matt0941
05-01-2004, 03:43 PM
I just posted the following on FreshAlloy, I think you guys might be interested.
Background:
Ivan from Sound Performance called me today about an active thread on NICO forums. He is in the process of making a manifold for the KA-T and responded to comments made about Marc from IAP. Import Auto Performance makes an equal length manifold that I use. Ivan had much experience with my manifold as well as my friends at his shop where he is a manager. He was talking about the poor quality of IAP manifolds that he had experienced. Anyways, it was a large thread and I did in fact JUST chime in on it. Directly after I did the thread was not locked, BUT DELETED. Here are some quotes as to why such a thing could happen...
Marc from IAP:
I had a chance to take a couple guys from this board for a ride in our Stage 2 car this week, one of them is a moderator. I got nothing but great feedback from both of them on how much power the car makes, how fast it spools up and how sturdy the engine is.
Anyways both Ivan and I spent much time typing up long posts to get the truth out and the post was deleted. Fortunately my back button saved it all. I am posting this in the effort to preserve truth, I will not be silenced! :grin:
Anyways, here is Ivan's post he made just a bit ago (the beginning is a quote from Marc).
originally posted by Gofast1
Ivan,
I would love to know about all these 'problems' you are having with our stuff since you and I talked one time about an issue that was resolved months ago. I think it's incredibly poor taste to trash another vendor on an public forum right after you have released a product in direct competition with us.
Let me address this nonsense. I don't know what pictures you have of intercooler piping there, but it isn't ours, ours doesn't look anything like that. Also, as ANYONE who has dealt with us can attest, IF there had been a problem, it would have been fixed. We even pay shipping both ways if there is an issue with one of our products. So I am sorry but I have to call BS on this one bud.
The WG problem you are speaking of has been addressed, is gone, has been gone and you know it. By the way all of our manis are now TIG welded and have been for over 7 months, I am not even going to go into that because it has beaten to death on this thread and others.
Also Ivan, the manifold you are speaking of where the coating came off, and you know the one I mean, came off for one reason. By your customer's own lips:
"Marc, the coating is peeling because I spilled some oil onto two fo the runners, will this create a problem with the warranty?"
No, it doesn't. We warranty it anyway. But in manufacturing, as you well know Ivan, you can't run across many coatings that will withstand 1000+ degrees and motor oil. Not unless you own a half million dollar booth.
Marc
I will have both customers who purchased products from you post their opinions on your products.
I answered the question that was asked "who has experience with these manifolds" honestly and truthfully for all members including yourself to read. I am not hiding who I am or trying to stab anybody in the back. This forum is for information and that is what I am providing.
I thought long and hard about posting in response to the question asked. I dont want people to get the impression that I am trash talking. I came to the conclusion that this info SHOULD be out in the open reguardless of how people may view me or my intentions. I believe that I posted in a professional manner EXACTLY what I experienced and noticed about your products. No trash talking just fact. You state that talking about this in a public forum is in bad taste but I dont believe that one bit. This IS the place to talk about these things. Why wouldnt you want somebody to talk about what has been and is going on with your products? Why would it be in good taste to talk about the good without talking about the bad.
The intecooler was represented to me by Phil as being from IAP and with the quality of fabrication I had no reason to doubt him. I have been trying to get in touch with him to double check that is the case. If it is not the case then I will imeadiatly remove all references to that being your kit. If it is your kit, I will have him provide the purchase reciept for the kit so that I can scan that and post it.
As far as the dump tube upgrade, I am glad that you fixed that. In my original post, I stated that problem was addressed. I am sure it was easy once you got the manifold that I had to modify for Matt back at your shop to copy.
I dont know when the manifold that I just installed on Phil's car was made but I can ASSURE you that there were MIG welds on it.
As far as your coating is concerned. When I spoke to you months ago about the problems with your manifolds, you had stated that you had just spent $30,000 on a setup so that you could heat coat "in house" instead of sending out for coating like you had in the past. Phil's (unused) first manifold from IAP was sent back to you and the new design was just sent back to him. Does this manifold have the new coating on it? If it does, then the coating burned off this one in 2 min at Idle. I never dynoed his car and it never did anything here but idle. I also talked to Matt today about his manifold and asked him if it was him that said anything about oil on the coating and he said it wasnt him. So as far as BS, I think that flag your raising is for YOU. I dont know what coating your using but the coating we use here isnt affected by oil and wont ever peel or crack or burn below 1600°.
Matt told me today that he has your new updated manifold and will be back in town in a week and a half (he is at school) at which time he will bring it back to me to install. I will also need to modify the DP that I built for the "old" manifold to get it to fit your new manifold. As you remember, both the manifolds that we had discussions about months ago had the manifold to head flanges welded to the manifold upside down. I will take video of the initial start up and what happens to the heat coating at idle.
I am glad that your back on the forum to discuss these things but I am wondering why you havent mentioned anything about how the flanges got welded on upside down. In another post you stated you fired the fabricator that did your manifolds because of the boost creep issue. Why would you do that? Did this person intentionally put too small tubing in? Did you not check them out before you shipped them? Who designed the manifold? Why would you fire this person and not the person that designed the manifold? What about the person that welded the flanges on upside down? Why would you let somebody so careless fabricate for you?
Who is making the flanges for you? It is a fact that Phil's manifold would not go on the studs on the head. Hopefully Matt's new manifold will go on. If not, expect a video.
I am glad that your at least trying to address the problems with your manifolds and the fabrication of them. I am glad that you opened the dump to WG as I had suggested. I really think that there is a call for a cheap manifold for those that dont mind compromising quality of construction or placement of turbo for cheap HP. I hope that in the long run they work out OK. I personally wouldnt put that kind of stuff on MY car. I respect when something is designed for as little compromise as possible. I wouldnt want to have to wrap my brake master cylinder in heat wrap or have an ugly shield on it because of where the turbo is placed. But thats me. My opinion. And this is what this forum is about.
I do believe that there are others that wont mind paying for somthing that doesnt make those compromises. Hell, there are people out there that are trying to make DSM turbos fit their cars with adapters. I wouldnt do that. Again, thats me. Some day these people might apprciate a properly designed manifold that is fabricated well. Untill they do, there is always people out there willing to make compromises to their product to make a quick buck.
I dont care if I ever sell a manifold. I have enough work to keep me busy for the rest of my life. There are at least 20 cars here for everything from turbo installs to full motor builds. I built the PhatKA-T.com manifold for ME and for people that think like me. If and when I get some manifolds out there, I will be happy to take the good with the bad on the forums. But being an established fabrication shop for the past 15 years and the experienced people with decades of fabricating under their belts, I am sure that the good will outweigh the bad.
Here is my reply that I was typing at the same time...
Before I continue I apoligize to those I may offend and am sorry I have to write the following post because I honestly do not wish to hurt anyone. But I debated on what to do about all of this for quite some time and felt that honesty is the best policy here. Additionaly I wish to state that I will probably end up doing future business with IAP AND Sound Performance so of course I am biased but I will do my best to tell the truth so future customers of either of these fine companies can have a fair ground to stand on.
I have dealed extensively with both IAP as well as Sound Performance. Pretty much it comes down to, quite a while ago I purchased the IAP manifold and had sound performance do the rest (intake piping, downpipe, etc. etc.). I got one of their first gen manifolds and to be fair, I did NOT get the kit. I was very proud to hold an equal length manifold in my hands and show it off as at the time equal length KA-T's were a bit unheard of (still kinda rare).
I brought it to a buddy of mine who has EXTENSIVE knowledge of turbocharging cars and just making cars fast as hell in general. He even owned the first f-max kit I believe and is in the works of a 500+ rwhp S14. His brother, a very knowledgeable guy, said the following words that stuck with me, "The manifold looks good from far and far from good." It was true. According to him, it had "Hellen Keller" welds, a restricted WG pipe, bad collecter convergence, and awful temp coating. There was also alot of flash on the small WG pipe, restricting flow even more. I *was* the customer that Ivan talked about. I put the manifold on there anyways and had them go with it. To be fair, Ivan you said that you contacted me about the manifold having a flipped flange, and said that I went to go ahead with it, but you didn't contact me till after. But I would have said go ahead anyways. This is a small mistake but just wanted to point it out to be fair. Not a problem at all.
Anyways, the coating flaked off within minutes. I contacted Marc and we talked. I have to say that this is probably one of the best customer services I have seen, at least the thought of good customer service. Because I was still unsure at the time if it was all talk or they would actually go ahead with it but they seemed to be half and half. I know countless businesses that don't give a **** about the product if they already sold. I talked to Marc back and forth thru phone calls and he said that he would pay for shipping back and forth for the exchange of their better, new-gen manifold. I talked to him extensively and he said the following:
My manifold was coated improperly by a guy they don't hire anymore, my manifold was a very old gen and they had improved extensively. He would extend my warranty for an extra year. He would also coat my IC piping free of charge. And all of this would be sent to me via email.
He never did send me an email but I sent him the manifold and got the new one. I said I would take him up on the IC piping offer but thinking about it, I will probably just do it myself.
I got the new manifold and observed the following:
The runners were port-matched to increase flow, much nicer. The collector is still funky in the sense that the collectors meet a tad far apart. The WG pipe is now larger. However, I will have to dremel where the pipe meets the collector myself because there is some flash in there that will restrict flow. I will have to dremel several parts I imagine. Fitment seems pretty identical to the last one. In the sense that it places the turbo (remember, I am not using their kit, I am using my own garret t3/t4) very close to the BMC. The power steering reservoir had to be moved in order for the manifold to fit. The welds still didn't seem all that great, but better. The EGT bung I also had put in there was welded very poorly but I am fairly sure it will hold. I also heard that my friend's manifold (who has the same generation) - its high temp coating flaked off after a while. I have yet to put this one my car (I should in about 3 weeks) and then I can give a more thorough report. Sound Performance will be tuning my car again so I am sure Ivan will get another look at it. As far as Ivan getting "owned" and lying about putting pics up, hardly. Those pics (of the welds) look identical in quality to the ones on my manifold.
I got a chance to stop by sound performance recently to check out their manifold and it looks very nice. The convergence of the runners is nice, placement is awesome, and so on. I can post pics about all that I am talking about if you guys want (when I get back in 3 weeks). I feel awful having to say this as Marc is a super cool guy and tries really hard to fix these problems, but if I could go back and do it again I would not have gone through IAP. However, I do feel that sound performance is unjust in ragging on this manifold. Whenever me or my friend with the other manifold go over there it seems like they are ragging on it like it is a POS. This is still better than 90% of the manifolds on the market, it is not ****. It just could use some improvement from where I am standing.
But remember, this is MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE! You could order one now, get it and have it turn out perfect, who knows.
Sorry if I offended you Ivan or Marc. And best of luck with the manifolds. You are both there to help us enthusiasts out, and would like to acknowledge you for doing so.
Peace,
Matthew Rac
[email protected]
I am posting this because I felt this was very stupid of NICO to do. I just want to get my free speech out, no matter who it offends or credits. I am sure FA would never do such a thing to silence someone. Anyways, I hope some of you can take something from this.
EDIT: I will keep the original thread open in another window so that I can quote people if anyone requests.
Background:
Ivan from Sound Performance called me today about an active thread on NICO forums. He is in the process of making a manifold for the KA-T and responded to comments made about Marc from IAP. Import Auto Performance makes an equal length manifold that I use. Ivan had much experience with my manifold as well as my friends at his shop where he is a manager. He was talking about the poor quality of IAP manifolds that he had experienced. Anyways, it was a large thread and I did in fact JUST chime in on it. Directly after I did the thread was not locked, BUT DELETED. Here are some quotes as to why such a thing could happen...
Marc from IAP:
I had a chance to take a couple guys from this board for a ride in our Stage 2 car this week, one of them is a moderator. I got nothing but great feedback from both of them on how much power the car makes, how fast it spools up and how sturdy the engine is.
Anyways both Ivan and I spent much time typing up long posts to get the truth out and the post was deleted. Fortunately my back button saved it all. I am posting this in the effort to preserve truth, I will not be silenced! :grin:
Anyways, here is Ivan's post he made just a bit ago (the beginning is a quote from Marc).
originally posted by Gofast1
Ivan,
I would love to know about all these 'problems' you are having with our stuff since you and I talked one time about an issue that was resolved months ago. I think it's incredibly poor taste to trash another vendor on an public forum right after you have released a product in direct competition with us.
Let me address this nonsense. I don't know what pictures you have of intercooler piping there, but it isn't ours, ours doesn't look anything like that. Also, as ANYONE who has dealt with us can attest, IF there had been a problem, it would have been fixed. We even pay shipping both ways if there is an issue with one of our products. So I am sorry but I have to call BS on this one bud.
The WG problem you are speaking of has been addressed, is gone, has been gone and you know it. By the way all of our manis are now TIG welded and have been for over 7 months, I am not even going to go into that because it has beaten to death on this thread and others.
Also Ivan, the manifold you are speaking of where the coating came off, and you know the one I mean, came off for one reason. By your customer's own lips:
"Marc, the coating is peeling because I spilled some oil onto two fo the runners, will this create a problem with the warranty?"
No, it doesn't. We warranty it anyway. But in manufacturing, as you well know Ivan, you can't run across many coatings that will withstand 1000+ degrees and motor oil. Not unless you own a half million dollar booth.
Marc
I will have both customers who purchased products from you post their opinions on your products.
I answered the question that was asked "who has experience with these manifolds" honestly and truthfully for all members including yourself to read. I am not hiding who I am or trying to stab anybody in the back. This forum is for information and that is what I am providing.
I thought long and hard about posting in response to the question asked. I dont want people to get the impression that I am trash talking. I came to the conclusion that this info SHOULD be out in the open reguardless of how people may view me or my intentions. I believe that I posted in a professional manner EXACTLY what I experienced and noticed about your products. No trash talking just fact. You state that talking about this in a public forum is in bad taste but I dont believe that one bit. This IS the place to talk about these things. Why wouldnt you want somebody to talk about what has been and is going on with your products? Why would it be in good taste to talk about the good without talking about the bad.
The intecooler was represented to me by Phil as being from IAP and with the quality of fabrication I had no reason to doubt him. I have been trying to get in touch with him to double check that is the case. If it is not the case then I will imeadiatly remove all references to that being your kit. If it is your kit, I will have him provide the purchase reciept for the kit so that I can scan that and post it.
As far as the dump tube upgrade, I am glad that you fixed that. In my original post, I stated that problem was addressed. I am sure it was easy once you got the manifold that I had to modify for Matt back at your shop to copy.
I dont know when the manifold that I just installed on Phil's car was made but I can ASSURE you that there were MIG welds on it.
As far as your coating is concerned. When I spoke to you months ago about the problems with your manifolds, you had stated that you had just spent $30,000 on a setup so that you could heat coat "in house" instead of sending out for coating like you had in the past. Phil's (unused) first manifold from IAP was sent back to you and the new design was just sent back to him. Does this manifold have the new coating on it? If it does, then the coating burned off this one in 2 min at Idle. I never dynoed his car and it never did anything here but idle. I also talked to Matt today about his manifold and asked him if it was him that said anything about oil on the coating and he said it wasnt him. So as far as BS, I think that flag your raising is for YOU. I dont know what coating your using but the coating we use here isnt affected by oil and wont ever peel or crack or burn below 1600°.
Matt told me today that he has your new updated manifold and will be back in town in a week and a half (he is at school) at which time he will bring it back to me to install. I will also need to modify the DP that I built for the "old" manifold to get it to fit your new manifold. As you remember, both the manifolds that we had discussions about months ago had the manifold to head flanges welded to the manifold upside down. I will take video of the initial start up and what happens to the heat coating at idle.
I am glad that your back on the forum to discuss these things but I am wondering why you havent mentioned anything about how the flanges got welded on upside down. In another post you stated you fired the fabricator that did your manifolds because of the boost creep issue. Why would you do that? Did this person intentionally put too small tubing in? Did you not check them out before you shipped them? Who designed the manifold? Why would you fire this person and not the person that designed the manifold? What about the person that welded the flanges on upside down? Why would you let somebody so careless fabricate for you?
Who is making the flanges for you? It is a fact that Phil's manifold would not go on the studs on the head. Hopefully Matt's new manifold will go on. If not, expect a video.
I am glad that your at least trying to address the problems with your manifolds and the fabrication of them. I am glad that you opened the dump to WG as I had suggested. I really think that there is a call for a cheap manifold for those that dont mind compromising quality of construction or placement of turbo for cheap HP. I hope that in the long run they work out OK. I personally wouldnt put that kind of stuff on MY car. I respect when something is designed for as little compromise as possible. I wouldnt want to have to wrap my brake master cylinder in heat wrap or have an ugly shield on it because of where the turbo is placed. But thats me. My opinion. And this is what this forum is about.
I do believe that there are others that wont mind paying for somthing that doesnt make those compromises. Hell, there are people out there that are trying to make DSM turbos fit their cars with adapters. I wouldnt do that. Again, thats me. Some day these people might apprciate a properly designed manifold that is fabricated well. Untill they do, there is always people out there willing to make compromises to their product to make a quick buck.
I dont care if I ever sell a manifold. I have enough work to keep me busy for the rest of my life. There are at least 20 cars here for everything from turbo installs to full motor builds. I built the PhatKA-T.com manifold for ME and for people that think like me. If and when I get some manifolds out there, I will be happy to take the good with the bad on the forums. But being an established fabrication shop for the past 15 years and the experienced people with decades of fabricating under their belts, I am sure that the good will outweigh the bad.
Here is my reply that I was typing at the same time...
Before I continue I apoligize to those I may offend and am sorry I have to write the following post because I honestly do not wish to hurt anyone. But I debated on what to do about all of this for quite some time and felt that honesty is the best policy here. Additionaly I wish to state that I will probably end up doing future business with IAP AND Sound Performance so of course I am biased but I will do my best to tell the truth so future customers of either of these fine companies can have a fair ground to stand on.
I have dealed extensively with both IAP as well as Sound Performance. Pretty much it comes down to, quite a while ago I purchased the IAP manifold and had sound performance do the rest (intake piping, downpipe, etc. etc.). I got one of their first gen manifolds and to be fair, I did NOT get the kit. I was very proud to hold an equal length manifold in my hands and show it off as at the time equal length KA-T's were a bit unheard of (still kinda rare).
I brought it to a buddy of mine who has EXTENSIVE knowledge of turbocharging cars and just making cars fast as hell in general. He even owned the first f-max kit I believe and is in the works of a 500+ rwhp S14. His brother, a very knowledgeable guy, said the following words that stuck with me, "The manifold looks good from far and far from good." It was true. According to him, it had "Hellen Keller" welds, a restricted WG pipe, bad collecter convergence, and awful temp coating. There was also alot of flash on the small WG pipe, restricting flow even more. I *was* the customer that Ivan talked about. I put the manifold on there anyways and had them go with it. To be fair, Ivan you said that you contacted me about the manifold having a flipped flange, and said that I went to go ahead with it, but you didn't contact me till after. But I would have said go ahead anyways. This is a small mistake but just wanted to point it out to be fair. Not a problem at all.
Anyways, the coating flaked off within minutes. I contacted Marc and we talked. I have to say that this is probably one of the best customer services I have seen, at least the thought of good customer service. Because I was still unsure at the time if it was all talk or they would actually go ahead with it but they seemed to be half and half. I know countless businesses that don't give a **** about the product if they already sold. I talked to Marc back and forth thru phone calls and he said that he would pay for shipping back and forth for the exchange of their better, new-gen manifold. I talked to him extensively and he said the following:
My manifold was coated improperly by a guy they don't hire anymore, my manifold was a very old gen and they had improved extensively. He would extend my warranty for an extra year. He would also coat my IC piping free of charge. And all of this would be sent to me via email.
He never did send me an email but I sent him the manifold and got the new one. I said I would take him up on the IC piping offer but thinking about it, I will probably just do it myself.
I got the new manifold and observed the following:
The runners were port-matched to increase flow, much nicer. The collector is still funky in the sense that the collectors meet a tad far apart. The WG pipe is now larger. However, I will have to dremel where the pipe meets the collector myself because there is some flash in there that will restrict flow. I will have to dremel several parts I imagine. Fitment seems pretty identical to the last one. In the sense that it places the turbo (remember, I am not using their kit, I am using my own garret t3/t4) very close to the BMC. The power steering reservoir had to be moved in order for the manifold to fit. The welds still didn't seem all that great, but better. The EGT bung I also had put in there was welded very poorly but I am fairly sure it will hold. I also heard that my friend's manifold (who has the same generation) - its high temp coating flaked off after a while. I have yet to put this one my car (I should in about 3 weeks) and then I can give a more thorough report. Sound Performance will be tuning my car again so I am sure Ivan will get another look at it. As far as Ivan getting "owned" and lying about putting pics up, hardly. Those pics (of the welds) look identical in quality to the ones on my manifold.
I got a chance to stop by sound performance recently to check out their manifold and it looks very nice. The convergence of the runners is nice, placement is awesome, and so on. I can post pics about all that I am talking about if you guys want (when I get back in 3 weeks). I feel awful having to say this as Marc is a super cool guy and tries really hard to fix these problems, but if I could go back and do it again I would not have gone through IAP. However, I do feel that sound performance is unjust in ragging on this manifold. Whenever me or my friend with the other manifold go over there it seems like they are ragging on it like it is a POS. This is still better than 90% of the manifolds on the market, it is not ****. It just could use some improvement from where I am standing.
But remember, this is MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE! You could order one now, get it and have it turn out perfect, who knows.
Sorry if I offended you Ivan or Marc. And best of luck with the manifolds. You are both there to help us enthusiasts out, and would like to acknowledge you for doing so.
Peace,
Matthew Rac
[email protected]
I am posting this because I felt this was very stupid of NICO to do. I just want to get my free speech out, no matter who it offends or credits. I am sure FA would never do such a thing to silence someone. Anyways, I hope some of you can take something from this.
EDIT: I will keep the original thread open in another window so that I can quote people if anyone requests.