2003z

iTrader: (7)

It is a holiday weekend.

bwilliams

Vantage, after you replace the Kinetix, idle your engine as long as you want if the cooling system is working properly. I would direct my sarcasm and insults to Kinetix and their POS product.

Folks, the Z is not that fragile. If it were, a 30 minute traffic jam would force the car to hide under some shade....pleeeeez. Instead of feathing tires, there would be massive discussions of heat related damage.

There are many high quality elastomers, thermosets and injection molded plastics that have easily handled the temperatures for many years in all sorts of driving conditions.

Kinetix, in contrast, appears to be blazing (no pun) their own trail of material selection.

Vantage, demand a free replacement, sell it unopened on eBay, use the $ to buy something else. We all owe you thanks for the education.

zachcrosen

iTrader: (23)

This product is NOT a POS. See my previous post about what I have done with my car with this plenum installed and STILL NO FAILURES. This is the first and ONLY instance, that I am aware of, of the plenum melting of any of the V1-V4s currently in circulation. There have ONLY been 2 or 3 instances of the V4 failing which were likely due to deformations in the molding process. As long as humans are in control of a process, there will be error.

I find it very hard to pass negative judgement toward Kinetix on their V4 plenum. As I said, there are minimal failures with it and their customer service speaks for itself. If there is a problem with their products, they have a high reputation of replacing it and making it correct to the customer.

VeeTec

Some of you people kill me.

You bash the guy for letting his car idle, but in reality it should be able too without having an intake melt down. If the cooling system is working properly, there shouldn't be a failure of any kind. Yes, the temps under the hood will be hotter than if the car was moving, but nothing that should cause a melt down.

If you live in a city where traffic is heavy, you will get a LOT more heat sitting in heavy traffic on a hot day for a long period of time.

Then I guess some of you will say you shouldn't drive your Z in heavy traffic when its hot.

It appears to me that the intake is a poorly tested piece that was never tested for durability under any kind of extended hard driving period.

I really think people in hot areas of the country need to take a close look at this thread before buying something that may deform when its hot.

kpiskin

iTrader: (5)

Is there a decent way to vent the hood to allow more hot air to escape without letting the elements in? I notice that my z warms up quickly, more quickly than my other cars. They aren't performance cars though.

slaponte

iTrader: (2)

So one guy lets his car idle 2 hrs and ONE plenum melts = bad product?!

Well, this guy has the V4, runs around south Fla (right now is 98F outside), bumber to bumper traffic for 1hr+ to get to work almost every day and the V4 is doing fine, thank you very much. I also have headers and HF cats (+ heat)... So now it is not a POS?

The Kinetix "bashers" take any excuse to jump in, the Kinetix "defenders" counter with some objective data.. this is like religion wars by now. I have Kinetix A arms, camber arms and V4, and have never had a problem with any of the products.

zachcrosen

iTrader: (23)

My point exactly! Preach it brother Slaponte!

flynnibus

The fact remains the same.. the company is going to stand behind their product and make it right for the guy. Has he even contacted Kenetix yet? Note he left that out of his post.

People take any chance to jump on this.

If it melted.. so what.. its one piece and many more hundreds of people have driven it hard w/o issues.

Any system can fail if pushed too hard. The fact remains this guy did something that was not the norm. Plenty people (including the LA examples here) drive their car in bumper to bumper traffic for extended periods without issue... and people drag and track their car (which puts MUCH more stress and heat on the system) w/o issue.

Call this one a fluke.. or someone being excessive.

I kinda question the guy's story. Why hasn't he contacted Kenetix? I think he was doing more then just idling once he got going to.. I mean no way he took it to a MOLTEN state where the plastic would sag that far on its own.. even under vacuum after being very hot he must have been REALLY on it to make the unit deform that much even when soft.

bwilliams

I don't know a lot about Kinetix's product line and have nothing against their products in general. If the product works for you the way you drive your car, it's a great product for you.

The part this guy has did not hold up to an environment that I think it should have, which from a heat-soak perspective is MORE stringent than when you drive the car hard. This part may be a fluke in their production run (ie, quality hickup), but I would not call idling a car for 2hours in any weather excessive and outside the parameters that the aftermarket should design for.

All parts have their limitations at the edges of their performance envelope. This incident tells me about one of those edges. I apologize for generalizing it as a POS. What I should have said was that as a design engineer very interested in performance envelopes, in the absence of more thorough information, this incident reveals a limitation that one would need to be aware of prior to making a purchase. Is that politically correct enough for the sensitive viewers out there.
I'll bet Kinetix would love to see this thread die.

zachcrosen

iTrader: (23)

I concur!

GZire

I don't have a Kinetix or any other plenum mod. I don't have anything against Kinetix. My view on the Kinetix product is this, it's a V4 if the Kinetix was made properly to begin with they would be still selling V1 or V2's the fact that there have been 3 revisions tells you they are not properly testing their products prior to releasing them. Even if they warrant their product what happens if their plenum failure screws up your engine? Will Kinetix replace/fix your engine?

I ask you to think about that before you keep flaming this guy. This guy buys a product and it melts while ALL of his other plastic pieces in his engine bay are A-OK. I think he deserves to be angry about a product he purchased failing.

Rickdogg

iTrader: (234)

I can't believe some of the responses on here. WOW! If the car is at idle for 2 hours, the plenum hands down should not melt.

slaponte

iTrader: (2)

GZire, the only thing with that is that how they decide to name their products should not be related to level of testing etc. Example : Linksys (the router I own) has a model (WRT54G), which I own since 3 years ago. The one you buy today is (you find out if you search carefully) v4.x, while mine is a V2.x. Manufacturers decide how to change model numbers based more on marketing, etc. Were I work at we just released a V10 that was going to be 9.5 until marketing decided otherwise.

To bwilliams comment, I have to wonder how long a test is enough. Idle for 3 hours? 4? 10? Obviously Kinetix is a smaller shop. Would the car sitting there on idle for 1 hour seem like a proper test to most of us? Why would it get hotter in minute 47 than on minute 45? If you eliminate time, consider the test were they use some thermometer, wait until the highest temp is achieved, then wait for, lets say, 1/2 hour. Does your car sitting at idle for 1/2 hour seem reasonable?

I think this is where a warranty would state something like "under normal usage conditions", right?

A friend of mine drove his Grand Am as the needle raised up to the very red area. He decided to keep going until the next ramp. Right at the ramp, the car died of overheating. We later found that the METAL gasket between the METAL engine and METAL head had failed. The METAL head had warped. To be expected? Operating under normal conditions? Aren't we, as inteligent people we are supposed to be, supposed to pull over and shut down the car before it starts melting?

Posting your opinion and then sugesting the thread should die is an interesting way to end a discussion. But ok. See, anybody who has been here for 2 years + knows Kinetix does not hide from threads or mind the discussions. They rather not see a thread that starts with "my V4 melted", but they recover easily based on good customer service.

crypten

I was actually with Mike (vantage350z) while he had his car idling for that other hour I was washing my car at his house, I was with him when we went to the store, and was with him when he discovered the melted plenum. He is telling the truth about everything that went on, and is pretty disappointed about this whole thing. Was he to know something like this was going to happen?, or better yet expect it from a reputable company such as Kinetix? I was also with him when we started this thread, and his intentions were to give insight as how or why something like this could happen, and find a solution so I wouldn't happen to anyone else. I don't feel that anything out of the ordinary was done here. I am glad I finally got a chance to post something on this thread after all the flaming and immature comments (you know who you are).

About contacting Kinetix, it's a holiday weekend so he hasn't been able to get in touch with them (he called 5 minutes after he discovered the problem). He told me today that he will be calling them after work tomorrow, so hopefully they can explain more to him in detail. Give Mike a break, and let's get back to the facts.

03FIDDYZ

how it happened is ovbious but maybe it was defected? I would bet that Kinetix will get him a new one and if they dont everybody on this thread will know not to shop Kinetix. How much do those things run anyways?

InjectedPerformance

iTrader: (56)

I will tell you this. I am glad it melted. Kinetix is the cutting edge on Manifolds. Yeah it sucks it melted and i agree it should not have. So what! You let your car idle for 3 hours. Whoopie freakin dooo. You guys are giving this dude grief for doing so. Should the whole car melt too? Bottom line is they will take care of you and you will benefit. Test or no test this was just a freako thing. If it is not i am sure they will honor all doubts.

Z350Lover

iTrader: (2)

I second that... sorry......

lunartick13

Ha! for what it`s woth, I`am going to set up a thermo-couple and connected to my multi-test meter with the monitor inside my car, this way I can drive and monitor the temp. in the ingine as I drive and also while I`am not moving in traffic...this will tell me the dif. between idle and while the car is moving, I myself would like to know at what temperature in the ingine operates and not coolant temp.

lowrider

iTrader: (3)

Wow - I just had to step in on this one! WHAT

From everything I've seen they do very little, if any, pre-introduction testing. Why do you think there was a V1, a V2, a V3, and finally a V4. Cutting Edge I don't think so

Lou

gringott

iTrader: (17)

Being serious for a moment, I thank the gentleman for posting. Any idea of buying this manifold went out the window. I don't idle my car for 2 hours, yet, I would not expect the manifold or anything else to melt in two hours. Why would I buy a product that even had the potential to melt?

Sorry for my smart assed comments, but the picture looked so funny to me when I first saw it, I couldn't help myself.

Thank you for posting your experience, sorry for all the flaming.