First of all, thanks for reading my review and I hope it gives you a clear picture of my experiences in dealing with these two DSM venders. Please beware that this is a long write-up but may make you think twice about where you buy your parts from.

To make a long story short, I was having some troubles with my old worn out motor. I had that sinking feeling that a major catastrophe was coming (kind of like the feeling that every 7-bolt owner with a ACT2600 has.). Anyway, I finally broke down and ordered a stage 1 short block from SBR. It would be $1800 (pretty good price) for a rebuilt short block with my choice of pistons, bored .020 over, 6-bolt big rods, ARP rod bolts, and clevite bearings. I discussed my choice of pistons with Mike Huml, owner of SBR and I specified my not wanting higher compression pistons (I’m in California with 91 octane). He recommended the Wiseco 8.1:1 pistons, and I agreed. I might add that Mike was very friendly over the phone and was very helpful with my questions, he even hooked me up with a free oil pan. Altogether I paid around $2200 for the block, ARP headstuds, an ACT disc, three quarts of BG Synchroshift, and a $200 shipping charge. I was quoted that the block would arrive in two weeks, one week for prep of the block, and one for shipping time. A week after ordering my block, whatever hamster was making my car run, died. Now I was without a car to get to work. It wouldn’t be too big of a deal though because my block was supposed to arrive in another week!

I’ll skip all the boring drama and just say that two weeks stretched into two months. I should also say that I didn’t even get the pistons I ordered. Mike told me that they were having problems getting my pistons and that if I wanted them, I’d have to wait longer. He said he could give me another customers order that had Ross 8.5:1 pistons instead. Needless to say I was not happy. SBR offered me a T-shirt for all of my inconvenience. That didn’t quite work for me, but I’m not the type to bitch at someone over the phone for hours to get what I wanted. They shipped me someone else’s order to speeds things up since I had been waiting so long.

The block was finally on its way to being assembled and swapped into my car. I called ProStreet, which is the nearest DSM related vender to me. I’d like to note that I was a little uneasy about taking my car to a performance shop. I had heard a lot of stories detailing bad dealings with many performance shops in the Bay Area and the incredibly poor service that they provided, but I had no choice but to trust this one. I spoke with Sean Bridges, the owner, and he quoted me at $800 since I was bringing everything with me and he was just doing the labor. During all my time in dealing with PSI, I only dealt with him, so I cannot speak for anyone else that may work there, but I’m sure they are just as top-notch. At this time, I had my car dropped off (via flatbed tow truck) at PSI and everything went smoothly, I was supposed to have my motor there at PSI within a couple of days.

Delays happened during the machining and rebuilding of my cylinder head, so it took and extra week to get my motor to Sean, he was understanding of this and didn’t make an issue of it. So eventually my cylinder head was machined and rebuilt and then mounted to the short block. The mechanic assembling my motor noticed that one of the oil pan bolts was broken off in the short block. No big deal, mistakes happen and I wasn’t going to call SBR and bitch about that. The end was drawing near and I was anxious to be behind the wheel again. By this time, I was at about the three month mark. Sean quoted me that the swap would take about three days.

Two business days after receiving the long block, the motor was in the car and all the fluids were being added. Then a problem came. Apparently, when SBR had assembled my short block, they had neglected to include one of the freeze plugs. The one missing happened to be the one between the transmission and the block. So all my coolant came running out of the car between the tranny and the block. I asked Sean to take some digital pictures of the missing freeze plug because SBR didn’t quite believe that they could leave something like that out and tried to pin the blame on the person who assembled my block. Sean gladly sent the pictures over to me through AIM. I then sent them to SBR. So now, the transmission had to be pulled and the plug had to be pressed in and then everything had to be put together. Sean felt bad for my terrible luck and gave me a very good price on the labor for dropping the transmission and putting in the plug. SBR gave me no comfort that they would reimburse me or compensate me in any way if they found out that they had neglected to put this plug in.

The third day finally came and Sean was still able to make his three-day quote. He noted to me that I had a tear in one of my CV boots, a partially stripped manifold bolt, and some lines routed improperly. Sean let the car idle a long while to make sure all was good and mentioned that my optima battery would not hold charge. The car was started and ready to go (he jumped it) and directed me to a very nearby auto parts store and gave me some tools to change the battery. I drove off with a big smile on my face.

I got to the parts store and changed the battery, and I was on my way home. After driving about five minutes on the freeway, the car starts billowing smoke, and at this point, I notice that my car is overheating. I nearly had a heart attack and pulled over. It was about 7PM at this point. It was dark and I didn’t have a flashlight so I couldn’t see much of anything. I noticed there was coolant all over the back of my car, and I was thinking that it had come out of my tailpipe. Blown headgasket, great. I looked under the car and there were a couple drips underneath, but no huge puddles. I didn’t really know what to do. My girlfriend was following in her truck and I sat in her car and tried to figure out what to do.

I finally decided to call PSI and see what Sean had to say. Just my luck, he hadalready left for the day (it was nearly 8PM now). So I locked up my car and was going to head home because traffic was crazy, and I wasn’t able to move the car since I was on the left shoulder of the freeway. As we (my gf and I) were heading home, I got a call from Sean, saying he heard that I called the shop looking for him.

I explained what happened, and from what I explained, he also was suspecting a headgasket. What came next really surprised me. Sean and his buddy actually came out to the freeway and took a look at the car! With the help of a police officer (about time they did something) we got the car onto the right shoulder. We then went to a store to get some water so that he could try and pinpoint the leak. While at the store, Sean was hungry and was going to buy some snacks to eat. I offered to pay and he declined. Then when we got to the checkout, I told the cashier to put it on my bill. Sean insisted on giving me the money for the food regardless. I couldn’t believe it, he’s going through all this trouble to help me out, and he won’t let me buy him three dollars worth of food!

Sean’s friend lay under the car while I poured water into the fill hole. He said that it looked as though it was coming from in between the block and tranny. We were both thinking at that point about the freeze plug that he had just put in. How could this happen? Neither of us knew. So Sean said that they would call a tow truck and he would cover the bill to my surprise. We waited about ten minutes and he told me to just head home and he would take care of it. He said that he would work late that night and have the car back to me by the next day at around noon. I was amazed at the trouble he was going through. It was about 9PM now.

So my girlfriend and I headed home and at about 11:30PM, Sean calls me and had the transmission off already. I couldn't believe he was still at the shop working on my car at this hour. He told me that the freeze plug he installed was still in place and had no leaks! He said that pulling the transmission was his mistake and would not charge for that, to my relief. Then the bad news came. He told me that another freeze plug in the back of the block had actually popped out! I couldn’t believe it, and I was seriously getting very upset with the quality of work being done at SBR. One plug missing, and another plug pops out?! I hadn’t even gotten a response from SBR in regards to getting reimbursed for the labor to replace the first plug yet (and they didn’t even want to believe that was their fault already), what were they going to say when I told them that another plug had popped out?

I got hold of Mike on the phone the next day and told him all about what had happened. Again, he was very polite as usual. On the subject of the missing freeze plug he basically apologized and explained how he had no idea how something like that would go missing. First he offered to take the money off of a future purchase and I had to decline because I needed to cover the transmission removal/install costs. Then he told me that Sean should have noticed right away that the plug was missing long before installing the transmission, and so it was basically his fault. I argued in return that as an engine builder, he should know better than to overlook something like the freeze plug. Then, on the subject of the freeze plug blowing out, he said in rare circumstances, unseated rings could cause extra pressure in the coolant, causing the plug to blow out. I didn't say anything to Mike, but the thing with the unseated rings sounded like complete BS to me. I don’t even see how the rings' seating has anything to do with the cooling system at all, and Sean confirmed this. After talking for about five minutes he told me that all he could do for me was cut me a check for $100. This doesn’t even cover the amount that I had to pay to have the missing freeze plug replaced ($175), the cost of towing ($24), and the money I will have to pay to cover the extra PITA Sean went through with the freeze plug popping out (moving things around to get to it).

To sum up this whole novel, I have to say that I probably won’t do business with SBR again, I just can’t deal with that lack of quality control on their behalf. If you are going to spend nearly or more than $2000 on a product, I’d say that the vendor better be damn sure it is in perfect condition with everything in order. To their credit, they did at least attempt to compensate me somewhat, although I was looking for a full reimbursement of the $175. As for Pro Street, I went in a skeptic, and came out a believer. The level of customer service that I received there has been unbelievable and I would definitely would do business there again (if they ever even want to see my car again, haha).

I hope this long write up does something for someone out there, and I’m not going to discourage or encourage going to one shop or another, and I tried to make this as unbiased as humanly possible. Feel free to e-mail questions/comments to ME.

UPDATE: (3-25-04)

It is almost a sure thing now that the overheating caused by the freezeplug popping out has caused cylinder head warp-age. Now, I the head needs to be pulled, inspected, and resurfaced. Here’s the problem. The head was already resurfaced once, just before installing it on the new shortblock (just like you’re supposed to do). If the head is in bad shape, I won’t be able to just have it machined flat and slap it back on, because you can only take so much material off of the surface before causing timing issues.

I wrote this letter to Mike, looking for some help:

This was the response I received from Mike Huml after a few days:

In turn, my response was:

This is his most recent and final response (possibly):

There it is folks. That’s how Slow Boy Racing treats their customers. Once they have your money, you get a slap in the face if you dare have a complaint. I can’t force anyone not to buy from SBR, but still, I will ask that you take your hard-earned dollars elsewhere because I know you wouldn’t want to be in my position, or in a possibly worse one. To continue doing business there would be like condoning the poor service that people are receiving. No, I’m apparently not the only one with complaints. Many people have come forward since my posting of this review, saying that SBR has also done them wrong in the past. You make the decision whether they are worthy of your money.

Update: 5-6-04

Ok, I’ve ceased dealing with SBR, I am doing what I can to right the wrongs done to me. As for my car, well, I got the cylinder head pulled. Guess what? It was warped pretty badly. So lets throw some more stuff on the total. Had to buy another cylinder head from a friend of mine. He sold it to me for $200. But I also had to get it resurfaced, have my new valves (from the warped head) installed, and get it cleaned up. That all added up to another $200. Then I paid my friend for the removal and install of that new head. That was $200 MORE dollars. Lastly, parts, gaskets, gas money for my friend (lives like 60 miles away), etc was another $100+ dollars.

Well, the fruits of my wallet finally ended up with my car actually running!