Builder review: Stewart Engines
#1
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Builder review: Stewart Engines
Indianapolis. Stay the **** away from them. I swear to god if I didnt live 3 hours away, I'd walk in to their place right now and punch someone in the mother ******* face.
#6
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First problem: When I went to pick up my overpriced rebuilt 99 head, 94 block that took 2 damn months to rebuild; I pointed out in their ******* shop: "Hey, this isn't the block that I left you. I left a 94 block with an oil feed port, how are you going to fix this problem?"
"I'll look into it, send me an email to remind me"
sent email the next day - never recieved anything from the ******...
more to follow
"I'll look into it, send me an email to remind me"
sent email the next day - never recieved anything from the ******...
more to follow
#7
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#2: I specifically asked them to port the turbo wastegate (and took the turbo in seperate for the rest of the block) because I was having overboost issues. When I picked everything up, The turbo ports were all taped over, so I thought "great, they took care of it and sealed it all up" I didn't check the turbo porting upon reassembly. I still had overboost issues after assembly, so figured the porting didnt work. Upon disassembly 2 days ago, they didnt even lay a finger on the turbocharger.
#8
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#3: Dude was kind enough to give me mazda part numbers to order, so I had all the parts sent directly to him. I also took in my BE oil pump gears to install into a new oil pump housing. Upon installation of the block in the car and almost endless cranking to get oil pressure, I had nothing. I could prime the pump manually to get oil pressure, but that was about a 30 minute process everytime i needed to start the car. Ripped engine back out, took engine back to shop (3 hours one way) and we took out the oil pump. Asshat put a VVT Pump into my car with the BE Billet gears. The ******* retards didnt even think to check the damn clearances, or they would have discovered that the gears are too small to fit into the housing. So we installed another brand new oil pump, this one an NA pump. They tried to convince me to stick with the stock gears - to hell with that, I'm not going to blow up a damn oil pump at 300+ HP. So we reassembled everything there in the shop, loaded it back up in the truck, and I drove 3 hours home.
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#4: After reinstalling the engine, everything seemed to work just fine, except that I had the issue with the turbocharger overboosting, and I was leaking oil between the tranny and engine. After removing and reinstalling the tranny twice, once to replace the front tranny seal, and once to replace the new rear main seal, I decided that they fucked up the rear oil pan seal when it was reassembled.
I was right.
So I tore the ******* engine out of the car a THIRD time, and resealed the oil pan in my garage. Got the oil pan back on last night....
I was right.
So I tore the ******* engine out of the car a THIRD time, and resealed the oil pan in my garage. Got the oil pan back on last night....
#10
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#5: Since I had the engine out, and the turbo off so I can take a weekday off work to take this thing to a local machine shop, I decided to replace the turbo->manifold studs. I originally asked the builder to retap the 8MM holes for 10x1.5 studs because I had intentions to get inconels. They were actually 'kind enough' to put studs into the 10mm holes and include washers and nuts. They also drilled and test fitted the turbo, because they had to cut one of their studs down a touch to fit. I didn't get my inconel studs until after I had the engine in the car the second time, so I decided to put them in since the engine was already out and the turbo already off. When I went to screw in the studs, they got hard to turn pretty quick. I didnt torque the crap out of them, but took them out instead to find that the threads weren't quite right. I then held up their stud to my inconel stud. THE ************* TAPPED FOR, AND SCREWED IN 10X1.25MM STUDS!!! GOD DAMN IT I'M SO ******* PISSED RIGHT NOW!!
I considered putting my fist into a wall, but had enough time walking from the back garage to the house to realize that a broken hand would be something to be even more pissed about. This is the last motherfucking straw! I want to kill something right now!
I'm even more pissed that dude wrote down every request and specification I made into a handy dandy little notebook, and then put my name on the notebook with a label maker. I'm not sure they ever opened up the notebook! Thank god I was able to reassure myself that he used my pistons and rods when we replaced the oil pump, or else I would be suspect of those too.
I considered putting my fist into a wall, but had enough time walking from the back garage to the house to realize that a broken hand would be something to be even more pissed about. This is the last motherfucking straw! I want to kill something right now!
I'm even more pissed that dude wrote down every request and specification I made into a handy dandy little notebook, and then put my name on the notebook with a label maker. I'm not sure they ever opened up the notebook! Thank god I was able to reassure myself that he used my pistons and rods when we replaced the oil pump, or else I would be suspect of those too.
#12
No doubt good engine builders are hard to find. I'll go ahead and state the obvious- if the engine builder isn't recommended by a person you'd trust your life to, then you take your chances. Not to say that even the best won't farkup- but when they do they live up to it and fix it.
I've felt your pain.
I've felt your pain.
#13
this is exactly why I built my engine myself.
so many ******* stories like this its scary.
At least I have no one to blame if something happens and didn't pay someone a shitload of money to build it only to find out they fucked up.
So far so good for almost a year.
Sorry to hear man. Good luck and I'd confront those ********
so many ******* stories like this its scary.
At least I have no one to blame if something happens and didn't pay someone a shitload of money to build it only to find out they fucked up.
So far so good for almost a year.
Sorry to hear man. Good luck and I'd confront those ********
#17
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I've worked with Jim Stewart on some custom honda stuff, real high end ****. Always seemed like a pretty intelligent guy and knew what he was doing. Sorry to hear about this, man that sucks! Keep us updated :(
#18
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I'm really bummed for you, hopefully they'll find a way to make it right.
My motor is in a shop being built right now. I have BE gears going into a 01 VVT OP. Will this not work? I'm going there tomorrow morning to drop off the head, and I'm curious now if this will work.
My motor is in a shop being built right now. I have BE gears going into a 01 VVT OP. Will this not work? I'm going there tomorrow morning to drop off the head, and I'm curious now if this will work.