I waited over 6 months and never actually recieved my turnkey motor complete as promised from a builder by the name of XXX Name removed by admin XXX . He never did send the water pump or msd coil. I just picked it up from the muffler shop (trailered it there)to take my first test ride and it started spewing oil from either the rear of the oil pan or the rear main seal. The engine vibrates fairly hard when in nuetral and even worse while driving. I just went to the builders page and all of his numbers no longer are in service for his company. :mad: Does anyone else know of this builder from Oklahoma City. I am so discouraged i want to lay down and quit. Man i could have screwed up the motor myself and saved a $1,000 but thats why i payed a "professional". Is it possible that it is just as simple as a bad flywheel? I just installed an Art Carr 200r4 at the same time but it came with testing data from builder and to the best of my knowledge Art has a tight product. Can anyone please offer some insight or a place to start looking for potential problems. It sure seems like a balance issue but i don't know enough to really tell.

[ 04-17-2003, 07:10 PM: Message edited by: DjD ]

Start by snugging up all of the pan bolts. Hopefully it's the pan gasket leaking and not the rear main seal. Make sure there is a gasket in the oil filter. Then check to make sure you have the firing order wired properly. A mixed pair of plug wires could mimic/cause a bad vibration.

I'll give it a try the oil was pouring out i lost about 1/2 a quart in less than 5 miles. You know i just noticed that the new flywheel has weights on it and my old 350 doesn't have any is it possible they shipped the wrong flywheel? Does a 383 use a 400 or 350 flywheel? Is there a difference?

d, (Name ???????)
A 383 normally uses a 400 flywheel with the weight. if the engine is vibrating as bad as you "say" you need to stop running it and find someone who can fix it before you do major damage. Are you sure it is a "vibration" and not a missfire or carburetor problem ??
As far as the oil leak goes, its impossible to tell without looking at it. Any good mechanic should be able to put the car on a lift andfigure out where the oil is coming from.
If you do decide to find a new engine builder in your area...try this web site www.enginepro.com (http://www.enginepro.com) Go to the EnginePro site and find a warehouse near you. Call them and ask them to recommend one of thier machine shop customers to you.

Hope this helps,

The flywheels are definitely different depending on how the engine was balanced. Most 383's use an externally balanced 400 flywheel and balancer. A 350 does not. However, some 400 cranks are internally balanced and to complicate it further some use a normal 350 balancer but a 400 flexplate/flywheel. It all depends on the design of the crank and how it was balanced.

In GENERAL, the 383's use an externally balanced balancer and flywheel/flexplate and 350's do not. Mixing them up creates a BIG vibration and if they're wrong you should NOT drive the car or run the engine as it will tear it up.

Jody

I was about to post the same as Bill and Jody about the 383's ballanced flexplate. You can get cranks made for stroking a sbc that are internal ballanced. I think it's important to eliminate any tuning issues and find out where it's leaking before droping the blame on the builder.

That is a lot of oil to loose through the pan gasket or seal, you might check your fitting next to the distributor where the oil sending unit screws into the block. If the oil gauge line got damaged, or someone forgot to tighten it up, you would loose a lot of oil in a hurry from there. Or get a mechanic to look at it, a leak that big would be easy to spot.

To check the engine vibration, you can unbolt the torque convertor and push it back from the flywheel and remove the fan belts annd start the engine for a few seconds. If it still vibarates, then you know it is the engine itself. It is pretty unlikely in most cases that the internal engine parts would be so far out that it would make the engine shake as hard as you say. So I would first suspect the flywheel and/or balancer not correct for your motor. Did you purchase those seperate or did the engine come with them?

But, in a worst case, if the builder used a new aftermarket crank and did not balance the rotating assembly, it could mean tearing the engine back down to balance. We have run into some NEW aftermarket cranks that are waaayyyyy out of balance.

I wouldnt automatcaly blame the engine and pull it out blindly,check everything first. I had a customer a while back that rebuilt his engine because it suddenly started to viberate. We checked everything and balanced it. After he got it back in, he came back all mad at us and said we screwed him and didnt balance his motor. I went out and checked it and found that his fan clutch bearing had seized and hub had shifted about an 1/8 of and inch and the fan assembly was shaking the whole car. He rebuilt the engine, when all he needed in the first place was a fan clutch.
Good luck

[ 04-17-2003, 08:20 PM: Message edited by: kamero68 ]

Or it might be something easy like the flex plate is rotated off it's locating dowel if the dowel is not in the crank to make sure it is located right!

Hope it's that simple...

And I have to admit that I never put 2 and 2 together with respect to realizing that the flex plate still has to locate at the dowel hole even without the dowel until somebody mentioned it here... pdq67

Thanks for all of the input guys I will copy this and bring it to the mechanic in the morning. Admin. I am sorry for bashing the builder but i genuinely wanted to know if anyone was aware of him so that I may locate him to discuss warranty issues. I appologize for any violation of the rules and truly appreciate the forum, I just felt helpless and thought somebody might recognize the name. I hope it is something simple I will let everyone know what we find in the morning. Kamero the rotating assembly was a complete aftermarket package or was represented to be, and the balancer and flywheel were part of the turnkey product. I am pretty sure its the builder's fault if a turnkey motor is spewing oil but i have been wrong before and i hope it is simply a loose part, I am probablly to blame for misunderstanding what exactly was meant by turnkey.

Update on locating builder. I have found a good phone number for him (3rd time it has changed while I have been dealing with him) and he seems to want to work with me. I am off to the mechanic to follow up on all of the advice offered here.
Thanks,
- Dave

See builder sends wrong rotating assembly thread. I wasn't a simple fix guys but i still really need your help.

Lets stay on one page with this... follow this link.

http://www.camaros.net/forum/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=006740