Viper Motor in Charger / X2 BUILDERS

[hollywood1336]

This is a pretty long story so grab a beer of coffee and sit back.
I know there aren't a lot of guys in this forum putting a Viper engine and transmission in a 1968 Dodge Charger, but I am posting this here in hopes of preventing others from going through what I have and am going through. I purchased my 68 from Texas Toy Box, and as I have previously posted, when I received the car it was not in the condition TTB guaranteed it would be. However, over the last 18 months I have restored and  resto-rodded the car and it is now beautiful, just getting through the final paint which is looking incredible, color is 2011 Dodge Challenger "Green with Envy".

I purchased a 2001 Gen2 viper motor through X2 BUILDERS. They are a pretty big outfit, big website and advertise and sell engines on EBAY. I purchased my motor in Late 2012. At that time I did not see any negative comments about them on the net. They guarantee the motor for 90 days but I told them I wouldn't have the motor installed for at least a year. They assured me the motor had "Been thoroughly gone through and ran perfect" and I wouldn't have any problems. The motor has been sitting in my garage in San Diego until I installed it into the car a month ago. I rotated the crank once a month until last weekend when I started the motor. When the motor started it sounded fine but has no oil pressure. I have called around to several Viper performance shops and mechanics and even called Mopar Performance in search of answers. They gave me a couple tests to do, and if they didn't work my only option would be to strip the engine down and find the problem. First thing I did was remove the oil filter housing from the timing cover to see if the oil pressure relief valves were in place. Low and behold, no pressure relief valves, there's my problem. The oil is coming out of the pump and being recirculated back into the oil pick up and not the oil filter. I come to find out from X2 BUILDERS that they piece engines together from other engines to make a running package, then they sell it. So they basically have unexperienced mechanics stripping parts from one motor and putting them on another, without new gaskets, and sell them. The casting number on the timing cover does not match the date on my motor, so it's obvious the original cover on my motor was probably damaged in an accident and replaced with a cover where the oil pressure relief valves had been removed.

I have even emailed X2 BUILDERS and told them I will fix the motor at my expense if they will send me out another oil pan for the motor. I have to modify the pan to fit into my Charger and I want to keep one spare in case my modifications don't provide enough oil to the motor.

This was a guaranteed perfect motor. All my emails have been with Shannon, who I guess is the office person out there. She has been very nice and responsive and I'm sure only communicates what she is told. I have emailed her in hopes of some resolution but her boss, Scott, says because I am out of the warranty period it's all hear say. So no resolution, no oil pan, I'm the liar and tuff luck. If your project points you to do business now or in the future with X2 BUILDERS beware, liars cheats and crooks.
I am writing this in hope that somebody out there is going to do business with them and they google X2 BUILDERS they will see this post and give it second thoughts. I can provide my phone number to anyone wanting to hear the full story and the crooks I have had to deal with putting this car together.

[______]

I owned a 2004 SRT10 regular cab truck for a short period. VERY fun truck to drive and surprisingly reliable. It wasn't much for fuel mileage around town but I did drive it from UT to S. Texas and was able to get 17-18mpg out of it (75-80 mph at 1500rpm!). The  T56 transmission would be perfect in a car. I always thought it would have been awesome to swap everything over to my Charger at the time.

[200MPH]

I would post that here ////http://www.viperalley.com/forum/