Pacific Engine Rebuilders

The guy I dealt with, Paul, seemed pretty straight forward when I took my block and heads in for some work. I had previously hurt the motor, so after pulling it apart I was having these guys install new cam bearings and hone the cylinders, as well as weld up and assemble some aluminum heads for me.
Paul was pretty friendly enough through the whole thing. When it was ready, I went to pick up my stuff which was all bagged up at the time. When I got it all home and unbagged it, I wasn’t very happy with what I found. There were metal shavings falling out of the bag which contained my fully assembled heads. First impression was certainly not good. The welding was also rather poor. They welded and then milled the heads as we discussed, but the welds are pretty porous. I certainly would not have called it good if I were the one doing the work.
Next up is what I found on the block. Upon pulling the bag off, I immediately noticed about an inch-​long crack in a cylinder. All of that money I spent on the block was now for nothing. It is pretty obvious this happened when I hurt the motor, and I didn’t see it when I gave it to them because it was oily and dirty. I have a very hard time understanding how they did not see this crack after hot tanking it and before/​during/​after honing the cylinder. When I called them to ask about the crack and how they could have possibly missed that, Paul told me they don’t really look too closely at the stuff they’re working on. That is not something I want to hear from my machinist.
Yes, this could have been avoided had I paid them to magnaflux the block. I just had no reason to believe the block was cracked and they were in a much better position to see the crack than I was.
Paul didn’t seem too concerned about my cracked block. He said «sorry» which didn’t really do me any good, what I needed was some shared responsibility and perhaps an offer to give me a price break if I decided to let them machine my next block. I certainly didn’t get that from him. I finally resorted to simply asking for help sourcing a new block. He said «absolutely» and then I never heard from him again, naturally. Everyone is busy, I get that… but you’re supposed to take care of your customers when something goes wrong. Particularly when you are partialy responsible for the situation.
This was an unfortunate situation for sure. I didn’t want a complete refund. I would have been satisfied had they offered to help me out by machining a new block at a discount, or perhaps even just taken the extra step to help me find a new block like they said they would. Like so many other companies out there, Pacific Engine & Machine stopped caring once they had my money. Poor form, guys.

Buyer beware. If you know anything about engine work you can watch their YouTube videos and see all the numerous things they do incorrectly. They may be cheap, but are not a place I would trust my rebuild with. This business has renamed themselves with a slight name change. The new name sounds similar to a very reputable machine shop that I have used in Renton, WA that has done quality work for for me.

I had a chevy 350 engine built here and I had a lifter collapse in under 500 miles. I had a licensed mechanic look at it and he adjusted the valve lash on each valve and showed me while the car was running with the valve covers off how hydraulic lifters adjust when set, then he showed me how the one that collapsed doesn’t. I called them to see what their next step was and they started dishing out bogus excuses before they even looked at the engine. First off they told me that there must be gasoline getting into my oil then they told me to put some CD-​2 oil detergent in it. I brought the car back to them and tried to get them to take care of it and they wouldn’t even look at the engine! I was told it was because I had gasoline in my oil and that I didn’t follow the break in procedures right and that they wouldn’t be correcting the problem. I had to pay these guys another $ 1300 to put in another cam and set of lifters into the engine and this time I paid them to break in the engine so that they couldn’t blame me when it failed. Or so I thought. I didn’t get more than a few miles down the street and it was having idling issues. They told me before I left that I needed a new torque converter in order for the engine to idle smoothly the way they explained it made sense, when I got home I installed a new transmission and b&m torque converter and the engine idling problem did not magically go away as promised but rather it continued to get worse. I called the guys at Pacific Engine Rebuilders Inc and explained to them all this and they just made excuses and didn’t want to hear me out, the shop lead told me and I quote «I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not the best at tuning an engine.» Are you kidding me?! What are you doing rebuilding engines if you cant even tune them? He told me that I needed to get the engine dyno tuned in order to work out these minor issues. An engine that won’t hold and idle is not a minor issue. I’ve taken the car to two licensed mechanics (besides the first one) to have it checked out and the first one said the carburetor was bad even though it was a brand new Edelbrock, anyway so i bought a brand new Holley double pumper, I installed it and had it professionally tuned, yet the issue remained. The second guy said that the cam is way too big and isn’t streetable. So I called Pacific Engine Rebuilders and told them all this and I said: Look man, I have paid you twice for one engine and I just want to be able to drive my car. He refused to admit any fault on his shop’s behalf and would not make good on any of his warranty’s, I paid thousands of dollars for a engine that won’t run, my car is sitting in the driveway not running, the last time I tried to get it running I by chance opened the valve covers to have a look and there was coolant sitting on the top of my heads and it was seeping through the head bolts. At this point I’ve thrown the towel in, I have to cut my losses and start over. I really wish I had never gone to Pacific Engine Rebuilders. I really hope that this review saves someone the trouble of throwing their hard earned cash in the trash.