Yeah "SHOULD" sound fine. It certainly doesn't sound fine. I was told there would be no metal or noise in the system after the SECOND rebuild, but surprise, there's both noise and metal.

 

Well, I've had 2 oil analyses done already indicating more than break in material wear. There's now over 5k on the motor now. It sounds terrible, occasionally it's hard to start (have no idea why, may have nothing to do with rebuild), and it uses a little more than a quart of oil every 1,500 miles.

In terms of Hills, they are not tuning the motor. There was never any tuning done to it, they simply swapped my old motor out and put the one from Soho in. Regarding the oil cooler, there is some discrepancy as to if that was the smoking gun and what possible defective parts were indicated. Because I wanted to report only what I know as FACT based on my experience, I left any issues between Hills and Soho between them. There is a dispute between what Soho says Hills said and vice versa about the oil cooler and sound. I can tell you however that from Soho, the oil cooler was the most likely culprit, until it was the flywheel so, yeah... My issue is now on the SECOND rebuild.. the one where they had my car in their shop for 7 months..on THAT rebuild, why is there any noise or metal at all? The rebuilt the motor, they installed the motor, in my estimation, it should be perfect with no issues. This is clearly not the case.

For your case, I'd definitely say think long and hard if you wanna get the short-block. It seems as though they do have satisfied customers, but obviously we all are not. They have a HUGE get out of jail card with that warranty if for some reason they happen to screw something up

 

Yeah, you're seriously going to want to think about dealing with these guys Caveat emptor..... Here's the comment from the last oil analysis done:


In addition to the motor being louder since the weather is colder, I'm now using just over a quart of oil every 1,200 miles. You can see the recommendation of short oil change intervals due to the excessive amount of metal, particularly iron which has increased with every analysis done. This is a motor with just under 7,500mi on it now and I've already had to add just over a quart of oil to it since the last analysis. Whatever is actually wrong, it appears it is more than a "weak valve spring or a bucket" causing the noise as SoHo is claiming.

It's doubtful that EVERY motor SoHo builds is like mine or else they wouldn't have a business. However, if you're considering going with them ask yourself if it's worth the risk? You're flipping a coin as to whether you get a decent quality rebuild as they claim, or you'll have obvious problems like me. Personally, my record is 0/2 with them. If you have problems, they can simply say "no warranty" and you're pretty much SOL. They don't even have to make any attempt to fix what was wrong. I appreciate that they at least did that for me, HOWEVER..the bottom line is the bottom line and there are problems with the motor! Right now I'm hoping the motor lasts another 1,000 so I can at least get 8,600mi out of it for my $8,600 yeah a dollar a mile, maybe that will make me feel better...

Also, this was nearly a 10-month ordeal from the initial build for me to FINALLY get my car back. Yes, remember this is the SECOND motor SoHo built for me!! The SECOND!! Again, I'm 0/2 with them. They had my car for over SIX months at their shop. So for THIS motor anything "possibly" done with the swap on the FIRST motor up here at Hill's Garage is null and void. For the SECOND motor, they had my car, they did the swap, they did the rebuild, they did EVERYTHING (including possibly killing me with the not even finger tight steering knuckle bolt). It should have been perfect, no "weak valve spring or bucket" causing noise. To me, it seems clear that the workmanship simply isn't there. Perhaps it's the machine shop they use, perhaps there's a new builder... Whatever it is, clearly the end product is not up to snuff and certainly not worth what I paid or the time it took to get it. What really pisses me off is that I don't like being deceived regarding the whole DE vs HR flywheel ordeal referenced above. After contacting Ben Pila at Jim Wolf Technologies and confirming what Nik proposed was impossible (same thing Hill's Garage told me), I can see only 2 possible reasons as to why I was told what I was told, neither of which are particularity encouraging. 1) Nik is not nearly the expert in the car he claims to be or 2) He simply lied to me. I really can't see any other explanation for how I could be told that the wrong flywheel was put on and caused all the problems from the very beginning. It was the oil cooler until it was the "wrong flywheel", now it is a "weak valve spring or a bucket" causing the noise, and "there will always be some noise, because of the built bottom end and stock top end". Really....what about the oil consumption and the excessively high metals?

Again, think looooong and hardddd if you want to deal with these guys. Caveat emptor. You've been warned....

*Note: All personally identifiable information other than my name has been removed from the oil report for obvious reasons, it hasn't been altered in any other way.

 

I also appreciate Soho coming on here to plead their case but this kind of ****^^ is unacceptable IMHO. For a company to fvck so many things up and then hide behind the "it didn't come with a warranty" BS is not only reprehensible but is a ludicrous business model. All they did here was make excuse after excuse and refuse to accept responsibility for the finish end product, what a crock.I don't care how many "Awesome builds" they have pumped out, if this is how they treat even 1 customer I don't wish them well in the future. Look out Soho Karma's a bitch and she staring at you right now.

Good luck with that.......

 

Yeah, my thoughts exactly... Now, I'm just putting the word out there.Really hope nobody has to go thru this with them. It's really terrible...