This is the 1st engine I've ever worked on. I consider myself as somewhat knowledgeable with motors but no expert by any means.
Last year on one of the other Pontiac sites I answered an add from an engine builder in Ohio for some #48 heads he had for sale to install on my 350. He talked me out of these heads since they were big valve heads & suggested some #46 heads.
He worked up a package deal to rebuild the heads that included enlarging the intake valves, light porting, elongating the push rod holes for future 1.65 rockers, 3 angle valve job. Basically everything needed to rebuild the heads.
We agreed on the price and he proceeded and completed the work after a couple of months. He did email me through the process suggesting to leave the exhaust guides & that they were in such good condition that he would not replace them.
I installed a new cam & installed the heads. The engine ran strong but found the car smoking after it warmed up. I called him and he offered a few things to check. In the mean time I had a hip injury that held me up from working on the motor for a few months.
Well after recovering from my hip injury I ended up removing the heads & had a local machine shop go through the heads to see if they could find anything wrong. They found a couple bad exhaust valves, all the exhaust guides were bad & the heads were not surfaced. They ended up going through the heads, repairing everything that needed to be done.
I installed the heads & got the motor running once again. Everything is perfect car runs great no smoke. I couldn't be happier.
In the mean time I decided to install some Comp Cams 1.65 steel roller rockers to see if I could gain some performance. After installing the rockers I see the push rods are rubbing the heads. At this point I'm really pissed & call the engine builder to here what he has to say about the head issues. He basically says that the heads could have been damaged during shipping & might explain the smoking. As for elongating the push rod holes he says that maybe he didn't elongate them enough & that he may give me some money back. He charged me $20.00 to do this, so I'm not sure what he would be willing to do.
My question is what would you do?
Would you start bad mouthing the guy if anyone asks?
Just let it go? & call it a lesson learned.
Try and recover some money from him, even though he's out of state?
