David,

It sounds like your tensioner pulleys may need some grease or total replacement. Once they start to squeak it is indicative of a worn shaft or bearing. Wheel bearing grease may temporarily fix the problem.

mike

 

David... are you sure that it's not the tensioner pulley making noise? Speaking from experience, I'm going to replace mine next week. Just a thought.

 

It's a new tensioner pulley so I don't think this is it. My bet is something is misaligned. I'm taking it to a shop in about an hour so we'll see.

 

Well, I'm stumped. The tensioner pulley nut was not completely tightened so I redid the tension and tightened the bolt. Worked great for about one hour and now it's back to squeaking. Grrr..

Will take it in tomorrow to my master mechanic shop friends and give them a go at it.

FYI - had a great time driving the car today. The weather is fantastic and the ride was fun. Replaced the plastic pieces that had broken and polished the aluminum wheels. You know, real mechanic stuff

 

David, I had the same issue until I replaced the belt with a goodyear gatorback belt. for some reason the fd just doesn't like cheap belts.

 

Quickie Update: Squeaky belt is no more! The belt was replaced with a Bando belt and it works great. Have been driving the car for a few days with no squeaks at all

Having fun driving around in the car. I'm trying to get it ready to go to DGRR in a few weeks so I'm compiling a list of anything that needs addressing. I've replaced all of the broken plastic bits and pieces and did a little touch up painting today. Started the cleaning process as I haven't had the car for four years. It's in pretty good shape though with the exception of a few new dings and scratches.

I'm going to drive back down to Jesus this week or next for a few tuning issues. Found a few rich spots that are bogging down the car and I need some fine tuning on the decel fuel cut map. I had Jesus turn this on as I was shooting very impressive flames out the back that singed the bumper a tad bit. This is now gone but a certain times, if I abruptly let off the gas and push the clutch in, the car dies. Other than that, life is good and I'm happy to have the car back.

Once the car is clean, I'll snap a few more pics for you and take a video or two.

 

David, check the Dashpot on the throttle body, you may need to adjust or replace it. Looking forward to seeing your car at DGRR!

Dan

 

I want to see vids... I am still subscribed.

 

I was just reading about this on another thread and never even thought about it for my car. Question - would I adjust this according to the FSM on the 3 rotor just like a two rotor? No differences?

 

I did take the time a week or so ago to put some additional heat protection on the car. My problem was heat permeating into the passenger side of the car. Not horrible but definitely not the best so I decided to try to eliminate it. As I have a Magnaflow mid pipe muffler, I felt this was probably the root cause of the issue. My downpipe is already wrapped all the way to the muffler, so I contacted DEI (http://www.designengineering.com/pro...sp?m=sp&pid=27) to ask them what would be the best product to apply to the underside of the car above the muffler and along the mid pipe route. They recommended a new product, Floor and Tunnel Shield.

The product is an aluminum/fiberglass composite material that withstands temps up to 1,750 degrees with an adhesive that sticks up to 450 degrees. It's easy to install - you just cut to shape (watch out for sharp aluminum corners), peel off the plastic backing, and then apply.

My seat of the pants test (2 hour drive) says it works great. Cooler in the passenger seat and more pleasant. Some pics for you:







Note the other material on the bottom of the car is Quiet Car (http://www.quietcoat.com/), a spray on sound deadening product. I highly recommend this to you as it is the best and lightest material available to sound dampen your car. Works 2 times better than Dynamat and is much lighter.

 

Dashpot wasn't set to factory specs. Checking it out, it works fine but it was set to operate at about 800 RPMS, well below the 2,600 - 3,000 RPM range indicated in the FSM. I set it to 2,700 RPMS and will take the car out later to see if it solved the problem.

 

And it worked! Dashpot now set correctly, no more stalling problems. Thanks for the help Chadwick!

 

Dang....I just read that whole post from start to finish. I hope Karma comes arround and bites that Wolf guy.....that just sick someone can do that and sleep at night! I guess the only way to protect yourself is to only pay for parts up front and labour upon pickup.....Pitty no garages will be interested in this.

Nice car and nice result finally though!

 

You must have had a few days to kill by reading this thread from start to finish - don't know if I could do that

First, things are going well for me. I call Jesus about every day and he patiently fields my questions (sometimes stupid ones). My last conversation:

David - "Jesus, I think we have a fuel problem".
Jesus - "Why do you say that?"
David - "When I turn on the ignition (without turning over the starter), the fuel pump is on and pumping fuel."
Jesus - "It's supposed to do this to ensure fuel pressure is correct."
David - "Oh, didn't know that. I think fuel pressure is too high."
Jesus - "Why?"
David - "When I start the car, it's about 60 PSI. Shouldn't it be 40ish?"
Jesus - "Yes, it should be 40. Maybe we have a regulator problem."
David - "I'm nervous because when I drive the car, fuel pressure shoots up to 70 when I am cruising and then 130 or so when I accelerate."
Jesus - "Wait a minute, are you looking at the top of the bottom number on the Spa dual gauge?"
David - "The top, why?"
Jesus - "That's oil pressure (dummy, I'm sure he wanted to add)."

Some of my questions are better but not many. After four years of bad experiences, I'm a bit nervous. Jesus continues to encourage me to drive the car and have fun which I am doing.

Your comments about shops and how they charge are bang on. It's very difficult to ensure you don't get screwed in today's RX7 world. It's equally difficult if the car is not close to where you are and you have to rely on what the shop tells you. I can't tell you how many times I've been told about the state of progress on the car, only to find out it was nowhere near that. The shop wanted to be paid and they "stretched" the truth. Not good.

My advice is to do a lot of research on the shop with which you are dealing. Ask for references and then follow through with calling them up. Post up the question on the forums and see what others have to say. Regarding payment, set up a "payment upon milestone completion schedule" and stick to it. Pay some upfront for parts but don't pay another cent until you are sure the work has been done. If the car is not close to you, maybe enlist the help of a forum member to verify the work has been done? Frankly I have been too nice with payment, sending money because the shop said they needed it when I knew the work wasn't completed. I'll never do this again. With Kilo Racing and Jesus this was not an issue. I paid 50% upfront and Jesus would not take any more money until the car was completely done. He refused payment several times as I had identified a few issues on the car.

Regarding my short list of builders, I recommend:

- Kilo Racing, Jesus Padilla (Orlando FL)
- Carlos Lopez (CLR Motorsports, Miami FL). Carlos, not Alex
- Chris Anderson (Crispeed, Miami FL)
- KDR Rotary (Dave, PA) Gordon's recommendation

I'm also giving props to Steve Kan, now with www.kantuning.com. Steve was the reason I originally sent the car to Gotham Racing two years ago. I thought he would be working on the car. Unfortunately, Steve took a job with Motorola and a series of others instead worked on it. They basically screwed it up. Some work was good (George's engine harness) but most sucked and resulted in the engine blowing on the dyno last November.

When Steve heard of my problems last November, he immediately came over and tried to fix the issues. When the engine blew, Steve offered to pay for the work. We recently had a bit of a disagreement over what he would pay for but we worked it out and I am happy to say he's stepped up and paid. Legally he didn't have to as Gotham is out of business but he did so because he took personal responsibility for the problems. I applaud him for this.

What I don't applaud are my conversations with Alex, also an owner of Gotham. He's a nice guy but he basically said he wasn't responsible for my issues. He told me on the phone once I took the car off the Gotham lot, he was no longer responsible because who knows what I did to the car after that. Recall I had to tow the car out of Gotham over to another shop because Gotham's land lord was shutting them down and padlocking the shop for lack of rent payment. Also note I paid Alex and Gotham tens of thousands of dollars and ended up with a crappy job and a blown engine. Alex did give me the 60mm HKS wastegate that is now for sale on the forum but that is it. He hasn't returned any of my texts or calls to him. Maybe he got tired of my ethics lectures? Doing the right thing is always right and I hope Alex learns this lesson someday.

Regarding George from Gotham, he entirely let me down. We made arrangements to meet last November and I and my father-in-law flew in on a Wednesday. George was supposed to show on a Thursday but didn't until the following Monday. How do you do that to a customer? This cost him a job at the shop we where at though as they where considering hiring him but decided not to based on our experience. I also found out an interesting thing about my 20B*parts that were supposed to go back to Cam Worth at Pettit Racing (Cam gave me new parts for the engine rebuild with the understanding the old parts would be sent back to him). I was told several times by George the parts had been shipped by Cam never received them. Come to find out George had sold the parts (20B center iron, rotor housings, etc.) to a person in TX. George claims he was given the parts from Alex, Alex says this is not true. What I do know is both guys told be they were shipped back to Pettit and that clearly didn't happen. Remember, we're talking about a few thousand dollars worth of parts here. Once the person in TX that bought the parts found out they were stolen, he promptly shipped them back to Pettit so I guess it worked out in the end.

Finally, the Wolf guy, Chris Green? He's dropped off the rotary map as far as I know. Don't want him screwing anyone else but I hope he okay.

Well, enough for now. I'm going out now to take a quick drive in the car and release my anger

 

David,

It has been a great read and learning experience sharing your trials and tribulations. Your wrap-up is written as a gentleman. May you have years of 9 pulse rotarying.

 

Thanks for the comment on the reliable shops. Thats very helpful. I was thinking about sending my car to KDR to get it tuned.

 

LOL thanks David! I haven't had such a good laugh in a while!

 

We need/want some video man. Give your father in law the camera and go for a drive.

 

My God.......You have the patience of a saint

 

I'll do my best I'm going to clean up the car today so I might be able to squeeze at least some still shots in.

 

I've been asked by another member to add additional information about Chris Green from Sacramento CA. I've chosen to post it here so all forum members can be aware of what happened.

First, Chris is on of those brilliant guys you meet every now and then. He's a master of rotary knowledge and is an expert tuner. Unfortunately personal problems ruined him and almost took my car down in the process.

I met Chris through Pettit Racing as he was the distributor for Wolf EMS. As I had a Wolf on the car, Chris helped quite a bit in getting the car up and running. I would data log and then send the logs to Chris. He would in turn, review the logs, make changes to the maps, and email me a new map. The process worked quite well and I was appreciative of his help.

When I decided to go single (never could get more than 400 WHP out of the twins), Chris convinced me to send the car to him for the conversion. He indicated Wolf EMS wanted to use the car as a showcase car for its ECU and he would cut me a good deal for the conversion and tuning. I just needed to send the car to Sacramento CA to his shop. Turns out his shop was actually his house but I digress. He quoted me a price of $7,500 for a new manifold, downpipe, and GT42R BB turbo, and also tuning. I paid 50% and then shipped the car to him (roundtrip would cost a little over $2,000).

Chris supposedly ordered the turbo kit (from ASE in Australia) and it was supposed to take two weeks to arrive. These two weeks turned into 4 months with Chris stringing me on each week with "it will be here any day". Started to get the feeling something was wrong abut month 3 and told Chris I was pulling the plug with him and taking the car out. He's a good salesperson and he convinced me everything was alright.

About month three, he did indeed open up a shop (Wolf EMS USA). Told me he was the new master distributor and Wolf was funding him to make a big push into the US. Don't think this was true. Month three turned into month 6 and good news, the turbo kit had arrived. About this time Chris started complaining about the price he was charging me and how he was losing money on the deal. Hmm, another red flag that I should have noticed.

During months 6 - 9, Chris would send pics of work on the car. He did do some fab work for the turbo. I noticed his behavior though had changed dramatically. He no longer returned my calls. Some days he would call out of the nowhere and would be emotionally high as a kite, yet on other days, he would be solemn and blue. He would then disappear for weeks at a time.

My guess is Chris has a drug/drinking problem. I had heard he was getting a divorce which might have sent him over the edge but the net of it all was I had to do something to protect my car and the investment in it. I tried to pick up the car a few times (paying drivers to go to the shop) but Chris wasn't there or refused to let them take the car saying I owed money. So this wasn't an issue, I overnighted a cashier's check to him. The check sat at the Fedex office for about one week until a co-worker of Chris' picked it up.

I finally got the help of several forum members who staked out the shop. Got a call one day from one member who saw Chris enter the shop. I immediately called a transport company (Bulls eye - fantastic people) and was fortunate they had a carrier in the area. He was able to get to the shop within the hour. The forum member handed Chris his phone and Chris tried to talk his way out of having the car picked up. I told Chris not insult me any more and to pack up everything in a box, put it in the car, and help load the car on the transport, which Chris did do. FYI - the car was in pieces and the end was nowhere in sight.

I haven't spoken to Chris since then but did hear his shop was shut down a few weeks after I took my car out and that several RX7 owners had their cars padlocked in the shop. Chris was evicted and I'm not sure what happened to the other RX7 owners, but I was happy to be out of there.

Hope this story helps others.

 

Guys, I moved the other posts to the GG/BG section under this thread:

https://www.rx7club.com/bad-fugly-businesses-231/bad-experience-kilo-racing-florida-830437/

Please use that as the proper place to discuss that subject. Let's leave this thread for David's 20B build.

thanks.

 

Thank you.

 

Rich, you should retitle the thread to something else instead of "Kilo Racing". Looks like felix_is_alive did not deal with Kilo but with some guy named Rolo.

 

Unfortunately I don't have mod powers once it's in the GG/BG section. The thread starter (felix) can PM a supermod about it.