7 months update:
I've driven ~700 miles, most of which have been a love hate relationship. First and foremost, the car is MUCH MUCH faster than when it went down to FL. All I have to say is, I should have boosted the car much sooner. I've never been a man of words, but the feeling is simply amazing.
Now for the bad, It started on the first day with a bunch of small things and has eventually escalated to getting the car fixed somewhere else. I knew things were going to be rough given the nature of the work so I had low expectations to begin with. (not a reflection of VSR but more so of an understanding that boosting a NA car is not easy and will fail in one way or another).
Bobby was extremely helpful at the beginning with flying up and fixing some of the issues but the car still isn't right. From what I've noticed with the quality of work and the litter of issues; I just don't have the confidence or trust anymore to send the car back. It seem to me that there were more items at play that affected the service (Bobby's spin off may be related but im speculating here) From what was conveyed to me, the car bounced around different techs (which I assumed to have different skill levels and different levels of commitment). However, the welds look great! For the welder to have broken his leg to come back and work on the car while in a wheelchair is simply astounding.
Now the laundry list of things: sigh...
- Radio wasn't seated back (granted, I had a rats nest back there but I got it to fit w/o shorting)
- Car misfired in bank 6 around 4k rpm (replaced injectors seem to fixed it)
- Couldn't turn over in colder temperatures without multiple cranks (FL is a sunny 70 when tuned)
- Bunch of missing bumper/fender clips along with an utterly destroyed undertray
- PCV return on intake manifold was cracked which most likely contributed to rough idle and misfires. I found a bunch of oil on the back side of the intake manifold so I added a catch can.
- Bunch of small vaccum/boost leaks everywhere (varying sized hoses and T's used to route boost lines)
- 2 bolts on transmission bell housing that secure the transmission to the engine block were floating and not torqued down
- Cross pipe from driver side headers to up-pipe was not heat wrapped (seems like a silly thing not to do since the exhaust pipe sat 1" away from transmission)
- Bunch of small items went missing and I had to reorder and overnight them (i'll leave it at that)
- Bunch of gauges I ordered didn't seem to work even though they were brand new? (I guess AEM LEDs blow out often)
- Car was missing 2.5qt of oil and 1/2 gallon of radiator fluid when delivered
- Tank cover over fuel pump left floating
- Fuel regulator secured to firewall with 1 screw
- Clutch wasn't bled properly and 2/3 of the pedal was dead. It was damn impossible to get the car into gear without smashing the clutch pedal. (I replaced it with a Tilton MC and SS lines)
- Lower transmission cover, clutch line cover missing
- PS line seem to sweat and needed replacement
- Sandwich plate plug needed tightening
- Sweet looking crash bar held onto frame rail with 2 bolts on either side instead of the 4 that exist
VSR fixed some of these issues when Bobbby flew up but there are still a bunch of items that I've been discovering and struggling to fix. The reality is, I really don't have time to correct the issues anymore so off to another shop.
My Retrospective:
It has been an interesting journey and one that I knew that was going to face some challenges. My expectations was to get a 'fast' car. Did I know there were going to be issues? Yes. Did I know it was going to take this long? Nope. There were plenty of things that could have gone better and things that I could have done to help facilitate the process. Were there things that VSR could have done better? Absolutely. Was I pissed at all of the BS that was wrong? Yup but Im over it and moving on. When **** goes wrong, you gotta realign your expectations. My expectations was to receive a fast toy and I think too many people have unrealistic expectations thinking everything will be perfect. A car has thousands of parts, its unrealistic to think everything will be done perfectly.
Future:
Locale really made things more difficult with interfacing with VSR, so i picked a local shop around here. Its a few miles down the road with a much smaller web presence, at least with Nissans. Certainly there will be challenges with the new shop but I will be sure to take some of the lessons learn with my previous experience forward to ensure things go a little smoother.
- recirculate the wastegate back into the exhaust
- replace Nismo exhaust with Motordyne TDX2
- throw in more Cats because smelling like gasoline at work sucks
- retune it for new exhaust, VA and not sure why boost comes in so late for a 6266 but being kicked in the pants is fun on the street but terrible at the track.
::cross fingers::
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