Been having a lot of trouble....
 

I want to offer a sincere apology to my customers for taking longer than quoted on some orders. I have 5 customers on here that I can count right now, and several on the FE forum that have been patiently waiting. I'm sorry, and I'm very thankful for your patience.

If you will allow me to offer up some sort of excuse, I will say that I've been having a horrible time getting parts....pistons....heads.....cranks, you name it. From what I've gathered, a lot of other builders have as well. I've talked to KC and BR here in the past few days and I'm getting the same response.

I don't know if manufacturers have geared down for the economy, or if the beginning of race season has put a hurt on things....or both.

It took me 13 weeks to get a set of pistons from Race-Tec. That's after it took me 4 weeks to get a screwed up set from JE.

I'm waiting on a set of bare TFS TW heads for Cliff Rosson....have been waiting for around 2 months now I think. Same with AFR.

Tried to order a set of FE pistons from Probe and was quoted about 2-3 weeks out. I've had great success with Diamond lately. Ordered 5 sets at a time, and with the exception of one ceramic coated set, I got them all within 4 weeks.

I'm trying guys. I really am. Believe me, I wanna get these engines out and get paid. I can't make money by sitting here looking at them.

Again, thanks for being patient, and I do offer my apologies.

Signing in and backing up Mr. Lykins on this thread.

We are all having similar problems with supply this year - although the vendors in question tend to shift around as we each "hunt" for parts. I am certain that each of us is spending half our work day on the phone hunting instead of getting productive work done.

Its been really frustrating, since I tend to take a vendor's delivery claim & add a week before repeating it to my customers - and then have them miss that later date by weeks - not days.

We all want to get the best price on everything - but just getting the parts themselves has never been the challenge it is today.

Brent-better start ordering parts for the aluminum 482 Sheldon's ordering this fall.
I'm sure he's ready to write the deposit check....%/

The product you both put out in the end is well worth it...:)

Brent, it's all OK with me, as long as it's not my engine you're making excuses for. :LOL:

Over the past hundred years, or so, since the Model A and T, parts availability has always been a problem. I can't verify that first hand of course, but Claire, I mean Chas, has been there since the beginning and actually knew Henry Ford. :LOL:

Patricks engine gets a $5000 "propaganda" fee. He can write a deposit for that first. :-)

At least the Pond blocks are rolling in here in a decent amount of time. I also have plenty of balancer spacers and rear main seals... :rolleyes:

I'm with RodKnock on this one; we only care about ourselves.:D

You have damper spacers? I'm out of those right now....:3DSMILE:

Brent, no problem on my end. It will take you less time to build the engine than it will for me to build the car.

Ehhh... been waiting my whole life to build this project, a few extra weeks aint going to kill me ;)

Besides, I'm still sanding aluminum from a filed finish... Trust me, you aint the one slowing me down...


I can think of two pieces of wisdom that apply here:

1) You can't rush perfection (...and you're not exactly cookin' burgers here).
&
2) It's fast FEs we're after, NOT FEs fast!


Take care

Stanley Morton a local builder is having similar problems getting parts together for some of his builds (mostly Drag Race Engines) but parts are slow to arrive. Sometimes I drop in to visit and see what he is dynoing. He told me his turnaround use to be 3-4 weeks but those times have doubled since the first of the year.

Unfortunately the performance engine building business basically sucks, at least that's what Keith told me. You know, a very wealthy and wise man once told me long ago "never go in to business doing something that you really enjoy." Anyway, make sure you price accordingly and pass on the delay costs to the customer. Nobody stays in business just breaking even... and you've got mouths to feed.%/

Being "wealthy and wise" doesn't always bring happiness either. If building engines brings you happiness and peace of mind, then I see absolutely nothing wrong with building engines as your profession.

A famous quote from The Buddha: "Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship." ;)

There's nothing I don't like about this business. I've also heard that if you work at something you love, it's not a job.

I believe Keith has gotten very downhearted lately, just because of the sheer volume of engines that he's put out. The internet is full of know-it-all's and I think they tend to single him out because his name is everywhere.

Patrick, if you passed on delay costs to the customer, you'd never get another customer...

The alternative is "poor and dumb," and I see no reason to drag Chas in to this....:p

Hmmmm. That sounds like a lawyer speaking. :JEKYLHYDE

I think life is WAY too short to spend 8-10 hours a day doing something you don't enjoy, if you can help it. :cool: