Please advise some help with obtaining my motor. I vented too beware

[MIGOAT]

It's rather long sorry.

Ok about 3 yrs ago I bought my 468 shortblock on Ebay from Outlaw Racing Engines, I wanted to buy this motor b.c I thought if I rebuilt and restored my original 400 I might sell it later. After a small debate I heard how good this guy was and he is definatly knowledgable with pontiacs I decided to let him build it turn key.

I bought 72cc E heads and the guy said the 87cc heads would be much better (so I put the 72cc on my 65 gto) I told him I would buy his 87cc and they would be fully ported flowing over 330cfm or so. then I sent him a Edel. perf. RPM for him to port and a Carb. again he said no that carb won't be good pay a little more he would switch them out ok money sent. Now I admit I didn';t just send him 10k in a day and say build it but >3k motor +2800 heads 1500 parts cam timing and stuff. prob. around 1yr and a helf because he was delaying the build b/c I wasn't in line yet. ok so then I sent him 3k to finish the stuff wires, electric h20, etc now I'm on yr. 3 he has had some setbacks and some people have been in line I guess with me for yrs. my debate is I was to have this motor several times I missed out on so many events because I had been driving my never molested fully stock 400 with oh wait not stock I had flowmasters. engine around to events and shows and I never raise the hood because it's nasty. anyways what should I do. I mean 3 yrs is a long time. Now for my inner feelings . I work a very dangerous part of NC as a Police Officer and SWAT member. This yr has made me realize life is short and you never know what can happen. I've been assaulted by a stolen MV. two car accidents wrecked by Illegal Alien, Some A hole spit in my face (he was lucky) Ive been in a deadly shooting situation several high risk warrants, standoffs a bunch of stuff. I will write a book one day. I'm not looking for pitty so don't go there :nopity: I'm a soldier. I'm too involved in major crap to go and stir stuff up when I'm off work. Especially a motor but what am I to do now. I'm tired of telling ppl yeah I got a motor I'm putting in but I have no Idea when. it's embarrassing. Not to mention I keep seeing this guy building motors for magazines. Any advice would be great. I have tried getting someone to go by his shop but thats kinda odd asking that and I just don't have the money to get a plane ticket to see whats going on out there plus a hotel.

Sorry for the long post and me going off. I guess sometimes it's good to vent and ask others what should I do.

Thank you for reading the post.

[David Sloan]

As a business owner i would like to say that i would want any of my Customer's to come to me with any of there problems 1st.
My thoughts are we are all human an can make mistakes so lets fix them, an make it right.
Give him the opt. to make it right. (But be persistence) Now!

Now i also know that there is 2 sides to every story as well an it is easy to only see my side or your side in this case. So i don't know what all has transpired in this 3 years between you an him that made it drag out for this long.
Put your self in his shoes to see if there is something you might be forgetting that could help to resolve this.

As a person that buys parts an motors an so on i would be having a fit after three years, to build a motor!
unless it had something to do with me or the time to get the money to finish it.
Just my 2 cents Hope this helps!

PS Thank you for your service!

[shmoov69]

Well, I'd tell him how you feel, if you haven't already. Then tell him that you are picking it up by or on the 15th of next month. Period. If it is not done by then, you are picking up ALL the items you have bought and paid for and he will just have to deal with the bad reputation.
But give him a chance to get it right first.

[MIGOAT]

Yeah theres more but i wanted to leave some of it out. On pontiac zone and hardorepontiacs they slammed this guy for never doing proper business tactics and etiquate. A couple of guys there tod me how it got into some money issues and has had to move his shop 3 times in three yrs. I really don't know ahat he's doing. I an tell you this 1) Ive been extremly nice about it, never used my typical bad cursing or threats of suing anythng like that. 2) sent an email for ultimatum on th build and he responded he had just been busy an it will be worth the wait. I asked him about what other were saying about him when I heard of some gambling issues and all . I trust him in some ways but not all. Hell I don't want to bring a ton of attention to him if he's trying to get his stuff straight and getting some ads in the mags. You see his name slammed on some of the forums and then you see him in many magazines building some nice engines. check out Outlaw racing engines in upland Ca. or do a search of Andy Mitchell engine builder he was in poppular hotrodding recently and he had a article on engine labor in the same mag.
Anyways you know how these forums work there a little truth to everything so if there are a bunch of unhappy customers and they talk on the forums they b.s too. I just don't know if I'm suppose to believe him or what. However I do know he has had some family issues at home and I have tried to just wait it out as I hope he will call as he is back in his shop.

I guess I'm going to just as for my parts shipped and have someone here do it. Sucks I use to make good money as a security contractor for the gov't and now I make about 43% less.
Sorry this post kinda jumps around i kept searching some things in my cpu about this. Thanks for the advice

[Scott Parkhurst]

I've always dealt with Butler on Pontiacs and have never, ever been let down. Great folks over there who stand behind their stuff.

Sorry to hear you are having a bad experience.

See who wins races and holds world records before dealing with an engine shop. You don't win all that stuff if you suck.

[MIGOAT]

Yeah I know of them I hear good things. They know Andy he use to work with Butler I believe thats where he started. it could have ben Bruce Fulper. I'm not sure

[Steve1968LS2]

I've worked with Andy and always found him to be a stand up guy.. sorry you're having this trouble. I remember him moving his shop (to a larger location) and I know there have been some family/health issues.

Have you been able to get ahold of him? If so then you need to stress that you need a DONE engine pronto.

[MIGOAT]

He called me after I was trying to get someone to go by there to weeks ago and he gave me the new address but my guy couldn't make it over there. Last thing he said was a guy named Tim was working on it. And thats kinda odd if Tim is my engine builder now but I'm over that if it's right. Yeah he's been alright with me his business ethics are terrible thats all he's got too much going on to run a business, the wife's health and crew chief.

I'm sending him the options of finish the motor by July 15th and additional time wil be allotted for Dyno time or just send me my money back by July 15 . or court ( would suck) superior ct at that..

[buickfunnycar.com]

Not to beat a dead horse but sending all or most of the money upfront with nothing to show for it ain't good,where's his incentive to complete your motor...where's the carrot for him?There ain't one...but that's water under the bridge now.

Right now it's just another story he's feeding you,that's how you have to look at it when your money is gone and you have no engine...I'm not saying that's the case here but my advice...trust no one.

If this deadline is missed and another "story" follows,then it's time to ramp up your attack.

Good luck to you...

[Scott Parkhurst]

Aww man..I know Andy and Tim too. Both have been good to me. Sorry to hear this man...

[MIGOAT]

The carrot is reputation and integrity. What ever happened to the honest Abe and hardworking American?


Man I don't know? well I just hope he gets my point now. Court would be such a drag I just don't want others to go through what I'm going through and he still gets his articles in the mags. I'm pissed right now so I don't want to come off bashing him because he said he was going to get it done so if he does I don't want to burn my bridge or come off as a major ass.

I told him I would be sharing my build pics, this and that track days blah blah I figured it was good people share their builds and who did them and all hell I've never had something so nice I want to show ot off. then beat on it. talking about the motor guys.

Scott you wanna build it? lol

[buickfunnycar.com]

...but if I were in your shoes at this point,I wouldn't accept any further excuses,good reputation or not.

Trust no one until your stuff is at your doorstep...

[BossaNova]

[QUOTE=MIGOAT;689546]The carrot is reputation and integrity. What ever happened to the honest Abe and hardworking American?

Very well spoken!

[trapin]

Next time, build the engine yourself. Seriously these things are not that hard. You get ahold of the torque specs, a torque wrench and you're golden. Farm out the machine work to a local shop (hot tanking, boring, honing, piston/rod assembly). Believe me it's not rocket science. I've built numerous small blocks for my friends when I was a kid.....a KID. I was 12 years old when I built my first engine.

All told if he had all the parts it should only take a day to build an engine. The fact that it's taken 3 years is only due to the fact that he is a horses ass.

Go get your stuff and finish it yourself. You can do it. :)

[southernfriedcj]

Go over there and treat him like a King. Rodney King.

[MIGOAT]

Well ? after i sent an email telling him his deadline was july 15th or court. he text me saying he was going to call me on TH. well i replied read you email it's very important. HE said I read your email I will reply this weekend have a good 4th ok ok so well see mean while? spelling seems odd on that word . My sister in law is a corp. lawyer and she had me send every email and receipt I have to her and she was having a meeting tues to go over some options. Hopefully he will get on this.

[Mr.VENGEANCE]

Go over there and treat him like a King. Rodney King.

spoken like a true redneck... ahahah

[ed1le]

Old thread I know but found this doing a google search. Talking to Andy Mitchell about a set of used AFR heads but when I did a google search on him, found a lot of negative stuff about him on the Pontiac forums from 2009 & 2010...curious if there are any updates as I still read about him & Outlaw Racing often in the magazines. He has some ads on RacingJunk but only takes bankwire or WesternUnion, no PayPal which I found curious....

[TheJDMan]

Only accepting bank wire transfer or Western Union is a huge red flag. WU is a preferred payment method of scammers and con artists because the payment cannot be cancled or traced. I would love to hear the outcome of this.

[ed1le]

Yeah, that was one of the reasons I started doing some digging...you can WU using a credit card and dispute a charge w/ a cc if needed but thinking it isn't worth the hassle.

[LeighP]

There are other Pontiac guys out there with good reps...no need to risk your money.

[SparkyRnD]

I always say if someone has a less than stellar reputation, to me, it's worth it to go elsewhere. I don't feel the need to 'give someone a shot' to do the right thing. I'd rather spend my hard earned money with something that keeps proving time and again that they can be trusted with my coins. The blessing of the internet is that you can easily find out information about who you want to hire, and people should use that to their advantage. If a business takes a method of payment that can't be disputed or retracted, then that company won't get my money, as it says there is a great possibility that I might not get what I paid for.

And, if there is a business that takes more than 3 years to build something as simple as an engine, I would not only dispute it, I would be taking them to court over it.