well the garage said my s2000 sufferred piston failure whilst being tuned with the vortedh the guy said all the pistons where damaged...

I don't know if this might indicate the tuner did something wrong or its just one of those things?

 

In all probability it's something the tuner did. If the pistons are truely gone, it was a probably caused by too much ignition advance and/or too lean of a fuel curve.

 

To me I would think either your engine was toasted from before you had the sc installed or the made a big boo boo. Sucks bro. Hope you get everything settled.

 

Was anything done to make sure the car was in good condition before the SC was installed? I suspect the piston falures were cause by a lean condition or excessive timing advance (or both), but if you don't have any way to show that the engine didn't fail due to some "previous condition" then I doubt you'll be able to dump the expense of repair on your tuner.

Most "tuners" expect their customers to accept the risks involved in tuning, as there are always some risks involved. How much S2000 tuning experience does the guy have?

Sorry to hear that you're having problems.

 

well the car went allrite before I took it in there if it was on the way out what would the signs have been ?

they guy had never tuned s2000's before but seemed to think it'd be no problem he had done civic type-r's before

 

its one of those things where its hard to accept the blame, and also put blame on others. There are many variables with you take a car to different shops.

without knowing anything, i would say its the tuner's fault. ALSO what exactly did he mean by "piston failure"?

 

Sorry to say but that was a huge mistake on letting him tune your car when he has never tuned a S2000. I wouldnt let anyone touch my car if hes not known to be a good tuner for the specific car I have. He knows it was probaly his mistake but will never admit unless he is one honest person and for all 4 pistons to go is pretty uncommon. Who did your install? If a shop did they wouldve let you know something was wrong so they could try to up sell you an engine rebuild before installing a sc. How many miles are on your car? Did you have any problems before hand?

 

no no problems it ran great I think its on between 45k and 50k miles no exactly sure becuase its a japanese import so the speedo has gone from KM's to MPH

The place was a garage that does imports, skylines and stuff like that: http://www.svaimports.com/

 

Dan, we (CCR) also do imports, Skylines (we own three of them), and "stuff like that," but that does not qualify us to tune your S2000. I'll tune mine, but I wouldn't touch anyone else's, because I don't have enough experience to be sure I won't screw things up. (LOL, I can handle it if I screw up my car, but I'm not about to screw up anyone else's if I can help it. )

It would have been nice if you'd run some general "health checks" on the motor before the tuning (compression, leak-down test, etc.) but at this point it probably isn't going to matter. I'll be amazed if the tuner accepts responsibility, though I personally think that there is a high probability that he did cause the faliure. When we take a modified car to someone else to be tuned, we are assuming a certian amount of risk. We try to minimize the risk by using only experienced tuners, and with our cars that means they need to have S2000 specific experience. The reason I suspect tuner error is the type of failure and the tuners lack of S2k specific experience, but there is no way to be absolutely positive why the engine failed, so unless you are dealing with a shop that takes exceptional care of their customers I'm pretty sure you're going to be stuck with the bill.

Phillie is right about checking with the shop that installed your SC. They probably checked out the condition of your motor before the install, not just to sell you a rebuild if they could, but also to make sure the engine wouldn't fail after the install through no fault of their own. Still, even if the motor had been brand new, I don't think the tuner is going to eat the bill.

Before you pay for a rebuild or new motor I'd get a second opinion. Since I think the tuner trashed the motor I wouldn't want to go back to him for analysis of the failure. Find somebody with S2000 specific experience.

 

I did notice on their Web site that they don't know how to spell "software."
"Soft wear." I don't guess one has to be computer literate to be a mechanic, but damn!