Auto Rodz Performance and Machining

Dan Smith

★☆☆☆☆

8 months ago

I had an engine built here and ended up tearing it down because I noticed drag when turning the engine over with a breaker bar at a certain point. What I found was one of the cam lobes was touching an adjacent lifter. I did supply the cam but this should not have been missed during assembly and inspection. I ended up taking the heads and oil pan off to get a good look at the work that was done. That's when things got really interesting. Cory couldn't properly balance my new $800 crankshaft and pretty much ruined it. One counter balance throws looks like Swiss cheese, another one looks like Stevie Wonder welded the slugs in. He also ground off material from the flex plate mounting area on the output of the crank directly on top of one of the flex plate mounting holes jeopardizing the integrity of the crank. Weight was also added to my crank balancer on an internally balanced crankshaft. For some reason this was balanced both internally and externally by adding and removing weight from the crank counter weights, balancer, and rear crank flange. Virtually no prep work was done. Dirt and grime everywhere inside the motor, deck surface was never cleaned, intake was not properly sealed. Cylinders were never touched when I was told he would hone them. Couple of the cylinders have scratches deep enough to feel with your fingernail. I was told the cylinders were fine and he would just touch them up with a good hone. He had me buy new pistons but instead of telling me it needs bored the next size up and get the appropriate sized pistons I was told to just go ahead and get the same size pistons it had before. Whether those scratches were there before or were a result of improper assembly, it should have been bored over with matching piston size instead of being thrown together with no regard to quality of build whatsoever. The list goes on and on. He took my money and sent me down the road. Not getting what you paid for is bad enough but the fact my crank was also ruined is just plain negligent at best. I tried reaching out to him about this but it's radio silence on his end. I spent over $3000 with him plus the $800 crank he trashed only to be worse off than when I started. I really can't understand how this was allowed to leave the shop with his name on it and be considered anywhere near acceptable.

Kyle Koltes

★★★★★

3 months ago

I had a 3.8 Grand National engine built by Cory. I waited about a year to install the engine but when I got it running I had an issue with the engine. Cory told me to pull the engine and bring it to him without opening it up. He repaired the issue free of charge. I was happy that he stood behind his work and the engine has been running strong ever since.

Jeremy Polzin

★★★★★

3 months ago

Corey is a great guy and stands behind his work. He's built quite a few engines for me, and quite a few for friends of mine. Always helpful.