After building literary dozens of motors with BRC pistons, they've forever lost me as a customer. While mostly BBC and done some time ago, I'd never lost one before. And we were running some large doses of Nitrous. I'd always happy with them.
Until Now:
About a year ago I bought a set for my *big* motor, ie 4" bore 4.1L buick. I asked for a 45cc reverse dome. And stipulated it was NOT a Stage II motor.
What I received were Stage II type pistons so 2 had the wrong valve reliefs, and instead of a 45cc reverse dome, they were 35cc.
So instead of 7.5:1 CR, I wound up with 8.5.
They would not admit that they screwed up, even thou, I had a copy of the order sheet showing what I asked for was not what I got.
Well, I with no relief in sight I went ahead and used them.
I was just starting to build the tune, ie going very slowly, using low timing, and a WB. Being very careful as to not detonate the motor, or do any damge to it. From the intial fire up when cold it had a **slight**, and I mean slight rattle. Well, after several months of pains taking tuning, I made a 1 minute blast at about 15 PSI. EGTs not over 1,500, 11.8 AFR, and only 18d timing. And as I backed off the gas, it now had a rattle. BTW, had been also running a Scanmaster, and saw no indicated knock. Rather then risk any more damage, built up a temp engine, installed it and took the good motor apart. In tear down, I found one piston heavily galled, and the other 5 with small amounts. And yes the motor was set up with the proper piston to wall clearances as set by BRC. And it's not just galling on the trust and unloaded side, it's a full 360d. Either they had the expansion rates wrong, and thus the clearances wrong, or the metallergy was way off. Either way there's no excuse for trashing $600 worth of pistons, not to mention they weren't right from the on set.
Needless to say, I'm more then just annoyed.
Make that really annoyed.
Until Now:
About a year ago I bought a set for my *big* motor, ie 4" bore 4.1L buick. I asked for a 45cc reverse dome. And stipulated it was NOT a Stage II motor.
What I received were Stage II type pistons so 2 had the wrong valve reliefs, and instead of a 45cc reverse dome, they were 35cc.
So instead of 7.5:1 CR, I wound up with 8.5.
They would not admit that they screwed up, even thou, I had a copy of the order sheet showing what I asked for was not what I got.
Well, I with no relief in sight I went ahead and used them.
I was just starting to build the tune, ie going very slowly, using low timing, and a WB. Being very careful as to not detonate the motor, or do any damge to it. From the intial fire up when cold it had a **slight**, and I mean slight rattle. Well, after several months of pains taking tuning, I made a 1 minute blast at about 15 PSI. EGTs not over 1,500, 11.8 AFR, and only 18d timing. And as I backed off the gas, it now had a rattle. BTW, had been also running a Scanmaster, and saw no indicated knock. Rather then risk any more damage, built up a temp engine, installed it and took the good motor apart. In tear down, I found one piston heavily galled, and the other 5 with small amounts. And yes the motor was set up with the proper piston to wall clearances as set by BRC. And it's not just galling on the trust and unloaded side, it's a full 360d. Either they had the expansion rates wrong, and thus the clearances wrong, or the metallergy was way off. Either way there's no excuse for trashing $600 worth of pistons, not to mention they weren't right from the on set.
Needless to say, I'm more then just annoyed.
Make that really annoyed.
