hrmmm - dh-racing - customer nonservice - Tuner-Junction

d3f4ult · #1 (**permalink**) June 25th, 2006, 09:47 PM

So a while back, my second(Team IA) had a slight problem. His crank pulley bolt broke, and the pulley walked off. Took it to honda(I'm not about to drill a hardened bolt from a forged crank - eh eh) let them fix it. 6000 miles later, the bolt walks out.. the pulley falls off and the woodruff key slings to hell(yay for bent valves).

My boy had some money saved up so rather than just go back factory, we decided to do a teardown and rebuild. Decided on a new crankshaft(to many issues with the old one) and a dh-racing top end(hurry up and wait).

We sent Dave Hickman over $2000 for a n/a h22 head, upper intake, and 69mm TB. In the process of the teardown, I realized 3 & 4 were suffering from some blowby, so we decided to hone it out, slap some new rings on it, and pretty much have a completely fresh engine.

TWO MONTHS - COUNT THEM - TWO MONTHS later, Dave finally decides to send the head package out to us. Gets to us... where is the #@$#@$ throttle body? Didn't get shipped.. another week went to that(god forbid he expidite the shipping due to his error and the incredibly long wait). In the process of this, I had to remove a @#$#@$ bolt from a water jacket in the head, and generally move a bunch of shit over.
In his defense, the tb, intake, and the port work, does actually look very very very nice... not two months of waiting nice.. but nice none the less.

Anyway, get the engine back together, get the head strapped on, intake bolted up. Throw the cams in, plastigage it, all within tolerances. Here is the delimma. They are within tolerance, but the @#$#@$ cams WILL NOT MOVE. I'm 6'4" 320#, and i can't get them to BUDGE.. at all. Pulled the pistons all to about middle-ground, leaving plenty of room up top for all the valves to be down, still nothing. I'm wondering if maybe the cam's are warped/bent(sketchy idea at best) Or if more than likely, after everything the @#$#@ else, Dave sent me the wrong cam-caps, and it's binding up.

Or.. highly unlikely scenario, the racing springs and whatnot in his valvejob are SERIOUSLY and INSANELY stiff and thats the problem. Has anyone been in the top of an h22 and ever had this issue? Please tell me it's just a cam issue, because honestly.. I don't have another 15 months for dave to cut me a new one, and with his customer service record so far, I don't see him giving me a refund

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE someone come up with something lol.

Dave

Thanks in advance for the hazing I'll probably recieve...

njn63 · #2 (**permalink**) June 26th, 2006, 12:11 PM

i've heard bad things involving dave hickman over the past year.

Blake · #3 (**permalink**) June 26th, 2006, 01:31 PM

first. Two months really isnt THAT bad of a wait since he is prolly racing and is building many other motors at the same time. Just be lucky that you even got your stuff back.

Try waiting two months for a header

second. This is the reason why i could never do business with Dave. His customer service is piss poor. I could careless how good he is. He for damn sure isnt going to get my business with his uptake on business ettiquette.

good products, but his service just completely negates how good his is IMO.

btw, are you using the auto tensioner or the manual tensioner?

if the manual tensioner, you could have the belt too tight.

d3f4ult · #4 (**permalink**) June 26th, 2006, 05:16 PM

heh. I fully agree on the Dave hickman PISS POOR customer service.

However, wouldn't matter what tensioner I am using. I don't have the belt on. You can't turn it by wrench, belt, anything. It's like it completely binds up. =(