Beginning in April of ’04 I gave James Hensler enough $ to completely finish the 5.3L we had planned. During the next few months when I would call up to the shop (besides being a complete ******* with the temperament of a pissed off toddler) James would swear that he was making progress on the build and that parts were ordered and on the way. After I began to get a better idea of the kind of person James was, I confronted him about the lack of progress made toward my motor—especially considering he had my $$ up front. It turns out that James had spent a large portion of the funds I had given him to complete his own race car (which still doesn’t run) in hopes to have it ready asap. At one point I even brought a mortgage loan officer/bank rep down to James’ shop so that he could get a loan to repay me—that sounded like a good plan until we discovered his credit was so bad he couldn’t come close to qualifying for a loan. In return for me not initially suing him for breach of contract/theft we agreed that any and all labor performed on any motor/car I ever bring him would be free of charge.
As even more time rolled by and no progress had been made I began to further inquire about the painfully long delay. All I heard was false deadlines and bull****, and after talking to a few other Hensler Racing customers, I found I wasn’t alone.
On to the build... James actually tried to assemble the 5.3L on three separate occasions to no avail. The first time James ignored what he was told regarding some extra machine work to the BB 305 block (necessary for rod/piston clearance on a 324BB/S) and had to rip the short block apart completely. The second attempt was squandered when James cut my brand new custom valves to the wrong length rendering them completely useless--$550 down the drain that I have not been to this day reimbursed for. When James put the motor together it tested at ZERO compression, probably the first assembled motor in the history of the world to do so. Why? The intake valves being the wrong length weren’t closing. It was at this point that James decided to reuse my stock valves (with triple groove keepers) with Al P’s custom dual valve spring kit. Al told James which valves to use (his kit MUST be used with custom single keeper springs) but James once again neglected to listen and assembled the heads anyway.
When the motor was finally dropped in the car, James did a compression check and admitted that he had timed one bank of cams wrong since one bank was ~20psi lower than the other. At this time I wanted to take my car home (since it had been forever since I had driven it) to put some break in miles on it. James flat out told me that if I drove it around I would wash the rings out of it until it was tuned. He then proceeded to put around 100 miles of abuse (including one trip to the drag strip that he didn’t make me aware of until after he blew my clutch—and expected me to pay for a new one). By the time we got my car to the dyno it was smoking like a Caterpillar diesel and making nowhere near the power. The car ended up making 430/380 on a local Mustang Dyno that reads about 20-30rwhp higher than a Dynojet.
While my car was on the dyno James appeared to be a nervous wreck. Both I and the dyno tuners/operators heard James state “This motor’s going to have to come out again” because of all the valve train noise going on.
After the second tuning session I told James I was taking the car home (since he was satisfied with the motor) and even though it had a large enough leak in the fuel filler tank to lose ¼ tank of gas on the ride home, and had several new scratches on my otherwise flawless hood—from James trying to reinstall my cars hood by himself.
On the ride home a passenger and I heard a horrific “bang” that could only be described as a metal on metal collision. We both looked at each other with a “WTF” face, at this point the motor started to smoke even more and didn’t have quite as much pull as it did previously. I drove the car home and parked it in the garage, just happy to have something back because at this point it had been over a year since I had driven the car. .
While running errands the next day, the engine started to misfire very badly. Over the next few minutes (on the highway cruising) it got progressively worse, and I noticed a smoke trail from my tailpipes that would have made Batman proud. I immediately pulled over and called James for some answers. He stated that it must be extra carbon build up and to beat on it. Before I could get back on the highway the car started to knock extremely loudly, and ended up dying on the on ramp.
I called James and he came out to pick up the car. He immediately blamed me for over revving the motor and told me that I must have broken a rod. He tried to lecture me saying that “no one revs their motors over 7000rpm, and if they do they’re lying” also telling me that I must have floated a valve.
When James got my car/motor back to his shop I flat out asked him: “Are you going to stand behind your work” and was met with an answer as blunt as my question “NO”. I immediately told James not to touch anything and I’d come by to pick the car/motor up for someone else to tear down. James blatantly ignored my orders and preceded to remove and teardown my motor anyway (got guilt?). During the course of the next few hours James called me several different times, each with a different story/reason the motor came apart. The first of which was that I snapped 3 connecting rods since the pistons were no longer moving in their respective bores. All rods turned out to be intact and no such damage ever occurred. Next up, James blamed me for over revving the motor again. How exactly can I over rev a motor with a valve train that’s built (or was supposed to be built) to handle 10,000rpm plus? James didn’t have an answer, but stuck to his claims. Meanwhile James continued to ignore my orders of not touching my car/motor. About an hour later James called back again, stated that Fox Lake was to blame for improperly installing a bronze guide liner. “It just fell out” I don’t know why, was his response. Last but not least James tried to blame the failure on a piece of crank Mallory that had worked its way (with who knows how much of James’ mingling) out of its fitting. Here’s the real reason: The bronze liner used on that valve was smashed in such a way that the ONLY reason it could have been bent like that was from incorrect PtV clearance. James, who assembled the heads?
Needless to say I was completely frustrated with James, his lies, and his inability to follow directions. In order to try and save his own ass James completely disassembled my heads (again on his own without permission) and tried to show just the short block to John Tymensky of MP. Without seeing the entire motor together John couldn’t make an educated judgment as to what happened. James, don’t even try to drag John’s good name down to your level.
Perhaps the most telling part of James’ character and willingness to be a real POS was his fabricated claim that I still owed him $6000 and that he was going to file a lien on my car. Unbelievable. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there are other lawsuit(s) pending against James for similar occurrences.
What was perhaps most shocking to me was the phone call I got from James about 4 weeks ago. He asked me to start recruiting/backing him on the internet again, and offered me a cut of every car he did. ROTFL, let me think about that one….
James, you are the King of ****ing people over, I’ve seen it time and time again from you. You know the old saying “Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves”, I’m confident that’s the only thing you’ll ever be successful at.
As even more time rolled by and no progress had been made I began to further inquire about the painfully long delay. All I heard was false deadlines and bull****, and after talking to a few other Hensler Racing customers, I found I wasn’t alone.
On to the build... James actually tried to assemble the 5.3L on three separate occasions to no avail. The first time James ignored what he was told regarding some extra machine work to the BB 305 block (necessary for rod/piston clearance on a 324BB/S) and had to rip the short block apart completely. The second attempt was squandered when James cut my brand new custom valves to the wrong length rendering them completely useless--$550 down the drain that I have not been to this day reimbursed for. When James put the motor together it tested at ZERO compression, probably the first assembled motor in the history of the world to do so. Why? The intake valves being the wrong length weren’t closing. It was at this point that James decided to reuse my stock valves (with triple groove keepers) with Al P’s custom dual valve spring kit. Al told James which valves to use (his kit MUST be used with custom single keeper springs) but James once again neglected to listen and assembled the heads anyway.
When the motor was finally dropped in the car, James did a compression check and admitted that he had timed one bank of cams wrong since one bank was ~20psi lower than the other. At this time I wanted to take my car home (since it had been forever since I had driven it) to put some break in miles on it. James flat out told me that if I drove it around I would wash the rings out of it until it was tuned. He then proceeded to put around 100 miles of abuse (including one trip to the drag strip that he didn’t make me aware of until after he blew my clutch—and expected me to pay for a new one). By the time we got my car to the dyno it was smoking like a Caterpillar diesel and making nowhere near the power. The car ended up making 430/380 on a local Mustang Dyno that reads about 20-30rwhp higher than a Dynojet.
While my car was on the dyno James appeared to be a nervous wreck. Both I and the dyno tuners/operators heard James state “This motor’s going to have to come out again” because of all the valve train noise going on.
After the second tuning session I told James I was taking the car home (since he was satisfied with the motor) and even though it had a large enough leak in the fuel filler tank to lose ¼ tank of gas on the ride home, and had several new scratches on my otherwise flawless hood—from James trying to reinstall my cars hood by himself.
On the ride home a passenger and I heard a horrific “bang” that could only be described as a metal on metal collision. We both looked at each other with a “WTF” face, at this point the motor started to smoke even more and didn’t have quite as much pull as it did previously. I drove the car home and parked it in the garage, just happy to have something back because at this point it had been over a year since I had driven the car. .
While running errands the next day, the engine started to misfire very badly. Over the next few minutes (on the highway cruising) it got progressively worse, and I noticed a smoke trail from my tailpipes that would have made Batman proud. I immediately pulled over and called James for some answers. He stated that it must be extra carbon build up and to beat on it. Before I could get back on the highway the car started to knock extremely loudly, and ended up dying on the on ramp.
I called James and he came out to pick up the car. He immediately blamed me for over revving the motor and told me that I must have broken a rod. He tried to lecture me saying that “no one revs their motors over 7000rpm, and if they do they’re lying” also telling me that I must have floated a valve.
When James got my car/motor back to his shop I flat out asked him: “Are you going to stand behind your work” and was met with an answer as blunt as my question “NO”. I immediately told James not to touch anything and I’d come by to pick the car/motor up for someone else to tear down. James blatantly ignored my orders and preceded to remove and teardown my motor anyway (got guilt?). During the course of the next few hours James called me several different times, each with a different story/reason the motor came apart. The first of which was that I snapped 3 connecting rods since the pistons were no longer moving in their respective bores. All rods turned out to be intact and no such damage ever occurred. Next up, James blamed me for over revving the motor again. How exactly can I over rev a motor with a valve train that’s built (or was supposed to be built) to handle 10,000rpm plus? James didn’t have an answer, but stuck to his claims. Meanwhile James continued to ignore my orders of not touching my car/motor. About an hour later James called back again, stated that Fox Lake was to blame for improperly installing a bronze guide liner. “It just fell out” I don’t know why, was his response. Last but not least James tried to blame the failure on a piece of crank Mallory that had worked its way (with who knows how much of James’ mingling) out of its fitting. Here’s the real reason: The bronze liner used on that valve was smashed in such a way that the ONLY reason it could have been bent like that was from incorrect PtV clearance. James, who assembled the heads?
Needless to say I was completely frustrated with James, his lies, and his inability to follow directions. In order to try and save his own ass James completely disassembled my heads (again on his own without permission) and tried to show just the short block to John Tymensky of MP. Without seeing the entire motor together John couldn’t make an educated judgment as to what happened. James, don’t even try to drag John’s good name down to your level.
Perhaps the most telling part of James’ character and willingness to be a real POS was his fabricated claim that I still owed him $6000 and that he was going to file a lien on my car. Unbelievable. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there are other lawsuit(s) pending against James for similar occurrences.
What was perhaps most shocking to me was the phone call I got from James about 4 weeks ago. He asked me to start recruiting/backing him on the internet again, and offered me a cut of every car he did. ROTFL, let me think about that one….
James, you are the King of ****ing people over, I’ve seen it time and time again from you. You know the old saying “Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves”, I’m confident that’s the only thing you’ll ever be successful at.
