Must be nice working with people who actually have the patience to teach.

Machinist, mechanics, and other techs are Lego builders now. True craftsmen are dying off. Everyone thinks CNC is the answer. It takes brains and experience to build something that works and last for decades or 100s of thousands of miles. Thanks Dave for passing on your lifelong passion for the craft.

“Just bc you buy the parts don’t mean you building them right” smacked it on the nail 😂

Working with your hands makes you a labourer. Adding your brain makes you a craftsmen. Add your heart to these, you become an artist

This is why I build my own shit and work on my own shit. Today I really didn’t want to change my oil after working on cars all day. However I can’t trust anyone else, and only want myself to blame. So I spent the 20 minutes and changed it.

One big lesson I learned as a roughneck motorhand on a Nabors drilling rig is to ALWAYS check your stuff.

There's way more to a build than buying the parts. I was building a .030 over 4 bolt 350, with all the performance inner components needed including a solid lifter cam with a lot of duration. Comes the time to set the valves and with every revolution of the engine my valve lash setting changed. Further inspection showed that the roller on the tip on the rockers were up to .080 out of round. I was so thankful that I didn't attempt to start this engine before double checking my work and parts! Popular names doesn't always insure that you have Quality Parts!

I’ve been assembling engines for 20+ years. If you don’t know how it’s supposed to FEEL, you can make costly mistakes, especially with aftermarket components. Good info!

Words out, yal gonna be flooded for a long while.... great work men!!!

And that Dave is what scares the hell out of me.... you spend good money on good parts and u have butchers that claim there qualified to do the job and u end up with a very expensive pile of 💩

Good Job Colby ... I'm 50 .... I've Worked In 2 Machine Shops & Love Machining Motors. Did My First Motor Job With My Step Dad At 12. We Hot Cammed A 327 For Mom's 64 Impala. I Haven't Stopped Building Badass American Muscle Cars. I Got Paided For My Pasion Of Fire Breathing HotRods! I Wish You Much Success In Dave's Shop!!! I Don't Say This Much!!!!! Dave I'm Impressed With Everything I See You Post! 👍💯

All the right parts. not necessarily put together in the right way. 😢

As Maxwell Smart would say, "missed it by that much!" 😅

Nice to see pride in your work.

I work as a heavy line tech for GM and did all the factory performance work at the shop.This video does not surprise me keep up the good work at David s shop.

ive no real fancy tools, been building engines since i was a kid, never had one go bad. cleanliness is the key

Way to step up colby

DAVE, yrs ago Fine Home Building did a story/ study after the huricanes decimated Dade County Fla. And the South Carolina coast. Long story short the last paragraph said that quality was not delivered on a truck. It was the proper installation or lack there of yhat was the determining factor. Thank you for your videos.

Boom! Thank you for laying that out!

Nothing beats and experience mechanic, or tech! Good men with knowledge and craftsmanship are a dying breed! You really need to educate yourself if you're going to try to do a build yourself.

Dam that's mest up. They said fuck it and sent it

Wish I were a young man with an opportunity to learn to build engines in a professional establishment such as this Colby you've got a great future in engine building with the talent that you'll learn in a shop such as this

Vengeance "Racing"

The valve lash is set to the pushrod. It’s crappy but does it effect the motor with a shorter push rod ?

You and your son work so well together. Always fills my heart when I see just him on a video and he just as informative and knowledgeable. I dearly wish this is the relationship I had with my father growing up. But he was always worried I’d break something. Which I understand. He came from a family that all hates each other and they were very poor. My father never really left survival mode. And only now at 52 is he starting down the path of healing. This is our second shot at a rehab program. Hopefully this helps him a little more. He’s got a bad support system. But we’re working on it. Sorry. Didn’t mean to ramble.

I'm glad to see you guys actually do quality work.

Yep that's the way it is. Nothing replaces experience.

Dave shirt looks small 😂 love daves auto repair shop videos.

I built my first motor in 78! I bought a 69 Chevelle SS 396 and the motor was in the trunk! Great learning experience!

The owner drew the short straw!

Agreed!! Getting the “right” parts is very important, but it’s only about 10% of the process. After that, the fun REALLY begins…that’s the 90% part!!👍😉😄😄

I bought a freshly rebuilt motor from a guy, had all the receipts and everything from a "reputable" local shop that did the "machine work" and "assembly"... it was really hard to turn so I figured I'd pop the main girdle off and take a peak... 3 sets of main bearings were so tight that my few short hand turnings of the engine had completely destroyed them. The clearance was a negative number. Rod bearings were almost double the spec. Every single bearing thickness was wrong... because no machine work had been done at all. The "reputable" shop is closed now. The shop just completely ripped off the seller I bought the engine from, and the paperwork and receipts told the whole story. I got a deal so I wasn't sweating it, and I fixed everything but it was a bummer.

Those washers and prop designers deserve a raise!

I live by the Golden rule of fix it myself or buy a new one, I don't go to shops because of this stuff, Dave's one in a million when it comes to respectable shops

I totally get that! I might be a small engine mechanic but I love nothing more than to tell a customer "yeah that part costs 15 bucks but it ain't the 115.00$ OEM part that works"

Awesome entertainment but mostly educational to me to watch this stuff all the time. Must be great to work as a team sometimes.

Attention to detail. 😊

Ohhh man if they missed something like that makes you wonder. How clean were they during assembly, did they use assembly lube, were they measuring during assembly, and so much more. The rods are not even the same color so that does not even look like an accident but more like we dropped one and had this laying around "close enough Bubba drop it in" ... I would be hot over that. Then again I would do my own assembly.

Right on. You can buy all the parts, but they also have to be compatible with each other.

Appreciate seeing colby/kolby again.

My old diesel tech teacher use to have a great saying! “What’s the difference between a mechanic and a technician? A Mechanic is just a parts changer” 😂

This is why my car is going to you guys.love the work y’all do

This is why I do all of my own maintenence and repairs. I don't trust the industry based on experience. Yet I trust these guys.

I really like how informative Dave is. He's speaks my exact language. That's tougher for a guy like me. I've always had a hard time understanding traditional learning. I'm different, and sharp.

Great Kobe 👌 ❤

Good job Colby🎉

Good eye. Great find 👏

Makes a day long❤

Amazing.... thanks for sharing.

Great job Coby

Agree.I had a local shop build my 327.They did an ok job,except they didn't change the valve guides(?),so it would puff out blue smoke here and there.And the dude told me the cam would be a great performance one.Two strikes.

One of the few reputable mechanics around, brings a tear to my eye.

What a shop. Great info and content.

Measure twice, cut once. Take that and put it in all aspects in life the best you can.

Mister Davis ,,You are a real maestro top job boss 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽💪🏽respect

I had a shade tree mechanic that convinced me he could build a hotrod. He put different size push rods in, and the first time i stepped into it, the engine came apart!! Lesson learned, use the pros!!

I would love to spend 2 to 4 weeks down there with you guys, just to soak in some of the knowledge and processes y'all have! Right now, I'm in the midst of developing all my own processes for a performance company... Doing my best to make sure quality is at the top of the list.

More important to build it correct than to have the high end parts.

What was wrong with the motor while running ?

It’s me, I’m the guy in the back yard slapping parts together

It will if it's sent to you guys!👍💯👊 Thanks for keeping it real.

On the service side I've noticed a lot of customers are often disappointed with and try to negotiate reasonable labor rates but when given the chose premium parts

Reminds me of matching 2 ford transfer cases all identification marks identical, 2 different spline sizes. I thought about measuring first and was like naaaa the numbers match, then troublshooted the whole 4wd actuation system 😢

BITD, a friend of mine from high school bought a ~12 year-old '67 Mustang V8 after the previous owner blew head gasket, and let it sit ~3 years...and he rebuilt it. Even though his dad had been a hobby racer, and his girlfriend's family ran a franchise auto' parts store, noone noticed that the replacement pushrods were for a diffferent Ford V8, that was also put into Mustangs: they were like 1/16" too long! (Different cams?...IDK, he never asked me to help him.) ANYway, it took him a couple years, but he got it running, new Top, and grill, etc! (Although, for the first year, apparently, he was starting it like it was his mom's '73 LTD!) He didn't 'open it up' very much, when I was with him, but I know he did, a few times... After about a year of driving it around town, he decided it was ok to take it to college for his senior year, 2 states away, in Chicago: sometime in May, he was driving on Lakeshore Drive and it went: the rocker arm shaft on the right side broke into 3 pieces! Not surprisingly, performance was significantly affected! His Dad 'swooped in', and lent him HIS 'toy car' for the last month of the year; He had a couple of uncles in Chicago, so, I don't know exactly how/where they fixed the engine, but they did fix it! You have to double-check those parts!

Looks like it was a nice stroker build judging by them nice parts!!

Wish you were closer to Wisconsin. I need a trusted engine builder to rebuild the engine in my dad's 2011 f150 with the 5.0 V8.

What An Honor, to apprentice under this Master! What could the Best shade tree mechanic do about wrong pushrods?!!?!

Some years ago, I bought a’68 Datsun pickup from a guy who worked in an engine shop. The truck was sweet, original 4-cylinder, new clutch, nice wiring, Cragar mags, beautiful. The guy put in new pistons, rings, valve job, oil pump, ground the crank, freshened up the motor, even shot-peened the rods. Within two months, the oil pressure started going down and it developed a deep main bearing sound. So, I pulled the pan and some of the main caps. The oil grooves in the bearings, lube holes in the block, all the spaces for oil were filled with a red, flexible plastic substance, the rod bearings too. It looked as if he coated everything in the bottom end with red LocTite instead of assembly lube. By then, the damage was done. I got it all cleaned out, but the motor was never going to be right. And… my love affair with the little Datsun was over. 😥 Moral of the story… just because a guy can pronounce “spark plug”, don’t make him an engine builder.

GREAT video

Good eye for detail 😁

Love ❤your stuff bro 🇺🇲🤛👊🤜👍💪👌🚘🚙

C&S "performance", in Butler Wisconsin build two of my friends engines. For Bob, a 351, 4 rods went through the block the first time he took it out. Dennis a 392, he had to take it to Fast Times performance and have EVERYTHING redone after the first startup. That's why I like lopers in Phoenix. They have built both of my 572s and my 440 and it worked out perfectly.

I saw an engine a while back that was built to perform. Everything was the absolute best from the oil pump to the rockers... Except for piston #4, no idea what happened but 1-3 were high dollar pistons but when they got to the last one they just went to the parts house and bought the cheapest piston that would fit. The guy brought it to me because it was trying to jump out his hood.

I can’t wait to have you guys upgrade my truck someday

I love your videos! I'm 62, and please teach me how to rebuild a motor!

Good information , thank you

A machine shop guy I know told me that some companies sell race motors that aren't put together right. He said he seen them using Torque Rods to torque down the motor, I've also seen it in Donut Media that a wrist pin didn't have a clip holding it in.

Im a mechanic . New means Never ever worked . I’ve been into everything . Cats, Cummins, Detroit, case, massy ferguson, john deere , Locomotives , Evo , fdl , emd, Ford , International, Chevrolet , Toyota, GMC, I love watching your videos! I been there and done that ! Seen some wore out junk in my day . Im almost 60 , about wore out , but im still in a dog trot mechanican !

At any point a engine builder completely relies upon good machinist. They indeed dial it in

Some of the mods on those engines require a short pushrod in one sport for clearance reasons. As long as the rockers are adjusted right, it’s not a problem at all. Those BOP engines are pretty complicated when you get into the performance side of things.

Colby makes his job his life! Yay

I called comp when I built my 440 to check on pushrod length due to having non adjustable rockers. I found out that the comp lifters I had had close to 1/2" or something like that of wiggle room. I was very much so within tolerance even though I was a bit outside of what other people were saying.

All the long pushrods were for the worn lifters. The stuck lifter wasn’t worn out yet.

That's what happens when you let a " parts changer" build your motor! People need to understand the difference between a real mechanic and a parts changer! great job guys!!!

These Pontiac 6.0 and 6.2 motors are fucking MONSTERS. I pulled 980 hp out of my GXP back in 2014.

Awesome eye! Colby

see it all in the time in knife making and blacksmithing.

Ha. Just had to look at a guys chevy that another shop had changed the lifters for him and now it runs horrible and smokes. Pulled the valve cover on the bank with all the misfires and it has 5 new push rods. We called the customer and the guy tried to save money and installed different pushrods to keep from putting the fm lifters In. The problem is that 4 of the new push rods are on 2 cylinders. I'm no engine builder but pretty sure you can't have half of the engine system working and the other half not. Keep up the good work out there guys.

I even measured the pushrods for the 350 in my boat when I rebuilt the heads, there were a couple different sizes for a 350 if I remember correctly, and measured each one before installing them, getting new valves for them are even worse it seems tho

There is probably enough good reputable shops to only count on your hands 💯 not everyone does good work like these people

Dont ever let a “flat rate” mechanic build an engine..

Good job guys 💪💯

My dads place would measure every single part that came in from vendors

These are smart mechanics, they know and see what is messed up in these engines.

Lol and here i am seeing stuff like 100 year old nails used in place of cotter pins on the steam engines ive been around and the things still pull like a beast

Gotta goooooood kid there 👍.

This guy's shop is all the mechanic shops in one. He has machinist and machine shop in an auto shop.

Kolby is like another favorite son of Dave.

That's the Difference between a " Mechanic " & " Technician ". anybody can be a mechanic. a Technician is Trained & Experienced on doing said job. Service tech. vs Service Mechanic.

This is one reason I'm still building my own engines at 60. Hard to find good mechanics at decent price. I know a few that I refer people to but yes this is going to be a big problem in a few years. No one wants to get hands dirty. They think computers can do it all. WELL IT STILL TAKES A PERSON to load program and run. Then a smart person can make them do things people never thought about