#1211764 - 04/01/07 03:25 AM
Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
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SamuraiSam
Post Master Sr
Registered: 07/29/02
Posts: 8828
Loc: Bellingham, WA
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You will end up ruining an auto technician's day.
(This is a long story written by an extremely tired, disgruntled, pissed off tech who wants to sit down and ramble and bitch with lots of story and pictures that has nothing to do with the title and the main point of this thread so if you aren't in for a non-turbo-honda read, just hit the "back" button")
On the 24th we had a customer come in with a pretty heavily abused, SR20 swapped S13 240sx that he had just put a topmount turbo setup on with a pretty nice looking turbo and a great looking manifold. He needed to have a downpipe fabricated because his setup was really jerry-rigged - just enough to get to the shop. Turns out the manifold was some SS autochrome/XS power deal he had picked up from some guy for 80 bucks. We made some comment about how they look great but aren't actually built well. Anyways so I put the car up on the four post and we checked everything out, and my co worker that does almost all our exhaust work built the downpipe and it turned out great, except we didn't have a wastegate flange to make a dump tube (he wanted to have it dump out the side of the car) and after a failed attempt to trace a flange and cut it freehand with the plamsa cutter, we said we'd order in a new flange and that he could come by next Saturday and we'd do the dumptube.
So the next day I went down to the Nissan meet at Golden Gardens and had a great time for the most part. Got to drive down in a brand new G35 coupe and back up i drove a single turbo FD. All of the Japanese prosti-tots wanted to model all of our groups cars including my roommate's GT-R...
They were all over the G35 i drove down also, but those pictures turned out super fucking blurry god dammit.
So that was fun except for some of the super badass drift kids doing burnouts and popping off the revlimiter and shit. Then the whole work week showed up and it was five times as busy as it's ever been this year and I was really super stressed all week, just absolute hell at the shop, and finally Saturday comes which is either a day off or an easy day. We do shop breakfasts every Saturday morning and then I was going to just come in and clean up for about two hours and take off and go to the local Honda-Tech meet down in seattle (2hr drive). So last night I stayed at the shop until midnight trying to get all the little shit done and finish up a bunch of work, went home got to sleep at 2AM, came into breakfast and went to the shop, and was getting ready to leave as the 240 came in.
The customer pulled up and the car sounded pretty different, louder. Customer gets out and says his car started sounding different last night and he had no idea what was going on, anyways he's here for the dump tube and could you check that sound out for me?
We pop the hood.
The wastegate is lying on the crossmember.
Of course the POS manifold cracked in the worst place and the weld broke 360 degrees around the pipe going to the wastegate so it fell and took the weld with it, but warping the manifold and putting a bunch of cracks in the 'tube' barely attached to the flange. Of course, this is an emergency, I should have said fuck this and left, but I'm too nice of a guy so I figure if i bust ass and then Blake can get it welded up quick I can still get out of here by noon or noon-thirty and make the meet, so I have to put the car on the lift and pull all this ghetto rigged shit off - i'm talking a four piece ghetto rigged water line - stock hose goes into a 90 degree piece of brake line into another soft line into the stainless braided line into the AN fitting. All the lines were the wrong sizes/lengths. The oil drain was a piece of fuel line held with lockwire in 2 places to keep it off the manifold. I mean absolute fucking terrible shit. So I got everything tore down in about an hour and then I cleaned the crap out of the mating surfaces with brake clean and then sandblasted all the carbon buildup off. The pipe from the manifold to the flange is literally half an inch or less so it had to be TIG welded from inside the collector which i'm sure was a huge PITA for my fellow worker. Got everything done and when it cooled, put it back together in about an hour and got the car off the rack and then the car went to the other rack for the dumptube and shit and by then the meet was already going and i was two hours away and now I Get to go into work tomorrow and god damn the piece of shit SS autochrome shit, don't buy it, or you will drive your mechanic to fucking jump off a building.
oh by the way i snapped some pictures with my cell phone - check out that thick wall tubing!
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#1212269 - 04/01/07 01:25 PM
Re: Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
[Re: cua0]
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SiR Steel
Post Master Sr
Registered: 06/18/01
Posts: 8394
Loc: West Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Looks like the meet was held at Spanish Banks. Did you end up going, Samurai?
_________________________
2018 BMW M2 6MT
1977 British Leyland MINI Modded 1380cc LHD
2005 Piaggio Vespa ET2 Modded 70cc
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#1214371 - 04/02/07 01:32 AM
Re: Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
[Re: SamuraiSam]
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SiR Steel
Post Master Sr
Registered: 06/18/01
Posts: 8394
Loc: West Vancouver, BC, Canada
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The pictures above with the prosti-tots and the Skylines look like it was taken at Spanish Banks in Vancouver, BC.
_________________________
2018 BMW M2 6MT
1977 British Leyland MINI Modded 1380cc LHD
2005 Piaggio Vespa ET2 Modded 70cc
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#1215501 - 04/02/07 12:51 PM
Re: Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
[Re: hondacivicnut]
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SiAdam
Post Master Supreme
Registered: 07/22/01
Posts: 19269
Loc: WV
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Here's how I see it. Personally I would NEVER buy it, however if I wanted to play around w/something for super cheap I would get it..like my beater 90whp d15b7 hatch  I can weld it all day, brace/etc...so I think it would be a fun little project..but anyone that buys it for their "race" car, or something they have a nice chunk of $$ in is a Rtard.  I wouldn't even bother with that.Those parts really are shite 
Maybe not a turbo, but a manifold..maybe..
_________________________
05 Berlina Black S2000 700whp / 500wtq
Built, not bought.
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#1216631 - 04/02/07 06:36 PM
Re: Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
[Re: SiAdam]
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Chase714
Newbie
Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 36
Loc: CA.
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That tubbing is kinda overkill. haha j/k
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#1265865 - 04/16/07 09:37 PM
Re: Kids, please don't buy SSAutochrome.
[Re: mastrcobb]
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hammeredsi
Jr Poster
Registered: 06/15/05
Posts: 165
Loc: WA
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dont they have a problem where the impellers come apart and get sucked through the motor?
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