I've been pestering the living sh!t out of VPD for my parts...here's the latest e-mail response (that's not true...this is the only e-mail I've had since last April):

"Craig,
The hold up is the T5 adpater plate.
We have a couple of the older 3/4 " plates in stock but none of the newer 1" plates that do not require shortening the input shaft. Kept looking like everything was ready for your order until measured the plates. The new plates should be ready this PM.

Regards,
John
Vintage Performance Developments"

This engine will have the following specs:

B20 bored 0.030 over. Block is zero decked, line honed, new everything and is polished and ready to go.
Head - VPD street performance head with high flow valves and magic port work - mostly on the exhaust side. New everything including dual valve springs, guides etc.
Cam - VPD street performance cam with modern cam profiles (new lifters and push rods).
8 bolt crank, flywheel and rods (all reconditioned, fully balanced, polished and up to spec).
ARP stud kit for the head and new ARP rod bolts.
Compression ratio 9.5:1 (cc'ed combustion chambers).

Similar engines are putting out 150-160 Hp at the crank. I have been in conversation with a guy who has a fresh VPD engine (took almost 2 years to get - he was ready to sue!) and he has dyno'ed at 143 hp at the rear wheels with his 142. He was running the VPD Minkuni's and I'm running SU HIF's...at least mine will start in winter.

The T5 adapter is a "just in case" sort of thing...always good when the part you don't care if you get is the one holding up production!

Cancel the T5 plate. Dale's got one for me to copy and we can get it built for you when and if you need it.

If I would have known this was going to be the hold-up, I would do just that. At this point I'll give him next week and continue my phone campaign. It's sort of fun at this point, and my experiene with VPD at this point indicates that damn near anything could be the actual problem. A couple of weeks ago it was that he hadn't assembled the head, so who knows what the excuse is next week.

Is liking needling the guy bad?

Nope, it's just a different way of dealing with things. I would probably suck it up and wait, and/or do whatever I could to remove obstacles (like the T5 plate). At least you're getting responses, albeit slowly.

Put it this way: Cancel the T5 plate and you get a refund and your parts get shipped now. Then if he finds another excuse to delay shipment, you've got even more to needle him about.

I think the fact that I'm smiling while I catch him in a lie is sort of fun. Don't worry, I'll only play with him for a while. Deirdre will kill me if I don't get that damn engine in the car this year (OK not litterally,but she'll shake her head lots and walk away...sort of the same thing). But you're right, the fact that he's responding to phone calls and voice messages is a move in the right direction.

I'd print out that email and frame it.