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Hughes Engines is ripping people off (again)

MoparPat2

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Location
Walton, KY
You are wasting your time and money by dealing with Hughes Engines. I paid them $5,862.13 to rebuild my numbers matching 440 in my Coronet R/T. They claimed that it made 525 HP. It dynoed at 287 HP on a G-Tech and ran 15.4 in the quarter mile, .2 slower than the stock engine that had 104,000 miles on it.

The engine used a quart of oil every 100 miles since start up. The intake gasket blew at 450 miles and I found that the center two passenger side intake bolts were finger loose. Then a valve seized up at 2,000 miles and the oil pump failed at 3,100 miles.

I then pulled and took the engine to Gary Stanton Racing to be disassembled, examined, measured and inspected and found that the cylinder bores were out of round by .0035 and were bored .043 over when .030 over pistons were used. This caused oiling of the plugs which made the already limping engine run worse. A valve had seized up in the open position because they machined the valve guides too small on the ID and then hammered them into the heads. When the valve seized in the open position, the piston came up and smacked the valve back into it's seat and bent it. Then when the cam turned and tried to push the push rod to lift the valve, the push rod bent and fell into the lifter valley because the valve was bent and seized and didn't move.

In typical fashion, Dave Hughes said that this was all my fault and he wasn't going to back any of the poor machine work and assembly that he claimed was done by a disgruntled employee that he had to fire two weeks after building my engine.

It was all my fault because I started the engine. If I had never started the engine, I would not have had any of these problems.

"Heads you lose" when dealing with Hughes Engines, his "Heads you win" slogan is a joke. Poor quality, poor attitude, insulting and nasty toward cash paying customers and non-existant customer service. Once they get your money, you are done.

$5,862.13 for 3,100 miles? And they destroyed my numbers matching engine to the tune of costing another $5,500 to get it fixed and I had to go .060 over with new pistons to save the block. The heads were destroyed because he over ported them and he machined away the choke area above the valves completely and this is very important to scavenging the air into and out of cylinders.

I would really hate to see them rip off any of you guys so stay away. And before he tries to discredit me, let it be known that I am a senior design engineer at Holley Performance. He talked to me like I was an idiot and would not even reply to emails. When I called him, he talked to me like I was the dumbest SOB on the planet for 10 seconds and then hung up on me!

DO NOT SPEND MONEY WITH THESE CLOWNS, you will regret it believe me.
 
sounds terrible. i never let anybody assemble my engines and measure everything after it returns from the machine shop. i'm not a trusting soul and get sick of being b.s.'ed by the machine shop people. its all about money,... your money.
 
I know a guy who wanted to get a 440 machined for his 500 c.i. stroker for his Superbird and.....well we told him to take it to Chenowith speed and machine but he went with Hughes and had nothin but problems. First they told him that his STANDARD bore 70h.p. block was too thin to bore???.. So of course they sold him a block when he got it home they had left some of the old freeze plugs rolling around in the water jackets. He took it back and they took care of it. He also had a number of other problems before he tried to put it together. Once he assembled the motor and fired it up about halfway through breaking in the cam the motor started to make some noise. Shut it down let it sit for 20 mins. or so, fired it back up and it was really loud. Took the valve covers off and ......yuck two lifters had jumped completely out of the bores, it had seized up 4 rocker arms. Upon further inspection it had spun every cam bearing in it. This was not caused by anything in the assembly of the motor. Hughes i do believe is giving him the run around and we will see what the final outcome is.
 
no offence mopat2; but if you had done your homework first you would never of been there. cheapest is not always the way to go. do your homework and this wouldn't of happened. sorry that it happened, BUT.
 
I hate to read **** like this:angry9: Mistakes are made by the best of them,but to not man up and do the right thing is just plain WRONG!!It like an engine builder telling you 8 weeks and then it takes 28 weeks:kermit:
 
... wasn't going to back any of the poor machine work and assembly that he claimed was done by a disgruntled employee that he had to fire two weeks after building my engine.

this is the most unbelievable part! for the kind of money and records you kept is seems like you could have a lawyer send him a threatening letter and maybe recover some money?
 
What made you go there?
 
ok

I hate to read **** like this:angry9: Mistakes are made by the best of them,but to not man up and do the right thing is just plain WRONG!!It like an engine builder telling you 8 weeks and then it takes 28 weeks:kermit:


Touche X2
 
I hate to read **** like this:angry9: Mistakes are made by the best of them,but to not man up and do the right thing is just plain WRONG!!It like an engine builder telling you 8 weeks and then it takes 28 weeks:kermit:
Well, I'm guilty of that at times. I have a T/A 340 engine here but the guy's car is a long ways from being ready for it so I haven't been in any hurry to get it together. All the machine work on the block, pistons, rods and crank are done tho....just gotta order bearings and rings and I can start on assembly. The 4 words you should NEVER say to a machinist is "I'm in no hurry" lol
 
You know cranky; i agree with that statement, no hurry. but if you had of asked before going in, how long?, then you wouldn't be so excited.
 
You are wasting your time and money by dealing with Hughes Engines. I paid them $5,862.13 to rebuild my numbers matching 440 in my Coronet R/T. They claimed that it made 525 HP. It dynoed at 287 HP on a G-Tech and ran 15.4 in the quarter mile, .2 slower than the stock engine that had 104,000 miles on it.

The engine used a quart of oil every 100 miles since start up. The intake gasket blew at 450 miles and I found that the center two passenger side intake bolts were finger loose. Then a valve seized up at 2,000 miles and the oil pump failed at 3,100 miles.

I then pulled and took the engine to Gary Stanton Racing to be disassembled, examined, measured and inspected and found that the cylinder bores were out of round by .0035 and were bored .043 over when .030 over pistons were used. This caused oiling of the plugs which made the already limping engine run worse. A valve had seized up in the open position because they machined the valve guides too small on the ID and then hammered them into the heads. When the valve seized in the open position, the piston came up and smacked the valve back into it's seat and bent it. Then when the cam turned and tried to push the push rod to lift the valve, the push rod bent and fell into the lifter valley because the valve was bent and seized and didn't move.

In typical fashion, Dave Hughes said that this was all my fault and he wasn't going to back any of the poor machine work and assembly that he claimed was done by a disgruntled employee that he had to fire two weeks after building my engine.

It was all my fault because I started the engine. If I had never started the engine, I would not have had any of these problems.

"Heads you lose" when dealing with Hughes Engines, his "Heads you win" slogan is a joke. Poor quality, poor attitude, insulting and nasty toward cash paying customers and non-existant customer service. Once they get your money, you are done.

$5,862.13 for 3,100 miles? And they destroyed my numbers matching engine to the tune of costing another $5,500 to get it fixed and I had to go .060 over with new pistons to save the block. The heads were destroyed because he over ported them and he machined away the choke area above the valves completely and this is very important to scavenging the air into and out of cylinders.

I would really hate to see them rip off any of you guys so stay away. And before he tries to discredit me, let it be known that I am a senior design engineer at Holley Performance. He talked to me like I was an idiot and would not even reply to emails. When I called him, he talked to me like I was the dumbest SOB on the planet for 10 seconds and then hung up on me!

DO NOT SPEND MONEY WITH THESE CLOWNS, you will regret it believe me.

moparpat you need to hit the welcome wagon before this rant!
need to know more about you and your ride.:argue:
 
You know cranky; i agree with that statement, no hurry. but if you had of asked before going in, how long?, then you wouldn't be so excited.
Most machine shops know 'about' how long it'll take based on 'normal' circumstances. It's the surprises that throws a wrench into the wheel. A buddy of mine collected parts for a build and I tried to get him to get started on some of the machine work while waiting for non crucial parts but he figured he would wait until everything was in. Well, when he finally decided to get started, time was getting short for an up coming race and the block needed align bored and the shop that did that bored all the mains .003" out of round! Well, back to the shop and well, we barely made the race by the time all the other machining bugs were worked out and by then, we were dragging *** but the one thing that didn't get checked was piston to head clearance. He thought I did it and I thought he did it. He threw the heads on while I was doing some machine work to make the valve covers fit and that topic never came up. It was only .019 but it ran a 10.0 right off the trailer and he put 3 passes on it that way....but when he went for the funny gas button, it blew out a cylinder. Found the problem when it got torn down.
 
Why cant you take him to court? He said he had to fire the guy and its your fault because you started the engine! Ah, what am i missing here, If i had one of you build me a engine i cant start it! A numbers matching engine messed up by a guy who does this for a living because of his hired help, That engine should have been checked out there, including dyno-ed for the HP/TQ so you know what you payed for.. i would think you would win.
 
Crap, I just bought a set of roller rockers from them. I hope they machined them right!:eek:
 
Why cant you take him to court? He said he had to fire the guy and its your fault because you started the engine! Ah, what am i missing here, If i had one of you build me a engine i cant start it! A numbers matching engine messed up by a guy who does this for a living because of his hired help, That engine should have been checked out there, including dyno-ed for the HP/TQ so you know what you payed for.. i would think you would win.

Welcome OBTW. I live in Hebron area just down the road from you. My parents live in Walton.

I do agree you should have probably checked them out before deciding to go with them. That said however, I totally agree with what Ron73 said. Sue the MFER. You have since gotten a competent engine builder who could testify on your behalf. I wouldn't just be suing for what you paid for the engine either. I would be suing for the damages done to the numbers matching motor and all the additional costs of getting it done correctly. Consult an attorney and get their advice.

Also, as much as you don't want to hear this... If that numbers matching motor is good to go and this is a desireable car that could sell for a pretty penny, and it is finally "right", I would store it and put a different motor in it for playing around with.
 
I've never bought anything from Hughes.I called back in 1998 to do a mild 440 like in Mopar muscle.It was to be a street motor.Told him I would assemble it and that is was my first car motor.I did this on purpose.He tried to sell me all kinds of stuff,way more than what I wanted or needed.When I questioned some of his ideas,he schooled me real quick,so he thought.I said thanks hung up.I went my local machine shop.He looked at what I wanted to do,said no problem.He knew David,wouldn't say anything other than his equipment was very old.Thought with his high prices he could buy better equipment, which was needed to do what he claimed he could do.Anyway that motor is still running good 18k miles and 10yrs.I had 3k in it carb to pan,ignition&exhaust.Oh and Shag your right before I asked machince shop told 3-5wks with his workload.Had it in 4wks.
 
A couple friends of mine have had engines done by Hughes. These were done way back in the early 90's. Both engines ran EXTREMELY WELL. One guy still has the 383 in his Barracuda and that engine, as aggressive as it is, would drive across country.
That being said, my F-I-L had taken his 400 down there for a rebuild and ended up with a 440. I think the troubles started around the time he had this engine built. They couldn't get it to test run without falling apart so they could even hand it over to him. Supposedly things are good now but we haven't installed the engine yet. The friend with the Barracuda recommended another guy he knows there and he got the same attitude. We won't go back, period.
 
The answer here is going to Chenowth Speed and Machine in Morton Il. true Mopar guys who know there ****! Super nice people who are in to the hobby not just takeing your money. The place is a family shop with father and son doing the work. If thats not enough maybe seeing there 70 Roadrunner with a 578 c.i. Hemi would change your mind.
Moparpat2 you said Hughes is ripping people off again...... like they ever stopped...lol!
 
no offence mopat2; but if you had done your homework first you would never of been there. cheapest is not always the way to go. do your homework and this wouldn't of happened. sorry that it happened, BUT.

I agree. When I took the engine over there a few years ago, there were not so many resources like Mopar web blog sites. I went to Dave because he was supposed to be (self proclaimed) the Mopar engine expert and nobody made more power than him. After installing the engine, I started finding horror stories on the internet and I was thinking the same thing that you just said, I wish I had done more homework.

Hindsight is always 20/20. It was an expensinve lesson that was well learned.
 
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