Caveat Emptor.... Livernois Heads (Pic heavy)

[Back@itagain]

There are to many casting changes in the intakes. Kenne Bell can cast 100 of them and there could be differences between all of them. There are to many variables between all the manufactures and that is the reason they made their port program around the stock intake.

Exactly...and the exact reason they should not have cut the ports so large not to mention the inner diameter of the gasket is what it is and is manufactured by the OEMs. As a manufacturer Livernois should know to leave some wiggle room just like Mike Schroop stated in his previous post.


Since Im here I figure I may as well expound upon my last post. In summary, on January 31, 2012, Dan Millen and Rick LeBlanc called me to discuss this issue. Right off the bat Dan indicated, in not so many words, he thought mine and "that girl's" (regarding stang06girl), posts and pictures were ridiculous. As the conversation continued, Dan indicated the port design was made using the stock manifold. He inidcated they were able to see the gaskets seated right up against the edge of the cut port.


On February 15, 2012, I had scheduled a meeting with Mike Schroop and Dan Millen to discuss possible solutions to the predicament Livernois has put me in. I arrived and Mike was the only one available. In my opinion, Mike has done a great job communicating with me to try and resolve the sealing issue and he continued to do so on this date. Mike said he was unable to find measurements similar to what I had stated. Then he went back into the programming in the CNC machine which, according to Mike, was previously used to produce the stage 3 cylinder heads but is no longer. This is where Mike found some useful information.


Mike filled me in on some additional background which brought everything full circle. Livernois was previously developing a stage 3R cylinder head. Sort of a "max effort" with very large intake ports, different valve seats and the sort. This effort was terminated due to the sheer economics. Too much money to develop not enough in return type thing; however, the CNC program remained and was in the machine cutting heads for a period of time. According to Mike, Livernois has since changed to one of their other CNC machines to produce their stage 3 heads which is cutting a port of 2.57".


Jumping back to the January conversation. Dan suggested using Devcon to fill in the machined gasket grooves and then re-CNC them. For the reasons I previsouly posted (pretty sure I did. I've exchanged so may emails now with Mike that I forget where I posted it), I found this to be unacceptable. Not wanting to waste another season with build problems and seeing an agreable solution was not forth coming, I found an acceptable potential resolution on my own prior to meeting with Mike and after the January conversation.


While at Livernois talking with Mike (back to February) we also discussed options. 1) Livernois replaces these cylinder heads for several reasons. First, is the obvious. They dont properly seal to the manifold which they also sold me. Second, when I built the car I waited for the new castings at Dan's suggestion. Dan and I discussed the new castings and CNC program at length since it was creating an extremely long delay on my build. After the first set had problems, these were swapped with out my knowledge for the old style casting when they swapped out the cylinder heads with valve guide/seal issues. I didn't find this out until the car was returned to me and I tried to pull the plugs to read them. Surprise, surprise...out came the 2 piece barrel style spark plug. I called Dan immeditately and he told me he didn't realize I had originally specified the new style cylinder head castings and gave me a laundry list as to why the did it...convenient memory loss! Third, I still have a suspect valve guide seal which should be addressed.


2) They think up a figure, I think up a figure and I would take a "buy out" and be done.


3) Mike further discussed ideas to modify the manifold. He suggested possibly welding the grooves, razoring the surface and cutting new grooves. I will admit this is an interesting suggestion since it would allow me to further port the manifold but it still leaves a lot of room for things to go wrong...and then who is left footing the bill for the new manifold and all the work I have put into it? Not worth the risk IMO.


So now that I have mentioned a cash option and no sooner than I left the Livernois shop and merged onto the highyway I got an email from Mike. Now let me predicate this by stating I am not one to post the contents of a PM but this goes to the credibility of Dan Millen. In summation, Mike said he had spoke too soon and that after relaying our conversation to Dan, Dan told Mike that the ports on my cylinder heads and a few other select customers were created especially by Dan for us customers.


This obviously raise several concerns and additional questions. If this was in fact created for my application, then why was my manifold not used to check alignment and sealing? Livernois certainly had possession of my car long enough. Why was this information not presented during the January 31, 2012 phone call? Timing of this new information is certainly suspect to say the least. If this oversized port was used intentionally and it has now been showed to be problematic then why isnt Livernois replacing them instead of looking to blame the manifold?


Sorry for the long post...

 

[skwerl]

A. They don't know as much about what they're doing as they would like you to believe.
B. They think you don't know anything about what they do so they feel free to make up whatever sounds good at the time. I despise people who insist on making up 'facts' when they don't know the answer. They think saying that they don't know is akin to admitting failure and they must win at all costs. Fucking liars.

 

[Back@itagain]

I wanted to post this for those that may some day find out they are one of the select Livernois customers and cant afford to shell out the money to replace their stage 3 cylinder heads. This is the idea I came up with and am going to give it a shot:

The OEM gaskets have retaining nipples and a ring that runs around the inner and outer side walls. These nipples lock the gasket in place during installation and center it in the groove. Problems start with the Livenois cylinder head intake ports which are cut to 2.6605" (as I have previously stated all measurements are as exact as possible). The inner edge of the OEM gasket installed in the manifold measured 2.6360". I needed to come up with away to push the long side inner edges of the gasket back about .0245" to at least be even with the Livernois over cut intake ports.

I tried a couple of ideas before finally coming up with this:

What I did was to shave of the retaining nipples on the back sides of the gasket in the corners where I needed to push them back so they can have a chance to seal against the over cut Livernois cylinder heads. I also poured a few beads of Permatex "The Right Stuff" almost like o-ring cord. Once dry I cut them down so I could use them as a wedge to force the gasket back into the wall of the groove.

With the gasket installed in the manifold, I used a dental tool to push the Permatex between the inner edge of the machined groove and the gasket. This was only done in the corners since I learned from prior attempts that pushing the entire gasket back really changed its "squishability".

This solution should only need to keep the gasket set back long enough to install and torque down. If the small amount of Permatex does eventually get sucked into the combustion chamber it should just burn up or be spit out no problem.

Since the manifold was off I went ahead and tried to do a little "port matching". I also cleaned up a lot of the rough casting in the transitions. Not sure if this will really make a significant difference but I enjoyed doing it if nothing else. You can probably also see in a couple of the pics I wrapped the lower exterior portion of the manifold in a heat shield to try and reduce heat soak.

With a little luck, which I could really use at this point, this should hold until a more permanent fix is found.

 

[jrglenni]

Good luck man, hope it works out for you.

 

[stang06girl]

It's "That Girl" again ....LOL! In regards to the rediculus pictures... If one looks closely at port #5, that seal is definelty exposed. So far the backup bead of silicone seam to be holding.

I've got about 50 miles on it now, but I'm gun shy about driving it far untill I have confidence in the heads.

I need to get it tuned, as it is still running on the break in tune, which has allot to be desired. I paid the tuner for a initial base tune/ break in tune / final tune a year ago. I've had to cancel tuning appointments twice due to these valve train issues. I've called and left several emails, but he hasn't responded. I don't now if he's hesitant because of the valve train issues, or that the original contract was a year ago and I've canceled twice. Either way, I can understand his non response. I may look at another tuner if I can't get a response soon.

I just won't have confidence that the valve train issues are resolved untill I can get a tune with reasonable results and can put a couple thousand miles on it.

 

[Department Of Boost]

I just won't have confidence that the valve train issues are resolved untill I can get a tune with reasonable results and can put a couple thousand miles on it.

Wow!, I consider myself freakishly paranoid and 250mi of break in/testing is a ton for me.

I’ve built too many motors to count (mostly 13,000-14,000rpm 1000cc motorcycle race motors) and for the most part if it doesn’t eat itself or break right away it will be fine. My race motor break in was 10 heat cycles and then take it to the track and pounds their guts out. Worked like a charm.

It would take me a season to put a couple thousand miles on my car.

 

[Flapjack]

Wow!, I consider myself freakishly paranoid and 250mi of break in/testing is a ton for me.

I’ve built too many motors to count (mostly 13,000-14,000rpm 1000cc motorcycle race motors) and for the most part if it doesn’t eat itself or break right away it will be fine. My race motor break in was 10 heat cycles and then take it to the track and pounds their guts out. Worked like a charm.

It would take me a season to put a couple thousand miles on my car.

FWIW, all three failures due to my old MMR heads (similar building issues to the Livernois ones) happened after 250 miles under normal driving conditions (ie: not at the track). I think they've straightened the issues out now, but it seems like more than a few companies have gone through this.

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk

 

[stang06girl]

Wow!, I consider myself freakishly paranoid and 250mi of break in/testing is a ton for me.

I’ve built too many motors to count (mostly 13,000-14,000rpm 1000cc motorcycle race motors) and for the most part if it doesn’t eat itself or break right away it will be fine. My race motor break in was 10 heat cycles and then take it to the track and pounds their guts out. Worked like a charm.

It would take me a season to put a couple thousand miles on my car.

A couple of thousand miles? geez ... that's only driving the darn thing to work for a week! The first valvetrain issues didn't happen until 1100 miles, then the second time the valvetrain went haywire, it was 700 after that. My tuner must have read my post and taken pity! LOL! I finally got hold of him today, tuning date on March 6th

 

[sheizasosay]

Back@itagain, livernois still working with you or are you on your own?

 

[Back@itagain]

Back@itagain, livernois still working with you or are you on your own?

I guess that is all in how you define "working with"...I got tired of the run around and constant convenient changes to their story. Finally decided to bolt it back together and I will pursue other avenues to resolve the problem.

 

[pitbull4.6]

Guess I wont be ordering from livernois.

 

[sheizasosay]

Guess I wont be ordering from livernois.

That's my sentiment. Anybody I see asking about livernois heads is gonna get redirected here. They can
make their own informed decisions with useful information. It really is a shame. I know it's tough in today's economy, but I want to see quality shops that stand behind their product. I have been on the receiving end of wasting money enough. I read and collect info to make the best decision on a product before I buy now (that includes the customer support of the product).

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

Anyway, Derek said the heads looked good. BUT he felt that the GUIDES (iron) were not clearenced (too tight) enough, so he reamed them out. He did place them in his C and C machine and all ports matched and he was of the opinion that everything else looked good.

In passing, I mentioned this to the cylinder head department and they stated that unless it is a bronze guide, we do not clearance them. It's a factory guide with factory clearance.

Thank you,

Rick

 

[Tre06GTP1SC]

In passing, I mentioned this to the cylinder head department and they stated that unless it is a bronze guide, we do not clearance them. It's a factory guide with factory clearance.

Thank you,

Rick

Obviously you don't clearence any of your guides. Bronze or Iron. Besides your shop knew full well what these cylinder heads were going to be used for, A D1 with a good amount of boost.

 

[Back@itagain]

Whats the old famous philosopher's quote? Something about those that dont learn from history....

Soon they will be back to mass producing the 2.66o'shit I cut it to big ports.

 

[Dan Millen]

Exactly...and the exact reason they should not have cut the ports so large not to mention the inner diameter of the gasket is what it is and is manufactured by the OEMs. As a manufacturer Livernois should know to leave some wiggle room just like Mike Schroop stated in his previous post.


Since Im here I figure I may as well expound upon my last post. In summary, on January 31, 2012, Dan Millen and Rick LeBlanc called me to discuss this issue. Right off the bat Dan indicated, in not so many words, he thought mine and "that girl's" (regarding stang06girl), posts and pictures were ridiculous. As the conversation continued, Dan indicated the port design was made using the stock manifold. He inidcated they were able to see the gaskets seated right up against the edge of the cut port.


On February 15, 2012, I had scheduled a meeting with Mike Schroop and Dan Millen to discuss possible solutions to the predicament Livernois has put me in. I arrived and Mike was the only one available. In my opinion, Mike has done a great job communicating with me to try and resolve the sealing issue and he continued to do so on this date. Mike said he was unable to find measurements similar to what I had stated. Then he went back into the programming in the CNC machine which, according to Mike, was previously used to produce the stage 3 cylinder heads but is no longer. This is where Mike found some useful information.


Mike filled me in on some additional background which brought everything full circle. Livernois was previously developing a stage 3R cylinder head. Sort of a "max effort" with very large intake ports, different valve seats and the sort. This effort was terminated due to the sheer economics. Too much money to develop not enough in return type thing; however, the CNC program remained and was in the machine cutting heads for a period of time. According to Mike, Livernois has since changed to one of their other CNC machines to produce their stage 3 heads which is cutting a port of 2.57".


Jumping back to the January conversation. Dan suggested using Devcon to fill in the machined gasket grooves and then re-CNC them. For the reasons I previsouly posted (pretty sure I did. I've exchanged so may emails now with Mike that I forget where I posted it), I found this to be unacceptable. Not wanting to waste another season with build problems and seeing an agreable solution was not forth coming, I found an acceptable potential resolution on my own prior to meeting with Mike and after the January conversation.


While at Livernois talking with Mike (back to February) we also discussed options. 1) Livernois replaces these cylinder heads for several reasons. First, is the obvious. They dont properly seal to the manifold which they also sold me. Second, when I built the car I waited for the new castings at Dan's suggestion. Dan and I discussed the new castings and CNC program at length since it was creating an extremely long delay on my build. After the first set had problems, these were swapped with out my knowledge for the old style casting when they swapped out the cylinder heads with valve guide/seal issues. I didn't find this out until the car was returned to me and I tried to pull the plugs to read them. Surprise, surprise...out came the 2 piece barrel style spark plug. I called Dan immeditately and he told me he didn't realize I had originally specified the new style cylinder head castings and gave me a laundry list as to why the did it...convenient memory loss! Third, I still have a suspect valve guide seal which should be addressed.


2) They think up a figure, I think up a figure and I would take a "buy out" and be done.


3) Mike further discussed ideas to modify the manifold. He suggested possibly welding the grooves, razoring the surface and cutting new grooves. I will admit this is an interesting suggestion since it would allow me to further port the manifold but it still leaves a lot of room for things to go wrong...and then who is left footing the bill for the new manifold and all the work I have put into it? Not worth the risk IMO.


So now that I have mentioned a cash option and no sooner than I left the Livernois shop and merged onto the highyway I got an email from Mike. Now let me predicate this by stating I am not one to post the contents of a PM but this goes to the credibility of Dan Millen. In summation, Mike said he had spoke too soon and that after relaying our conversation to Dan, Dan told Mike that the ports on my cylinder heads and a few other select customers were created especially by Dan for us customers.


This obviously raise several concerns and additional questions. If this was in fact created for my application, then why was my manifold not used to check alignment and sealing? Livernois certainly had possession of my car long enough. Why was this information not presented during the January 31, 2012 phone call? Timing of this new information is certainly suspect to say the least. If this oversized port was used intentionally and it has now been showed to be problematic then why isnt Livernois replacing them instead of looking to blame the manifold?


Sorry for the long post...

Brian,

Please don’t speak and put words in my mouth...this he said, she said is very, very misleading to many people.

You stated that "Dan Millen and Rick LeBlanc called me to discuss this issue. Right off the bat, Dan indicated, in not so many words, he thought mine and "that girl's" (regarding stang06girl), posts and pictures were ridiculous."

I NEVER, EVER said anything about “that girls” and painted a picture that her posts were ridiculous. That’s BS and I’m sorry to the girl who thought I trash talked her.

Again your stories are not correct, you’re talking about having a meeting with me, I never ever had a meeting scheduled with you.

Months ago, I said to you “bring the intake to the shop and we can fix the intake” That’s what I said.

Please, if you’re going quote someone, don’t quote a something that’s not true. I talked to Rick and neither one of us said anything about pictures being ridiculous! I understand you’re frustrated. You are basically painting a picture that Livernois is a horrible company doesn’t stand behind what we do. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I personally went above and beyond on your heads and we did a custom program and tweaked your heads. I did this based off of your build and thought it would be awesome that you had a really bad ass set of heads!

I considered you a friend, I gave you my personal cell, and you called me when I was racing. We talked shop, we talked about your car, my race car.... So now Livernois did something that you don’t approve of. Did we take into consideration all the differences in the Whipple intake from stock? No we didn’t, Livernois should have looked a little closer, I admit that, I have been racing and modifying cars for several years. This stuff is tough and sometimes everything doesn't go perfect. You have a custom engine with custom parts, not OEM. This stuff happens time and time again. I suggested, Mike suggested several fixes to work on the intake to make it acceptable. It’s not something that I haven’t done to street cars and race cars over the years, modify a part to make it better. I told you, and Mike told you let us modify the gasket area and it will be fine. Let us work on the intake, correct the port mismatch and be done with the project. For that matter anyone who has our heads with a Whipple who is concerned, send the intake in and we can correct it for free! When air goes from the supercharger to the intake, you always want the heads larger than the intake. You don’t want the airflow running into a wall by a small port in the heads, and in a perfect world the intake will fit with no issues and no air leaks. I am very disappointed, and frankly everyone at our shop is disappointed in the way you twist words around on what "we" say. Everyone is scared to even talk to you because you misinterpret or misunderstand what is explained, then you post what you think can get you the most attention and portray that Livernois is screwing you on everything we do. Honestly, if I as a reader of stuff you say, I would never do business with Livernois. The fact of the matter is we don’t screw people, we have don tons of heads on tons of cars. Lots of three valves, I believe our heads are on the fastest two, three, and four valve vehicles in the country.

The port you have is exactly the same port as the fastest three valve car in the country. I’m sorry that you think Mike said we are no longer using the program you or the fastest 3V car in the country have. The fact is we don’t use this port everyday!!

You’re asking Mike about your heads and posting stuff that’s not correct, changing CNC machines, that’s just not true. I personally had a custom program ran for your heads.

Do we screw up? No one is perfect. Absolutely, but we stand behind our product and do what we can to make things right. Very few customers have bad things to say about us. I am sure there are some, but they have been offered to make things right. I guarantee it. We do a large volume of work and can’t always make everyone 100% happy, but do our best.

Because you “don’t like” the fix we are providing you is no reason to post negative stuff about us. Honestly, what you want to do to the intake is not acceptable and a “hack” in my personal opinion and we wouldn’t do it as a company and I wouldn’t do it on my personal stuff. Agree to disagree. The two methods we would do is welding and making a new groove or yes using epoxy and re-cnc-ing the groove to the larger diameter is the right way to do it.

This is our professional opinion in doing this.

Livernois is a good company, so stop the bashing of our company an trying to say we didn’t offer to fix it and make things right. Livernois did and I personally did. Nowhere do you post that we offered to help you fix it. Instead, nothing is good enough and you would rather have something to complain about.. so, from the management of the company we have offered multiple times, bring your intake to our shop and we will do what I would do if it was my car. Fix the intake!

Thanks

This is what Dan Millen really said!!

P.S. Sorry for the long post

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

Obviously you don't clearence any of your guides. Bronze or Iron. Besides your shop knew full well what these cylinder heads were going to be used for, A D1 with a good amount of boost.

The guides are within spec.

Dan Millen is going to personally call L&R tomorrow to find out what they believe is "in spec". Your shop may disagree with what we believe is "in spec", but they left our shop correct. I spoke to Dan tonight and he said you wouldn't have any issues, but now if the car smokes or you have guide issues, it's on you because they were disassembled and modified from what we consider correct.

-Rick

 

[Dan Millen]

There are to many casting changes in the intakes. Kenne Bell can cast 100 of them and there could be differences between all of them. There are to many variables between all the manufactures and that is the reason they made their port program around the stock intake.

Wow I missed this post! Correct thats exactly what we did. Honestly we never thought that the supercharger manufactures or any intake manufacturer would change the port, there is of course core shift (on non-OEM products) which is hard to account for.

Our fault we should of checked Brians a bit closer. We assumed that they were like stock ports

Sorry for the backwards post

Im reading backwards

Thanks

Dan

 

[Dan Millen]

I've been following this thread and feel terrible for the guys caught up in this problem. I've also been nervous since I built my engine in the spring of 2009 using a Livernois 298 stroker shortblock and their stage III heads (at least that's what I ordered). I've had my Whipple off the car three times since the original build (for clutch/slave issues) and have never noticed any seal issues with the Whipple intake. To tell you the honest truth, I never noticed what guides were in the heads when I put the motor together, I ordered stage III heads and assumed that that's what I got. I've had a look at the pics from the build and it's hard to tell but I think the guides do not appear to be bronze. I've posted links to the few pics I have of the heads in case any experts can tell me what stage/version they appear to be. Having said that, the motor makes good power (629 RWHP @ 14psi) and hasn't given me any other issues. I'll pay specific attention to the seals/guides next time I have the blower off. Thanks for sharing your experiences everyone - however painful.

Thanks for posting the truth

Again sorry for the backwards replying

Dan Millen

 

[Dan Millen]

Update: Derck from L and R engines received the heads from Livernois last friday (10 Feb). He spent this week doing a thorough inspection. The heads were completely disassembled. Everything was checked, measured, mic'd, etc.

On a side note I was told by Mike that I had a phaser with a spring pin out of it and the phaser was bad. He (Mike) said he would mark it, so Derek could see it.

Anyway, Derek said the heads looked good. BUT he felt that the GUIDES (iron) were not clearenced (too tight) enough, so he reamed them out. He did place them in his C and C machine and all ports matched and he was of the opinion that everything else looked good.


Back to the phaser: Derek saw the phaser that Livernois marked and he said that he (Derek) doesnt recall the phaser leaving his shop in that condition. He said he could fix the problem but with the amount of boost im running he recomends that I replace them. So I will. Not blaming Livernois on the broken phaser (well maybe a little) but maybe it happened during shipping...... But a phaser problem was never on the radar.


So, the shortblock will be completed in a few more days and off to Phoenix to get tuned.


BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front, for you civilain types): I am glad that I posted this thread because this was the only way to get stuff solved. I will never do business with Livernois again. I appreciate them replacing the heads (Im on set 2), but their customer service, backing their product, is horrible. If you have a Livernois product and have an issue and you speak to Dave Ameduri you better have your ducks in a row. And its unfortunate that good people like Mike get caught up in it.

To Mike@Livernois: I apperciate your help! Thanks for your honesty, and for overseeing my situation. You need to spread some of your dedication to the customer to your co-workers, cause they are going to be the down fall of your company. IF I had it to do all over again I would have chosen a diferent comapny to buy ported heads from. (foxlake, JPC, etc)

The guides are within spec.

Dan Millen is going to personally call L&R tomorrow to find out what they believe is "in spec". Your shop may disagree with what we believe is "in spec", but they left our shop correct. I spoke to Dan tonight and he said you wouldn't have any issues, but now if the car smokes or you have guide issues, it's on you because they were disassembled and modified from what we consider correct.

-Rick

Tre sorry for your trouble, I guess Livernois did stand behind our product. Just to keep everyone honest, I will be calling L an R engines an would like to know what type of CNC machine they are using to check the ports? Usually to check the ports for accuracy and symmetry, a full digitize should of been done on the heads. Not sure they have this type of equipment but nevertheless I want to at least do my part an keep everyone honest including Livernois and make sure we did what we said we did, an L an R is doing what you said they did to insure the ports are "CNC matched". On the valve guide clearance its a matter of opinion on what they should be, IMO most shops have there own spec on what they think is correct, and what we think is correct. Its not fair to Livernois or the readers of this post to say the "clearance was to tight" when in fact these heads were looked over with a fine tooth comb at Livernois to insure they are correct to Livernois tolerance. We sent them to you correct an now they have been changed by L an R, thus if you do have problems with any part of the heads your now opening yourself up for a finger pointing match if you do infact have problems. If it was me I would want to hold Livernois responsible especially if this is something Livernois should be liable for. By having another shop disassemble these heads its now there responsibility to warranty these.

Tre is seems like you have been fairly patient if you get a second give me a shout tomorrow 313-561-5500 ext 113. If I dont answer give Rick a call at ext 106 he can reach me as well. I would like to go over everything with you an your experience.

Thanks


Dan