The offset crankshaft that stumped Steve Colletti

Ok, so back to the crankshaft.  Steve (the "ripper off-er") Colletti had called me in to talk to me about my car sometime around the beginning of February (remember, the car was promised to be done at the beginning of March).  He showed me the crankshaft.  He pointed out that the crankshaft was not like standard crankshafts.  I saw what he was talking about and I had never seen one either.  Even though I owned a Grand National, I was not aware that it has the type of crankshaft it does.  My father was a mechanic and taught me about cars.  I am no expert, just a hobbyist, but I know enough about cars to tell this was definitely something different.

Steve (the "ripper off-er") Colletti explained that the way the crankshaft was, it would probably not hold up to the kind of stress that high horsepower would put on it.  He had printed out an article where someone had replaced their Grand National's offset crankshaft with a standard one.  This would require changing the firing order as well.  As I said before, once you change the unique motor of the Grand National, it is essentially not a Grand National anymore.  My first instinct was to get my car out of there because I feared my car was not going to be done right (and it turned out to be true).  But I gave him the benefit of the doubt and I remembered Millet's Automotive rebuilt my motor in 3 weeks time and it lasted for 10 years.  It would also be even more difficult now to ship the car to Florida to have KDK rebuild it instead of Colletti Motorsports (the "ripper off-ers") since the motor was now out and tore apart.  I told Steve (the "ripper off-er") Colletti that I wanted to look into this matter of the crankshaft.

I did some research and found that the Buick Grand National's offset crankshaft has a fluid channel that gives the crankshaft added strength to make up for its offset design and holds up to quite a lot of stress.  I told Steve (the "ripper off-er") Colletti what I had found out and told him to not change the crankshaft and firing order, but to rebuild it using the original crankshaft.  In my opinion, you are a very poor mechanic and have a very bad business if your customer has to find out what to do and find information for you. As I said earlier though, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he could still successfully rebuild my motor, but I was very nervous about it.  And this is when I really started documenting everything that happened so if the car did "blow" up, I would have proof of everything.