Two Engine failures from Southern Automotive

[Donald Campbell]

Yes, everyone can have a problem without question! These are machines afterall!

I unfortunately had two in a row with the same engine builder and must say I am tired of the excuses and double talk. The two pro's that helped me salvage the second 427 and make it run, because Southern was in complete denial, couldn't believe that Southern was not standing behind their product. This is all documented I might add!

You would not believe the letter I received from Bill Parham stating how lucky I was that he replaced the first motor. It ran for less than one hour!!

We could not get the second "replacement motor" to run right, to say nothing of the oil leaking everywhere, so we took it up to a pro to run it on the dyno and try to figure out why it would not run. It came apart on the dyno! Southern wrote a really nasty letter and basically said it was all our fault because this had never happened before. They paid for a new bolt and push rods and that is it!!!!!!!

The worst thing is that while my second motor was out of commission for the month of July, after losing all of last summer to the first failed motor, Bill at Southern was bragging to me that he had resold the first motor and it was running great in some other guy's ERA Cobra!!!

[lpfomoco1]

You know, there are at least a dozen things that a customer can do to and engine once it is recieved, either through ignorance or carelessness that can damage a perfectly good engine. Very rarely will a customer admit to any wrong doing. The engine builder always is to blame. Not knowing how to adjust valves is one of the main causes of valve train problems in an FE engine. How many times has a perfectly good engine been destroyed by using plumbing fitting and lines that were to small or the wrong type?

[McD00]

Boy am I with Jamo on this one. Heck, Everyone knows those old FE's require non stop maintenance. Heck I used to work on mine more than I drove it.
Looks like nothing more to see here let just move along now.

McVette

[blykins]

I wish I could just leave a face, but I can't because it's not enough characters.

So....

[cdnus]

RE: the 2nd. motor,

This motor started and we ran it for a couple of hours realizing that it just did not run right and it leaked oil like crazy. We decided to dyno at Meridian Performance in Bellingham and loaded the car into the trailer. These guy's were great. We were doing our first run -up on the dyno when the rocker assembly came apart. We opened up both valve covers and the rockers were not even finger tight (his words)

What is so hard to understand?????
He did not get to drive the car---it went by TRAILER to the shop & then came apart.
I would expect that after a engine is dynoed & proven I would be able to run it much longer than this before requiring a valve adjustment.
Also it's not like he was doing this over a ditch in the backyard himself.
He went to great lengths to assure it was done correctly by having qualified experienced people oversee the start up both times.
As for the time factor-11 months,
Everyone who had their motors sitting in the garage or chassis for months, even years before they actually got their cars on the road please stand up.

Note:
All statements & conclusions are based on the fact that both partys are telling the truth as they see it, NOT on the bases of one of them is lying.

Craig