Performance Engineering

[Gun Doc]

I have thought long and hard about posting what I am about to post, because I am normally not one to complain, or point fingers, but after much deliberation, feel I have to tell my story. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but it’s a long story…

My engine is currently out of my car at Blood Enterprises in Auburn, Washington being rebuilt (honed, bearings, rings) to the tune of $4000.00. This engine was built by Performance Engineering in Cincinnati, Ohio and has less than 5000 miles on it. Since day one it has NEVER ran correctly. This is my story:

I ordered my Cobra new from Vintage Motorsports back in October 2006 and took delivery in July of 2007. When I ordered the car, I told Jay at Vintage I wanted a 351 with Webers. To Jay’s credit, he warned me that the Webers could be finicky and may require additional fine tuning. I was okay with the thought of fine-tuning the carbs. Jay recommended Performance Engineering, of Cincinnati, Ohio to supply the engine.

I took delivery of the car right after the Fourth of July 2007 and the second day I had it the throttle linkage pulled out of the firewall. I figured the rivets used were undersized, so I repaired and secured the linkage in its original location, using larger (longer and larger diameter) rivets. All seemed good.

I took the car to the local Ford dealership to have the state safety inspection completed and the head mechanic commented on how rich the car seemed to be running…The exhaust would burn your eyes! I figured it was due to the Webers being overly rich at idle.

Two days later I drove the car to Austin, about 70 miles away and the throttle linkage (at the carbs) locked up on me on I-35. I couldn’t get the car above 35MPH! I pulled into a rest area and checked it out, but had no means to repair it, so I limped in to Austin. Once there I removed the linkage from the carbs, adjusted and lubricated it and got it to where it would function.

Over the course of the next few months the car never ran correctly. I turned to this forum for advice on how to dial in the Webers, as my plugs were ALWAYS fouled. The car would not start when hot and the linkage was still not right. I contacted Eric at Performance for help, but never got any. The members here offered much more help than the guy I paid over $15,000.00 for the engine.

I drove the car very little during that first year, mainly because it ran so poorly. I put less than 1000 miles on it. A year after receiving the car I was sent from Texas to Tennessee on a military move. After settling in I started back on the car in an attempt to get it dialed in. While attempting to sync the carbs, I noticed that one barrel would never change, no matter what I did. I pulled all of the plugs and found one cylinder to be dead. After much troubleshooting and posting on this site I found the intake gasket had shifted and I had a huge vacuum leak. Once again I contacted Eric at Performance and told him what had happened. I even sent him photos. He offered to supply me with new gaskets and I took him up on his offer. I went to Cincinnati got the new gaskets (with steel core) and took them home to install.

After replacing the gasket I again tried to sync the carbs to no avail. More troubleshooting led me to a bent throttle shaft on the left-rear carb. The shaft had bent due to the geometry of the throttle linkage. My linkage came off of the throttle cable between the two left carbs and attached to the forward-left carb. This carb was connected to the left-rear carb via a “balancer.” The left rear carb was then connected to both carbs on the right bank via a rigid linkage across the rear of the carb to the rear of the right-rear carb. The front-left carb “drove” all of the remaining three carbs. This setup put too much torque on the throttle shafts of the remaining carbs. Most Weber small block linkage setups utilize a “center pull” design.

At this point I contacted Jim Inglese (Home for help. He of course told me my linkage was all wrong and bet that my carbs were never set up properly. I set Jim an email telling him how the carbs were jetted, etc and he told me that they were the “box” settings. He also said I would find that the floats were set too high. I bought a float gauge and he was right, they were WAY too high! No wonder the thing would never start when hot!

Throw in two deployments to Afghanistan and another cross country move and it brings us to last year about this time. I was out for a short Sunday drive, when after about 5 miles the car “pops” and shuts off. I get the thing pushed into a parking lot and do some initial troubleshooting and determine that I am not getting spark. I figure the MSD box failed and call a flatbed to take the car home. Once I get it in my garage I come to find out my dizzy gear had shredded. The next day I call Comp Cams to find out which gear I need and find out that my cam, although a roller is made of iron and is NOT a hardened cam. The dizzy gear was a hardened steel gear.

At this point I have had enough! I have had the car for 6 years and had driven it just a tad over 4800 miles. Never has the engine run correctly! I could never go more than 20 miles from home without worrying about not getting home again. I called Blood Enterprises and made an appointment to have the car repaired.

The first appointment available was months away, so in early August this year I had the car transported to Blood. They had the car for a day when I received the call from Craig Blood with the bad news: Dizzy gear was not only incorrect, but was installed incorrectly too. It was over .05" past the limit and was binding on the block! in addition to that, number 7 cylinder, the one with the previously bent throttle shaft was washed down and had 90 psi. Numbers 2 and 4 were just over 100! The engine would need to be pulled and rebuilt.

Craig is of the opinion this engine was NEVER set up correctly. The linkage was a mess and the carbs were just “bolted on out of the box.” They were never tuned properly and led to the premature engine failure. He said the damage probably started on day one! This is from a shop owner who builds very high-end engines. His (Craig Blood) shop is the one who built the Shelby Supercar Aero’s engine at over 1180HP (World speed record holder) and is currently restoring an original 289 Cobra, complete with Webers. He was astonished that someone would just bolt on a set of Webers and add some linkage as an after-thought and expect it to perform correctly.

I contacted Eric at Performance Engineering with my story. I know that this engine is way past its warranty period as far as time is concerned, but Eric knows this engine was not right when it left his shop. He knows it has NEVER run correctly and he knows it has less than 5000 miles on it. I gave him a chance to address these problems. On three separate occasions, I set him emails even longer that this detailing everything that has been wrong with this engine since day one. I gave him an opportunity to stand by his product and explain what had gone wrong with my build, from the bolted on, non tuned Webers, to the poor linkage design to the faulty gasket to the incorrect and incorrectly installed dizzy gear. He has yet to respond! I know he has read my messages, as I selected a read receipt which shows he read it the day I sent it!

Jay at Vintage has offered assistance. He has offered parts at his cost. Jay has ALWAYS been responsive to any and all of my inquiries.
Bottom line: Eric at Performance Engineering got $15,000.00 of my hard-earned money (I saved every penny I could while deployed to Iraq to buy this car), sold me an engine that was not assembled correctly, bad gasket, incorrect dizzy gear, non tuned carbs, non-working linkage and won’t even answer my emails. Now I will be out at least another $4000.00 fixing all the things he screwed up!!

If you are looking for an engine builder and are considering Performance Engineering, I would re-read this post and THINK AGAIN!

Gun Doc

[ChicagoChris]

Eric is no good. He built and installed my Shelby block 427 into my CSX chassis when he was an 'authorized' Shelby dealer in 2005 (he is no longer a dealer). When the car was delivered the hood was misaligned, door sills scratched as he let everyone sit in it, fuel pressure dangerously high, fuel mixture too rich, and fuel line fill tube loose off the gas tank because it was 'pushed on.' Spent $4,000 locally to get the thing sorted.
He would not help with the local repairs claiming 'all was good when it left here.'
Sorry to hear (and not surprised) he continues to deliver very poor service.

[Gun Doc]

Chicago,

I forgot...My fuel pressure was set at around 7psi. About TWICE what it should have been with Webers!! I corrected that fairly early on.

[Bernica]

Sorry to hear your troubles. It sucks for you.
I think it's gonna suck for Performance Engineering pretty soon too.

[moorman0922]

Hi Stephen,

We have just now became aware of this problem, I just found the email you sent us it was sent to our spam folder, if anyone does not hear from us in a couple of days from the time an email has been sent please just call us. Eric has already been in contact with our rep at Comp Cams Chris Padgitt in regards to the distributor gear issue. Chris says that is the correct distributor gear that we used please feel free to call Chris at 800-365-9145. As to the distributor gear being installed incorrectly we have made a fixture for setting the dept of those gears and have had no problems we have done tons, but anything is possible. The linkage was purchased from the company we bought the Webers from. Eric will give you a call later on this afternoon, like I said we just found out about this last night, we are not trying to avoid you.

I would like also point out that we are still a Authorized Shelby Dealer, here is a link to Shelby's Dealer list Shelby American Inc.

Thanks,
Jennifer Moorman
Performance Engineering, LLC

[Gun Doc]

I was contacted today by Eric from Performance Engineering. I am hopeful for a resolution...

[Tommy]

Gun Doc,
Sorry it came to this and hope it turns out well for you. .... I recently got a bad item from a well known automotive supplier and they ignored my initial email of complaint for several months. It wasn't until I posted negative feedback on the web that a customer service rep contacted me. It soon became apparent that he was willing to offer heartfelt apologies, but nothing concrete like cash or credit toward something else. So my negative feedback remains. .... Words are cheap. Don't change your position until you see tangible, appropriate corrective actions. ... Good luck.

[Bernica]

Let's none of us confuse Performance Engineering with Performance Associates... a long-respected and Ford related company started by Les Richie, then run by his son, Randy right next to the Pomona Raceway. Sadly, they have closed. For those that don't know who Les was, just look up Les Richie.
One of the lucky ones to receive the factory Ford 427 lightweight Galaxie drag cars straight from Ford.

They did work on my car just before things ended.

[shand21]

I was considering a new BDR car that was really nice...did some research and checked with some builders and was told that the performance engines were subject and buyer beware, so I opted to research more and glad I did!!! Went with a Keith Craft and it will be home in about two months. I came so close to buying the car but the engine builder's rep killed the car and I told the dealer so. Sorry about your deal and hope they help you.....And thank you for your service Gun Doc

[eschaider]

Gun Doc, did you buy a turnkey engine carb to oil pan or something else?

Ed

[ChicagoChris]

Gun Doc>glad to hear PE has reached out and I'm hoping you have a better outcome than I did. Pls keep us posted.

I also believe PE used to build 427 Genesis crate engines too?
Anyone have one of those in their machine?

[Gun Doc]

Ed,

I bought a complete turn-key engine. You can see in the attached photo just how the engine was delived to Vintage. Notice the linkage on the Webers, it runs from the left-rear carb to the right-rear carb. The front-left carb "drove" all off the remaning carbs, causing them to bind. It also caused a "lag" in the other barrels opening.

Gun Doc

[itstock]

1000 miles, with poor tuning pretty much the entire time will wreak havoc on any engine.

And even weber owners that have had them for years constantly have problems with them. While I'm not making an excuse for PE since it was delivered untuned, you should not have driven it for 1000 miles while running excessively rich and untuned.

There are also MANY problems with the dizzy gears that seem to be from all builders.

[Gun Doc]

Itstock,

I agree that poor tuning will ruin an engine...Problem is it SHOULD have been tuned when delivered! I lived in Texas, PE is in Ohio and the car was built in Connecticut. I also don't agree that Webers have to be constantly adjusted, or tuned. Once they are set, they should stay that way unless there is a change in altitude, or the linkage is not correct. All carbs work under the same basic principles to mix air and fuel. Webers are just more “fine tunable” than most carbs. A properly matched and installed dizzy gear should NOT fail with less than 5000 miles on it. Of all the cars I’ve owned (a number of them hotrods) I have never had a dizzy gear fail until now.

[mhacars]

CS GT40 MK2 Build

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has been several years in the making and I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel after several hurdles. Today, the motor and transaxle was finally installed in my car. The most common installation in these cars is usually a small block stroker or an FE. Well, I decided to do more of a one off. Specifically, I decided to have a dual quad, dry sumped 427 SOHC built and installed.

As you can imagine, the biggest challenge with this project was amassing the parts and getting the engine built. All I can say is that the unscrupulous people that I have come across that live in the 427 Cammer world are for the most part extremely unknowledgeable and crooks. From Michael Deutsch from Cammer Concepts who sold me improperly ground cams and faulty rocker arms, to Butch Engelbrecht who was impossible to deal with, to Jim Dove and his faulty manufacturing, to the biggest disappointment of all which was Jim Barillaro from Knoxville, TN. He is the guy who claims to have been building these motors since 1969 and a self proclaimed expert. Jim also owns the 2 Jack Chrisman Comets that have cammers in them.

I bought quality new parts for this motor and sent them to Jim Barillaro for final machining and assembly. Shelby block, Crower billet rods and crank, Arias pistons, Comp billet cams, T&D rockers, etc. He informed me that the machinng and dyno testing would be done at a local shop near him and he would oversee that aspect and he would do the final assembly himself.

Barillaro assembled it and dyno'd it and it took nearly 2 years to get the motor from him. A few months later after it was delivered, we did some tests on the motor without running it. A leak down test was done and it yielded results between 35% to 95%. We also noticed that there was some kind of rear cam plug improperly wedged into the rear of the block. It was driven in through the inside of the block and was sealed with silicone and it looked awful. We also noticed that one of the spark plug tubes was not sitting flush in the valve cover.

Given the leak down test results and the other visual indicators, I decided to sent the motor to Ernie Elliott in Dawsonville, Georgia to be inspected. Ernie builds for NASCAR and he is the real deal. Everything is done in house and to a high standard. Ernie got it running and noticed several problems right away.

Valve stems were bent, and that is why the leak down test did not yield proper results. Valves were getting hung up in the guides. Obviously Barillaro did not check this. The drive on my Aviaid dry sump pump was hammered on and mangled as well. When the front cover was removed, it was discovered that a bolt holding on the Milodon primary gear drive had undone itself and made its way to the oil pan. The block had been decked with the sleeves in and they were damaged as well as the head gaskets were improperly installed and about to fail. I paid Barillaro for hardened valve seats and they were never installed. I also paid for him to install bronze valve guides and that was not done either. All of the plugs that were installed in the block and heads were cross threaded as well.

It turns out that the motor was not getting enough oil and it burnt all the cam and main bearings and all the pistons were trashed. I am fortunate to have found this out before it was installed in the car as putting it in and taking it out is a lot more expensive than losing a motor on the dyno. I brought this to Barillaro's attention and he told me that he did not feel that he would be able to stand behind his work and he would not pay me for my trouble to have someone else rectify his mistakes. He claims financial hardship due to health reasons.

Ernie had to take it all apart and rebuild it from the ground up and these are not cheap motors. I had to absorb the cost of this and Barillaro does not even have the courtesy to step up and reimburse me for what has happened. It is now a proper engine and hopefully the end of my troubles. All I can say is be very leary of anyone that you deal with in the Cammer world.

I will be posting pictures in the near future.

I posted this some time ago, and the car is now complete thanks to Bill Andrews at HRE in New York and Ernie Elliott in Georgia. This complicated build could not have been done without them and I am grateful for their help.

[F.L.P.C.]

I have been a member of the forum for about 8 years now and read almost daily and post almost never. I have been purchasing engines from Eric at Performance Engineering for about 6 years now, usually about 2 a year. I have been performing engine installations in Backdraft & Superformance replicas for about 8 years now. I do it on the side not as a full time job and only complete a couple a year.


I have had the exact opposite experience with Eric at Performance Engineering. I have had nothing but great customer service and engines that perform flawlessly with not even a leak and continue to perform flawlessly except for one. I recently about 3 months ago had an engine with about 200 miles on it lose all oil pressure. After installing the engine I delivered the car to a fellow in Kansas which enjoyed his Backdraft only briefly before this issue. Initially we assumed it was an indication error due to the occasional failure of the electronic sending units and the fact that the engine ran and sounded fine with no ticking. Turned out the engine actually had no oil pressure. I returned to Kansas from Texas to pick up the Backdraft and pulled the engine and personally delivered it to Performance Engineering in Ohio. We removed the oil pan while I was there and found that the cast housing on the Melling oil pump had split in two at the base where it attaches to the block. There was no installation error of any kind and this was not Performance Engineerings fault. Although they did warranty the engine and they did stand behind their product with no questions asked. Eric built and shipped me a new dyno tuned and tested engine, with new block and all since the engine had been ran for some time before the zero oil pressure issue was noticed therefore scraping out many of the components. The new engine also came with a new warranty. I redelivered the Backdraft to its owner and there has been no issues what so ever since and if there was I feel confident the Eric at PE would stand behind his product as he did before.



I have also used Roush Engines and Several others. I have had a distributer failure and water pump leak in two separate Roush engines and both of those issues were resolved by Roush so no complaints there either as I hear complaints from others about Roush all the time. I could purchase and recommend engines built by anyone and I feel personally obligated to resolve or ensure resolution of any issues if I am the one who installed and recommended the engine. So if I felt in any way Performance Engineering was not going to stand behind their product I would certainly not continue to use them. I currently have a 393 windsor being built by Eric at PE right now and have plans to continue doing business with them. Personally I only use standard 4 barrel carburetors on my installs due to the known temperamental issues of some of the other configurations. I tend to be a perfectionist and if I feel I personally can’t get it right I won't perform the installation and will refer you to someone that will. When the engine is installed into the vehicle it will have different exhaust configuration (usually more restrictive which could richen the mixture) and possibly a different ignition box then used on the dyno so sometimes things change a little. To dial things in perfectly some adjustments, usually small, are sometimes needed after the engine is installed in the vehicle.



Bottom line is that most major engine builders build thousands of engines over the years and have issues weather major or minor with a small percentage of these engines. Most of these issues are resolved and then a very small percent that may not be resolved to the customers liking and these are usually the only engines you are going to hear about. Not saying this is right, as in a perfect world all issues should be resolved and everyone would be happy or we would have no issues in the first place. Performance Engineering has been around since 1984 so I would think they are doing something right and taking care of their customers. They certainly have for me. I figured I would tell me story since usually all you hear is the negative.


Gun Doc I sincerly wish you the best and hope you get things resolved. I really wish I could give some assistance to your problems but it looks like you no longer live in Texas and I personally don’t have any knowledge about Webers. Feel free to contact me though matthew@flpcars.com if still in the area.

[JWilly]

I can’t speak to Gun Doc’s experience with Eric at PE but I can speak to my own experience with Eric and it has only been good. Eric has installed an engine (Roush 402R) for me, rebuilt an engine and transmission for me (390 with TriPower carburetion), and built an engine (BB) for me. I have been a customer of Eric’s since 2007 and I have been very satisfied with all of the work he has done for me. The 390 TriPower never ran right until Eric worked on it. Besides the fact that his work has been good, Eric has always been very helpful whenever I have had any problems. There have been numerous occasions where Eric has gone well beyond the call of duty to help me out and solve a problem.

One poster seems to think this issue could have a negative impact on Eric’s business. Currently, from what I have seen, his business is fine and because he has a large number of satisfied, loyal customers, like me, it is my opinion his business will be fine for years to come.

[ChicagoChris]

Always good to have an opinion.

Mine is bad businesses can go on for years.

[mhacars]

I agree with the comment about bad businesses being around for years. I became a victim of one per my earlier reply.

[Gun Doc]

Mathew,
I am realize PE builds many engines every year and have for a number of years, most of which have had no problems. My post is not about those engines; it’s about the engine I purchased, which has never run correctly and people seem to dismiss, because it’s equipped with Weber carbs.

Had I purchased a turn-key 4 barrel engine, I probably would not have had the problems I had. The major problems with my engine stem from carbs that were “bolted on” the engine straight out of the box (no float adjustment, no jetting, and no tuning) with a linkage design that put excessive torque on the throttle plate shafts, causing them to twist, resulting in open butterflies, even with the engine shut off. This coupled with the extremely high float settings resulted in the washed down cylinders.

The dizzy gear is another example of poor quality control. Not only was the gear not matched material-wise to the cam, but it was installed out of spec, causing it to wear prematurely (improper backlash and binding on the block). I can maybe see the mix-up with the material, as most all roller cams are made from hardened steel blanks and those are the cams most often used at PE. According to the folks at the Comp Cams Tech line, this cam, being a special grind for the Webers, was made from a soft core and required an iron gear. This information was verified by both Craig Blood (Blood Enterprises) and me. PE could/should have verified this as well.

Bottom line is Performance Engineering had not, up to the time I ordered my engine, worked much with Weber carbureted engines. If they did not have the expertise to properly build and tune this engine, they should have said so and I would have looked elsewhere to have my engine built. Once I reported problems (day two of me having the car) they should have either offered to fix the problems, or referred me to a local shop that could have. This didn’t happen. I was left on my own to repair/tune an engine that I just paid $15,000.00 for. This continued every time I had a new problem. Like I said in my original post, I got more help from the members of this forum than I did from the company I paid good money to have this engine built. I think as a customer I should have received better.

For now, Eric has responded to my post and we agreed to see what we can do to work through this. For that I give him credit. I just wish he would have stepped up a long time ago. It would have saved us both a lot of time and money.

Gun Doc