from the Skyline owners club - SHOCKING, SHOCKING story

[steve b]

http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/upload/showt ... ge=1&pp=15

Does anyone have any experiences like this with MR2 tuners?

Foutunately my experiences have been of a good tuning garage.

My old n/a engine died, cracked block, i enquired at Millway Vechicle specialists as to getting a new block, high comp pistons etc,.. they said they wouldn't risk it if i want that done call, can't remember the place, 200sx specialist anyway but very respected for general rebuilds, instead they said they'd fit a new engine, either turbo or n/a for me. I ended up doing that. HKS vernier pully bolts came loose 500 miles after getting the new engine, they sent their mechanic on a 180 mile round trip to my house to sort it at no charge and appologised profusely (its been good as gold since). Today I went to get my car after they mapped it for me, they collected me from the train station as well, then when i got there they had adjusted my cam timing as well for no charge as they said 'you have adjustable pullys may as well use them whilst mapping"

much nicer story

[stevecordiner]

Just read that thread and it is unbelievable!!

GTR engines are super expensive to rebuild, why the hell didnt the engine builder check clearances or find out how to fit total seal gapless rings to start with!!!

[James_Ward]

....that's a whole heap of money..... you could have a fleet of MK1's for that, one for every day of the week!

[ENSMR2]

cos their wolves in sheeps clothing by the sounds of it.

Not the first time I've heard bad things about Nemesis.

[Nelo]

Read up to page 7 or something on that, bloody hell it's a long thread!!! As soon as I read that they were rebuilding using total seal rings I kinda went . Definitely wouldn't be using them on a rebuild on my motor.

Feel sorry for the chap though..... Kinda goes to show you when building an high power engine you will always have something that goes wrong along the way i've never seen a person build a high power engine where the build went perfectly without incident!!

[SFLee]

Umm I was wondering where did he got all the money from ??
At one point he sale borrow money to buy parts than there was extra bill like £8000

[ENSMR2]

Im still a bit confused too.

Some guy comments he had more money than sense. He says he bought the car as it was going cheap for the reason he had little money!

Still he ended up spending £30K on it!!!! So what? he got a £30k loan out?? Man thats a lot of money to borrow on a car. It all happened over 15 months. That much money in that amount of time is mad. He must be able to get some of it back in a legal way.

Maybe a friend/relative? Still mad money though. Man it makes you wonder!

[steve]

gutted for the bloke.... just followed the same link on mr2oc

gosnay rebuilt the engine i had in my rs turbo - i did around 110,000 miles on it before i sold the car - all was well except a blown turbo

[jonno]

Read up to page 7 or something on that, bloody hell it's a long thread!!! As soon as I read that they were rebuilding using total seal rings I kinda went . Definitely wouldn't be using them on a rebuild on my motor.

Feel sorry for the chap though..... Kinda goes to show you when building an high power engine you will always have something that goes wrong along the way i've never seen a person build a high power engine where the build went perfectly without incident!!

Mines got total seal rings and CP pistons Should I be worried? Engine is running really really well, its never used much oil though even when it was freshly built. Now it doesent use any, even after donington the level didnt budge and it got some stick that day

As for expensive rebuilds I think its really important to do your research before you start. I did loads and loads of research into the actual engine but not enough into the electronics side of things, just bunged a motec on it and expected everything to be cushty - yeah right

[Dave Goodhand]

At the end of the day I think this does go to show that if you look to uprate your engine for big power you need to 1. uprate everything that would be "weak" as it will always break at the weakest point, 2. get someone you trust to do it, or do it yourself. As you can't hold the tuners responsible all the time, as atthe end of the day they are running a business and you're not their only customer.

By the sounds of things, Nemesis didn't know exactly what they were doing, an engine that is going through that amount of oil is wrong, and if I was the driver I would've stopped once I'd realised and had it checked out either by a specialist or myself. As running low on oil on a race engine is a no no, it would only take a couple of seconds at high rpm with a starvation of oil somewhere and permanent damage will be done. Also if you do 1/4 mile your car, or do track days on it, you have to think... if my car isn't running at 100%, should I do it? or should I do it and then blame the tuners if anything goes wrong?

[Andy F]

I always new that Andy Barns was a hand jockey
Even though i got a Christmas card from Sumo

[pizza boy]

Well car manufacturers the world over spend millions into designing and testing the components of thier engines to ensure all components work in harmony. Then Joey Bloggs (like us perhaps? lol!) come along and try to redesign the engine that some poor (or prolly rich!) scientist has spent months perfecting and then expect it to run just as reliably

I feel for the dude and I do think he has been shafted but what was thinking? Reliability? Personally I think its madness to screw with expensive new cars to that extent. My mate spent over 6k on his S2 Elise and almost everything was uprated TBs head cams etc...he ended up with a really unreliable car and consequently it lost a lot of value. 27k new...sold for 16. And it wasnt really that great considering the money involved.
Plus the tuners who carried the job out (who went into liquidation) were total xxxx...took ages to do the job (3 months longer than they promised) and had to take the car back 5 times basically at gunpoint by my mate to fix problems on it.
Ive heard so many horror stories...my personal belief is to not venture past "stage 2". Tuning past that is just such a dirty game

[MegatronUK]

In my experience, a lot of 'performance car tuners' are like this. They can reccomend and fit the biggest, shinest turbos and pipework... complicated boost controllers and all sorts, but at the end of the day I wouldn't trust them to do anything other than fit alloy wheels or change oil and filters.

I'm sure there are qualified mechanics and engineers amongst them, who can actually rebuild engines without having to follow the 'bling bling' A-B-C engine rebuild diagram... but I'd suspect there are a lot who don't really have a clue.