Kilo Racing 3 Rotor FD Conversion
05-28-06, 10:18 AM
#1052
Originally Posted by Improved FD
that set-up is a custom Pettit product, right? and they stopped producing those?
I also believe my car is the last 20B Banzai conversion Pettit planned on doing. I had heard this thru the "grapevine" and had this confirmed with info from the Barrett-Jackson auto auction.
Pettit did a total of eleven 20B conversions.
05-28-06, 11:54 AM
#1053
Banned. I got OWNED!!!
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interesting....any idea why they are hanging it up?
I would be interested in the turbos if I didn't just dump alot of time and money into a set of BNR Stage IIs...what are you going to ask for them?
I would be interested in the turbos if I didn't just dump alot of time and money into a set of BNR Stage IIs...what are you going to ask for them?
05-29-06, 09:44 AM
#1054
Originally Posted by Improved FD
interesting....any idea why they are hanging it up?
I would be interested in the turbos if I didn't just dump alot of time and money into a set of BNR Stage IIs...what are you going to ask for them?
I would be interested in the turbos if I didn't just dump alot of time and money into a set of BNR Stage IIs...what are you going to ask for them?
Knowing Cam though, he's probably still entertain doing a conversion every now and then just to keep his hands in it.
As for the price on the turbos, I know they're pricey new but one needs its cartridge replaced so I really don't know. Make me an offer!
05-29-06, 02:31 PM
#1055
Sleeper but still slow
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Wow! $35k, it's around $10k for us FC guys to get a 20b. I guess we finally get something cause you guys have the sexier interrior, extier, and more power. Good luck na dI'd like to see lots of pics.
08-11-06, 12:22 AM
#1057
Cheese
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Originally Posted by PalmTreeDoc
David - any news to report?
Doug
Doug
Yeah, really. This thread is almost 2 years old...are they done with the damn car yet? If not, have you killed anyone yet? If I had this much money tied up in a car @ a shop, Id damn well want them to put my project at the top of their priority list....
08-11-06, 05:38 AM
#1059
Originally Posted by RX-Heven
I know his car is not in CA anymore.
It's about halfway between CA and FL.
It's about halfway between CA and FL.
It is in good hands now and will finally get completed. Will definately post the details for all of you soon.
08-11-06, 02:11 PM
#1062
fart on a friends head!!!
haha. . . got~ham racing. . . sorry. . . cant help but think about that whenever i reference steve kan's shop.
geh, im a wierdo. . . i was asking if your car was a gotham. . .
geh, im a wierdo. . . i was asking if your car was a gotham. . .
08-11-06, 04:29 PM
#1063
Originally Posted by rotorbrain
haha. . . got~ham racing. . . sorry. . . cant help but think about that whenever i reference steve kan's shop.
geh, im a wierdo. . . i was asking if your car was a gotham. . .
geh, im a wierdo. . . i was asking if your car was a gotham. . .
Hopefully it will leave the trough all prettied up and ready to go.
11-28-06, 01:26 PM
#1068
This thread is 873 days old.
I understand wanting to do it correctly, but damnnnn. I'd be a little discouraged at this point.
Keep us updated, talked to Steve Kan a few months ago and he said it was sitting in the shop, hopefully it's made some progress?
I understand wanting to do it correctly, but damnnnn. I'd be a little discouraged at this point.
Keep us updated, talked to Steve Kan a few months ago and he said it was sitting in the shop, hopefully it's made some progress?
11-29-06, 02:35 PM
#1069
You guys are forcing my hand - wanted to wait until the project was complete before posting details. Let me update you though on where it's at.
As you know, I sent the car to Pettit Racing for the 3 rotor conversion about 2 1/2 years ago. Pettit did the conversion pretty quickly and then got hung up on the EMS unit for the car. Details for this and pics are in the thread. I ended up taking the car with a less than desirable tune on it and a twin turbo setup that couldn't make the level of boost (15 lbs.) that was promised.
Dean Colver (aka Mr. Engineering) and I then spent about two months driving the car around Jacksonville FL improving the tune to a pretty acceptable level. It was actually pretty fun blasting down one of the new bridges at the beaches data logging at WOT. A good rush Unfortunately, we still couldn't get the turbos to hold more than 12 lbs. of boost (400 RWHP) and we (okay, me actually) ended up blowing out the secondary turbo on the car.
At this point, I reviewed my options and decided to junk the twins on the car and put in a single turbo upgrade. I got a quote from Gotham Racing and was just about ready to send the car to them when Chris Greene from Wolf EMS USA called and offered to perform the conversion and do the tune on the car at a price I couldn't refuse. Chris indicated Wolf USA wanted to use my car as their project 3 rotor car and, as the car had a Wolf 3D unit in it, this was fine with me. He contracted with ASE Engineering in Australia to build the GT42R turbo kit and associated parts. Chris was also to upgrade the fuel system and do a few other misc. items, Again, this is posted in the thread. The work was to take about two months.
So, I sent the car to him in August 2005 with an expected completion date of the end of September 2005. In fact, my wife and I were going to fly into Sacramento to pick up the car and then drive cross country back to FL - I was also going to blog this trip as it sounded pretty cool. What's better than having my wife and my FD, driving through awesome places like Glacier National Park, Jackson Hole WY, Chicago, etc.?
Things seemed to be going well at the beginning. I'm going to leave the emotions out of this and just state the facts and let you decide. Chris called pretty regularly during the first few weeks and sent some pics of the turbo kit. I then learned these pics were not for my car, but another FD. After about two months, Chris told me my kit still hadn't arrived from Australia but was expected soon. We discussed having him start on the other work while he waited for the kit, but he said he liked to have everything together before beginning work so he didn't overlook anything.
At about the four month mark, I had a pretty lenghty conversation with him. The turbo kit still hadn't arrived but it was expected "soon". I got Chris to agree to start on the powder coating portion of the project which took about two and a half months to finalize. By this time, it was January 2006. I had another lengthy discussion with Chris and indicated I wanted to cut my losses and have the car picked up. Chris was adament he could get the work done in another 30 days or so. After much discussion, I decided to leave the car with him. About this time the turbo kit arrived and Chris began work on the car. Unfortunately, one month led to another and then to another and the car still wasn't completed.
About this time (May 2006) Chris indicated he was close to finishing the project but he needed to talk to me about the price for the job. Chris indicated he couldn't do the job for the agreed upon price and wanted about $2,500 more. I debated this a lot and finally ended up striking a deal with him. I would pay the extra money upon completion of the job if the project was finished within 30 days. Chris agreed to this and sent me a confimration email.
I arranged to have the car picked up slightly after the 30 days was up and Chris was in regular contact with me during this time frame. He stated all was well and the car was a day or two away from being done. However, about two days before the scheduled pickup, Chris called stating he needed another couple of days to complete the car. As the transporter was already in route to pick the car up, I indicated this was not possible. On the day of the pick up, the transporters called saying the had arrived at the Wolf EMS shop and I needed to rethink them picking up the car then as it was "in a million pieces" laying all over the shop. Feeling I had no choice, I left the car with Chris and gave him another month to finish the work.
About two weeks or so into this period I recieved a series of calls from Chris about the status of the car. I won't go into details on this but the conversations were pretty alarming. Chris was pressing me to send the money before the job was complete and I really didn't want to do this. If you were to talk with Chris, I think he would say the labor on the car was much more than he originally thought and he needed the money immediately to break even on the car. My position is he knew exactly what he was getting into as he worked on the car while it was at Pettit Racing in FL. In fact, he installed the Wolf unit and data logger in the car.
Taking all of my conversations into account with Chris, I decided to overnight the rest of the money to him. Unfortunately, I couldn't reach Chris on the phone at either the shop or on his cell phone. I left numerous messages with him that went unreturned. The check sat at the Fedex office for several days and then was picked up, as it turns out, by a coworker. I was able to speak with the co-worker who indicated he hadn't seen Chris in several days. Then the co-worker disappeared and the phones were no longer answered at the shop.
To continue the story, about this time the transporter returned to pick up the car. I was unable to reach Chris but the transporters got through to him. Chris indicated he didn't want the car picked up and needed another thrity days to finish the job. The transporters recommended not to leave the car at Wolf USA any longer and I agreed, leaving a message on Chris' cell phone that the car was going to be picked up in a few days.
The story now gets interested. I hadn't spoken with Chris in about two weeks and the car was due to be picked up in 24 hours. I had no way of reaching him as he wasn't returning my calls. My mind wandered to visions of my FD being parted out and boxes of my stuff on their way to Mexico. So, I sent out an appeal on this forum and fortunately several members responded. I am very grateful to them as they "staked" out the shop, waiting until someone showed up. Turns out, a friend of Chris' showed up and I was able to convince the friend to have Chris call me. We agreed he was to box up all parts for the car and meet the transportors on that Saturday.
True to my luck, however, the transporters broke down about 50 miles away from the shop and were delayed about 24 hours. At first, this was no problem for Chris as he was going to use the extra time to "button up" a few items on the car. Unfortunately, Chris once again went AWOL the next day and wasn't available to meet the transporters when they arrived that evening.
He did answer my phone call the next day and I indicated I had arranged for another tranporter to pick up the car in an hour or so (try doing this sometime, it's not easy or cheap). Unfortunately, this trasporter did not have the proper equipment to take the car and I had to make arrangements again. Fortunately, I got the car (and a box of parts) picked up several days later and the car was delivered to Gotham Racing and Steve Kan in August.
Wish I could say the car is done now but it's not. Gotham couldn't immediately start on finishing up the project so the car sat at the shop for about two months. Steve (and other mechanics) then began work only to find out the car was nowhere near completion. To date, they have found:
- metal shavings and dirt in the rotors.
- gaskets left off the upper and lower throttle bodies. Silicone was used instead and would not have worked. 3 rotor gaskets are not easy to find and took about 4 weeks to show up.
- improper wiring of the new fuel pump. In fact, the relay had melted. Not good.
- incorrectly installed battery relocation kit and wiring. In fairness to Chris, this was done at Pettit.
- Incorrect wiring for the battery. Wiring not correct guage and was not run inside of the car, but next to the fuel lines under the car. Again, a Pettit item.
- Dead battery.
- Various missing clips on fuel and brake lines. Not sure who did this.
- A broken AC condenser unit removed by Chris Greene for relocation that must now be replaced.
- AC lines need to be fabricated.
- Incorrect injectors and powder coating where injectors need to be installed.
- Powder coating materials on the inside of the UIM.
- a bunch of other stuff. I'll update the list when I get the Gotham bill.
Probably the most surprising thing is the turbo is not a GT42R, but a dual ball bearing T51R. This is not the HKS kit, but the ASE kit. Although I should have been told this, I am confident, after talking with ASE in Australia and Steve Kan, this kit will do well.
So, Gotham has addressed the above as well as finished up the fabrication work on the car, including the down pipe and the midpipe. They're also reviewing everything from front to back to ensure it's done correctly. At this point, I want it done well. I'm about to call them to see how it's going this week but I would anticipate having the car started in the next week or two and then having the tuning and project completed by the end of December.
So there you have it. Hopefully I'll have positive results to post soon as well as a dyno graph. Keep your fingers crossed for me
As you know, I sent the car to Pettit Racing for the 3 rotor conversion about 2 1/2 years ago. Pettit did the conversion pretty quickly and then got hung up on the EMS unit for the car. Details for this and pics are in the thread. I ended up taking the car with a less than desirable tune on it and a twin turbo setup that couldn't make the level of boost (15 lbs.) that was promised.
Dean Colver (aka Mr. Engineering) and I then spent about two months driving the car around Jacksonville FL improving the tune to a pretty acceptable level. It was actually pretty fun blasting down one of the new bridges at the beaches data logging at WOT. A good rush
Unfortunately, we still couldn't get the turbos to hold more than 12 lbs. of boost (400 RWHP) and we (okay, me actually) ended up blowing out the secondary turbo on the car.At this point, I reviewed my options and decided to junk the twins on the car and put in a single turbo upgrade. I got a quote from Gotham Racing and was just about ready to send the car to them when Chris Greene from Wolf EMS USA called and offered to perform the conversion and do the tune on the car at a price I couldn't refuse. Chris indicated Wolf USA wanted to use my car as their project 3 rotor car and, as the car had a Wolf 3D unit in it, this was fine with me. He contracted with ASE Engineering in Australia to build the GT42R turbo kit and associated parts. Chris was also to upgrade the fuel system and do a few other misc. items, Again, this is posted in the thread. The work was to take about two months.
So, I sent the car to him in August 2005 with an expected completion date of the end of September 2005. In fact, my wife and I were going to fly into Sacramento to pick up the car and then drive cross country back to FL - I was also going to blog this trip as it sounded pretty cool. What's better than having my wife and my FD, driving through awesome places like Glacier National Park, Jackson Hole WY, Chicago, etc.?
Things seemed to be going well at the beginning. I'm going to leave the emotions out of this and just state the facts and let you decide. Chris called pretty regularly during the first few weeks and sent some pics of the turbo kit. I then learned these pics were not for my car, but another FD. After about two months, Chris told me my kit still hadn't arrived from Australia but was expected soon. We discussed having him start on the other work while he waited for the kit, but he said he liked to have everything together before beginning work so he didn't overlook anything.
At about the four month mark, I had a pretty lenghty conversation with him. The turbo kit still hadn't arrived but it was expected "soon". I got Chris to agree to start on the powder coating portion of the project which took about two and a half months to finalize. By this time, it was January 2006. I had another lengthy discussion with Chris and indicated I wanted to cut my losses and have the car picked up. Chris was adament he could get the work done in another 30 days or so. After much discussion, I decided to leave the car with him. About this time the turbo kit arrived and Chris began work on the car. Unfortunately, one month led to another and then to another and the car still wasn't completed.
About this time (May 2006) Chris indicated he was close to finishing the project but he needed to talk to me about the price for the job. Chris indicated he couldn't do the job for the agreed upon price and wanted about $2,500 more. I debated this a lot and finally ended up striking a deal with him. I would pay the extra money upon completion of the job if the project was finished within 30 days. Chris agreed to this and sent me a confimration email.
I arranged to have the car picked up slightly after the 30 days was up and Chris was in regular contact with me during this time frame. He stated all was well and the car was a day or two away from being done. However, about two days before the scheduled pickup, Chris called stating he needed another couple of days to complete the car. As the transporter was already in route to pick the car up, I indicated this was not possible. On the day of the pick up, the transporters called saying the had arrived at the Wolf EMS shop and I needed to rethink them picking up the car then as it was "in a million pieces" laying all over the shop. Feeling I had no choice, I left the car with Chris and gave him another month to finish the work.
About two weeks or so into this period I recieved a series of calls from Chris about the status of the car. I won't go into details on this but the conversations were pretty alarming. Chris was pressing me to send the money before the job was complete and I really didn't want to do this. If you were to talk with Chris, I think he would say the labor on the car was much more than he originally thought and he needed the money immediately to break even on the car. My position is he knew exactly what he was getting into as he worked on the car while it was at Pettit Racing in FL. In fact, he installed the Wolf unit and data logger in the car.
Taking all of my conversations into account with Chris, I decided to overnight the rest of the money to him. Unfortunately, I couldn't reach Chris on the phone at either the shop or on his cell phone. I left numerous messages with him that went unreturned. The check sat at the Fedex office for several days and then was picked up, as it turns out, by a coworker. I was able to speak with the co-worker who indicated he hadn't seen Chris in several days. Then the co-worker disappeared and the phones were no longer answered at the shop.
To continue the story, about this time the transporter returned to pick up the car. I was unable to reach Chris but the transporters got through to him. Chris indicated he didn't want the car picked up and needed another thrity days to finish the job. The transporters recommended not to leave the car at Wolf USA any longer and I agreed, leaving a message on Chris' cell phone that the car was going to be picked up in a few days.
The story now gets interested. I hadn't spoken with Chris in about two weeks and the car was due to be picked up in 24 hours. I had no way of reaching him as he wasn't returning my calls. My mind wandered to visions of my FD being parted out and boxes of my stuff on their way to Mexico. So, I sent out an appeal on this forum and fortunately several members responded. I am very grateful to them as they "staked" out the shop, waiting until someone showed up. Turns out, a friend of Chris' showed up and I was able to convince the friend to have Chris call me. We agreed he was to box up all parts for the car and meet the transportors on that Saturday.
True to my luck, however, the transporters broke down about 50 miles away from the shop and were delayed about 24 hours. At first, this was no problem for Chris as he was going to use the extra time to "button up" a few items on the car. Unfortunately, Chris once again went AWOL the next day and wasn't available to meet the transporters when they arrived that evening.
He did answer my phone call the next day and I indicated I had arranged for another tranporter to pick up the car in an hour or so (try doing this sometime, it's not easy or cheap). Unfortunately, this trasporter did not have the proper equipment to take the car and I had to make arrangements again. Fortunately, I got the car (and a box of parts) picked up several days later and the car was delivered to Gotham Racing and Steve Kan in August.
Wish I could say the car is done now but it's not. Gotham couldn't immediately start on finishing up the project so the car sat at the shop for about two months. Steve (and other mechanics) then began work only to find out the car was nowhere near completion. To date, they have found:
- metal shavings and dirt in the rotors.
- gaskets left off the upper and lower throttle bodies. Silicone was used instead and would not have worked. 3 rotor gaskets are not easy to find and took about 4 weeks to show up.
- improper wiring of the new fuel pump. In fact, the relay had melted. Not good.
- incorrectly installed battery relocation kit and wiring. In fairness to Chris, this was done at Pettit.
- Incorrect wiring for the battery. Wiring not correct guage and was not run inside of the car, but next to the fuel lines under the car. Again, a Pettit item.
- Dead battery.
- Various missing clips on fuel and brake lines. Not sure who did this.
- A broken AC condenser unit removed by Chris Greene for relocation that must now be replaced.
- AC lines need to be fabricated.
- Incorrect injectors and powder coating where injectors need to be installed.
- Powder coating materials on the inside of the UIM.
- a bunch of other stuff. I'll update the list when I get the Gotham bill.
Probably the most surprising thing is the turbo is not a GT42R, but a dual ball bearing T51R. This is not the HKS kit, but the ASE kit. Although I should have been told this, I am confident, after talking with ASE in Australia and Steve Kan, this kit will do well.
So, Gotham has addressed the above as well as finished up the fabrication work on the car, including the down pipe and the midpipe. They're also reviewing everything from front to back to ensure it's done correctly. At this point, I want it done well. I'm about to call them to see how it's going this week but I would anticipate having the car started in the next week or two and then having the tuning and project completed by the end of December.
So there you have it. Hopefully I'll have positive results to post soon as well as a dyno graph. Keep your fingers crossed for me
11-29-06, 02:51 PM
#1072
silver ghost
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Man.. I went through almost the same type of dragged out process. Only w/ another builder who is no longer in business. I had to give a weeks vacation and finish the car myself. Its amazing what drugs will do to you. Oh well. I fell for you. Good luck w/ the completion. G
11-29-06, 04:32 PM
#1074
Derwin
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This maybe debatable but the 20b in my eyes is the "holy grail" of FD modification. So I guess to get there you must go through alot!
Good luck on everything, I imagine you have spent bucket loads, or maybe dumptruck loads of cash so far. Steve is professional from my only experience with him. Make sur he stays alive our club needs him to tune us in Montreal in the spring!
Alex
Good luck on everything, I imagine you have spent bucket loads, or maybe dumptruck loads of cash so far. Steve is professional from my only experience with him. Make sur he stays alive our club needs him to tune us in Montreal in the spring!
Alex
11-29-06, 04:49 PM
#1075
I can't believe you gave Chris so much of your time, faith and money after all those delays. I understand the emotions you go through when talking to people on the phone and how it's easy to give in and agree to another month, but man... I would consider legal action if he is walking around with a large sum of your money for work not completed.
Glad to see Steve is taking good care of it now though.
Best of luck
Charlie
Glad to see Steve is taking good care of it now though.
Best of luck
Charlie