I want to tell a little story. Why? For several reasons; here is the first. Because after 7.5 years my only regret is when our customers do not first assume intelligence and fairness was applied to a decision. If you still disagree with us, based on facts and after applying a level of trust that we all care and do our best every single day; I can live with that! I would hope that it is a rare day when this occurs. Sometimes the answer is “we are a business and we must survive”. Generally I don’t have to tell our customers that, we are blessed with a highly intelligent customer base with terrific credentials, and everyone is really easy going (ok…maybe I am getting carried away with that last part). This saga hopefully shows our honesty and actions, and since there were no confrontations involved I feel comforable sharing it. In this case we / I missed a red flag that was raised.

Here is the story: I have changed the names to protect the innocent:

We have a long time great customer; we will call him Leff Jehner. Leff sent in an engine he never loved for a top end rebuild or “whatever it took to make it good”. It was just not his favorite and as a race winning level driver, he knows when he is that critical few percent off. You see, we have changed the engine window to a tighter and tighter window over time and built in 3-4, whatever it takes, tries to get every engine into a 1.5 HP window. But Leff’s motor was bottom of the old window most likely and we know that our customers can drive the difference! SO…Shannon Snow, with Mike Davies support, added new adjustments and fine tuning points to the changes made in 2011.

The bottom end of Leff’s motor was great, but the top end did need a rebuild. This consists of all new valves, spark plugs, valve seats, valve guides, valve springs, lifters and we now change lifter retainers too (as we had 1-2 failures a year and while we may suspect over rev in many cases we want to know the age of the retainers now). After 4-5 attempts / hours on the dyno (with part changes etc) Shannon had to contact good ole Leff and tell him that this engine was slightly below the normal window and while the new processes included hours of effort, it could not include replacement of our rare cylinder heads. (As it does not include replacement of broken blocks and worn our cylinder heads – usually the cam journals). Leff chose to pay an additional $800 for a replacement head. Most of the ones we have are known good HP heads (Leff’s is the first “bad HP head” we have identified specifically) that we had to have the cam journals sleeved to give them a second life. We have over $700 in them. As luck / Murphy would have it we had a 3 week dyno issue, rare, but we cannot afford two dyno’s and WE NEVER put out an engine when we have reason to suspect a shift in HP. During this time Leff was getting nervous as his car was at Ike Mamy’s shop (remember names are cleverly disguised) and Sebring was coming fast. So Shannon got everything together and achieved the HP target for Leff! BUT, the head that was chosen had a crack in the water outlet area…not acceptable. At our expense (of course) we had it repaired and now we REALLY had a tough timeline. Shannon worked a weekend and finished the motor. However, despite there being numerous cam bearing heads out there, this one blew the cap off a lifter and wiped out a cam. Shannon knew he was aggressive with cold oil and since it was a weekend things were colder than normal when he was warming the motor up (actual runs are within a very tight temperature range). So our decision was that this was not a customer duplicable event. We paid a little extra and got the engine to Ike’s shop on about the last tolerable day; I felt bad so Leff only paid $700 for the head (that we know had about $950 invested in).

During the Holidays I received a text that the engine sounded bad from Ike and I replied “they all sound bad to me. Please keep me posted” . I was not trying to be a smart ass, but lifter rattle has been a part of this engine forever. Ike was not comfortable with what he heard and I have no idea what could have been done at this point, but it turned out the red flag being raised was correct. This engine was doing something different and never seen before. At Sebring Leff had a few sessions, none great and eventually the engine sounded “really really bad”. Time for our occasionally used “supervised” cam cover removal. Lifters had been blow up again! Cam was mostly ok (at this point we wanted to get Leff through the weekend than pay Ike for an R&R and ship it back for diagnosis and clean up). The lifters were changed and I think the straight 30W oil replaced with a multi-grade to minimize the high oil pressure issue that this head now obviously had. Unfortunately today the now third lifter failed and wiped a cam…so game over!

So what does SCCA Enterprises do to stand behind a RARE mechanical part issue? In hind sight we know that this engine showed signs of issues we had never seen, and just because our original cylinder head change was customer requested and the right thing to do, did not mean we should rush things out (even working overtime and Shannon so graciously did). Also, Ike tried to flag this and Leff was patient through the process. Obviously that engine will come back after the weekend. What I tried to find was a brand new complete rebuild to trade to Leff at our expense (we would replace it to the racer who gave it up). Leff would get a complete rebuild to replace his top end rebuilt motor and I would handle a three way engine rotation to take care of replacing an engine here we would give up. Alas…no such engine existed, but EVERYONE I spoke to was awesome and tried to help! So what does Enterprises do now…well…I authorize Leff to go shopping for a rental car! Which Alliance Autosport graciously provided for Ike to prep and run for Leff. So root for Leff Jehner at Sebring! Oh wait you don’t know who that is…oh well.

This is not a precedent, but it is also FAR from the first time I and/ or our team have spent hours on a single customers issue. Engine HP and quality are SO GOOD…we can afford to stand behind MECHANICAL issues solidly. If you melt pistons, or over rev things, we know that generally the car / operating environment did that (reference fuel deliver issues, bad electronics and a number of other stories shared honestly by our customers on this site before).

Back again to why tell this story? Another reason is because it highlights how we feel about every customer and every engine. You are racing THE MOST EQUAL ENGINES EVER SUPPLIED IN MOTORSPORTS! MAYBE there is a shop out there that is our equal…but their engines race against other shops engines usually. Our “warranty” numbers are rounding error (I have the data) and thanks to honest customers we know that (sometimes LONG after the fact) we have found the smoking gun with the CAR for just about every repeat issue case. There are a few names I wake up screaming “not them again” still…but it is a VERY SHORT list and I still think the engines they break would run great in someone else’s cars…not necessarily through their fault. We have OLD engines, OLD electronics and some cars needing TLC or maybe an exorcism!!! But it is 2-3 maybe 4 cars out of hundreds out there racing. (We had 5 total SCCA entries difference between 2010, 2011 and 2012 as measured by compliance income, 3000 race entries a year).

Here is a last HUGE point I am trying to make. Product age is why we MUST move forward and oh… my my my …what a glorious forwards it is! The Spec Racer Davies is alive and it is AMAZING!!!! But for those wanting to run the next two years competitively, and those who want to run the 3 after that (while we have two classes) with success; we will always rebuild 1.9L Fords and we will send every motor out as if it was going to win the Runoffs! (See last year’s graph) Do we make mistakes…YUP…same one twice…I sure hope not! Do we care…I hope I don’t have to answer that EVER…on any subject! We have no extra anything: resources, staff, MONEY …nothing…but we make it work, every single day; year in and year out!

Outstanding support as always!

Erik,
I think you've spoiled everyone. I used to race a DSR. The cost to run one of those went up weekly with the trick of the week. Also no trackside support with parts immediately available. Anyone who has run a different SCCA class immediately understands what a deal we get with Enterprises. Thanks for your and your crew's very hard work.

Amen and Thank you!As a CSR with over 25 cars in shop and numerous engine rebuilds per year, I cant say anything negative at all about the way the engine program has been run, and we have had a few engine issues that have been resolved VERY FAIR by Enterprises. You will NEVER find a better program or support anywhere else.

Shawn Morrison
Motion Dynamics
www.mdracing.com

I was one of the guys with a brand new rebuild that had a retainer clip break in the first few hours - at the 2011 Sprints. Mike D. was there - took one look - didn't even ask me if I had over revved it (I hadn't) and replaced engine for no fee. As I've said before - anyone who raced during some of the prior Enterprise regimes know how great Erik, Mike and all the Enterprise folks are. And they do listen, and although sometimes some of us don't get what we want there is no doubt Erik always does what is best for the overall health of the class.

I'll second what these guys said. Not the previous regime, but certainly the one before that at Enterprises was not exactly a joy to deal with.

I wonder if there is a way to convey these unique benefits to promote SRF. Has anyone tracked the percentage of SRF racers that start a weekend, and finish a weekend? It must be a much higher percentage than other classes.

Ok, since I have heard it from everyone who I have spoken to. YES, I know with almost 60 cars it is rare Enterprises does not attend. But we are in transition and frankly cash poor at the same time. Also, despite wonderful hospitality our typical compliance visit to Sebring was minimally effective. We usually did not get good pulls. Also, we have 1 BOD member there (it was supposed to be 2).

But yes, I agree...it would have been better if we had been there. But then TOMORROW the Spec Racer Gen III or Spec Racer Davies would not be making its track debut!...video to follow...

Lastly, I forgot about one other concern with the Jehner motor, that was brought to our attention via a video from Ike. The spark plugs apparently look really rough. We have NEVER had that complaint before on a rebuild. The valves also show deposits; I have heard that one before. The paperwork shows new everything, inventory agreed, the valves ran 4-5 hours in Leff's original head and transferred to the new head. I can understand deposits from excessive dyno runs. (Engine dyno’s take very little toll on the bottom end, but the can leave deposits in the top end). As for the plugs, I am looking forward to seeing them myself, as is Shannon. They were in the original head for those runs then the replacement head. They stayed in during the welding...I don't have an explanation. But that was part of the story, so there you have it.

i had an engine failure in the first weekend of break in. I did not realiize it until the next event. It was caused by a rear collission damaging the electronics. Eric and Mike were very fair the what they charged me to get the motor back together knowing what had happened. It won both events at Sebring. This is my 18th year in SRF. We have got the best leadership we have ever had.