I can't honestly and objectively comment on any performance difference. When I had the kinetix, I also had 100-200lbs of junk in my car, and now with the stock back on, I have no junk in my car. I do feel I lost a bit of acceleration and a bit of engine response, but don't know 100%. Besides, the plenum may have had a leak with the hairline cracks, causing me to lose power anyway.

For those that wonder, I will either be buying a used crawford plenum or sending my stock one off to crawford to have them make me a v5. The plenum is a great mod in my opinion, but I am too tired of changing back and forth and do not want to risk v4 mesing up, causing MORE hassle, so I'm just going to go with a 100% proven product, albeit more expensive and less "pretty".

 

I understand everything you have said and agree with it too!

And yes, they will make it right for you and I do believe quickly.

good luck.....

 

does the car run now? Id be worried some of those peices that cracked off could have made it into the engine... I had speculated that might happen eventually in a past thread.

for those saying plastic is bad, thats questionable.

1. in an OEM situation they would have made the thickness whatever was nescessary to withstand the forces applied. kinetix is attempting to minimize the thickness.

2. they would have designed the mount with the different strengths of plastic instead of aluminum in mind.

3. the stock aluminum plenum has a total of 6 mounting bolts on the inside. kinetix had 2.. and now has 0 with an integrated support on V4.

things could be done to make plastic strong enough, but when the name of the game is reduce material and increase volume, a weaker material just doesnt make sense.

 

I had no idea these cars came with plastic intake mannies. Of course, I have never owned or worked on any of them either. I guess you can always learn something new!!!

 

if you tried to take a steel block engine from the 70's and make it identical out of aluminum; I bet youd blow a lot of blocks. stuff can work in 1 situation if its properly designed for it. but to take a design for one material and replace the material and keep the design... you run into problems.

 

I cant believe a plenum is causing so many problems. The number of reported cracked plenums and the fact they are on a 4th version tells me they didnt thoroughly test their product and indeed are either using the consumer to test the product, dont care and are in for the short term buisness, or incompetent and should not be in this buisness.

 

lou, i think you're missing the point on this one.

yes, the product should never have failed and all that. no one's arguing that point. kinetix had a product they thought would work. some failed and they're replacing them. and yes, maybe more r&d should have gone into it (i'm personally waiting for the v27 to come out ).

but consider this: obviously, kinetix didn't design the plenum to have cracks in them. so, when the first cracks appeared, the product was not performing the way it was intended to and at that point, the product failed. kinetix is responsible up to there (and i've heard they've done a great job replacing failed plenums). the fact that wren CONTINUED to use the plenum AFTER HE KNEW IT HAD FAILED is just ridiculous to me. a little hassle to change back to the stock plenum is worth protecting a $30k+ investment. but that's in the past so let's just bury the issue of 'inconvenience'.

in summary, kinetix is responsible for the plenum's failure and wren is responsible for using the plenum after he found out it had failed (which resulted in a $150 towing bill). although kinetix may be nice about it and pay the towing, i don't believe they owe it to wren.

 

thats a debatable point if they arent liable for paying the 150$ tow bill, should they be liable for the labor fees that could result from changing v3 to stock, and then stock to V4? though most here are doing the work themselves.

this is not a forseeable problem either. from past knowledge, this has never happens so, beyond sealing it to eliminate the lean condition; one wouldnt expect this to be a possibility. continueing its use is questionable, but wasnt unreasonable.

 

uberfaybk

No, I'm not missing any point. Kinetix brought out a product, and did no R&D on the darn thing. None! They then brought out V2, then V3, now V4. V4 is too new to show if problems exist, but every other version has been rushed to the market before it was ready. Who want's to be the guinea pig for V4? wren changed his 5 times, I believe. That's far above the call of duty. Here we have a company, that is using a shotgun approach to fix problems, and using consumers as the test bed.

Let's stretch the point a bit, a great bit. Cigarets;everyone knows they're bad for you, but people still smoke. The courts have held, that even though you smoke, and don't stop, and get sick or even die, you can sue, and collect money from the tobacco companies. A fund has even been set up to make these payments. So here we have people, not trying, or not being able to help themselves, being paid large sums of money because they use a product that has been deemed to be dangerous, and the tobacco people are paying for liability claims.

Not buying that argument? Let's get a little closer to home. Firestone. Ever hear of them? They kept paying for court claims, long after the recall, long after the public knew what Firestone tires not to keep on their cars (SUVs) and long after replacements were offered.

How about automobile recalls? I could go on, but do you now see my Point?

The plenum doesn't work and causes problems. Kinetix is liable for correcting the situation they caused, and that includes all costs, including towing. (pain and suffering sound familiar?)

wren should not only be paid for the towing, but for his time in replacing the darn plenum 4 or 5 times. If companies were forced to pay for their capricious acts, they might not rush POS products to market.

Let's just call this, umm, how about "PRODUCT LIABILITY." What do think about that? There just might be a name for this!

JMO, and I'm stickin' to it.

Lou

 

Thanks for the support Lou. All I'm asking is for $399 (full retail price on plenum) and the $150 that the faulty v2 costed me. I am not at all asking for $ for all the work and inconvenience this has caused me (can we say added 3 hours on trip). I work for $10/hour, and this thing has costed me at least 5 hours EXTRA labor beyond initial install, but that is moot to me as I don't expect them to pay for that. If I get $549 from Kinetix, I will be satisfied; a bit disgruntled, but will still feel satisfied. If Kinetix does not refund me $549, everyone will see the extent (or lack thereof) that they stand behind their product.

-Wren (getting agitated again)

 

wren57,

My first question is, couldn't you find some duct tape? You know if duct tape can't fix it, its broke. After all you were in Alabama.


I don't believe the problem is that the Kinetix is plastic vesus metal or the basic design. I don't believe changing the casting to put more material in certain areas is going to provide any long term fix. I don't believe though that continually similar version changes is going to eliminate the problems. Looking at the Kinetix versus other OEM plastic intakes (4th gen Maximas, LS1s and LS5s), there is a major material difference. I believe the actual problem is either related to the flexibility or the thermal expansion characteristics of the plastic being used.

If it is a thermal problem, then the material is going through an expansion as it heats. Since is it fixed by the mounting bolts, it could actually expand so much that it has expanded further than what is allowed by the bolt hole locations and as a result it cracks. The fix for this would be a plastic of lower thermal expansion characteristics. To be used as an intake, they must use a plastic that has a similar expansion rate to aluminum, which it is attached to.

The other possibility is the material may be too hard. An engine is essentually a connection of harmonic characteristis. Each piston moving up and down is going to make harmonics. Each valve moving is going to make harmonics. The serpentine belt makes harmonics. Even inlet air as it goes from every turn from the air filter makes harmonics. The problem is that each of these harmonics is going to exert stress on engine components, including the intake manifold, in different ways. Intense enough harmonics could actually shake cracks into the plenum if it is not flexable enough to absorb them.

In either case, it is obvious that their should be a material change and not just a cating change. Unfortunately, I don't know how the intake was designed. Normally from an OEM, what may seem like a simple manifold design actually takes a team of engineers months to accomplish. An aero engineer designs the internal passages and 3D models it. This gives the surface area for mechanica engineers to determine stress points and design reinforcements. Then an analysis is made on thermal expension rate by looking at all the materials between the manifold and the combustion chamber (highest point of heat). A thermal/chemical engineer uses this to design a compatible material that will be used. Aluminum is obviously a natural choice due to its thermal characteristics for heat expansion and flexibility. Plastics and ceramics on the other hand are a lot harder to figure out. I wish them luck in figuring it out.

 

Heh, I tried duct tape! Check the initial post. I tried bending pieces of aluminum from soda cans and was gonna try to duct tape the aluminum over the hole and limp back to tuscaloosa (to avoid towing fee). The tape wouldnt stick to the manifold! I tried electrical tape too, but nothing. The gas station even had rubber patches and I used them with rubber cement, but still I couldn't make it leak-proof, so then I decided to get a tow, because like you said, if duct tape can't fix it, it's broke!

I agree in thinking it is going to take more than a casting change to help the manifold. I think it would be wise to incorporate a SINGLE SOLID sheet of aluminum over the top of the plenum. I think if a single piece of aluminum were to fill the area between the red in the picture I've attached, I think it would work just fine. That way the sheet of aluminum would be there to brace the plenum and the center bolt supports, and then the plenum would still be held down. As is with v4, it is not held down, so in FI applications it will flex a LOT outward, which isn't good. Anyway, see the drawing for my fix. Until they do this, I don't trust it...

 

had my v2 for several months with no problem and then it cracked. I switched back to the oem plenum and have emailed and called kinetix with no response. a response would be nice. No one is to busy to spend 1 minute responding to an email.

 

thats ridiculous...helix should deffinately refund you along with paying for your car to get towed...im very dissapointed in all the storys i have heard about them and there bad products...i was considering one of there plenums but now the only way i would ever put one on is if they wanted me to test one out and they sent me one for free...pay $400 bucks so your car can break down and you have to waste yer time dealing with that ****? **** that!

 

Over 1000 views in under 12 hours. Seems like all eyes are on Kinetix's response.

 

i too am awaiting a response from the guys at kinetix. i had a v3, it cracked, they sent me a new one (also v3) and i didn't even install it, but sent it back asking for a FULL refund. well kinetix received the plenum last week (according to my tracking #) and i pm'd them to verify that they received it, but have yet to get a response. i hope they see this or read my pm... and hopefully i can get my refund.

 

I agree with you 100% Product liability is a big issue that most of these "mom and pop" shops don't even have. And like most people, I can't believe people still buy this POS product? Do you see Greddy or a true tuning company say "TURBO KIT V4.0?" And a turbo kit is much more hard to develop? Kinetix seems like those "lets make a quick buck" type of company the lets get rich quick method. I would think after V2.0 something would be wrong... Damn, Kinetix is cathing up to AOL V9.0 and AOL has been in business for over 10years!

Allbark: please stop hanging on to Kinetix ball sack, I know you were their likttle test dummy, and im sure you get the plenum for free, but do us all a favor and stop fooling yourself... every kinetix post I see you always give your marketing 2cents. "I can use my factory strut bar" seems like that's the only thing they have left to market their product by... Lets face it, KINETIX PLENUM SUCK PERIOD, I WOULD NEVER BUY IT AND IM SURE MANY PEOPLE WOULDN'T EITHER... how can you trust a company that their plenum cracks in weeks let alone months... Ever wonder in years? GEEZ they barely get 1 month to pass without cracking if even that.. In real racing that plenum would just get blown away LITERALLY!! with so much stress in the engine and flexing, it doenst even last the daily driving of a regular car let alone a 2 hour track day at the track.. EVERYONE SHOULD JUST RETURN THEIR PLENUM BACK...

PS keep your "stock" strut bar.

At least I wont be calling Tripple AAA to be picking my a$$ up from the road after a long drive

 

Same here. I have v3 and absolutely love it. No problems whatsoever after some 5000 miles. In fact, it just seems to get better.