I contracted with MME to build an engine for me. The engine was very similar to their Engine Masters build and so I had hoped for the same quality and attention to detail that I thought they had demonstrated. I provided them the heads, intake, distributor and other parts totaling over $4000. Add to this their total bill of almost $16,000 and my engine build totaled almost $21K.
The engine did not even make it to 1200 miles before it started breaking rocker arms (Jesel shaft rocker arms). An examination by Jesel and one of their consultants concluded that the valve train had not been properly speced out resulting in a valve train that was out of control.
Here are the issues detailed in the report and input from Jesel's consultant:
1) The wrong valve spring retainers were used. When the spring manufacturer was contacted they informed Jesel's consultant that there was only one correct part number to be used with the Manley Nextek springs used and that, that particular part was a titanium spring retainer. The retainer used by MME was too steel and fit very lossely allowing the spring to much freedom of movement.
2) The springs themselves were the wrong poundage and were improperly shimmed. The springs used were rated for 800 lbs at full lift. The Comp Cams spec for the mechanical roller cam in question is 525 lbs at full lift. Additionally the springs were not properly shimmed, allowing them to bounce and contribute to the valve train being uncontrolled.
3) The pushrods were too short. Jesel report revealed that the adjusters on the rocker arms were turned out to the point that they only had 2 or 3 threads in the body of the rocker arm. This means that pushrods were really too short.
4) The adjusters on the rocker arms were probabaly overtorqued. Jesels report show that the rocker arm adjuster were probably overtorqued leading to a failure of the rocker arm body. I watched Mark Mckeown adjust these and he did not use the Jesel tool with pre-set torque, nor did he use a torque wrench, so in truth he had no idea what torque he was using when setting them.
5) When my final bill came they padded the bill by charging me for phone calls made to parts suppliers to make sure they got the right parts so that my engine would fit my car correctly when installed.
Additionally after the engine was delivered and FULLY PAID FOR:
6) A custom set of valve covers were delivered out of spec and over cost. When I asked them to fix them they took 5 months to fix them and then tried to charge me additional money to fix their mistakes. At that point I stopped talking to them.
As of this date they have not done anything to back up their work or make this situation right. To sum it up i would never recommend anybody buy an engine from these people.
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