300zx Drift Car Update

Yeah was wondering what was happening with this thing after seeing it at UAS on the weekend, dude dont worry they told me my motor was shit too and its all good now im maknig 191rwkw on stock boost, exhaust and pod, so much for blown motor, mate i feel your pain i spent coutless dollars on labour at a number of mechs to find the problems of mine and it turned out to be really not much at all, retarded timing, dirty electrical connection and spark plugs, woopsies so much for blown motor, pretty bad that i fixed it in my front yard with limited mech knowledge and limited tools, name the workshop dude, we get ripped off all too often by a lot of workshops around sydney. I have heard too many bad stories about stuff i was talking to someone the other week who got charged 30.5 hours for them to still not know what was wrong with his car and for them to turn around with a bill and say sorry cant fix it, We need to start doing something about it

 

the real story

The fact that many people saw the vehicle here and thought should explain our side to it.



The car had and still does have many issues. The motor had been built twice before coming here. My experienced mechanics did our best to try and fix this car which unfolded immensely with so many issues. We are way behind on work and certainly did not want it to go on so long.
Missing lower cam cover with timing mark, missing guide plates front and rear of crank sprocket, no beeds on water or intercooler pipes which kept blowing off on dyno. Water pump bodgy install and loaded up and split and WILL happen again unless corrected. Tight spot in motor as in turn over by hand with no spark plugs and gets to a point and it gets very tight so probably has bent crank or something? Making noises on dyno found no gear oil in gear box, hoses blowing off and quiet frankly a piece of crap and dangerous to work on. It does not make much power in fact even with S15? turbo's it only makes 18psi. Ben who was working on it finally amongst many other things that the home made intercooler was leaking internally. We spent some time cleaning and checking the air flow metres supplied which I called as AI did and emailed many times to suggest new or reco ones which we did rather than tearing up labour. Everything we touched was bogey done. Yes it had massive oil pressure and blew oil out all over our shop which mainly came out of remote sandwich block.

I called numerous times and emailed up until fire which disrupted our show over here and my three of us in sales working with one computer.
Ben who mainly worked on this gem was on a last minute holiday as just bought a house which had a delayed and messy settlement which suddenly settled and was moving house. He had not had a chance to tidy every little thing on car which I explained and owner said no probs. We did the difficult parts. This is a clear case of long term bad feeling with a car after paying thousands of dollars prior to us and many thousands entry fees for a year in the Drift Australia Pro series. It seems obvious no matter what we did we were destined to be the scape goat. Our reputation often can back fire as some think if they tow their car here we will have a magic wand. Sadly I don't think this car will be on the track soon or if so may not last.

I explained the a the twin air flow metre version Power FC was a lot more than single air flow metre. It was impossible to quote on this car with som many issues which we discovered a huge list to start with and it kept unfolding as previous mechainics?? did poor work and cut corners and pipes were loaded up and stripped and broken or missing etc. The car was alsways hard to start and kept fowling plugs due to a few reasons and the dud air flow metres which we finally did for near cost and quoted on. Motor still running in an rather than putting cold and expensive Iridium spark plugs in we put cheap copper ones in to run it in on and sort out the issues. went through heaps of Areo Start whilst sorting it out and to get it started. In this case a LOT more as lots of issues prior to coming here. At no point were we asked to give a running tally of the bill or approximates. Customer questioned the bill and itemising of all the costs and looked at it in simple terms if a Zed Power FC is $2200 fitted and tuned why was mine so much more??

After the job card was faxed over the questions started, "How could it take so long to remove and refit an electric water pump etc explianed why and in my frustration I said look, just call me or my staff a liar which is what he was virtually doing. Along the way appart from speaking with Greg numerous times I spoke with one of the staff of Surflo explaining that the car had many issues and would be very costly and there were many phone calls and emails and asking questions to help us diagnose the problem as we did not get the whole story at the start.

I was going to send down a forum members zed to do dump pipes and after seeing the work on their zed I decided not. Especially after I asked many, many times to get a quote and told not much to one of their staff saying a few hundred each or so. I wanted something more from Greg the boss who owns this zed in question. Weeks pass and fianally after askign on phone ad email many times to get a rough idea and what and how they would do it and told two or three days labour to make an few versions of dump pipes, which would have been very expensive dump pipes. I have made other arrangements. Classic case of kettle and the black pot here.

Fate wht planet are you on. A pair of extrude honed exhaust manifolds to pack and send to your location in QLD yes nto sure what the problem is here. We many have got it slightly wrong but I don't think so. $30 to pack and send two manifolds to your location in Qld. We sent a bar to Mt Isa a while back and charged the guy $200 and actually cost me $450, our mistake and if other way around worth mentioning but really is it worth it over a few dollars. Re extrude honed manifolds which you are waiting on and hope to have by Christmass as suppliers are swamped with orders.

 

7100 isn't too bad

When i brought my Z it had a few problems, i spent $7500 on

Reconditioned heads (incl valves, springs etc)
New Rings, bearings
Some new hoses
New Radiator end tank, cap, rodding
Flywheel machinging
New clutch
A few minor suspension components


Really should have done forged pistons etc at the time, but i was feeling a bit stung by the rebuild cost as it was.

So I've spent a similar amount just getting my Z back to good stock condition, and i've probably still got a gearbox rebuild and turbo's not too far down the track.

 

I can't wait to read the English, translated version (now where did I put my Riven Code Book?).:zlove:

 

Come on guys we dont want a flame war here again. Its always going to be they said this I said this yada yada yada and no one knows the actual truth behind any of it. Most zed owners in Sydney will have stories from various so called top service tuning specialists in Sydney. I know for one I have many and am glad to tell of my experiences privatley by PM, phone or email but try to keep it off the forum it just turns into a slinging match and does nothing for anyones reputation good or bad it just makes people not want to use either.

My 50c

 

Hey, Byron thanks for the Strt Brace install bro

Cant beleive they made such a difference. Catch you soon :zlove:

 

Badluck mate but shit happens! You should of taken it to UAS or another good Z specialist in the 1st place. You wouldnt have had as much troubles!

 

You didn't read it all did you??

This is one of the reasons that the only person who touches my Z is me, unless I'm there supervising. Sooo many of my mates have been screwed around by sooo many workshops it's not funny. This way I know exactly what gets done, what doesn't, and what i break. I save a lot of money but loose a lot of time, not a bad trade off I think.

 

I did read it, what im trying to say is.. if you can do it your self do it. If you CANT then take it to a well known ZED specialist so you wont have any troubles later down the track.

 

It costs me $25 to $35 to send a set of dump pipes interstate from Melbourne. Depending on how far north or west they need to go.

 

Yes Jason, most of us do have stories from so called top service tuning specialist in Sydney but we don't mention it until the next one gets burnt and only then they find out that they are not alone and aren't pleased that no one warned them.

I know thunder, the 'gentleman' involved here, and a more honest, knowledgeable and polite man you will not find.

There was no mention of a workshop, the fact that a few people had seen the car at UAS did not mean they were the workshop responsible, it could have been there for some other reason...JP himself has volunteered that information freely. Not sure why?

There is no flaming happenning except from the workshop that has claimed responsability, other than that its just a fellow Zedder sharing his experience and frustrations and other members expressing opinions, experiences and feelings....

Caz..

 

That's not quite what I was getting at...

 

speaking of dumps GJ... are they ready?

 

no worries dude

 

NightFallTech, the $7100 was just to get it running and tuned after we spent the many thousands on the other parts, and had the engine back in the car. We also supplied the Apexi computer.

We were running out of time to get the car ready for the last round of the Drift Championship and instead of taking it back to the workshop who built the engine, we took it to Unique as they are the 300zx specialists.

We needed someone familiar with 300's to check the engine to make sure all the wiring and vacuum hoses had been installed correctly before the engine was started and tuned.

The other workshop (who specialise in Hondas and also do Skylines, etc) had just moved premises and had work coming out their ears, and John said he could get it done in time, but the engine had unforseen oil pressure problems.

Unique did a great job in getting the car going and fixing some of the problems and highlighting other areas of concern.

I emailed John twice and spoke to him over the phone requesting explanations of the job sheets as the figures were rubbery and a lot more than I expected. Maybe these hours were spent doing other things that are not listed on the job sheet, I don't know. That's why I asked him the questions in private. If John had given me satisfactory answers, that would have been the end of the story.

The second visit was to tune the engine and fit the guide plates and timing cover, which have been done (along with a lot of other things).

The car billows black smoke out the back as it is still running way too rich, so I don't know how good the tune is or whether it is a problem with the injectors.

I heard the guys who bought the bigger turbo's were leaning out with 555cc injectors, 720cc injectors were nil stock, so we went with the 800cc injectors. We were expecting to make well over 300rwkw, so we thought the 800cc injectors would do it safely.

If John had of given me the courtesy of answering my questions properly instead of fobbing me off, and calling my car a piece of crap, I would not have posted any of this on the forum.

I am new to 300's and have to rely on others. I have mentioned before that I was dicked around by a Head Nissan Dealership Mechanic in the first instance and another workshop stripped & re-built the engine from there. I believe John posted a thread previously criticising my car and the previous workshop. I didn't see the thread as it got deleted.

I just put it down to experience and move on.

Re: The dump pipes.
John asked us to quote on a dump pipe and after a few weeks he sent us a picture of a Japanes style one. This type of dump pipe that would have taken many hours to make, which means the cost is expensive. We suggested 2 other types and he wanted the ones that perform the best, but be the cheapest. He wanted the dump pipes to go all the way to the cats and be flanged so there were 4 pieces in the set. We told him we would have to make each set on the car and dyno test each of them. We would then have to make a second set of the best design to make a jig from. This would have taken at least 2 - 3 days. He then wanted us to make them exclusively for him.

John's invoices are down to the last clamp, can of aerostart, plus workshop consumables at the end of the bill.

When we asked if he was going to pay for the making of the dump pipes, dyno testing and jigs, he decided it was a bad idea and did not proceed.

As we were being charged $98/hour labour from John, we priced the dump pipes at $98/hour as well, which became too expensive for him. We normally charge a lot less than this, but we figured that if he was worth $98/hour, so were we.

When John saw the dump pipes on our Drift Car he was impressed by the quality and design and showed us the ones on his race car, which are less than desirable. We offered to make a new set for his race car if he chopped our bill down, but he also declined.


John, you have to remember that the engine took 18 months to get in the car and all of the other items that had to be done afterwards were done by us in less than 2 weeks in between working on customers cars, serving customers and answering telephone calls ie wiring harness, electric water pump, intercooler, intercooler pipes, oil cooler, fuel tank and system, dashboard, gauges and sensors, radiator, radiator pipes, BOV's, dump pipes, exhaust system, etc etc etc.

The intercooler was pressure tested and leaked to atmosphere because the custom core was not sealed properly. We then had to chop it seal the leaks and re-weld it and pressure test it again. Yes we knew it had a small leak internally but did not have enough time to chop the tanks off and re-weld them. Also, if the pressure on both sides of the tank divider is the same, the bleeding would be minimal and being internal, should not have been a concern.

After this point we had 1.5 weeks for you to install the computer, check out everything, get it started and tuned, to be at the last round of the drifting.

Yes, some things were done in a hurry (especially the intercooler) and not up to our usual standard, but given the time frame, we had no choice. If we had taken more time, we would have had no chance to get to the last round of the Drifting. We now have till the end of February to fix these items up.

 

I sent a set to Lysergic last week. He seems very happy.

I have 14 sets up to the stage of welding the wastegate pipes on. The current contracting 9-5 job i got a month or so ago has slowed me down as cant work on them during the day like I did before.

Over the Chrissy break I recon I wll have em all done. In between working on my car that is!

 

hahahah cool cool.... looks like ive got some more delays with other parts n e way...

 

All out in the open

All sort of good to see the whole story told as long as not tainted or exaggerated.

Regarding replies I think I did pretty good considering our shop half closed due to fire and water and smoke damage and madly buying premises to move to as they are rebuilding where we are. Having meetings with solicitors and council and agents and tradesman etc etc whilst also running the business and going through hundreds of emails a day. We are down to one computer at the shop and phone system is down so old school manual set up whilst also building our temporary showroom accosss from existing one, and whilst running the business. Unfortnatley I don't have time for those who don't listen or ask the same questions many times.

Caz someone did mention us on this thread? Also what do you expect someone to do when someone has ago at you and does not tell the whole story, exaggerates, and well gets it wrong? Many saw the car here and exactly what I thought happen, happened. We wore all problems with this car as we touched it. I did not want it known we even worked on it and not suprised it is still not exactly right, we could have kept going on it and fixing and chasing our tail. We should have sent it back when we first had it arrive and saw all the dodgy work on it. Not an easy or fun or profitable job. Also gentlemen don't make up or exaggerate stories and appreciate those trying to help them out of a bad experience. Yes Greg seems like a nice guy but behind a keyboard well?

Unlike our price for labour upf ont and on job card it took weeks to get this info and lucky I did.

Exhaust work was good but comparing an exhaust fitter to a experienced specialist quality mechainc which we have three gems at the moment and expensive equipment etc, well is like apples and oranges. I take it we would have been charged more than retail, and this is OK??? Not very gentlemen like. Especially when we supplied many parts cheap to help out with this project even well prior to coming to UAS as a last resort with ALL the baggage and frustrations. We did want it to fly the zed flag and be involved in motorsport and hope it still does. Re charges we have more work especially at the moment than we can handle and wanted it to be a simple straight forward job like some are but unfortnatley not. Not double charging but trying to save customer money from buying new air flow metres etc. Ben did most of the work on the car nad he is very fast for what he does and will bet my house on it with all the kids in it and the dog that no other workshop or mechanic in Australia would have got it going in the time spent. Dammed if we tried to save money cleaning air flow metres which often worked but in this case did not. Called and got approval for new or reco ones which we did. One should pick a camp charged too much or did not fix the car taking both is spinning the tyres.... Yes Greg I easily believe this car was put together quickly and less than carefully which we inherited all problems and why we took way longer. As mentioned I called and emailed and also spoke to Mat at your shop re what we were doing and, no we do not call on every occassion we are fixing yor car as not viable and not as if adding expensive parts without telling you. You brought a big head ache to us that no one would or probably could have done what we did and I stand by what we did and my mechanics. They wanted to give up on it to cut our losses suspecting you may not understand or complain why it took so long to get it going and hence why we called and clearly explained to Mat who works for you and delivered the car, to relay messages to you of all the problems and was even bold enough to say hope you have your cheque book out as this is going to be a big bill.

Bigbaz yes your car was running very odd way back on that dyno day and had all symptoms of something seriously wrong with your car and we did a compression test in front of you and comp was very low. Quite possibly due to mechanics prior not fitting spark plugs properly as in very lose. It is a bit of a mystery but you saw the figures and your car was the greatest curve ball of all time. You forgot to mention these so called workshops who fixed had the timing way out, which we corrected and diagnosed when you brought it to us last. This made your car run much better and increased your fuel economy no doubt and power by how much was it 30rwkw?? Also this workshop who worked on this zed do you know the whole story and no doubt there are many workshops doing their best with limited knowledge on zeds. There seems to be a consitent ease of someone running off with half info, throw in some emotions and money and frustration and well the truth gets left out or twisted. But if genuine problem with workshop that is not resolved and worthy of warning others then as long as reporting on facts and not exaggerated then one should, for the benefit of all.

It seems again I am the odd one out for most here although not all. As in someone can get on here and have a winge and exaggerate or imply things and no problems good bloke and side with them. If you don't know the whole story one should not comment, but after explaining things here whilst running my business etc and a bit confusing sorry Chilli and others should have got the message though.

 

It seems to turn into a bit of a 'feeding frenzy' which is unfortunate, but JP
hows the moving sale going, any cheap drift parts, anchors, cardigans, etc ?

 

I sent my

manifolds to rob260 in NSW, both well packed in one box.
Aus post cost $13.60 from VIC.