Working with SpeedOMotive was the worst decision Ive made to date.
I had them build my 360 to a 408, I purchased 95% of the engine parts from them which resulted in over
5k in the engine.
The
assembled shortblock they returned to me was
MISSING VITAL oil gallery plugs which resulted in excessive wear to the cylinder walls thus
destroying my 360 block.
But thats not the only mistake made by Speed-o-motive. Far from it. They also machined my deck too far to where the pistons popped up above the deck enough to be unsafe for use with the head gaskets and heads I bought from SpeedOMoitve. Luckily I found the problem and with Edelbrocks (my heads) advise I returned the shortblock where they machined all the pistons and rebalanced the rotating assembly.
They also installed the wrong main studs which made the oil pump / windage try impossible to install. So, again, I had to engine had to go back to get the studs machined and replaced under warranty (something I could have done but did not want to void the warranty).
Then we found that the flywheel I bought from them which was supposed to have been NEW; was BALANCED (drilled by other then Mcleod). 360s are externally balanced but my 408 parts were internally balanced. Installing that flywheel would have caused some serious problems if I had not found it.
All of these problems were found BY ME with research. So you know how much confidence I had in Speedomotive for me to have to CHECK OVER ALL THEIR WORK.
All these problems eventually led to them replacing the block (as stated earlier). They forgot two VITAL oil gallery plugs which wore the cylinder walls down. One is not visible from the outside and the other is visible from just the right angle if you have the manifold off. Unfortunately I did not have the knowledge to check for these plugs until it was too late.
The owner of SpeedOMotive fought me tooth and nail about it too. Even the guy who works for him and checked out the shortblock was on my side (somewhat, as much as he can be). Even knowing it was a workmanship problem and that the engine was STILL UNDER WARRENTY. He hung up on me over the phone and tried to make me leave when I drove 2 hours to discuss the engine (after check out). He finally agreed to replace the block after nearly breaking into tears, seriously
his lower lip was trembling and he had to leave the conversation!
So, he replaced the block and I built the whole engine. He
refused to return my old block and replace worn parts including $150 dollar piston rings, crank/cam bearings, freeze plugs, other small engine parts.
Since then I built the engine, ran her at Mopars at the Strip '08 (had a blast by the way) and even ran her on the dyno. She runs great and the power increased about 10% (no surprise since the
speedomotive build was self destructing).
I used forums to help with all the problems with the Speedomotive build. I posted ALL the concerns in detail in various threads through the years at another forum, if interested in reading these, PM me.
BTW: Im not the only one to have problems with SOM, since moving two Summers ago, Ive met/heard of two others with SOM engines and they BOTH are unhappy with them including a stroker big-block Charger guy who had a rear-main seal problem. His buddy is the other guy he told me about, he has some problem to but I forgot. It was a Chevy engine.
Here are some pictures Ive taken through all the problems and the pistons/rods from my 408 engine they returned to me after replacing my block in a very dirty box all just thrown in there (dings are on two of my pistons now). Hmmm I cant find that picture now but when I do
My dad calls them Crap-o-motive.
Another BTW: instead of painting my engine HEMI Orange like I requested it. The painted in
Chevrolet Red
