My supercharged story...
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 2,465
Likes: 30
From: NorCal
Sorry to hear. That's why I'm always leary of taking my car to anyone for work just for situations like this. I installed my SC and no problems with it after 8K miles. If anything had happened, I had only myself to blame. Some people may not be mechanically inclined, but learning to work on your cars is well worth it.
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
From: Long Beach
Today Ryan called over to Autowave to see what was going on with this deal. Seems this thread was becoming a flame deal and we wanted to get to the bottom of it.
On the phone was Shane that works at Autowave
Hoses:
The hose from the valve cover breather to the air box was not connected. This hose is the one that has the hardline in between it. One goes to the valve cover, the other to the air box (which isnt in the car anymore) the other hardline attached to this one is a water line. The reason this wasnt removed is because i didnt have a hose to run from the valve cover to the intake (wasnt supplied with the kit and as stated i didnt have one) also i didnt have a hose to divorce the hardline completely and re-route the water line. He didnt mention about it hitting anything, and i dont remember it hitting anything also. Essentially Autowave did the latter and routed everything. Why didnt i do this? Time. In essence i was being pressed to finish this kit as the customer was complaining about he needed his car back since it was his only one, etc. So i did what i could do to get the ball rolling as quick as possible (this is with missing parts in the kit). It was bad enough that he was complaining about the missing pulley and seemed as if he wanted us to conduct a miracle. Ill just leave it at that.
Bolts Loose:
There are 2 10mm bolts on the bottom bracket of the SC, these bolts were missing. No bolts for this was supplied with the used kit when it was in our hands as well as other bolts so we just put on some 10mm bolts we had laying around. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Come to find out the supercharger pulley was not loose at all. The belt tensioner was loose. I find this odd as i tightened it to spec (i double made sure of this as there have been a few times customers have came in for tunes with slipping belts on these kits that i had to fix) and it remained tight after the install. We also didnt notice any belt slippage on the dyno. Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.
AEM EMS PROBLEMS:
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certian points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
Side Bar: If you seen under the thread starters dash, it was a cluster **** and he even commented to me on it while i was wiring up the power for his e-cutout. But its not his fault since he bought the car used. He just needs to put 2 and 2 toegther to find the real problem which was his cars wiring and not the EMS.
Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.
He didnt comment on anything else wrong with the kit or install to us. Im pretty sure there wasnt.
The people over at Autowave seem like pretty cool people and i wish them the best.
As for the thread stater were waiting for him to ship or bring us the old ems so they can verify for him that it works. This supposedly going to happen this Wednesday.
On the phone was Shane that works at Autowave
Hoses:
The hose from the valve cover breather to the air box was not connected. This hose is the one that has the hardline in between it. One goes to the valve cover, the other to the air box (which isnt in the car anymore) the other hardline attached to this one is a water line. The reason this wasnt removed is because i didnt have a hose to run from the valve cover to the intake (wasnt supplied with the kit and as stated i didnt have one) also i didnt have a hose to divorce the hardline completely and re-route the water line. He didnt mention about it hitting anything, and i dont remember it hitting anything also. Essentially Autowave did the latter and routed everything. Why didnt i do this? Time. In essence i was being pressed to finish this kit as the customer was complaining about he needed his car back since it was his only one, etc. So i did what i could do to get the ball rolling as quick as possible (this is with missing parts in the kit). It was bad enough that he was complaining about the missing pulley and seemed as if he wanted us to conduct a miracle. Ill just leave it at that.
Bolts Loose:
There are 2 10mm bolts on the bottom bracket of the SC, these bolts were missing. No bolts for this was supplied with the used kit when it was in our hands as well as other bolts so we just put on some 10mm bolts we had laying around. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Come to find out the supercharger pulley was not loose at all. The belt tensioner was loose. I find this odd as i tightened it to spec (i double made sure of this as there have been a few times customers have came in for tunes with slipping belts on these kits that i had to fix) and it remained tight after the install. We also didnt notice any belt slippage on the dyno. Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.
AEM EMS PROBLEMS:
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certian points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
Side Bar: If you seen under the thread starters dash, it was a cluster **** and he even commented to me on it while i was wiring up the power for his e-cutout. But its not his fault since he bought the car used. He just needs to put 2 and 2 toegther to find the real problem which was his cars wiring and not the EMS.
Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.
He didnt comment on anything else wrong with the kit or install to us. Im pretty sure there wasnt.
The people over at Autowave seem like pretty cool people and i wish them the best.
As for the thread stater were waiting for him to ship or bring us the old ems so they can verify for him that it works. This supposedly going to happen this Wednesday.
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 305
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by palmerblock,Dec 28 2009, 10:58 PM
Today Ryan called over to Autowave to see what was going on with this deal. Seems this thread was becoming a flame deal and we wanted to get to the bottom of it.
On the phone was Shane that works at Autowave
Hoses:
The hose from the valve cover breather to the air box was not connected. This hose is the one that has the hardline in between it. One goes to the valve cover, the other to the air box (which isnt in the car anymore) the other hardline attached to this one is a water line. The reason this wasnt removed is because i didnt have a hose to run from the valve cover to the intake (wasnt supplied with the kit and as stated i didnt have one) also i didnt have a hose to divorce the hardline completely and re-route the water line. He didnt mention about it hitting anything, and i dont remember it hitting anything also. Essentially Autowave did the latter and routed everything. Why didnt i do this? Time. In essence i was being pressed to finish this kit as the customer was complaining about he needed his car back since it was his only one, etc. So i did what i could do to get the ball rolling as quick as possible (this is with missing parts in the kit). It was bad enough that he was complaining about the missing pulley and seemed as if he wanted us to conduct a miracle. Ill just leave it at that.
Bolts Loose:
There are 2 10mm bolts on the bottom bracket of the SC, these bolts were missing. No bolts for this was supplied with the used kit when it was in our hands as well as other bolts so we just put on some 10mm bolts we had laying around. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Come to find out the supercharger pulley was not loose at all. The belt tensioner was loose. I find this odd as i tightened it to spec (i double made sure of this as there have been a few times customers have came in for tunes with slipping belts on these kits that i had to fix) and it remained tight after the install. We also didnt notice any belt slippage on the dyno. Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.
AEM EMS PROBLEMS:
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certian points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
Side Bar: If you seen under the thread starters dash, it was a cluster **** and he even commented to me on it while i was wiring up the power for his e-cutout. But its not his fault since he bought the car used. He just needs to put 2 and 2 toegther to find the real problem which was his cars wiring and not the EMS.
Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.
He didnt comment on anything else wrong with the kit or install to us. Im pretty sure there wasnt.
The people over at Autowave seem like pretty cool people and i wish them the best.
As for the thread stater were waiting for him to ship or bring us the old ems so they can verify for him that it works. This supposedly going to happen this Wednesday.
On the phone was Shane that works at Autowave
Hoses:
The hose from the valve cover breather to the air box was not connected. This hose is the one that has the hardline in between it. One goes to the valve cover, the other to the air box (which isnt in the car anymore) the other hardline attached to this one is a water line. The reason this wasnt removed is because i didnt have a hose to run from the valve cover to the intake (wasnt supplied with the kit and as stated i didnt have one) also i didnt have a hose to divorce the hardline completely and re-route the water line. He didnt mention about it hitting anything, and i dont remember it hitting anything also. Essentially Autowave did the latter and routed everything. Why didnt i do this? Time. In essence i was being pressed to finish this kit as the customer was complaining about he needed his car back since it was his only one, etc. So i did what i could do to get the ball rolling as quick as possible (this is with missing parts in the kit). It was bad enough that he was complaining about the missing pulley and seemed as if he wanted us to conduct a miracle. Ill just leave it at that.
Bolts Loose:
There are 2 10mm bolts on the bottom bracket of the SC, these bolts were missing. No bolts for this was supplied with the used kit when it was in our hands as well as other bolts so we just put on some 10mm bolts we had laying around. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Come to find out the supercharger pulley was not loose at all. The belt tensioner was loose. I find this odd as i tightened it to spec (i double made sure of this as there have been a few times customers have came in for tunes with slipping belts on these kits that i had to fix) and it remained tight after the install. We also didnt notice any belt slippage on the dyno. Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.
AEM EMS PROBLEMS:
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certian points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
Side Bar: If you seen under the thread starters dash, it was a cluster **** and he even commented to me on it while i was wiring up the power for his e-cutout. But its not his fault since he bought the car used. He just needs to put 2 and 2 toegther to find the real problem which was his cars wiring and not the EMS.
Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.
He didnt comment on anything else wrong with the kit or install to us. Im pretty sure there wasnt.
The people over at Autowave seem like pretty cool people and i wish them the best.
As for the thread stater were waiting for him to ship or bring us the old ems so they can verify for him that it works. This supposedly going to happen this Wednesday.
Registered User
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
From: Huntington Beach, Ca
First Off I would like to say is that this thread is out of control
here are the facts as I know because I am the one who did all the work on this car
1. The customer called us here at the shop informing us that he had just recently installed a Supercharger on his car and was hearing some noises coming from under the hood we said bring it in and we will listen to it
2. The customer was in route to our shop when the car died on the freeway he then got the car towed to our shop.
3. We inspected the car for the no start issue car had no fuel pressure and no spark. I then smacked the the AEM EMS directly on the box and the car fired right up indicating that there was a problem with the EMS.
4. Once the car started we noticed that the supercharger belt was horribly loose causing a bunch of noise. The belt was so loose that it had actually come off of the supercharger pulley half way
5. We took the SC off replaced the belt and inspected everything put everything to speck. there were missing bolts and loose bolts in places Leaky vtec valve seal where the old vtec seal had been used over again. Hoses were not routed correctly and Vacuum lines were rubbing on the accessory belt causing a vacuum leak.
6. Installed the new series two ems and got the car up and running and then tuned it.
I just want to clear up a few things regarding palmers post. This is in no way trying to bash anyone here I just wanted to get the facts straight as I am tired of hearing a bunch of here say on this thread.
We never said that the bolts fell out due to lack of lock washers and the integrity of the supercharger mounting 'IS' affected causing the SC bracket to have play in it if these bolts are not present and torqued
[/QUOTE]SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.[/QUOTE]
he never told ryan the bolts were suspect on the tensioner all he said was the tension nut was left loose and we never ordered new bolts for the tensioner we simply just tightened the nut on the tensioner pulley as all of this hardware was in fine working order
This was not said, the alarm system we never questioned here. The EMS was what was suspected. Direct tapping on the EMS caused the car to studder and sometimes die and not restart. I have seen this in the past on the some different ecu's some times there is a bad solder joint in the ecu or a bad trace on the board typically do to someone that has soldered on the board before. We opened this ecu and didn't see any signs of water damage but what we did see was some crude solder connections of different resistors indicating that there was once a problem in this ecu. The reason why the ecu was suspect to water damage was the high amount of corrosion on the ecu plugs on the EMS. We felt that the ECU at this time needed to be replaced so we sold the customer and New AEM EMS and the problem was gone
[/QUOTE]Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.[QUOTE]
Here at AUTOWAVE all of us as a whole hate talk forums because in most cases it always leads to someone getting bashed and bunch of flamers getting on board to just simply increase there post per day average. I have known Shawn for many years now and we have nothing but professionalism between the two of us. It is sad to see how this paned out and I do feel for Shawn and the guys at Church Automotive
here are the facts as I know because I am the one who did all the work on this car
1. The customer called us here at the shop informing us that he had just recently installed a Supercharger on his car and was hearing some noises coming from under the hood we said bring it in and we will listen to it
2. The customer was in route to our shop when the car died on the freeway he then got the car towed to our shop.
3. We inspected the car for the no start issue car had no fuel pressure and no spark. I then smacked the the AEM EMS directly on the box and the car fired right up indicating that there was a problem with the EMS.
4. Once the car started we noticed that the supercharger belt was horribly loose causing a bunch of noise. The belt was so loose that it had actually come off of the supercharger pulley half way
5. We took the SC off replaced the belt and inspected everything put everything to speck. there were missing bolts and loose bolts in places Leaky vtec valve seal where the old vtec seal had been used over again. Hoses were not routed correctly and Vacuum lines were rubbing on the accessory belt causing a vacuum leak.
6. Installed the new series two ems and got the car up and running and then tuned it.
I just want to clear up a few things regarding palmers post. This is in no way trying to bash anyone here I just wanted to get the facts straight as I am tired of hearing a bunch of here say on this thread.
Bolts Loose:
. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
. They must have fell off due to no lock washers Shane said. This didnt effect the integrity of the SC mounting, it was just noticed.
[/QUOTE]SC Pulley------->Tensioner
Shane said maybe the botls were suspect. You dont know if the bolts stetched or were warn out from the previous install. So he just order new ones for the tensioner as well as the 10mm bolts with lock washers for the bottom 2 bolts direct from Vortech and that solved everything there.[/QUOTE]
he never told ryan the bolts were suspect on the tensioner all he said was the tension nut was left loose and we never ordered new bolts for the tensioner we simply just tightened the nut on the tensioner pulley as all of this hardware was in fine working order
AEM EMS PROBLEMS:
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certain points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
The EMS wasnt what was causing the problem. It was the alarm system that was causing the intermitent startup issues. The EMS happens to be next to alot of the alarm wires. Both Shawn and Ryan had to tap the EMS and move the wires around for the car to start at certain points. We had already clued in that there was a wiring problem due to the cluster or foreign wires under the dash. Autowave had to do the same to get the EMS to work. Autowave opened up the EMS and seen no signs of water damage on the circut board. A new EMS was bought by the customer and installed; the problem was alleviated. The reason being is the new EMS can be tucked away from the wiring since its half the size of the old ems sold to him initally and was not leaning against the wires that were intertwined with the alarm system.
This was not said, the alarm system we never questioned here. The EMS was what was suspected. Direct tapping on the EMS caused the car to studder and sometimes die and not restart. I have seen this in the past on the some different ecu's some times there is a bad solder joint in the ecu or a bad trace on the board typically do to someone that has soldered on the board before. We opened this ecu and didn't see any signs of water damage but what we did see was some crude solder connections of different resistors indicating that there was once a problem in this ecu. The reason why the ecu was suspect to water damage was the high amount of corrosion on the ecu plugs on the EMS. We felt that the ECU at this time needed to be replaced so we sold the customer and New AEM EMS and the problem was gone
[/QUOTE]Shane didnt agree with someone posting this kind of stuff and bad mouthing a shop before getting to the bottom of things. He had the same thing happen to him a while back about some motor he dropped in... i dont know the result of this issue but im sure you can find it on the boards.[QUOTE]
Here at AUTOWAVE all of us as a whole hate talk forums because in most cases it always leads to someone getting bashed and bunch of flamers getting on board to just simply increase there post per day average. I have known Shawn for many years now and we have nothing but professionalism between the two of us. It is sad to see how this paned out and I do feel for Shawn and the guys at Church Automotive
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 652
Likes: 0
I think that everyone knows the facts that have happened to my car which is most important.
Fact: My car came in on a toe truck to autowave after 2 days of the original install for multiple reasons caused by the original install.
Fact: I made more power on a lower reading dyno at Autowave.
Fact: Church Automotive (or whoever they say was installed my kit) is obviously trying to cover there asses, which they should be doing. I dont blame them at all for making excuses instead of accepting fault and moving forward. Thats business.
Those are the facts and im going to leave it at that.
I have nothing else to say. I think both sides have contributed to the fullest extent and I will report after I findout what will happen about the refunds.
---
Fact: My car came in on a toe truck to autowave after 2 days of the original install for multiple reasons caused by the original install.
Fact: I made more power on a lower reading dyno at Autowave.
Fact: Church Automotive (or whoever they say was installed my kit) is obviously trying to cover there asses, which they should be doing. I dont blame them at all for making excuses instead of accepting fault and moving forward. Thats business.
Those are the facts and im going to leave it at that.
I have nothing else to say. I think both sides have contributed to the fullest extent and I will report after I findout what will happen about the refunds.
---
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 16,548
Likes: 1
We all agree that it was a messed up situation. But it wasn't cool to blame Church. From my personal experience, Church will not install anything for you or sell used parts.
I think you knew that Church didn't sell you or install those parts. I doubt you walked in all wide eyed and flopped down your hard earned cash.
I think you knew that Church didn't sell you or install those parts. I doubt you walked in all wide eyed and flopped down your hard earned cash.
Registered User
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 219
Likes: 0
I don't know why this thread is still going.....
OP was in a bind b/c it's his only car. That doesn't excuse him rushing a supercharger install (not waiting for missing parts) and getting upset with the result.
Per my first post, "OP doesn't have a leg left to stand on"
OP was in a bind b/c it's his only car. That doesn't excuse him rushing a supercharger install (not waiting for missing parts) and getting upset with the result.
Per my first post, "OP doesn't have a leg left to stand on"