Kwuaymaikrup

First off I would like to apologize for bringing this drama to the board but I really don't have any other options. I feel like this is just another case of the big guy trying to step on the little guy and I won't allow that. Something needs to be done as I know this has happened to others in the past.

Mid last year in my pursuit of boost, I decided to have my block sleeved, deckplated and assembled. After searching extensively I decided to go with Golden Eagle despite what was going on at the time with sleeve dropping and such. I soon found Viren (B18bturbo) who provided me with the service. On 6/10/03 I sent him my block and all accompanying parts minus the rods which were being custom made at Pauter. He then forwarded all of the parts to Golden Eagle who recieved them on 7/03/03. I was told no work could be started on my build until the rods were in hand at GE (which was understandable) to allow precision measurement of every component before sleeving, deck plating and assembly. After the reciept of my rods on 08/08/03 I was given a 2 week time period for completion. I patiently waited as I didn't want to rush them in hopes of a flawless assembly. Two weeks go by and I contact Viren who tells me to call Robert. After calling Robert I was told another week or so. *Sigh*...so I wait again. I was told countless times by Robert and Viren alike that my block would be finished the following week. Every time I called it was the same story, next week.

Finally on 10/29/03 my block was shipped, TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER. I soon recieved the assembled short block which was immediately unpackaged and put on the engine stand. I then began to install all of the accessories and misc. items that go along with it. Time goes by and I wait for my other parts to arrive not to mention the cash it takes to finish this project. At some point in mid November my plans drastically changed and my current planned turbo setup at that time was exchanged for one bigger and better. As most of you know when upgrading your turbo you need to also upgrade things such as injectors, clutch, axles...blah blah. So the engine continued to sit while I gathered the needed parts to finish my build. On 12/30/03 I placed an order for custom length ARP headstuds which were soon recieved. Shortly after the head was installed and the engine was ready for the car. I was finally seeing some progress and my dreams of boost were becoming a reality. After a couple of long nights the install was complete. I then began making my IC piping and mocking up an IC. After the measurements were all taken, I placed my order on 02/06/04 for a custom PWR IC. On reciept of th IC I was finally ready for start up and tuning.

I originally tried start up on a Hondata basemap but with no luck I went back to the stock ecu and injectors. After 20 mins of run time between aprox. 1,500-2,500 rpms I changed the oil out for fresh ND non synthetic. I then contacted Ground Zero Motorsports in Portland OR and scheduled what would be the first of many trips on 03/10/04. I woke up on that Wed. morning with udder excitement. After loading the car on the trailor I headed to Portland. Three hours later the first tuning session was underway and began like I am sure many others do, first a basemap was made and them initial Hondata startup. I had some minor wiring issues that were all being sorted out. The most problematic was one that involved the Vtec solenoid. After literally hours of troubleshooting we found that a bad harness pin was at fault. On completion of rewiring we decided to call it a day due to my alternator taking a **** on me. I also decided to switch from my then current Hondata 3b to my now S200 series. So 3 hours of driving,$400 in tuning costs, a $70 trailor rental and $90 in gas I am headed home with nothing to show for. About two weeks later I was back at it, trailered up and on my way to Ground Zero with hope of a successful and problem free day. Boy was I wrong. After arriving, the Ground Zero crew swarmed my car preparing it for the dyno. My new engine harness was installed and the tuning began. Initially the runs were being made to determine the speed at which the test would end. In trying to determine this the rpms were bought up and kinda just fell off at around 6,900. Immediately it was shut down and inspected for problems. My worst fears were playing out in front of my eyes. It was as if my car hit a mud bog and was slowly weighed down.

After checking for oil leaks and the like, we pulled the plugs. There was no water in the cylinders (couldn't be a headgasket) so we did a leak down test. The results are as follows. Cylinder #1 showed 71%!!!!! We all kinda looked at each other and said "WTF there is no way!!!". So we got another tester which showed the same results. Cylinders #2, 3 and 4 weren't much better showing 51%, 45% and 43%. I was thinking it may have been valve leak but that theory was proved wrong by the amount of blow by coming out of my catch can. Not to mention when we added oil to the cylinders the numbers immediately jumped. At this point there were three things that could have went wrong, 1-I detonated wiping out my rings and pistons, 2-the rings just decided to take a **** on me or 3-there was a serious assembly problem. We were all leaning toward the rings in hopes of an easy fix. So after loading back up I headed home with another 3 hour drive, a $70 trailor rental and another $90 in gas under my belt. Fortunatelly I didn't have to pay for the days worth of dyno time. The guys and Ground Zero told me the day was free and wanted me to take the money I would have given them for that day and put it toward getting my car back on the road.

Upon returning home I immediately tried to get in contact with Golden Eagle. After finally getting a hold of Ted he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me and passed me on to Vince. After explaining the situation to Vince he said they have never had problems with rings and that they most likely haven't seated yet. He then told me to "Rev it up more" that should help seal them. I asked him if he was kidding and he said "that is just what you have to do." I told him that I am unable to drive the car on the street and sarcastically asked him if I should just sit in my driveway and rev it up, he told me "you could do that" That is absolute lunacy, there is no way that will cure 71% leakdown. He then told me to pull it apart and check it out. If it turned out to be the rings he would send me $80 to replace them. I asked him if he would void my warranty since it clearly states in the papers I was sent with my block "DO NOT remove any part from the motor that Golden Eagle has installed" He said he wouldn't do that to me and I then mentioned I could have Ground Zero pull it apart and inspect it since I don't really have the proper tools for measuring and such. He said he was perfectly comfortable with that since Ground Zero was one of his distributors and he trusted their judgement. Furthermore I couldn't alter the ring gaps and make it look like they screwed up in assembly.

So I headed to Ground Zero again. When I dropped off the block they immediately noticed some major problems, the piston to wall clearances visually varied from each cylinder not to mention the amount of scoring on the sleeves. You could also see the way the rings were degreed that they weren't done in any specific fashion rather just slapped on the pistons and shoved in the block. I was then later contacted my Ground Zero who informed me that the cylinders were 7 thousands out of round and my pistons, rings and brand new bearings were complete garbage.

This is what was found. Here are the bearings...check out the damn thrust bearing...it is fucked. Remember all these pics reflect about 20 minutes run time.










And here are the pistons...











It's tough to see but the ring is literally welded into the piston. It will not move...



At this point I knew Golden Eagle was at fault. I then gave Ground Zero the OK to go ahead and rebuild the block for me. I then proceeded to contact Viren about the matter. He wanted pics so I sent them to him which he then forwarded to Golden Eagle. After speaking with them they told him there is nothing they can do since I disassembled the block. After hearing this I was outraged, Vince told me to take the ******* thing apart. I then called Golden Eagle and spoke with Robert who told me the same thing. I explained to him Vince had me pull it apart. He then put me on hold and I assume consulted with Vince (who I should have been speaking with in the first place) after getting back on the phone he tells me, "OK Vince remembers" and they are going to send a call tag for the block. I tell him I had it rebuilt and he is like "what do you mean you had it rebuilt" I tell him "I had it rebuilt". He says "well there is nothing we can do, we won't warranty that" I try to explain to him that I don't want the assembly Ground Zero did warrantied, rather the money back that I spent with them for the assembly and bearings. He says that they do not refund money but instead would rebuild it but now they will do nothing since I had it rebuilt. He says they physically need to see what was wrong with it and since I had it rebuilt there was no proof of their fault. When previously Vince said that if Ground Zero found that the rings were bad he would gladly send me $80 without him ever seeing it, but now I get nothing??? That is a contradiction right there if you ask me. I tell him there is no way in hell I would send it back and have them work on it even if I hadn't had it rebuilt, seeing what they did or didn't do to it the first time. First off I don't want to wait another two and a half months for it to be finished, secondly I don't want to have to send it back over and over until they get it right, and finally I don't think I would ever feel comfortable knowing they put it together. I would always have in the back of my mind that something was going to go wrong. So round and round Robert and I go, he then starts saying it could have been a water pump an oil pump that went bad and that it is common business practice for them not to warranty it due to the circumstances. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The conversation ended by Robert saying something about them doing nothing to help and then hanging up on me. At no time during the call was I asked what I wanted, they immediately said they would not help me. I then called back trying to speak with Vince (who was there at the time) who didn't answer. In the midst of all of this Ted contacted Ground Zero who informed him that what was being said was true. That in fact the cylinders were 7 thousands ovaled and the piston, rings and bearings were garbage. I am still unclear as to what Ted feels about this situation if he cares at all. I proceeded to leave a message as I have done every day since.

Which brings us to today, I have left 5 unreturned messages and have had enough. The way that Golden Eagle is handling this is absolute BULLSHIT!! It leads me to believe that they know they are at fault, but just don't want to buck up and face it. That is unprofessional at best. I posted this in hopes of preventing others from suffering the same as I have. This **** needs to stop. Just because they are a huge million dollar corporation doesn't mean they have the right to do this. I know they have done this to people in the past, a few on this board even. I just wish I would have listened to the warnings. I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and am pursuing legal action. I encourage others who have had misfortunes dealing with them to do the same. All in all there isn't much more I can say other than this company will never see another penny of my money.


-Ryan

USDM 4G VTEC

get the BBB on their ***


Better bussineess bureau

B18C1CYA

I feel your pain i got fucked on here by turbojody for 1600.00 and thats probly nothing compared to you. I hope it works out for you in the end get a lawyer involved if it worth it to you money wise.

alpha

I'm sorry all this ish had to happen to you. And to think I recommended GEM to you back then due to their work with me on my block (only complaint was the bore was over what I requested) I would like to see what some of the more experienced builders (earl, boostfed, dasher, bodykits nw, etc) have to say.

m R g S r

That seems kinda weird, but I recently bought a shortblock that was GE sleeved, and was supposed to be 85mm. This block was assembled by golden eagle, and then it spun a bearing, so the orignal owner disassembled it and sold me the block with no pistons rods etc... I bought some 85mm cp pistons and tried to put them in there, but the ring gap was huge, and the pistons were wayy too small for the bore. So basically, I bought a block that GE said was 85mm, and it was actually like 85.2mm. They are kinda shady over there, and If I ever decide to sleeve a block it will not go to Golden Eagle.

Alexander

Thank you for sharing your experience and spreading the word about a company that is obviously at fault and is handling it in the worst manner. The very best of luck to you in your legal pursuits.

metal-x

I have a block at GE rite now, im scared now

99B16Si

jesus man. i would be furious. luckily you had the money to at least get her finished at GZ but either way it looks like your down quite a bit of money. i hope GE starts getting their **** together because it hasnt been looking to good for them recently.

the way those pistons look is just awful. ive never seen pistons look that bad before even after being pulled out of a built motor with 50k miles on it. and if my eyes dont decieve me it looks as if some of the bronze color is showing on the bearings already. youre lucky u didnt **** up your crank or rods

IloveNewt

Thats one thing i hate abouyt this scene. So little competition so the only companies that are able to do such services think they can *uck around with customers. *uck GE.

Go Darton or BENSON. This is coming from someone who has had thier GE sleeves leak.

Kelly.

something similar happened to me too... not through GE though..
i will have my write up ready soon.
good luck, it hard tryin to get "professionals" to admit they are wrong.

SiR Kid

The bandwagon is strong with this thread...

ekb18c

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. But I do have a few questions.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Initially the runs were being made to determine the speed at which the test would end. In trying to determine this the rpms were bought up and kinda just fell off at around 6,900. Immediately it was shut down and inspected for problems. </TD></TR></TABLE>

So let me get this straight. You were running the car on the dyno raising the Rpm's up up to 6,900, on a base map with no kind of tuning what so ever ? To determine the speed at which the test would end? So you're running it on the dyno without being properly tuned at a pretty high speed.? I'm kinda of curious to know why they need to know the speed the test would end.

If you start with partial throttle tunning on the dyno and then slowly increasing the rpms on WOT you will eventually know what the top speed will be, but I still don't know why the top speed would be a factor here. The difference here is that you will be at the top speed with a safe AFR as compared to just trying to find the top speed at which the test would finish w/o tuning.

DaveF

i sure hope that my deckplate b18c1, that i sold to another user on here, doesnt have the same problems.

david@didrace.com

Honestly, I see no reason why they should give you anything. It makes total sense that GE would want to disassemble and repair the engine themselves. Why should they have to foot the bill for something that in their minds, could potentially not be caused by a lapse in their work?

Deal with it.

speedy108

Sorry to here about your problems with GE. If it was me and they pulled some **** like that, I'd beat their faces in with a baseball bat. Good luck with your project though.

spike

It's amazing how many people a post like this gets word to and how much business they will lose. Thanks for the post! Because of posts like this honda-tech users like myself have better information on who to deal with.

GEN2TEG

This isn't the first time Golden Eagle have fucked up. My mechanic had asked for a 83mm sleeved block instead he gets a block with the wrong bore. He then had to have it bored once again to the right size, 84mm which he did not want to do.

This part of the reason I did not got through these looser's, Golden Eagle, too many problems with them ******* up. I hope you get what you desreve man cause this is bullshit. I had a company screw me over on a sleeve job and I cut my losses and went elsewhere.

SCREW'EM

SOUNDEFFECTS

Good luck, and you got PM

ATS*Mark

honestly , the ONLY GE sleeved block i havent seen fucked up , or have sleeves sink is modacars si . they have had no problems . but man i forgot who it was on here but he had sleeves sink like 3 times , ive seen it time and time again. glad i went with aebs

sorry about your **** dood . its alot easier to stiff a customer than shell out money because you as a buisness fucked up. its very disturbing

Jay Dirt

no problems with golden eagle sleeves ever and im talking in serious horsepower application.

when you had the short block after getting it back finally... you didnt spin the crank or anything to see how it felt? if the piston to wall clearance was so off you surely would have seen it unless you detonated the hell out of the motor on your base run and threw everything off.

vince is a good man im sure he would have been more than willing to work with you so enough of all the **** GE ****

slim9300

Good to know for future reference and referal. In my opinion, customer service and quality are the most important elements of a business. And even if they "claim" their product's quality wasn't at fault in your case, their customer service is inexcusable. When a company purposly ignores your MULTIPLE attempts to contact them, this tells me they have something to hide.

GE will never receive any business from me. I would hope others would also think twice.

Kwuaymaikrup

Well it is glad to know that I am not the only one who has experienced a situation like this. There is no bandwagon here just fucked up business practice. All I want is the proper compensation. Anyone in my situation would feel the same way. I know for a fact there is others still going round and round with this company. As long as it gets pushed aside this will continue to happen.

Maybe I didn't explain well enough. There was some tuning done before these runs were made. We didn't just hrow a basemap in it and start revving the ******. All I know is that some non-power pulls were being made when all of this went wrong. It is MY understanding that the runs were being made to determine the speed at which it would end. I don't know much about tuning so it would have to be up to my tuner to step in here and further explain things.

I am not going to "deal with it" all though I appreciate your reply I disagree. I told Robert the same thing I am going to tell you. Would you send your engine back to the same people that fucked it up in the first place over and over and over again until they get it right? I think not. I don't have that type of time. My car hasn't seen the road other than a trailer in over 2 years. I don't want them to compensate me for the work that was done by Ground Zero rather give me a refund for the shitty work they did. I think that is more than fair. Vince told me to have Ground Zero take a look at it and that he trusted their jusdgement. Now that I did he is going back on his word. No he didn't say to have them rebuild it, but that is not his call to make. There is no denying that the damage done was due to the faulty work done at GE. I think it all comes down to the fact that they have a lot of work in front of them and no way of being able to get it all out and done properly in a timely manner that quality is pushed aside to make way for quantity which in turn is what gives them the fatter bottom line.

I am not saying the sleeves are bad cause so far the sleeve job is fine. I have yet to put it through its paces but as far as it looks now the sleeves are fine. As far as the piston to wall clearances goes. I did turn the engine over when I recieved it and it turned just fine. And no I didn't thoroughly go over and measure everything. Why the hell should I? The block was supposed to be ready to run. I shouldn't have to double check their work. There was no detonation as evident by the plugs and piston tops. I can post pics of that as well if you like. It is obviously a machining error on their part. Bores just don't oval that direction for no reaon. A normal wearing engine will oval perpendicular to the crank. These were ovalled parallel to the crank. And as far as Vince being a stand up guy...aren't you affiliated someway with a big budget high exposure race team? That would explain why he calls you back. They have been known in the past for ******* the little guys and until that stops the "**** GE ****" is going to keep on going. I am sorry if I come off like a ***** but this is rediculous.

ion_four

If I were in your position, I would threaten to bring them to small claims court. Don't call them. Get a lawyer to write a letter, for like &lt;$100, stating that you are intending on bringing them to court and can supply written testimony (assuming you can get this!) from the persons (professionals) at Groundzero that the block was disassembled and found to be faulty. They will settle, if they are actually at fault. No company wants to go to court, because they have to have an attorney, being a corporation. You on the other hand, do not need representation in small claims court.

ionic_slim

CivicDXBoy

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 10-94-55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Honestly, I see no reason why they should give you anything. It makes total sense that GE would want to disassemble and repair the engine themselves. Why should they have to foot the bill for something that in their minds, could potentially not be caused by a lapse in their work?

Deal with it. </TD></TR></TABLE>

It was 7 thousands oval. Ya and I suppose he smaked it with a hammer!? Who the hell are you?