Sterling Carb
 

So I was just wondering if Sterling is still in business. I see on his BYMC forum that he is no longer taking orders as of December.

Still in business, but not taking orders.

Good to hear, will production stop for awhile as well or is he finishing those that have already paid?

Knowing Sterling, production has stopped for a while.

Man that is not what I wanted to hear. Now when you say for awhile are we talking 3-4 months or another year? And by the sounds of it you know him fairly well, do you think he send back the carbs people sent him? Sorry for all the questions its just i'm in the dark.

Heres a novel idea. Go to his website and post up there asking whats up.
He may respond there more readily than here. He was last on there at
10 p.m. last night :scratch:

Sterling does this as a side business, so if he's not taking orders its
for some reason.

i have knock sterling...but some times people have to hear negativity to bring out the best in them...a lot of 1st gen owner need his servies.

I agree with you. And in no way am I implying anything negative about Sterling, I know he has good intentions. I've posted here as a last resort.

A year or more is not uncommon. I don't know him that well. It's just what I've read on forums.

You need to use the search button to find out for yourself whether you'd like to risk your money and a carb on this Sterling fellow. Others have recently, and regretted it.

Infact I bet if you are patient for a little while, lots of other people will eventually chime in about their experience with Sterling and his business practices of late.

Well I already fall into the second group. I've been waiting 11 months now. I don't have a problem waiting sometime for a great product, hopefully not to much longer though. I'm sure he will bounce back from what ever it is. I just think that his return would be much smoother if he were to be straight forward with all his customers and fans on here. Thats just my opinion though.

i have a feeling once he's done with the carbs he needs too he might not do any more.

after all this is a side business for him, and he's got a wife and kids and presumably a real job, and stuff

his craftsmanship is excellent..he built a carb a few years ago that had such unbelievable response..removed it due to going turbo..

I can't really speak for Sterling, but I think his desire is to build carbs and then just sell them when they're done. Instead of taking orders, he could just build them at his own pace. Just a guess. We should be grateful to the guy just for posting all of his research on the internet for us. Most people wouldn't do that. Personally, I have learned a great deal of information about the Nikki just by the trail of information he has left behind for us.

Dennis (aka Sterling) is a good person. He and CarlRX7 were at 7stock X. I feel that they are a stand up guy like me so I have nothing bad to say about them. :nod: I just "dislike" Nikki carb period based on my experience with different brands. :lol::lol:

Wacky: smashing the Nikki where ever it pops up, like "Wack a mole" :)

I've been waiting for 15 months (and 1 day) and no carb so far. I told him I wanted out as I'm tired of hearing "it will be a week or two". I got a response of " it will be done in two more weeks". How depressing. I'm 10 days into the latest two weeks.

Sterling is a bit of a curmudgeon sometimes (often with good reason), but he has been a good contributing member of this forum and extremely helpful to members when they don't try and jerk him around.

I understand its frustrating and 15 months IS a long time to wait for a product. (though I am considering getting an M14 and its on a 9 month waiter as they produce it per order...) I'm sure Sterling is doing his best to attend to his customers while balancing his own personal business and career.

if there are issues with Sterling, they need to be taken up with him directly and not drug through the gallows, out in the open on the forum. Sterling, and RX7Carl have been invaluable members here on the forum and have built solid carbs for people for many years with nothing but excellent business. whatever is going on with Sterling is most likely personal and should be addressed on a case by case basis to Sterling and not made public here on the forum.

well said Dave

Stu Aull
80GS (& Sterling owner)

I don't don't think you guys understand HOW LONG it takes to do some of the stuff that you are paying him to do, and how intricate and involved the work is. I have been working on my own Nikki carb in the evenings for the past month and a half or so. I have been stripping it down, and adding some of the features that the Sterling carb has such as mechanical secondaries, accelerator pump mods, trimmed booster venturis, etc. I worked on it for a month and a half after work each night before it was complete. Even then, I wasn't doing anywhere NEAR the level of intricate work that Sterling is doing. I was also working on ONE carb not a pile of them.

In the end I sent my venturis, emulsion tubes, and throttle body to Sterling for modification, because I don't have the skills, and tool set that he does to properly modify them. I wanted them done right, so I sent them to a true craftsman. This isn't work that I can just duplicate on my bench grinder out in the garage. It has to be done by someone who has a complete setup of precision tools, understands how to use those tools, understands carburetor theory, and knows how the insides of the Nikki carburetor operate. Last time I checked Sterling was the only guy that fits all the above criteria. I have no doubt that when I get the parts back they will be as good as I hoped.

So try and cut the guy a little slack. He'll come through for you. And when you finally get your Sterling carb, you'll be so happy with the results that any frustrations you had by the length of the wait will quickly be forgotten. Trust me, his work is that good.

Jamie

so what is the summary? buy something else LOL

Well, this thread was only a matter of time. I'm surprised not to have seen one 6 months ago.

Ten years ago I started messing around with my Nikki, trying to imitate the then rather elusive Yaw carb. Eventually I did get one, but saw that my craftsmanship exceeded his. There's a reason for that, and it's not self-inflated at all, it's simple. I was training as a jeweler and silver smith and was used to very fine finishes. I had tools for that type of thing, and absolutely no business sense what so ever. The result was that when I started building carbs for others, I was selling them as inexpensively as possible, and doing the best job I possibly could. I set a ridiculous standard for myself, and 10 years later I have found no shortcuts. The result was, and has been a carb in which far too much work is done for far too little money.

I'm tired, folks. I'm not so much tired of building the carbs, but I'm tired of disappointing customers. It's a giant monkey on my back. I make next to nothing on these things. Rebuilds are profitable, but the modded Nikkis are not, at all. I actually tried to make a go of this as a primary source of income, supplemented by a second, part time job. Twice I tried, and twice fell into a financial pit from which I'm still recovering.
I now have a full time job, which is very demanding and low paying, but in this economy I'm glad to even have it. Then, as mentioned, is the home life with kids and such. I'm stuck.
I have 9 orders to kick out and then I'm done. At this point I'm so exhausted by all of this that I wish I could just refund everyone's order money at once, plus 20% as a "no hard feelings -apology bonus", and if I could I really would. But I'm as broke as anyone else. I would surely have returned Stan's money (clubber) long ago if I could have.

So when I can, I go into the garage and freeze my ass off putting the last bits of some of these things together until I can't feel my fingers anymore. I just want to get these orders done, but there's no "slapping" them together. The last thing I want is to be inundated with emails from customers that waited a ridiculous amount of time for a carb that they can't get working properly.

So I closed the doors, -for now. I love rotaries, and I love the rotary community, and I love building these carburetors. I love reading about people bragging about the performance they get with one of my carbs. It's a real trip, no doubt! But the time for me doing this as a half-assed run business is at an end. Jamie's right about my intentions. I plan on building in the future, but selling as they become available. I'll take an order list, which will be first come, first serve. If, by the time I get a carb built, the next in line doesn't want it, I'll contact the next person, and so on. It's what i should have done in the beginning, but I was lured by the prepaid orders out of necessity. I really thought I could keep up, but like I said, everything changed when I needed to get another job and then we had another child. All of the sudden I went from a realistic schedule to no time to do it at all. My wife works at night so I end up having to watch the kids when I could be out in the garage working.

None of this is an excuse for bad business practices. I knew when I took some of the last of these orders how bad things were looking for me time wise, but I really thought I could change it. Thinking I could fix things by continuing to plug along and take orders was simple stupidity and naivety on my part, but never malice or criminal intent.
Everyone will get their carbs in great working order, and I will continue to maintain contact with them until everything is made right and they are satisfied.
It's very embarrassing seeing a thread like this on the largest rotary community forum where my ethics, intent and integrity is in question.

I would also like to add (and this is very important...) that Carl is no longer associated with these carbs, and has not been for a few years. In fact, I haven't even spoken or made contact with him in over a year now. I don't think the rotary scene interests him much anymore. -Or maybe it's me, I don't know. (I do have that bad reputation and all. lol) At any rate, he has nothing to do with any of my business decisions that have landed me in this hot water with the community.
He did, however, have everything to do with making the Sterling Nikki the great carb it is.

Please bear with me while I complete these orders. Once I'm finished, I will be taking a break for the winter, and I'll start making one-off Sterling Nikkis again for sale in the late spring. I need to fulfill my obligations, make restoration, step back and take a breath, and then figure out how to do this right, balancing building carbs with my career and family. One step at a time.

Well said Sterling. The above statement shows that you are dealing with a quality guy, everyone. He could slap these together if he wanted to, and 98% of us wouldn't be able to tell the difference because we don't understand half of what he understands about these carbs. Anyone in his position who wasn't reputable would do exactly that, slap them together and ship them with quality no longer a concern. But rather than half-assing it to get everyone off his back, he's making sure you get exactly what you paid for, even if it takes a little longer and ticks you off in the process.

Like I said before, "when you finally get your Sterling carb, you'll be so happy with the results that any frustrations you had by the length of the wait will quickly be forgotten."

Hang in there Dennis! Hope things get better soon for you and yours.

Jamie

Not by everyone, sir. :icon_tup:

Balancing priorities and fulfilling all demands can become impossible, sometimes. We all run into that if we're lucky to live long enough. And family's gotta come first.

well said Glen! now that Sterling has chimed in here and you know the true and real story, which i whlole heartidly believe because i have a wife and two kids (with another on the way) and i know how hard it is to not only balance a budget with a family, but how hard it is to find the time you need to do things you used to do before the kids, in the smae manner that the things were done in before.

i have personally seen Dennis's carbs and i have seen the performance you can get out of those carbs that you're not going to get out of another carb. i understand that a few guys have been waiting and are upset, but i absolutely do not want to see any more responses bashing Dennis or his business. he has openly shared the issues he is having and in my opinion, has cleared the air of any thievery or maliciousness and for many years, he has been an invaluable person not only to the rx7club, but to the entire rotary community. i still have the highest respect for Dennis and even more so now.