johnmdanskin
06-12-2012, 07:40 AM
I used to spend a lot of time here and at the other forum. I haven't been hanging out in the forums for most of a year now as I've been busy with the car, don't need as much help anymore, and so on. Over the year, because of purchases I made when I started, 2 1/2 years ago, I've had some very painful experiences. I want to share these experiences in the hope that someone else might avoid the same experiences. I'm trying to give back.
I ordered my coupe kit around 9/9, taking delivery in october of 09. About the same time, I was looking for engine, transmission, brakes, fuel cell, and other essentials. Levy Racing has a presence on the forum, and a nice web page, so I looked there as well as other places.
I ended up buying the following items from levy racing:
Wilwood brakes
Bump Steer Kit
Fuel Cell ($800)
Engine, Transmission, Bell Housing ($12,000)
The brakes were a nice solid kit. The bump steer kit was nice, although the difficulty of installation was underplayed. You need to lengthen your steering rod and replace all the aluminum in the air box, but fine. I'm happy with what I've got.
The fuel cell was expired, from 2003, and the replacement bladders are no longer made. This makes it worthless. Beyond worthless, I spent a couple of months figuring out how to make it fit and routing the filler hose. Fuel safe no longer makes a fuel cell with the filler in the same place, so I have to figure this out all over again. I'm faster now, but it will still take a while. My engine is also full of green goo from the expired fuel bladder. The bladder and baffle foam dissolves in your fuel, goes right through 2 filters, and becomes green epoxy inside your engine. All of this was there to know in 2009 when I bought the cell. I didn't know crap at the time, so I was relying on what I thought was a good reputation.
I would have come out a month and several hundred dollars ahead if I had just burned the $800 I gave to Levy. The fuel cell experience is what pushed me over the edge to write this post, because it's so clear cut.
The drive train was sold as something amazing I was lucky to get at such a low price. The transmission alone was said to be worth half the value. It was all going to fit great.
To make a long story short, the engine had been used with nitrous and was pretty well shot when I got it. I had to move a piece of the frame to make the transmission fit. The clutch was shot on day one. Most importantly, they left out the block plate which separates the engine from the bell housing. This plate is about 0.08" thick. This isn't much, but without it, the candle (fixed tube) on the input shaft pushes on the clutch just that little bit which puts a load on the thrust bearing which isn't designed for a continuous load and therefore burns up, which lets the candle push the crankshaft, when results in a grenaded shrapnel filled engine. I got maybe 90min on the engine, mostly in the parking lot, some in an abortive track session before the bearings spun.
There were some other issues with the engine we saw when we took it apart. The valves were hitting the pistons. The timing chain had play. The block was just old old old (nitrous). Even the carburetor had bad parts inside.
I lost a lot of time. I had to replace the engine and the oil cooler (shrapnel filled oil cooler anyone?).
I had a new engine built. I plugged it in. After about 20 minutes of parking lot laps, the new engine started dying when I pushed in the clutch. This is how we figured out about the clearance from candle to clutch and the missing block plate. We found the issue in time, so it's only going to cost me $2-3K to fix the new engine.
I'm worried about the transmission too. It shifts hard. It's from Mill Valley and when I looked them up, all I could find was a Nascar team saying "Never Again" about their failed MVT. If I have to replace the transmission, I'll have to get a new drive shaft too, since the length is custom.
I would have come out way ahead if I had just burned the $12,000 instead of giving it to Levy.
In all, I've lost almost a year of elapsed time between when I could have had the car on the track if I'd bought a vanilla drive train and fuel cell. I'm also financially significantly behind where I would have been if I'd just burned the $12,800 for drive train and fuel cell. A year is a long time to lose.
If I'd had more experience when I started, I would have been able to do better research and avoided some of these issue. I was a beginner. I didn't know what to check. I relied on a vendor to help me.
I don't see any point in wondering whether the vendor is unscrupulous, or just not that competent. Probably some combination.
I'm just going to do business elsewhere.
john
I ordered my coupe kit around 9/9, taking delivery in october of 09. About the same time, I was looking for engine, transmission, brakes, fuel cell, and other essentials. Levy Racing has a presence on the forum, and a nice web page, so I looked there as well as other places.
I ended up buying the following items from levy racing:
Wilwood brakes
Bump Steer Kit
Fuel Cell ($800)
Engine, Transmission, Bell Housing ($12,000)
The brakes were a nice solid kit. The bump steer kit was nice, although the difficulty of installation was underplayed. You need to lengthen your steering rod and replace all the aluminum in the air box, but fine. I'm happy with what I've got.
The fuel cell was expired, from 2003, and the replacement bladders are no longer made. This makes it worthless. Beyond worthless, I spent a couple of months figuring out how to make it fit and routing the filler hose. Fuel safe no longer makes a fuel cell with the filler in the same place, so I have to figure this out all over again. I'm faster now, but it will still take a while. My engine is also full of green goo from the expired fuel bladder. The bladder and baffle foam dissolves in your fuel, goes right through 2 filters, and becomes green epoxy inside your engine. All of this was there to know in 2009 when I bought the cell. I didn't know crap at the time, so I was relying on what I thought was a good reputation.
I would have come out a month and several hundred dollars ahead if I had just burned the $800 I gave to Levy. The fuel cell experience is what pushed me over the edge to write this post, because it's so clear cut.
The drive train was sold as something amazing I was lucky to get at such a low price. The transmission alone was said to be worth half the value. It was all going to fit great.
To make a long story short, the engine had been used with nitrous and was pretty well shot when I got it. I had to move a piece of the frame to make the transmission fit. The clutch was shot on day one. Most importantly, they left out the block plate which separates the engine from the bell housing. This plate is about 0.08" thick. This isn't much, but without it, the candle (fixed tube) on the input shaft pushes on the clutch just that little bit which puts a load on the thrust bearing which isn't designed for a continuous load and therefore burns up, which lets the candle push the crankshaft, when results in a grenaded shrapnel filled engine. I got maybe 90min on the engine, mostly in the parking lot, some in an abortive track session before the bearings spun.
There were some other issues with the engine we saw when we took it apart. The valves were hitting the pistons. The timing chain had play. The block was just old old old (nitrous). Even the carburetor had bad parts inside.
I lost a lot of time. I had to replace the engine and the oil cooler (shrapnel filled oil cooler anyone?).
I had a new engine built. I plugged it in. After about 20 minutes of parking lot laps, the new engine started dying when I pushed in the clutch. This is how we figured out about the clearance from candle to clutch and the missing block plate. We found the issue in time, so it's only going to cost me $2-3K to fix the new engine.
I'm worried about the transmission too. It shifts hard. It's from Mill Valley and when I looked them up, all I could find was a Nascar team saying "Never Again" about their failed MVT. If I have to replace the transmission, I'll have to get a new drive shaft too, since the length is custom.
I would have come out way ahead if I had just burned the $12,000 instead of giving it to Levy.
In all, I've lost almost a year of elapsed time between when I could have had the car on the track if I'd bought a vanilla drive train and fuel cell. I'm also financially significantly behind where I would have been if I'd just burned the $12,800 for drive train and fuel cell. A year is a long time to lose.
If I'd had more experience when I started, I would have been able to do better research and avoided some of these issue. I was a beginner. I didn't know what to check. I relied on a vendor to help me.
I don't see any point in wondering whether the vendor is unscrupulous, or just not that competent. Probably some combination.
I'm just going to do business elsewhere.
john