than $115, because we are always thorough when doing so, so I am not certain what service we were actually contracted to do since 115 is basically 1 hour of work and some shop supplies.

Also, stating we are overpriced is not fair. Higher priced than some, while being cheaper than others would be fair, but we are never overpriced. We just perform more work, and use higher grade parts because we know what these engines need to live a long life. The unfortunate thing though is that nothing can stand up against poor tuning, so even the best parts and work can die from some incorrect 0's and 1's

Unfortunately, while it's true that lower compression would have had less chance of detonation, the same goes for a tune that is well done. Look at the 2015 5.0. It's 11.5:1 right from the factory, yet plenty of those cars are making similar power to this one and living, while others are not. The difference? The quality of the tune. If someone can't keep a combination happy at 11.5:1, they likely wouldn't have been able to at less compression either. But it for sure would have made less power with less compression.

I explained my frustration about my Livernois situation to a big named shop in Maryland and they expressed the same over the phone. I also called Stainless Works (we are a dealer) and they never heard Livernois complain about their o2 extensions, but you'd imagine, how many motors have to blow up before there are improvements in the design?

We don't complain about the o2 extensions because it's common knowledge they create a fair amount of problems. We simply throw them away and manually extend the harness since we have the proper materials here to do so.

SW doesn't make extensions, just about every extension used is made by casper. on the 11-14 cars, you don't even need extensions, there should be more than enough harness for pretty much every header out there

And we have chased countless drivability related issues due to a $10 harness. now it's pretty much our 2nd or 3rd question when people have headers. The even worse part is that they permanently damage the sensor, so you have to replace the sensor due to them.

Was this at New England Dragway? I was there that night and it didn't sound pretty, hopefully you get this all sorted out.

Will say I am very impressed by Livernois response.

Thank you, we definitely feel that we went far beyond what the average shop would have ever even considered doing to help out.

 

[Blkngold]

After reading the entire post, I must say Livernois is definitely going above and beyond in their attempts to resolve an issue with a customer of their products and services.

I deal with all kinds of vendors and I can tell you that in today's economy Livernois' commitment is not typical behavior for vendors.

Just my 2 cents worth, I would take them up on their offer to help.

 

[Weather Man]

Hey OP, losing a motor sucks, just ask stanglover2358. Bad gas, to aggressive on the tune, fuel pump craps out, or any of a freaking million reasons a highly modified car engine can fail, make sure your shit is strait before you call someone out.

 

[hitmix300]

While I don't know the specifics of your interaction as I don't know your name, I will say this. If cylinder heads come to us, and they have been partially disassembled, there is no way we are going to blindly trust that whomever disassembled it did their job correctly, unless we did it. Trusting that someone labeled everything properly, and that it's even from the same engine could be disastrous. This goes same for main caps, bearings, pistons, etc. How do we know they actually came from those locations?

OK. I understand you need to defend yourself, but i'm simply stating I felt clearly lied to. Lets focus on the main part that caused you to lose my business. Your sales rep Jason said because the cam caps were not assembled to the heads, that the technicians wouldn't know where they went. So it would be 3 hours labor to sort that out.. That's complete BS and most people here know it. If you don't know, the caps are marked by a machine when they get torqued to the head for machining at the engine plant. Once they're marked, they go there, forever. Sure your guys didn't take the heads apart or the whole motor. But I would at least trust a customer who brought you his heads and their components in a box next to them. Before I go off on a rant.. I just want people to know my personal experience with livernois, it's only fair and that's the risk you take doing business.

I'm done here. I didn't mean to derail the thread, but it's good information for people out shopping. Good luck with your car Don, me personally would take my business elsewhere. **2cents.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

After reading the entire post, I must say Livernois is definitely going above and beyond in their attempts to resolve an issue with a customer of their products and services.

I deal with all kinds of vendors and I can tell you that in today's economy Livernois' commitment is not typical behavior for vendors.

Just my 2 cents worth, I would take them up on their offer to help.

Thank you. We have always felt that we want customers long term, and not just for this go around. This means offering a better product, and better serve. Unfortunately most companies/shops do not think about 10 years from now, they're thinking about paying their bills for the next few months.

OK. I understand you need to defend yourself, but i'm simply stating I felt clearly lied to. Lets focus on the main part that caused you to lose my business. Your sales rep Jason said because the cam caps were not assembled to the heads, that the technicians wouldn't know where they went. So it would be 3 hours labor to sort that out.. That's complete BS and most people here know it. If you don't know, the caps are marked by a machine when they get torqued to the head for machining at the engine plant. Once they're marked, they go there, forever. Sure your guys didn't take the heads apart or the whole motor. But I would at least trust a customer who brought you his heads and their components in a box next to them. Before I go off on a rant.. I just want people to know my personal experience with livernois, it's only fair and that's the risk you take doing business.

I'm done here. I didn't mean to derail the thread, but it's good information for people out shopping. Good luck with your car Don, me personally would take my business elsewhere. **2cents.

No one here lied to you. Again, just because they're stamped, does not mean that we can trust they actually came from those locations on those heads. We would go through, sort them, put them on, check cam spin, and sizing, because we need to be certain about things that get our name affiliated with them. If the end user has an engine torn apart that they bought used and wants to throw it together, then so be it. But we hold ourselves to a higher standard. If someone doesn't want that level of care and detail, then we aren't the shop for them. We fully realize we cannot be everything to everyone, and while we want everyone to desire our services, we would never lower our standards for someone to hit a price point they expect.

 

[nosscort]

crazy how your pistons in your 11.5:1 motor were hitting the head.. No way that would happen unless something else failed like Livernois stated.. I built my own engine after machining and I have Manley, and are also 11.5:1 and it's been running fine for 10,000 miles and 3 years this way so the pistons are not the problem in your build. I also know from shopping my rotating assembly Livernois does not use that brand.
Sucks either way but getting 3 different shops other than the one that built it to look at the problem they are all going to throw someone under the bus. I personally would have sent the motor back to Livernois first. I mean You cant take a ford to a chevy dealership and expect them to warranty a ford car..