West Michigan members - stay away from NAPA, blown engines galore Options

[scothaniel]

Either I have the worst luck with motors, or I've trusted the wrong machine shop. Over the past 3 years, I've pulled the motors out of both Celica's 6 times. The good news is that I can pull a FWD 3S in less then 4 hours!

So here's the long story - engine #1 taken to NAPA in Grand Rapids 'cause I heard on the MR2 forums that they've done a few 3SGTE's and thier prices are pretty cheap. I had them build my 2nd gen block with .040 pistons, shot-peened rods, new bearings, etc. Got the motor back , assembled and installed it. Right from the start things weren't quite right, but since I was doing a hybrid setup with an EMS that was new to me, I couldn't really pinpoint the problem.

In the meantime I started on motor #2, in which I had NAPA install stock ST185 pistons and new bearings into a 3rd gen 3SGE, and "clean up" the head (aka clean and check all the valves, clearances, etc). Got it back, had to wait on other parts before installing so it sat for a month or 2.

So, back to engine #1... After months of fighting with it, I pulled the motor to fix a small oll leak at the head and found the crank was loose - it had walked on me. Took it to NAPA and they blamed the ClutchMasters clutch. After asking around the MR2 board, I found that I am one of 5 or so people who have has thier crank walk - and none of us are using the same clutch. Bad luck I thought, so motor one was put on hold.

Engine #2 was all ready to go in, so I installed it and fired it up. After 5 rotations or so, a vavle stuck and snapped my exhaust cam in half, trashing the gear and timing belt in the process. This is the head NAPA "cleaned up".

Found another motor, bought it, swapped the head over with a new belt and head gasket. Had it running for around 40 minutes or so.. then it seized. I'm not 100% certain, but it looks like a piston ring unseated and got stock. Had some really bad oil-smoke before it died too. The oil was really watery, and the coolant had a little oil in it, so possibly a cracked head. I'll know more once I get the motor apart.

So, 2 NAPA worked blocks and a NAPA worked head have failed. Still could be a fluke, but I'm not taking any more chances. And for anyone in the area, beware. I'm stepping up to a true performance shop now: C-Techhttp://c-techperformance.com