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 I have long been a little leery about buying a mail-order motor unless
it's factory stock and the intent is to use it as a basis for greater
things. After some close friends had bought engine kits of substantially
less-than-stellar quality from a large, well-known discount mail-order
company, I became even more leery. This was all in the back of my mind
when my 140,000 mile 5.0 started using oil at the rate of a quart for
about every 10 runs on the chassis dyno. It was clear that, as a test
vehicle, this machine's days were done.
With a backlog of several pairs of heads, half a dozen cams and three or
four manifolds to test, I needed a rebuilt bottom end fast. To be honest,
with a stack of articles to get out,! did not welcome the prospect of
pulling and stripping the motor, getting all the reusable parts (such as
the block, crank and rods) cleaned and hunting down pistons, bearings etc.
Seeing my dilemma, Dale Sciranko at Custom Performance in Charlotte
suggested I get a DSS bottom end. His company has used a substantial
number of them and has found going the crate short-block route with a
company that builds reliability allows a fast turnaround. This greatly
helps when required to meet the needs of customers wanting the next best
thing to instant gratification. Of course, factors such as getting quality
end results in terms of performance and reliability figure heavily in the
equation. In Dales words, the deal is this: "They ship you a meticulously
cleaned block equipped with moly ringed, forged flat tops, a reground
crank, an ARP bolted and balanced rotating assembly, oil pump, and mains
girdle. All you need to do is install the cam and heads of your choice and
you are back in business."
Since Sciranko runs Custom Performance on a strict quality basis, I took
his recommendation seriously. In' fact it gave me an idea. Normally DSS
ships short-blocks in assembled form. But how about if I got one of its
short-blocks as a kit, checked every part for quality and accuracy and let
MM&FF readers know what they might expect of DSS? Assuming they went for
this deal, the intent was to have them ship the same day so there was not
time to supply a "special" that would skew results.
I called Tom Naegele at DSS and pitched the part of the plot he needed to
know to make a decision. I kept the "same day shipping" clause till last.
What I needed was a stout bottom end to test everything a hot street
fanatic might want to read about including nitrous, and Naegele was more
than happy to oblige. It was
then I said I needed it shipped right away. Naegele replied that this
might be a problem. Due to being in the middle of a shop move to a huge
new facility, they had run inventory low. A check revealed that what I
needed was not in stock but could be done in a few days. After explaining
why I wanted the motor kit right away, he assured me that they had no time
to do a special in the middle of a move and what I would get would be just
the same as all the other customers. Although disappointed, the full
intent of my original plan proving unworkable, I still decided to go
ahead. This was based mainly on the fact that I knew Sciranko at Custom
Performance would not knowingly touch substandard parts.
About 10 days later the motor kit from DSS arrived and the first thing
that impressed me was the meticulous packing involved. Right at that
moment I got the feeling I was going to like working on this DSS unit.
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