Let me add my honest opinion on everything in this thread. I feel bad because I recommended this guy to Ahmad and I still think hes a really nice guy and really sounds like he knows what hes doing, but looking at the pictures im just shocked to say the least.

I do remember that while he was building the engine and before he honed the block, he made me put the piston and rod into the cylinder and it was already "loosely fit". Ahmad says the pistons are larger but they had 5 thou clearance with an un-honed stock block. Maybe it has something to do with the expansion and contraction rate of forged pistons vs the stock cast pistons, I dont know im just saying what happened.

Ahmad asked a few engine builders in the US and they all said that the cylinder has to be honed so ahmad literally forced Dean to hone the block. I say "Forced" because Dean told me on several occaisons that he does NOT and will not hone the block because there is already 5 thou clearance, said hed like to have it at 4 thou if possible but that required a different piston. Also the reason he didnt want to hone the block is because he said the cylinders were very smooth and had VERY fine scratches that didnt need any honing. Diamond pistons recommended piston to wall clearance for this specific piston is 4 to 5 thou.

The rest of the carnage I cannot justify unfortunately and looks even worse in the pictures than what Ahmad explained to me on the phone.

Take into consideration I know very little about engine building so I cannot comment much, just wanted to share a side to the story but I dont want to sound like im taking sides because im not, Ahmad is a close friend of mine and I hate to see him go through this ****.

 

from the pic of the " balanced piston " , it seems like the bulider didnt do a good job . every engine builder or any one reading about engine building knows that balancing a rotating is through adding or removing weight from the crankshaft counter weight, NOT from the pistons.

thats why I build my own motors , b/c if any thing goes bad , Im the only one to blame , and I learn from what I did wrong the previous time.

hope this end up good for Ahmed , hes a good guy .

 

little update here.. what happened made me motivated to start up all over again.. yeah i may lost a few bucks here and there.. but i did manage to sell my block , rods , crank and new bearings i had for 50% of the price of the new shortblock.. i got quoted around 5250... heres the box with the ati damper, front and rear covers, main studs , oil pump , timing chain and cam gear.. i just wanna close up the front cover.. getting a new cam as well that ill have specs on later when im sure of them.. heres the box leaving dubai

 

Really, Fedex in Dubai. I was expecting counters lined in gold and diamond covered floors.

 

guess what! the box arrived with nothing but the front timing cover! that sucks :/ i called fedex earlier and they said they have someone investigating that.. it was all in one box and the box has no significant tears anywhere... i have no idea whats happening they said if they have any updates they will notify the person who received the package.. all i can do now is wait can it get any worse? and calculate some more losses

 

I thought you were joking on facebook....that sucks!

 

Think maybe something happened when it went through customs?

Maybe they had to pop it open to inspect it.

 

It had to have been opened. Either someone forgot to put stuff back in the box, or someone stole it... Either way, it would have been obvious that something was amiss if there was so much stuff missing because stuff would have been loose inside after it was repacked. Ahmad...you should ask the guy who received it to take a picture of all of the packing that was in the box. Because if there is extra packing that you don't recognize, then its likely that someone swiped the stuff and packed it up again so it wouldn't be loose inside. But who really knows for sure...just a guess.

 

I'm telling you bro.. It's the damper, it looks like a ball bearing bomb... no wonders why it got confiscated... Oh, might been the transit country customs too!

 

Do they straight up confiscate stuff there? Don't verify it, just take it and that's it?