ontariorider

Didn’t see it mentioned but if you have stock pistons with the gsc N2 that’s your problem should I left it with the gsr cams.

B18C5-EH2

All. Of. THIS.

Ultimately they did what you asked. They should have suggested degreeing cams, and/or you should have known to tell them to.

tony_2018

this is beginning to sound like my workplace.

When ordering any factory built hardware, know the specs and detail them in the request or else you ain't getting what you thought you were getting.

Hatch Man

the thing is--- the shop KNEW and SAID those cams were perfect for this build, which is a stock bottom end, b20b high compression with the N2 cams. they said they would add roughly 15-25hp than the GSR and they installed them. again, THEY said they would be perfect for this setup, disregarded my request to give the tech the specifications from the manufacturer, and the owner also said that they checked p2v clearance, when the tech did not say he checked them.

the definition of negligence is: Negligence is a failure to exercise the appropriate and or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances.

i think this falls within the realm of being negligent.

nowhere in his list of things he did, did he say he checked p2v clearance, locked in vtec to check for clearance, and it inevitably cost me the last 6 months of work.


he even said it could be "installation error", himself. again, the motor ran perfectly for 750 miles, and for 250 i was doing 1-2-3, 8000RPM pulls under the GSR camshafts, and it ran great-

Caoboy

Hearsay doesn't hold up in court.

B18C5-EH2

The guy is already in a bad place, so why must you be a dick about it?

That's great that you can do all your own work. Not everyone has the time, tools, space, etc. to do so. I'm guessing at SOME point you'll need tor trust someone else to do some work on your car. You do your own dyno tuning? Machine work? Paint and body? Alignments?

Hatch Man

SO...... i got the car towed through my insurance back to my house....

i wasnt there to be able to see if all the parts were left, as they said it was, however... the tow truck driver i spoke with, and wrote a statement on the receipt that says the technician who matches the exact description of the tuner, decided to stick a BUMPER sticker to my windshield, as a big "**** you"
it says [#BLAME<name>] again, i dont want to start listing names, to prevent any sort of legal backlash that may occur-

so yeah, they destroy my motor, then vandalize my car, AND make me pay 520+150 for towing

i called another tuning shop in the area (specializes in hondas) and he said hes heard constant horror stories with the tuner who did my car, AND hes been scammed by him before. he also told me to look up the last shop he was a tuner for, and they went under, and face fraud charges, has a bad history of ripping people off, blowing up their cars, and giving them the finger, basically.

I have spoken with a paralegal, who has written me a statement of particulars. we are filing a tort lawsuit for $9890.
i've documented and broke down that in total, i have spent and now have lost $5321.48 in parts and labor to have this engine built and everything. we're adding an additional 4700 to replace the motor.


the hard part will be breaking down the waiver i signed to the judge, which i hear from another tuning sop that this guy has a hell of a lawyer...
i expect a fight, but should justice be brought, i hope to see a new engine.
the tuner i spoke with locally said he cannot be involved as much as he wants to see him go down, because half of his customers are retunes / builds BECAUSE the shitty tuner lost their business, so they go to him.... small world...

DJackson1357

I know you're frustrated and upset, but I don't really think you have a good case.

Did you purchase the cams first, then ask if they would work? Or did you call the shop, completely discuss your engine and goals and they recommend that particular cam? Did they know it was a completely stock bottom end B20, or did they only know it was a B20 (with unknown internals)?

As it is, it sounds like you purchased the cams, asked them if they could install and then went for the tune / cam swap. If that is the case, you brought them a combination of parts that had about 0% chance of working. The cams are too big for that engine and contacted the valves. I'm willing to bet the install was fine. Remember, the accepted norm is that ITR cams are about as big as you can go with stock pistons on a B20. The cams you chose have somewhere around 20 degrees more duration on intake and I'm to lazy to check lift right now. That is a BIG difference and there was always going to be a problem.

Why did you choose those cams in the first place? They were a terrible choice for your combination. Those cams really need something like 12:1 compression and a high redline to make power. You had 10:1 or so, stock rod bolts and wanted to set the redline at 8100 RPM. The tuner probably revved it out higher because it was still making power.

If you expected the shop to check P2V clearance you should have expected to drop the vehicle off, allow them to clay the engine, then returned the next day for tuning. It takes time. If they were doing it in within a few hours that should have let you know something was up.

I'm not saying the shop wasn't unprofessional. However, if you immediately blamed them for the engine failure I can see why they're upset.

If you're new to doing car stuff this happens. You will make a mistake and cost yourself money. I've done it multiple times and it sucks, but that is part of this hobby. You either suck it up and fix it, or do something else.

I'm not trying to be mean about this, but I think you need to accept what happened and move on.

DJackson1357

Just read through your build thread quickly. Did you install the 12:1 pistons and rods or is this still stock bottom end? Some actual information about your exact combination would be helpful.

Hatch Man

I initially called. i spoke with the owner, and i explained the build to him. i told him everything about the car, and he said they can do it. they said it would probably take all day, if not two days.

b20b block, phk high compression pistons
3 layer headgasket
b16a head supertech springs, keepers, retainers
GSC n2 camshafts

no other questions were asked about the build upon arriving.

it took me 35-45 mins to get there, and they immediately did a valve adjustment after the swap. zero cool down period (maybe 10 mins at most)- something i just now realized, in fact.... youre supposed to wait till the motor is cold. he said he adjusted them to .006/.008 when the engine was HOT

Something else---- he was saying that the motor was off 1 tooth on exhaust side when i brought it in..... if this is a huge concerning factor, as he is making it out to be... why did they not inform me from the start, and still dropped the other cams in it, and went ahead with the dyno.
-the waiver i signed basically says "im aware of any issues and assure my car is fully capable of running WOT pulls on the dyno" and that they have the right to decline dyno servicing.

so they didnt even tell me until AFTER, that it was one tooth off, which shouldnt matter, anyway, because the car had to be put into time when the new cams went in

again, yes- i did supply the camshafts, but he knew what they were, said they were a good company and use them in their evos and supra tunes all the time.
i was told "they are perfect for this build and displacement"

again, i've contacted about 5 local tuners now... EVERY single one of them said they would have to check for clearances before running it. the tuning shop that blew it up, went ahead with it anyway.

this is by definition Tort Negligence, defined as ". The Tort of Negligence is a legal wrong that is suffered by someone at the hands of another who fails to take proper care to avoid what a reasonable person would regard as a foreseeable risk."
again, i've spoken with NUMEROUS mechanics, well qualified to take the stand to discuss this with a judge.

again, i still have to speak more with the attorney, and get his opinions of the waiver i signed, because, regardless of it being signed, we're holding them accountable.

mk378

These are the new pistons shown in the OP's build thread. The ones in the blown engine are not like these.

Caoboy

Those are definitely not the pistons in the blown engine.

Hatch Man

No, the Aria's pistons / b18c rods we're not used, as I would not have had means to get the car to a dyno immediately due to budgeting, a lazy mechanic, and that he fears there would be p2v clearance issues. And he freshly rebuilt the block And did not want to tear it all down again.
I ended up selling the pistons and crank for 650

Hatch Man

Just got to see the damage, myself, as the car was towed to my mom's house for storage...
They quite literally threw all the parts into the car, they ripped up my harness (two plugs are cut off now), my radiator cap is gone, they decaled my window in sight of driver vision, and they left a giant ******* mess.

The damage, is as expected and is blatently clear that they didn't care.

mk378

So you told them the wrong pistons. It may have worked if you actually had the high comps in there, or it may not have, but either way that's an entirely different situation that didn't occur. It was definitely not going to work with stock pistons. But even if their crack-head labor rate allows them to pick up on such nuance, they couldn't possibly have warned you about that because you told them wrong.

Expecting a series of unrelated rock bottom low bidder subcontractors to raise a flag that overall you as the owner / general contractor are making a fundamental mistake in planning the project is unrealistic.

Hatch Man

im really glad youre 150% informed on your stupid statements, considering i didnt use the 12:1 pistons, i wanted to use when BUILDING the motor.

theyre stock b20 pistons- how the hell do you figured i told them the wrong ones? ****, they didnt even ask a single question about the build.

im really glad to see that youre on honda tech to simply make a post-count go up.

AZ_CIVIC

iTrader: (1)

I think a couple problems are going to happen here. First the judge is going to ask who originally assembled the motor. Now if you assembled it you are done because the shop could argue that for all they know the motor could have already had issues or you assembled it incorrectly. All they have to say is we installed the cams correctly and had him sign a waiver knowing that it is possible the motor could blow during a dyno tune.

The next issue is even if you somehow do win, they are not going to give you almost 10k in damages. Honestly a stock b20 block is what about $500 bucks and the b16 head with your cams and valve train is maybe $1500 bucks? Best case for you if you win is you get maybe $2500 tops.

I actually sued a shop in small claims court and got a max $2500. That is with having my entire motor built, assembled and tuned by the same shop. The motor had issues from when I picked it up so I brought the car back. I purchased a stock motor so I could drive the car around, after 1.5 years they never rebuilt or even gave me the motor back. It was a pretty easy case mainly because they never gave me my motor back and admitted that in court. Again I spent 5k for everything and got 2500 bucks because of small claims.

Now even if you are going the Civil Court route I still don't think they would give you more than a couple k if you win.

DJackson1357

If they didn't ask any actual questions about your setup, why did you think it was a good idea to go to them? You mentioned you talked to several other shops that said they wouldn't have installed the cams. Why didn't you call around and ask several places before moving forward? Hell, why didn't you post in the NA forum your plan? Someone (or probably several people) would have told you it wasn't a good idea.

Do you believe that the engine blowing up was at least partially your fault, or do you place all blame on the shop that installed the cams and tried to dyno it?

Megalodong

Did the dyno guys have you sign a waiver stating that you are aware of the possibilities that damage could be done during dyno-tuning? Here's a link to an example: https://metroperformance.myshopify.c...ecklist-waiver

If they didn't my guess is that any damage done in their shop, by their crew is their liability. Text messages usually aren't permissible in court..however, if you link the text message to an e-mail account that proves a time-stamp/date then they may be admissible. Screen capture of texts may be admissible as well?

Hatch Man

late reply. guys- sorry about that. been busy with work and everything...

I was informed by one of the techs at the dealership i work at, that his brother does tuning, and i've heard from other people to go there too.
his brother is the tuner who blew the car up.

yes, unfortunately, i did have to sign a waiver of liability release, however, in its terms, i signed that the car i am bringing in is capable of full, WOT pulls, which it was. I also was told by the tech he can absolutely work with the cams, and would have great results. i have about 25 screencaps of the conversations.

i have conversations of BOTH techs, stating that they spoke with a guy locally, who sells parts... i asked this guy if he personally spoke with the owner of the shop AND the techs, and he said no, and in fact, he tried to call them, himself.
on top of that, they swapped the cams in, did the valve adjustment while the car was well over 100*F, because they started to work on it about 10 mins after getting there. they admitted there was "no real RPM reading on the dyno", TWICE, and on the waiver i signed, it says "i give them permission to operate the vehicle within the specs i provide"- my red limit was 8100, and the video says 8800+

this is going to be a tough fight in court, and i hope they will avoid taking it that far, and settle outside of court.
this shop has been opened for little over one year, and they currently have three open lawsuits, which i found out, and the tech who tuned my car filed bankruptcy, and is having his wages garnished from scamming previous customers at his past job.

not only that, the tech who "did nothing wrong" also decaled my window in the VERY center, with a bumpersticker he had custom made, explicity to deal with being blamed. i wont reveal the exact sticker, but again, it was made specifically because he is under customer scrutiny so often, to the point its his twitter handle, his instagram handle and his bumper sticker- my lawyer said that him vandalizing my car while it was in their posession, was, in essence a admittance to their own wrongdoing, which may sway the judges opinion.

my lawyer said the only obstacle in this case is the waiver, and hes seen it go both ways in small claims, as small claims are usually in favor of the "little guy", and the rules of law are more flexible and the understanding is a little more transparent. regardless, i will have a long testimony, i will have qualified experts to take the stand, and i have chat logs (with timestamps), photos of the damage, estimates and written testimony from other qualified techs stating they did not due diligence in taking the precautions to avoid catastrophe. especially, them being tuners, they SHOULD have known well ahead of time that there was clearance issues. they ran with it, and it blew my motor up. personally, i would not consider their waiver to be a liability release when they caused the issue at hand.


again, they did not ask me a single question about my build. didnt ask about the pistons, they refused the cam specs, they didnt ask if the head / block have been resurfaced, they didn't ask anything.
afterwords, they said "im running unknown cam specs and unknown spring rates" which is a crock of ****- i have the specs of both, with item numbers, etc.

even the owner said he thinks it could have been installation error, which THEY installed. Remember.... i drove this brand new build with GSR cams for 700-750 miles, completing its break in period. ive had it serviced AT honda for its break in oil changes, assembled by a qualified tech (shitty person? sure- qualified? absolutely- hes got a 1250hp NRH certified mustang he built himself, and did all of the repair work for my previous companys work vehicles.)

REGARDLESS...... i hope that a judge will take my testimony with seriousness, because again, i spent MONTHS and MONTHS sourcing, building, etc to make this come true, and this dyno shop grenaded it within two hours of having it, on the first VTEC WOT pull.
the photo evidence is irrefutable, and they said themselves that the P2V was checked, and everything was done 100% and there was no wrongdoing on their part....
so lets look at the facts one more time , quickly...

-was told it would take a full day / into two days to do the cam swap, adjustments, and tune.
-they adjusted the valves to cold specs (006/008, with a hot engine, 15 mins after getting there, after driving 35-40 mins to get there in the first place (in writing)
-they would not let me be with the technician / my car
-they would not allow me to give them the specifications to the camshafts
-they installed the cams with CERTAINTY they would be fine with my setup and would make good power, despite not asking any question on the build. (in writing twice, said in person as well)
-the pull that blew it up was the first vtec pull, after doing a few 4-5k pulls (in writing)
-the car was running PERFECTLY fine (minus the unplugged CEL for knock sensor) -videos can prove it-
-was told the P2V was checked in writing -clearly was not-
-i was lied for over a week, saying that they would "handle finding replacement parts and would give me a writeup estimate" - in writing
-spoke with the parts guy himself, who said he never spoke to anyone at the shop -in writing-
-after confronting them about not speaking with the parts guy, they told me that finding the parts is now my responsibility, and i have to pick my car up - in writing
- tow truck driver picked up car, and tuner decaled my window, after being told not to do it, by the driver AND his coworkers. -in writing, photographed and surveillance cameras can prove it, too-


all said and done, we reduced the damages to 4800 + court costs, which is right under 5k to be in compliance with small claims.

lemme know what you guys think.
i cannot , unfortunately disclose which shop it was, any names, or locations..... i would be lighting their social media up like the Hindenburg, and demolishing every review website i could, however, i will stay calm until a judgement is made, to avoid any sort of backlash, such as slander, libel, harassment, etc.

mk378

Do you have any written work order saying "check piston clearance"?

That is the only way you're going to win in court.

Otherwise it is that they did exactly what you told them to do in installing the cams that you provided. And they were wrong for the stock pistons, but that's not their fault. They couldn't even know you had stock pistons, since someone else built the engine.

Caoboy

Keep us updated. I'm curious to see the results.

Hatch Man

the work order was
"install camshafts / valve adjustments + dyno tune time slot + shop labor"
320 for labor and 200 for the time slot.

they didnt even put the cams back in the head, too, even though they charged me for removal of the head + installation

AZ_CIVIC

iTrader: (1)

Well to do a P2V check you don't do that with a simple valve adjustment. If you were to do a P2V test you would either have the head off to perform the clay method which in your case they didn't build your motor you had them install a set of cams into your car. So the test that should have been performed would be using a dial indicator and a degree wheel. I mean for high lift cam you want to make sure the radial clearance looks good, you want to degree the cams, I mean there is a lot of checks and balances that need to be performed with high lift cams.

You have to consider how many times the block may have been decked the head milled, also was the right valve train used for the cam application. To me it sounds like the shop really didn't have an understanding on what should be performed but at the same time maybe the incorrect parts were used for the application.

CandyRedRC46

Both shop and car owner should have known better. I really have no idea what you were trying to accomplish with big cams and stock pistons. Sounds like a recipe for disaster at worst and a recipe for low power at best.