After mulling this over and asking advice from my fellow Lightning friends I must tell this ordeal so maybe someone else canNOT get burned. If you all remember I had broke a valve in one of my heads and needed some replacements. After searching all the major head porters I choose JL because he said he could get them to me the quickest because my Lightning was apart at a high performance shop and needed to get back together. The heads arrived and I took them to the shop to be installed. Then the shop called and said one of the heads was missing a small screwed in plug in one of the oil gallerys. I was kind of shocked that they made it out of JL's without being caught. I told him about it and he said it was no big deal of which it isn't but it was the principal and his attitude that if it was his shop he would have just fixed it and moved on. Well I paid for complete heads and they were not right. The shop fixed that screwed in plug with one from one of my old heads. A few days go by and the shop gets the heads installed on my motor and everything was fine until they started the engine. Turns out that one of the small pressed in plugs was leaking oil out and running down the back of the motor. This is at the back of the head where there is very little access. I was in shock to say the least especially sense this was from a MAJOR Lightning vendor. I asked the shop how we could fix that plug leak on the head and they said to do it the RIGHT way the head has to come off or the cab to gain full access to that leaking plug. Well as you all know pulling heads or even the cab is not cheap. I then told JL about the problem and at first he did not believe it. I supplied him with evidence and then he told me to use black rtv silicone to stop and leak and everything would be fine. He called it seepage but he did not see the oil running out. Too me this fix was unexceptable on new heads that were on a built motor.. I asked him for compensation to help offset the cost I was about to incur because of a defective head. He told me no and that if I was unhappy to send the heads back for a refund. I asked if he was going to pay to have the heads removed and he again said no. JL said me and the shop were blowing this way out of proportion and that silicone would have fixed it. I told him I'm not going the silicone route on new heads on a high performance built engine. The shop and I decide since the motor was back together the best thing to do would be pull the cab. They lifted the cab and found that whoever installed that leaking plug had gouged the head when prying out the old plug. The shop thinks they can fix it by installing another plug and setting in deeper in the recess where there is good ungouged metal. I asked JL numerous times to make this right and in his mind silicone will do it. I for one don't think so and JL's customer service truely STINKS. To me you would expect better especially when mods for these trucks can cost alot of money.. Just had to vent because I do not think what happen to me was right... I know there are plenty of people out there that are perfectly happy with JL but be very very careful of how you spend your money because I'm not the first that has had problems...Take care... Jeff

 

If it was me, I would never buy major motor parts from a vendor. Instead, I would only buy from the ACTUAL people that build the heads and shortblocks. Or have a local shop build on for me. Fox Lake or VT Engines!

 

Thanks for the heads-up.

This is one reason (of many) Troyer Performance is the only vendor I will consider buying from.

You just don't hear these kinds of things from folks dealing with them.

Best of luck with your truck.

Cheers
Grog

 

All vendors, suppliers, and manufacturer's will have problems from time to time. It's how the problem is handled that makes the difference.

 

Its always easy to sit behind a keyboard hundreds/thousands of miles away and treat customers like crap. A local shop/vendor is a must.

I have to laugh at the old "mail it back for a refund" B.S. Gee, how chivalrous of the vendors... thanks for being so understanding, but what about the other 50% of the cost involved, ie. LABOR, not to mention the down time. I feel for you.

Scott

 

it takes a small man to stand up and take credit where credit is due.

It takes a larger man to stand up and admit when they make a mistake.

It takes a LARGER MAN to make good on the mistake.

It's sad to hear stories like this. But they say, for every good thing you do for a customer they tell 3 people. For every bad thing they do, the customer tells 50.

You do the math. Should have just taken care of it.

Hope everything works out.

 

I think the thing that some vendors forget is that pulling something like a cylinder head is not a simple thing for most of the Lightning owners on this board. In a case like this the simple "send it back for a refund" doesn't work so well. I appreciate that JLP offered to refund the money on the head, but the cost of the first install, now removal and re-install of a different head is a lot of money; now also add in the freight. Would have been nice to see something offered besides a refund to help out in the situation.

Jody

 

I'm not going to comment on the press in plug or on the service, but I would like to comment on the screw in pipe plug issue...

The modular Ford head (as with 99% of any other head), uses a single casting that can be used on each side of the motor. On the front AND back of each head, is a machined area where the timing chain tensioner goes, which is oil fed. Inside this area is an oil passage, that feeds the tensioner. If you put a head on the motor, you have to plug that hole in the back of the head. In turn, if you took that head off and put it on the other side of the motor, you'd have to remove that plug and now put it in the other side of the head.

The point I'm getting at, is that the person or the shop doing the install should be familiar with this plug and know that it needs to be installed. It does not come installed from ANYONE, because the heads are universal and can be put on either side. This plug does not come installed on any aftermarket CNC head, nor does it come installed when you buy a brand new head from Ford. The only time a head will have this plug is if it's a used head that came off a running motor (which most CNC heads are, but they are usually removed during disassembly before machining).

So the missing pipe plug really isn't an issue, they all come like that. Just FYI.

 

Good point

 

Where did you get your first set of heads?? (Why aren't you slandering them??
If it's just a oil gallery plug, I would have thought the guy's installing the heads would have caught that during install.
Just my .02
Bryan

 

not trying to defend Johnny on this. or blame you but not all things can just be put in/on without inspecting them or without further setup on our part.

did you look over the motor when you got it? are you sure its a pressed in plug? i had a problem with my heads when i first got them from fox lake. the pipe plugs were not installed in the oil passages and i had everything installed started it up and started spraying oil of the fire wall as soon as the oil pressure went up.

 

I have been there and done that with several major vendors, and there is not sure thing with anybody. I have found that going to directly to the place the part comes from works best. Like for heads go to the porter for them, short blocks go to the machine shop/builder, blowers go to the main seller, and soforth.

But, it really shouldn't matter where you buy the part. Whoever you bought it from should stand behind that part for it to be what they said it should be.

I too have been left "out in the cold" by vendors for time and labor costs due to screwups on there behalf, and defective parts. BUT, I will say that once I got screwed by them and there business practices I havn't been back and don't plan to either.

 

I think that is a whole nother story, but why are you calling this slander. Yeah; he is "saying something bad" about that vendor, but he is just telling what happened. And he is telling exactlly what happened and how the vendor chose to blow it off.

That's just my take on the situation.

 

I thought he bought the heads from JLP, so that is who he was dealing with. The threaded plug issue sounds like it's supposed to be that way because they don't know which side you'll mount the heads (although they could take that variable out of the equation by mounting them correctly so the heads could only be installed on the correct side); his installer missed this one. The issue is now with the pressed in plug, like a freeze plug. It was gouged by someone prying the previous cap out and wasn't repaired or sealed properly when they re-did the head.

The silicone fix would work, if you could get to the plug to properly clean the area and the gouged section for the silicone to stick. Remember, it has oil leaking out of it now. Problem is the plug is on the back side of the head and jammed against the firewall.

My guess is any type of silicone fix will continue to leak due to lack of prep cleaning the area. Besides, on a new head setup how many would want that done anyway versus fixing it correctly.

JLP should have offered some sort of compensation and then got compensation from whatever shop he uses to do his heads. He actually wouldn't have been out any money, and this would have been a "praise JLP" thread instead of this.

Jody

 

The missing screwed in plug was fixed and I was going to move on but when the heads were installed and the small pressed in plug starting leaking oil I could not turn the other cheek without trying to recoup some of my unwarranted loses.The only way to see the gouged sealing surface was to remove the leaking plug... I was not asking for free stuff just some offset for something that I should not have had to go through.
The first set of heads broke a valve and I'll take responsibilty for that...

For those that ask I have a Mystic Cobra hence the nick...