I am soooo Pissed right now.. So i got my car turbocharged with the turbonetics kit.. It never ran correctly when i got it from the shop, kept going into safe mode. Than i developed a ticking sound.. SO before fixing the safe mode problem we wanted to fix the ticking.. On the way to taking my car to the nissan dealership from the performance shop.. Driving totally normal i hear some noise followed by black smoke and alot of oil on the ground..

I get out and inspect my car and find that there is a large fist size hole in my block.. Now the shop is trying to tell me that the motor is NOT salvagable.. I have only driven my car maybe 150 miles after turbo install and have never even had a chance to go above 4.5K RPM.. WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS??

1. Is this shop reliable??

2. If not is there a way i can salvage the engine

P.S. Before i took my car from the shop they took it to a nissan dealership right down the road and had them do i diagnostics test.. All Nissan said was it was the tensioner from my timing chain..And now i got a hole in my block..

 

If it was the timing chain why the **** would the shop give you the vehicle? That is one ****ed up shop, get your attorney and shove the law up their ***. Thats BS man, i wish you the best of luck. It definitely wasnt because of the turbo kit, but they should have told you not to drive it like that.

 

if the tensioner on the timing belt was off, that means ur timing was way off. i would think its safe to say that the shop that did the install is 100% liable and would make them fix ur car.
ur block is not salvagable by any means, but ur head should still be good.

 

the shop is trying to say it was just a bad engine and it was probably something already going bad in the engine.. and the turbo just made it happen faster.

 

the shop is trying to say it was just a bad engine and it was probably something already going bad in the engine.. and the turbo just made it happen faster.

 

they would have to prove this, and unless they did a compression test on the motor and it failed, then u told them to still put the kit on anyway. they are still liable.
and anyway. it wasnt a bad engine, it was a bad timing belt tensioner. i would agree with that. but the car should never have been given back to u with that being bad. it should have been towed to be fixed or left with nissan to be fixed.

 

if they just put the turbo kit on and didn't do cams or anything like that, it is not the install shops fault at all. how can the shop be blamed if they didn't even touch that part of the motor? sorry to hear about your luck man.
now it is really hard to determine which came first, the chicken or the egg. meaning, the tensioner could have been damaged WHEN the hole in the block happened. just very hard to tell what went first with catostrophic failures like that.

 

Why were you driving the car around while having these issues?

Oh well, good reason to order a built motor. Good luck.

 

Sorry to hear about your motor . It sucks I know .

I would have to agree with overZealous . It cant be blamed on the shop nor the kit . You had something wrong with the motor internally . The bad thing is [ more than likely ] the dealer will not fix it .

 

Ok so say im out of luck and its not the shops fault.. what would u guys do??

Im thinking about buying a used 350z engine and building it before install.. Pauter Rods, Arias Pistons,and Arp Head/main studs.. What else should i get?

 

Definitely go with cams while the motor is out of the car. If you're eventually going to upgrade the turbo and go for bigger power (600+whp), you might want to consider sleeving the block up front. Also, I've been hearing people have been having success with some of the aftermarket head gaskets (Cometic, I believe).

Another option would be to buy a complete built and balanced block directly from someone. I know that Todd (350zDCalb) just opened a business doing just this. Perhaps you should give him a shout to see what he can do for you.

 

If you are lucky, your heads will be undamged, you will be able to do a quick shortblock swap and be back on the road. A built short block runs about $3200-$3500 depending on the parts used. We have our engine packages up on the website, if you care to take a look.

Are you planning on going full force with the rebuild or are you just trying to get back up and running quickly. Your answer to this question will allow us to better help you out.

Sorry about this unfortunate incident. Based on what you told us, this was not the shops fault, as they didnt touch the item that allegedly broke, The timing chain tensioner is behind the front timing cover, and there would be no reason for them to tamper with it. And honestly, the way this industry works, is that shops arent usually held responsible when something breaks, unless it was pure negligence, which is sometimes difficult to prove. Even a perfectly installed and tuned kit isnt 100% safe. A fuel pump can take a crap, oil pumps can fail, injectors can go bad...there are just too many variables. The best thing, is to find a good shop, with a pretty solid track record. Hope that helps.

 

yup...hate to say it, but YOU GOT FUkCED, did that shop ever do a 350z turbo kit?? probaly not, thats why you go to a shop with a reputation for Z's, for turbo kits, not some hole in the wall ****.....live and learn...theres nothing you can do about that shop except file a report with the BBB.org

 

owend

 

ya that sucks. i guess i didnt look at it like that. they probably didnt come near the tensioner i guess, but still, the car shouldnt have been driven if it was having issues like those mentioned.

 

Well i still dont know for sure if it was even the tensioner.. Thats just what the nissan dealership said.. They didnt mention that my rod was about to bust a hole in my block...

What i dont get is how could this happen to my car if i wasnt even able to go above 4.5K rpm? I never even had a chance to really get on my car or even race it. Safe Mode problem never got fixed.

 

I am sorry to hear about you motor...This is another example of "murphy's Law" what can go wrong, will go wrong. I will say two things:
1) unless the shop was incredibly negligent there is nothing you can do. In the aftermarket business, things go wrong and there is usually no warranty or liability, since your modifying a car from its intended use, to high performance use.
2) this is another example of why I dont believe in reflashes on a N/A computer for a F/I car.
What I think happened is the car detonated for some reason and put a beating on the rod end bearings, creating just enough clearance for your "ticking" noise,aka spun rod bearing to start. The rod bearing eventually seized up do to heat and becoming more rounded with every revolution. When the rod end seized it snapped a rod and sent it through your block.
This suck you hear and I hope you get up and running soon!!

 

Our site will be up anyday,pm sent

Sharif; I guess everyone is building motors now

 

sucks bro............

 

Wow, really, and do you think the second shooter was on the grassy knoll??? It's amazing you know all that from xxx miles away.

Cars just don't detonate randomly, especially in the colder months. If he had run the car on the dyno and verified his AFR's were in safe limits there is no reason why he should have been experiencing detonation due to improper tuning. This has nothing to do with the reflash. It has everything to do with timing being off possibly causing pre ignition. You can't just "tune" away this problem. In fact, if he were running an aftermarket EMS in this situation he probably would have blown the motor sooner due to the ECU not compensating for the problem by going limp at higher rpms.