As much as I hate to post negatively about a sponsor, in this case, I don't feel there is much choice.

Let me preface this post by saying that I've talked to many people who have had similar experiences, including mods on this site, and have tried to talk to Sean at Speed Engineering about this. To date, there has been no response to my email.

A member of this site bought a 2wd cross member to convert from a 60E to an 80E. Before it was delivered, and after learning that this custom cross member required metal cutting, welding, and fab skills, he switched tracks, and when he tried to return cross member, Sean said it was a custom piece and couldn't be returned, despite it never having been installed. Fair enough, the member sold the piece after just checking the box for damage. I bought the cross member in an attempt to save some fab hours.

The quality of this 'custom work' is the worst I've ever seen from any professional shop. It is so bad that even though I won't use it, I won't sell it to anyone either. Here are a few picks so you may judge for yourself:

First, the cross member itself:

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngCM_um-no.jpg

As you can see by the bright yellow labels, one 'support arm' is shorter than the other, leaving the main plate at a slight angle. The 'support arms' are notched and then welded to the 2x4 metal tube with some of the crappiest welds I've seen (and being a self taught welder, this says a lot). The arms are welded to the mount plate with more of the same. Worse yet are the welds on the bolt tubes -- I weld better than this and I am be no means anything but an amateur welder. The welds are inconsistent -- thick and ropey one second, and thin thin thin the next.

Next, the bolt tubes...

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngCM_bolttubes.jpg

Obivously no one at Speed Engineering has heard of square cuts, or even cutting pieces to the same length. All four tubes are varying lengths, not a single one has a square cut, and no tube is centered in the cross member. This cross member will not fit in the mounts because when you measure from the longest end of one to tube to the longest end of the next, they are wider than the mounts. Maybe I could drive it in with a sledge hammer, maybe not. At any rate, I won't... In addition, you can see that tightening the bolts would ripple the mount material or crush a tube -- but either way, there would not me a good surface to surface contact point for the cross member.

Hell, even the 2x4 tube is not cut square...

Next up, the mounting plate...

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngTMountPlate.jpg

This is where the tranny mount is supposed to bolt to the cross member, As you can see, there is no slot for the bolt. Lining this up with the stock cross member, it is immediately apparent that something is not right in with the Speed Engineering piece (and lets ignore the lack of square cuts on the plate for the moment). The two cross members are squared end to end. You can just make out the stock mounting plate in the picture. See how far to the left the Speed piece is?

The 15 inch mark is the dead center of the cross member. Using the stock piece as a guide (and using the center stud hole), what's labeled as the 'mount center' is where the tranny mount should land... The right side (in the pic) of the tranny mount hangs off the edge...

Take a look at the welds, the 'square cuts' and the measuring evident in this picture. If that doesn't make you run screaming...

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngWorkmanship2.jpg

Here are some pictures of the 'extra bits' of metal that were attached with electrical tape:

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngWorkmanship1.jpg

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngWorkmanship3.jpg

http://www.scifilogy.com/sss/spdeng/SEngWorkmanship4.jpg

I sent an email to Sean explaining the situation and included the pictures. So far, not a single person I've shown these to fails to grasp that this is a piece of shit part. I am having a hard time understanding why you would ruin your company's reputation by letting this leave your shop, and if it did slip by, why you wouldn't want to make it right.

From his silence, I can only assume that Sean is going to stick by his BS 'no returns' policy, despite the fact that this part has obvious defects in workmanship.

If that is truly the case (as it has been with many other's I've spoken with) then I don't think I can in good conscience recommend that anyone buy anything from them -- whether they are stock GM parts or Speed Engineering parts. There are just too many vendors out there who are trying to help us gear heads -- not just take our money for the minimum effort.

Thanks for the heads-up.
It is amazing so few 'businessmen' understand the value of quality and customer service.

Damn, you gotta be kidding
This should be in the carnage video

what a mess

damb that is surprising. usually speed's stuff is 1st class...must be a new guy there...`

Unfotunantly, this is not the first one of the sorts I've seen like this from him.

I would be EMBARRASED if that was something i made!!! Looks like an 8th grader made it in shop class. If thats what they sell then no way in hell would i buy from them. I work with steel every day and THATproduct you bought is very unprofessional to say the least. Sorry for your headache.

Wow! Thats one big piece of shit. What does a piece of shit like that cost from Speed Engineering?

didnt DubSilverado have a lot of problems with the speednengineering 60e-80e crossmember too?

$279 is what it is listed for on their website

didnt DubSilverado have a lot of problems with the speednengineering 60e-80e crossmember too?

$279 is what it is listed for on their website

$2.79 maby

http://speed-eng.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=23_940_1409_1713&products_id=6627

not saying its worth it just saying what they want for it

Well another thing I noticed was people talking about the flexplates not working for thier 4L80E swap. If you look on TCI's website you will see why!

Chevy Y GM 4.8, 5.3, 5.7, 6.0 LS-series internal small bolt pattern, 168 tooth 399753*2

You see the little 2 out beside the part number then scroll down and read the fine print!

*2 Will not fit 4L80E transmissions!

didnt DubSilverado have a lot of problems with the speednengineering 60e-80e crossmember too?

$279 is what it is listed for on their website
No I don't believe he bought a crossmember at all. And was going to modify his factory one with shims. After all of the issues I think he was heading back tho 4l60e based unit in his truck. Just what I heard. Vince

Dub had problems with their "80e conversion yolk" that was the incorrect length. Glad I didnt buy one from them, looks like Ill be making my own.

i thing it was thunder550 had problems with their drive shaft but i think they made it good not sure tho and i have tried to contact SE on a few different parts and no response.

Ok, for one the crossmember that is compared here is not the same style as the one we send those out to replace. So i am sure there are a lot of differences Two TurboBerserker did not buy it from us. I agree those crossmembers are crap. Just so you guys know we don't build those. We were getting them from a Fab Shop here locally. We also discontinued that style. Or stopped buying from that company. In fact the link that you guys gave to our site is for a completely different crossmember we sell which you can see by the pic.

As far as the flexplates go yes they do work with our 4L80E conversions. We have Precision Industries custom build our converters to match that flywheel. It is a 3 bolt hole pattern not the 6 bolt hole pattern that the factory 4L80E's have.

Yokes, Yes Thunder550 had problems with our drivelines. We paid for his to get fixed for him. His truck i believe was one of the first AWD trucks we did, which they use a different length driveline then the 4wd's do. We had sent him the 4wd's accidently i believe. After having a few issues with rear driveline differences between truck years we decided to start using the extended cab yokes we custom build for the dual driveline trucks and start using them instead of building a full rear driveline. It was cheaper for you guys and was less complicated for us. We used them for a long time in a lot of different large and small hp trucks. Until recently we had one that poped up with an issue of a different tranny or driveline length, which was really confusing what had changed. We offered to make him a custom length yoke specificly for his truck at our cost and us paying for half of that price since the original yoke was destroyed or could not be resold as new. Which would have been like 40.00 bucks. I have yet to hear back.

If you guys have any other questions about our kits your more then welcome to ask. It amazes me how threads can explode so fast. :)

Sean

i believe thunder550 is 4wd

Is it just me or did that guy type a whole lot of words and not say anything? What is he going to do for Berzerker? Is there a new crossmember that eliminates all problems? Are they going to do swaps for the crap crossmembers?

From what I see so far Speed Eng. is not a company I would do business with, and that post by Sean did nothing to change my mind.

Is it just me or did that guy type a whole lot of words and not say anything? What is he going to do for Berzerker? Is there a new crossmember that eliminates all problems? Are they going to do swaps for the crap crossmembers?

From what I see so far Speed Eng. is not a company I would do business with, and that post by Sean did nothing to change my mind.

I completely agree with your assessment of that post. Lots of info but no explanation.

Who cares if he bought it second hand! Get him a GOOD replacement or live with bad press and no sales !!!!!! :judge:

I don't know what you guys are confused about. The crossmember that he has is not for the crossmember he was trying to replace. What else is there. Obviously it's not going to fit or even be close for that matter. So why would we replace it for free. It's not made for that truck. Or yet even have an invoice for it. We do these conversions to help you guys, not for our income. We don't sell enough of these kits to even be worth the investment to be honest with you. We just do it to help you guys out. Obviously, there are hundreds of thousands of trucks out there. We do our best to cover them all. All the local ones we have done have not had any problems. All we can go off of are these local ones and what you guys tell us. But, yet if a single truck is off it seems to explode on this site before we can even deal with it or respond if its either the right truck for that matter.

Obviously if this keeps up we will cancel our conversion kits, no longer making them available for anyone. It's for one not worth the hassle of explaining the details in individual emails daily to hundreds of "maybe" future customers and two taking down our business name trying to help you guys further your truck performance needs.

Sean

I think the biggest problem I see with the crossmember is that I don't think it would fit in the mounts that it slides into with the uneven bolt holes. Regardless if he had an invoice, was the original purchaser, bought it 6th hand or any other excuse you want to give, that crossmember wouldn't work in anyones truck. Is it your problem to support someones 2nd hand crossmember, maybe not, but I will say that crossmember has been labeled unusable and has your name attatched to it. That is a problem you should be concerned with.

I don't know if it was mentioned in this thread, but from hearing of this before, I think that the original purchaser of the crossmember never opened the box it was in and had no idea the shape it was in. Maybe TB will confirm that??

I don't know what you guys are confused about. The crossmember that he has is not for the crossmember he was trying to replace. What else is there. Obviously it's not going to fit or even be close for that matter. So why would we replace it for free. It's not made for that truck. Or yet even have an invoice for it. We do these conversions to help you guys, not for our income. We don't sell enough of these kits to even be worth the investment to be honest with you. We just do it to help you guys out. Obviously, there are hundreds of thousands of trucks out there. We do our best to cover them all. All the local ones we have done have not had any problems. All we can go off of are these local ones and what you guys tell us. But, yet if a single truck is off it seems to explode on this site before we can even deal with it or respond if its either the right truck for that matter.

Obviously if this keeps up we will cancel our conversion kits, no longer making them available for anyone. It's for one not worth the hassle of explaining the details in individual emails daily to hundreds of "maybe" future customers and two taking down our business name trying to help you guys further your truck performance needs.

Sean

So then you will refund the original purchaser? You know, the guy with the invoice that you refused to take it back from since it was a custom part? I can easily have him contact you yet again for a credit.

By your own admission you sold a crap product and are now refusing to deal with it, just like you refused to deal with it for the original customer. BTW, this is not intended to go on a 4WD truck, and isn't, not that any of that matters a bit -- it wouldn't fit in a 2WD truck either -- just look at the bolt tubes... Since the original purchaser was never told that the crossmember has a specific application, and since your website doesn't mention that either, perhaps you could enlighten us as to what application this cross member is for? You can tell just by looking at the design that it is intended for the frame mount that my stock crossmember has... The other style cross members bolt to the frame, not to mounting boxes.

Personally, I don't care who you buy from Sean. You are the guy everyone is buying from. It is YOUR responsibility to deal with the problems, and then deal with your supplier. Abdicating your responsibility makes you the bad guy here.

Flyer -- the original purchaser just verified that there was no shipping damage to the box. He didn't even take the cross member out from what he told me.

We don't have that crossmember on our site that is why there is no details of what it is for. It is a lowered custom crossmember, built for 2wd trucks. The purpose for it is for guys who lower there trucks and sometimes scrap the crossmember on the ground. This kit with weld in brackets for support is built to raise up the original crossmember to help with ground clearance. It was never designed for a 4wd truck. This is a special order item we sold. So there are no returns, however if the crossmember has problems fitting a 2wd truck, send it back and we will be more then happy to fix it and return it to the original buyer with shipping expenses paid for. The bolt holes from what it looks like are the only thing that might be off compared to a 2wd crossmember.

Sean

The bolt tubes, the lack of square cuts on anything, the off center mounting plate that is not level... Everything about it is off Sean.

BTW, my truck IS 2wd and lowered, as was the original purchasers. Weld-in brackets? Is that what the scraps of metal in the pictures are for? Maybe that's how you get the center plate level -- weld in the brackets to accomodate the poor quality...

Frankly, Sean, after receiving this part at the quality it is and seeing how you've dealt with the problems, I wouldn't accept another cross member from Speed Engineering and neither will the original purchaser -- he already made other arrangements and I can't say I blame him. What you should do in this situation is take the crap part back and refund his money -- it's the honorable thing to do since you admit fault in the manufacturing.

This is getting ridiculous now. The crossmember you have “the one in the picture” is not the correct crossmember for that specific crossmember we sent out. I dont know how many times i have to tell you that. So yes the angles and center mount location are completely different then the one you have. It's not designed for your truck..

Plus those “Scraps of metal” are not even for the crossmember they are for the frame. They weld in the i hole locations that get cut when installing this crossmember. It strengthens the frame for security. Those little slices you pointed arrows at will be welded over if your worried about the looks of those cuts.

Yes, these do look like crap. That is why we stopped buying them from that fab shop. However functionality wise they work just fine. There is nothing else that needs to be said. We will completely fix any fitment issues associated with this crossmember and its original purpose. But, as i stated before even if it is fixed it still wont fit your truck. Its not designed for your crossmember.

Forget about what truck the crossmember is for. 2wd, 4wd, awd, lowered. lifted.... it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that this crossmember is of horrible quality, and you agreed. Period. You know the fab shop put out crappy work because you stopped buying from them. The part does not need to be 'fixed' because it isn't broken. Its defective, or faulty, or wrong, but not broken. Since its a brand new part (special order or not), it should have been replaced with a quality part. Then if it doesn't fit his specific truck, thats his issue.

This is getting ridiculous now.

umm, 'getting ridiculous'? Are you kidding? It's been ridiculous for a while now...

The crossmember you have “the one in the picture” is not the correct crossmember for that specific crossmember we sent out. I dont know how many times i have to tell you that.

So what you're saying is this: it doesn't matter where the transmission sits in the trucks, we need to match up to some crossmember? The center hole for the mount is in the same place from side to side... all of the GM cross members for these trucks are 30 inches. All of the center holes are at 14.xx. There isn't a GM truck alive where the engine and transmission are mounted an additional 2 inches towards the driver's side. Given that this crossmember is exactly 30 inches, and ignoring the rest of the botched work for the moment, explain to me how this crossmember can be made to support an 80E with the tranny mount hanging off one side of the mounting plate?

I have no clue what you are getting at here, besides the weird thing that you 80E conversion cross member for lowered, 2WD trucks won't work in my lowered, 2WD truck with an 80E, nor the original purchasers 2WD, lowered truck with an 80E. Why did you sell it to him then?


So yes the angles and center mount location are completely different then the one you have. It's not designed for your truck..

So what is it for? A ford?? Maybe we should just start there. You sold it to a customer with a 2WD NBS chevy. I happen to have access to a 2WD GM crossmember from the same year truck for mockups. Care to guess which cross member it matches?

Seriously, though, how many parts do you see in my sig that were designed for my specific truck? They are on my truck because they are of excellent quality, unlike this piece of complete garbage from Speed Engineering. That, my friend, is the simple truth of the matter.

And you are wrong: this crossmember *IS NOT FUNCTIONALLY SOUND* as a crossmember and every 8th grader in shop class knows why.

As Tex said: this doesn't need fixing, and you know it.

Everybody, please refrain from the extra comments so this can be settled between Speed Engineering and Turboberserker. This thread has nothing to do nor was started to deal with flexplates. I agree the quality of the part is lacking and the shop that did it should ultimatly be responsible, but that is between Speed and them. The replacement issue is between Turboberserker and Speed Eng.

If it does not fit the original crossmember location we had is designed it for like i said we will correct it with no expense to you. If the whole crossmember needs to be rebuilt thats fine also we will still stand by our word. I am not going to keep bickering with you any more, take it or leave it.

Sean

Thank you GREGGO i really appreciate that.

Sean

If it does not fit the original crossmember location we had is designed it for like i said we will correct it with no expense to you. If the whole crossmember needs to be rebuilt thats fine also we will still stand by our word. I am not going to keep bickering with you any more, take it or leave it.

Sean


So you will respond to my email with an RMA and a shipping label? I expect a complete replacement with a structurally sound, correctly setup cross member.

We never even received an email from you for one. But, yes it will be corrected like i said several messages ago. It will not fit your style crossmember or truck for that matter as i am sure you know.

Sean

Strange that you got my other emails, but no matter, I've pm'd you my email address and again requested the RMA / Shipping labels sent to me.

Since this is a public forum about feedback on sponsors, I see no reason I wouldn't be able to ask if this has been fixed? I wanna give everyone a fair shot here, so if it has been fixed it may help repair some damage this thread may have caused. If you want to say he sold a poor quality product to you, fine that's obvious but I wanna hear how his customer service was after the incident. Anything???

I PM'd him last week. I haven't heard anything back yet.

Sean

Yes guys -- I heard from Sean over the weekend. The delays at this point are on me.

I've seen what looks like alot of backpedaling in this thread. I agree a second hand anything isnt the responcibility of the selling company in MOST cases. In a case like this though with such poor quality and craftsmanship I believe it is Speed's duty to make it right. I have had issues before with companies passing the buck to there suppliers or contractors. In the end it doesnt matter if the supplier or contractor screwed up, you are the final say in the quality that goes out your door. I did customer service for a company that built custom enteriors for $50M-$200M personal jets, and if one of our suppliers sent us something that was below quality standards we let them know and it never left our shop. Selling a quality product gets business, good customer service keeps it.

I'm curious as most people are what the outcome here will be. Hopefully all will go well. Word of mouth can make or break any business.

Sean took care of this for me back in mid February (again the delay was my fault, not his). In the end it was more cost effective for Sean to just refund the price than to bother with shipping it back and forth and paying his guys to rebuild it, so that's what we did.

I'm glad to hear that one way or another it was resolved... that was heading down a bad road.