Looking for info about engine builder in NJ
 

Anyone ever use f o n s e Performance for a Performance marine rebuild.

A friend of mine is dealing with them right now so far pretty stand up guys. Engines are going in the boat this week I will keep you posted.

Watch who you deal with in NJ. There are many Companies that "Claim" to build true HP motors & you wind up with used parts in a "new" engine. I know from experiance. We use Fred Bitner out of Trenton. I have 90 hours on the motors and not ONE problem.

I know of a 540 that he did that didnt turn out so good

i used curts marine in brick. pretty happy. mark

Kurt's Performance Marine-with a "K" Hey Mark!

none

sounds like you have had more then one 540 go bad

wrong info
 

just to be clear we have never had a in house built engine failure to date.

Sonic,
It's serious when you come a large forum and bash a business. If you had an engine go bad, why don't you give us a few specifics.
What did you originally contract them to do?
What was the price?
What went wrong over what time period?

Sonic, I agree, if you have facts set them straight but only first hand facts. I used to work for a dealer in Mid Atlantic and I can tell you, its a ***** to take blame for anothers screw up, either he built the motor or didn't. We got to the point we wouldn't even install custom motors without a signed waiver :eek:Trust me I am all for bashing poor srevice but needs to go to the right person.:party-smiley-004:

WOW! Seems like 540's are their weak point. F*O*N*S*E Performance.

Here is an example they were contracted to build a turn key, fully dressed 540 with a procharger useing the Fast XFI system and to be tuned by al himself.

The motor came back not dress, no headers, no xfi harness, no starter, 2 bolts missing in the blower bracket.

So I thought no big deal he told me the harness is all plug in play its in the box. well that was a joke. i called him and he was confused. so he sent me another harness. this one had 1 more of the plugs on it that i needed, but it also cam with a few cut wires, melted wires that i had to repair, the coil harness was not there, we had to integrate the XFI harness to the Merc harness. all items that were supose to be done.

so we removed the valve covers to paint them because they scratched them with the lifting chain. we noticed a milky substance laying on the head so i called him and sent pics of it. he told me it was assemble lube mixed with oil, or condesation because of the cold water used to dyno it, and i should not worry and just put it in and run it.

we also noticed the rollor of the rocker is not centered on the valve which it should be according to dart and crowler. some rockers have less than half the roller on the valve. again called and sent him pics. he said quit worring and just run it.

so we finished dressing it. dropped it in, got it running, and had a nightmare of a time getting it to run or idle. the harness he sent had a broken wire under the covering. supposed to have been a new harness. once running the idle was all over the board.

so finally we get it in the water. idled it in the marina about 15 min. messing with the idle. seems to be ok.

now we are ready to go out we idle out about 5 min ride to open water i ease it up on plain it struggled a little poured out black smoke then plained out. now we are running 40mph checked all guages seem good running smooth i go about 3/4 mile saw another boat coming at us on our side so i wanted to pass on the other side so i stepped it up to 45- 50 mph for 10-15 sec. and went a round. then backed off to about 40mph for about 3/4 mile to a straight in the river and figured lets push it up a little so started throttling up now running 52 mph again keep in mind this 800hp motor is in a 28 foot low profile cat that ran a true gps 99.6 mph with a 700 hp motor. so again at 52 mph i check the guages all ok continuing with more throttle but no more speed, guages still ok, i trim it up thinking maybe the drive picked up something. but not the case. now almost full throttle (guages still ok) i start backing off the throttle watching the guages, the oil pressure has dropped to 40psi i continue backing down to idle and the oil pressure went to 0 psi engine stalled and locked up. oil had blown out the breathers and was milky but the oil looked ok on the stick and smelled of fuel bad.

so towed it back got in touch with al which is nearly impossible through out this whole job(shop meetings, he's on the dyno, at the doctors) he had all the excuses. so we tow the boat 2 hours to him to check it out. after a week i get in touch with him. he finds water in 1 cylinder and claims my water cooled header was leaking but when we got down there we tested the header and it did not leak, but when we got home we heated the header and checked it again there was a slight drip not a stream or major leak. we tested it with with 25 psi of water pressure. more than under normal comditions.

so i pulled the motor at his shop and left it for his guys to dissasemble monday. so after almost 2 weeks he tells me the crank is shot, i need all new pistons, and a complete head job. so we go down (2 hr drive) to see this. boy were they surprised to see us. al jr didn't want to talk to us so we talked to sr and the guy who took it apart. sr was showing us the block in the engine stand and he said let me turn it over as he did the crank fell out on the floor. at that point i knew i was taking the motor home.

the crank was burnt so bad on the first cap it turned the block and crank black, there are 3 melted pistons, and clearly 1 blown head gasket pointed out by al sr and agreed with by his assembler.

al claims all this is from my header, keep in mind there was that milky substance in the heads that i questioned even before we started the motor. also i now find out he dynoed the motor with his manifolds not my headers about a 25 hp difference.

he now tells me $5500.00 to fix it. WHAT HAPPENED TO WE STAND BEHIND OUR MOTORS? THATS A JOKE!

yeah they stand by it and tell you how much it will cost to fix it.

we had 2 engine builders look at the damage and a sample of the oil that came out Which had a ton of fuel in it and barely any water in it. both builders came to the conclusion that this motor was hurt on the dyno and most likely poped the head gasket on the dyno and the first time out just did it in.

now i'm left with a blown motor an empty pocket, and no help from al or his company. yes his ad on offshore looks great and proffessional. but it is far from the truth. they were great to me when i dropped it off then i was just a number.

beware and stay away from them.

I have seen SH-TWORK like this from others out there, that get burned. The 2nd time around for the new builder is not pleasent between customer since they just waisted a bunch of money and time. They should be standing behind this, for the simple reason of the harness and moisture in the valve cover. The moisture shouldn't be there after running it on the dyno, unless they run them with no oil temp. It doesn't sound right, plus they should have told you to send it back. Rocker arms not centered, no excuse for that! Hope you took some pics on those items before it locked up. NOT GOOD

540 pics
 

this is how it back less flywheel and bell housing.http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...atts540001.jpg

melted new harness
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...40build001.jpg

cut n spliced new harness
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...40build008.jpg

rocker not sitting on stem correctly. this is as close to center as it gets!
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...40build021.jpg

more pics
 

blown head gasket head
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC04749.jpg

both heads left had blown head gasket
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC04750.jpg

quality crank balancing
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...540bad2024.jpg

burnt main and other damages areas
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...540bad2015.jpg

number 1 main cap burnt and now too lose to fix.
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...540bad2003.jpg

3 melted and scored pistons
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...540bad2008.jpg

Damn Air Trap. Who built that motor?

I don't think he knows

Hey KIDAPACHE It was suppose to be Al Jr From F*O*N*S*E Performance. But, I think you might be right. Maybe i'm not sure who built it. because I didn't think a shop could screw up something this bad and not stand good for it, maybe it was some 5 year old.

Now that's what I call evidence. We know to stay away from these guys. Sorry about your luck.

blown motor
 

Take it to A To Z Marine Performance or Nickerson Performance the Marine Hi Performance Specialist. We specialize in custom rigging and custom engines.

Every one wants to be a motor builder doing it right the first time must have been hard .these motors take time and skills i know al over there he should make good for that mas. boat motors are not the same as a car motor's that is what they do there

Kidaphache, I understand there is a difference between car and boat motors that's why the motor was taken to him. He claimed to have done many boat motors and guaranty to stand behind his product, he seemed like a stand up guy at first,but it went down hill after the moto was dropped off the motor. First it took longer to do then said(by 4 month), promise after promise when it will be done, and when trying to call to talk to him he was always busy on the dyno,on the phone, in a meeting, out back with a customer dropping of a motor. If he dynoed as many motors as he said, the amount of times that he was called he would be a million aire. Just poor service if you could even call it that. The junk motor was picked up around labor day and i'm finally writing this now. So i'm not writing this with a hot head. I wanted to do my research on F*O*N*S*E PERFORMANCE and why this motor took a crap before I posted this info. I wanted to make sure what I was saying was true and correct. I have some experience in this field myself I was a boat mech. for 14 years(not high performance) but some performance, raced 5.0l hydros 3years, owned several offshore cats & v-bottoms, built several 600-800 hp supercharged, turboed, n2o injected cars, but always had a shop do my machine work and I assembled everything accept the short block. This time I felt I could trust al to do the whole job and dyno tune it. The XFI is all new to me and recommended by al, but again not the right choice. I guess its time to get my hands dirty again. I gave al every chance to work with me, I never yeld, screamed or even raised my voice at him, and all I got for being nice and trusting was screwed. Heck I could have got that for 40 bucks at the local spa!!

If by any chance you are willing to ship, Mark Boos at Precision Marine EFI in New Orleans builds an extremely good EFI motor.

I seen worse motors come in that just came from other shops and the customers are all drained out and dont want to pay twice for the same job that is why we try to help the customer as much as we can. if they are not happy they don't come back. they should fix it or give you money back

***** is there any reason that you reported your own post 11 times?

heres a really dumb question. whats the difference between a boat and a car engine in reguards to assembly? are the tolerences different? i inderstand about cam selection and cooling port differences . but what else? people use merlin heads etc on both? right?

Please be advised.
The only action F O N S E is going to take against me is to kiss my A**. A first year law student could tell you that there is nothing actionable in any of these posts, so forget the threats both here and in the PM's.

I don't know what they teach at Bob's School of Law and Television Repair.

speedgirl why is the word F*O*N*S*E ON THE BLACK LIST?

I don't know.... I'll have to do some research :bigbird:

Did everyone else get a PM on this subject? It's funny Air trap made some statements, showed pics and he got comments.
BEWARE & STOLEN he had the right topic!
Here's my comments on the pics.
Crank Balancing: If I had to drill that much material out, I would remove some of the weight off the counter-weights in the lath. 2nd a good crank is designed for the rod length. 3rd if you are going to drill it; at least center the hole and clean the welds up.
Block: NICE:eek: the cam lock plate has the wrong bolts in it.
Harness: I guess the wires got burned in shipping?
Rocker Arms: They look like the same set-up as some guys up in N.C. used that got kicked out of here yrs ago. Ya, I had to go testify for my customer, he got about 1/2 his money back! One of the guys was already dead.
I see some engines for sale over @ Serious.
Who ever PM me your :poopoo:

Take the comments if you believe are fictitious, print them, they are submissable in court. The judge or mediator will not be amused by a false claim of legal action.

The vendor mentioned on this thread is responding poorly......!!! :( :( :( Resolve this issue......

My momma doesn't like you threating me with a law suit.Your not a friendy person.


Rob:drink:

This guy has to be one of Obama's engine Czar's there is no other excuse.:bong::chill-pill:

I know I don't appreciate getting a threat via PM for my post #17 asking who built that motor.:mad:

Me neither.....! This is what I got and my response.

kid apache builds good motors, i have two sets in my boats he cranked on a 1500+ hp motor for me and also built a set of strong SBC for the little boat. Both have major hours with only oil changes!!! Paul knows his stuff!!! and he is good with taking the time to make sure your stuff is right on. I would go to him a good south jersey builder!

Try D & F performance in Berlin Nj