Another Stillen SC thread!

[weiboy718]

first off, the car was dropped off perfectly fine with no DETONATION whatsoever!
the detonation is noticed right after the kit got installed. yes, my dealer did perform a warranty work right after the kit is installed because they've noticed that the vvel wasn't functioning properly. after they tear down the front timing cover and i was told by the tech only the timing cover gasket was torn and everything else is perfectly fine but they did replaced a lot of stuff in there. so what if they warrantied the parts inside there are you guys saying that my dealer is incompetent in working on the vvel. it could've very well been your crappy tunes that broked it in the first place.

okay, so after everything got fixed and i was sent home. the car pulls like crazy especially on the higher rpm's and i thought i was happy but i was wrong. for some unknown reasons after a 30-40min drive the car will lose some power and you can hear this hammering sound coming from the engine when i accelerate and of course i knew that was detonation. even tho i told them that i'm having these symptoms they didn't do anything at the time. then a week or 2 flies by they had found out that this pulley was making too much boost and needed to revise the pulley to an actual 8psi pulley and they'll have to detune the car till they get the new pulley in. i go in and get detuned, after that my car isn't driveable at all. there were hesitation when you gas, everything was getting super hot under the engine bay, it was all bad. i then called up Josh@Stillen and told them what was the problem and why it isn't driveable? he's unsure of the problem and all the tech's are gone home already so he wasn't able to help. that's when i told him that i'll bring the car down to their facility and fix whatever they need to and get me running. that was the first time i went down there. okay, we went down there and got tuned finally but even then i still had that clicking noise upon driving off and the only way to get that noise gone is to rev up the rpm to about 1.8k-2k. the head tech even tried and bump up the rpm just to get that noise away. little did i know that noise is detonation, an VQ expert told me that. plus i never had that before the kit. (i hardly have any now since the special weiboy tune)drove home and the first time me and my friend noticed is the rpm is all over the place and sometimes stall out upon coming to a stop sign, i didn't complain much about that since it's really not a big of a deal that's y you haven't heard much about it but Josh should know since i've been talking to him only. he may forget, doesn't matter! i did tell him and not making this ish up like you're saying that i am.

whatever! i'll skip it to part where you said you guys were so nice to have fly down just to pick up my car.

that time i received a new tune from you guys. (R6) flashed it, car had lot's of power down low but sucked up top. i took it out to Z Car Garage and got it dyno'ed. car only made this much power with lot's of detonation.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/55532013@N03/5147353335/" title="stillen2 by weiboy718, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1386/5147353335_0ed3f4ce06.jpg" width="500" height="398" alt="stillen2" /></a>
at that time you guys were suppose to be bringing in another car from another member but somehow that didn't happened so that's when you guys wanted my car and i agreed to it and that you would fly down here to pick it up and drive back to my door which did not happened. i did not request you guys to do this. you had asked and i agreed so of course you gotta pay for everything. at that time i was not using R8! i was on R6 which gave out detonation even on the high end. i still have that datalog if anybody is interested in looking at lol. so the trip went fine and my power bumped from 377whp back to 410! wow! really! just a simple trip back down there got me 30whp more lol. the dyno sheet i got from them isn't even on the date that my car was there lol. got home, the tune still got some tip in detonation especially on hot days! the car will get heat soaked after being stucked in traffic and can get completely undriveable at all. this one time i almost got stuck on a hill when the car kept on jerking and even on 1st gear it had a hard time climbing it like the engine was choking on something. the morning drives is perfect tho. got good power and everything with no detonation. so how do you explain that? detonation is much more noticeable when it's hot but not when it's cold.

in the beginning your customer service is so good that i was praising you guys like god even tho there is problems with the kit or tunes. i chose to ignore that and had even defended you guys from other people. that was dumb! i'm pretty sure there are other people who is having the same symptom as me. let me dig it up on the370!

[Well here goes; The first thing I noticed was that the tip-in knock that I was] [experiencing was gone. The power is down a bit below 3K rpm and I presume it's] [because they removed timing down low to eliminate the tip-in knock.]

see! i'm not the only one here with tip in detonation. my tip in detonation is gone also but there's just no power then what's the point of having this kit? it's crap and i can't wait to get it off my car which is schedule to be removed this month by ***. till then Stillen can say that my car is the main source for all the problems. i can't wait to get it all done just so you guys can shut up and accept the fact that your kit and tunes is the problem and stop blaming it on other people's car's.

[weiboy718]

Post from Stillen and my first post was a correspond to them. Sorry.

Originally Posted by kyle@stillen

To start with, I left a voicemail for Weiboy specifically because we do not believe in "attacking" our customer's on a public forum. We do our best to work with our customer's directly and prefer to do it in private for many reasons. For the record, the reason we have stayed out of this conversation is because we do not like to go back and forth on forums. Typically on forums questions and factual information can be diluted by random postings, misinformation, or posts from those who have little to no information on the subject, and typically ends up with miscommunication we try to avoid by working directly with the customer, not to mention others pushing their own agenda even if it's for their own entertainment value of creating drama. We aren't hiding, we are right here and we have worked with Weiboy to resolve his issues. With that being said, Weiboy informed me he is not interested in discussing his situation any further and would prefer we just post here on the forum. So, this will be our explanation of the events that have unfolded from our point of view and why we have made the decisions we have. This post will be lengthy so I apologize in advance.

In regards to STILLEN standing behind their products, let me inform everyone what has gone on from our point of view:

The kit was originally installed by Beshoff Infiniti. When the kit was originally installed the technician who installed the kit took it for a test drive and reported severe issues. So, he performed some data logs and found that the factory VVEL system was malfunctioning. This had nothing to do with the installation of the supercharger and was actually caused by an internal seal in the VVEL system that had either come loose, come out, or failed altogether. Once this problem was identified the seal was repaired/replaced and the kit was re-installed.

After that there were some issues with the STILLEN supplied tune, we know this and it has obviously been a very public topic here and not something that we ever tried covering up. We tried sending Wieboy a couple of alternate tunes however they did not resolve all of the issues, they also did not resolve the issues for other customers experiencing the same things. So, we asked Weiboy to bring the car down to us so we could tune it here in house. After this the car ran fine however Weiboy informed us that the car had an inconsistent idle and occasionally died when coming to a stop sign.

We worked very closely with UpRev and found that there were some glitches in the factory ECU that were causing problems. After this was discovered we went back into the tuning process and developed R8. R8 has proven to be very reliable and is working great with customers. Including an active member on the370z who installed the kit on his Z and drove straight to SEMA, right after the installation, from Georgia and back again with no issues. Every customer that has received the R8 tune in the newly installed kit since R8 was completed has reported perfect results. Also, customers who were experiencing issues prior to R8 have reported that with R8 the car is running great and making good power (on average 400-420 RWHP.)

We sent Weiboy the new R8 tune and he was still experiencing some tip in detonation. So, I personally flew up to San Francisco to pick up his car and bring it back down to our shop. STILLEN covered the cost of the airfare, my trip up and his return trip back, as well as paid for a rental car for the week that we had Weiboys G37. While the car was here it was re-tuned and Weiboy came down the following weekend to pick it up and return home. For two weeks the car was fine. No detonation issues, no strange idles, nothing. Weiboy reported that the power was good, all was happy. The last time Weiboy and I spoke (a couple of weeks ago) he told me that his car stalled on the return trip to San Francisco however never again for two weeks. This was the first time that I had heard that. According to him he informed Josh of this however Josh has no recollection of this conversation. Is it possible Josh forgot? Of course. Is it possible Weiboy thought he told Josh but really didn't? sure, who knows. Josh and Weiboy exchanged daily text messages for MONTHS, I don't doubt that there could have been some lines crossed during that time. However, at the end of the day the car ran fine for two weeks with no issues aside from this one stall on the return trip to San Francisco.

This brings us to why we are asking to see the car back here at our facility. Bottom line is: Something must have changed. If the car ran fine for two weeks why did it all of a sudden start experiencing tip-in detonation? It did not have it when it left here, Weiboy said it didn't have it for two weeks, so what is causing it? The tune wouldn't have changed. So, it must be something mechanical. Well, this car did have a problem with a seal going sideways in the VVEL system that also caused detonation before the supercharger went in, could that be it? Perhaps, we just don't know. And we have no way of knowing without physically looking at the car.

As far as charging labor to fix something that isn't related to the supercharger, why is that unacceptable? We have covered the costs of rental cars, airfares, fuel charges, a weeks worth of working on the car while it was here with no hesitation, why would we suddenly have a problem with fixing something that is related to the supercharger? If it is something related to the kit then yes, we would fix it and move on. However, say for example it is this seal for the VVEL system, why should we be responsible for that? It has nothing to do with the kit.

With all of this being said, we understand that Weiboy has been very patient during this and it seems he is ready to move on. It's a shame as so many other customers are very happy with their kits however it his decision and we wish him the best of luck in the future and we look forward to seeing the results from the new owner of the STILLEN supercharger.

[weiboy718]

Sorry, I'll fix that link tonight, i have limited access on my phone

[wishihadnav]

whoa..we appreciate your honesty and hopefully your car runs normal once the kit is off..

[One_Quick_Z]

Its about time the Stillen Nut Huggers realized that the SC Kit isnt so great at all... Yes Stillen makes some nice bolt-on parts but I have never been impressed with any of their FI applications.


Congrats on getting the issue resolved with your car!


DAN

[weiboy718]

Originally Posted by wishihadnav

whoa..we appreciate your honesty and hopefully your car runs normal once the kit is off..

thanks!

Car will be going to GTM soon!

Originally Posted by One_Quick_Z

Its about time the Stillen Nut Huggers realized that the SC Kit isnt so great at all... Yes Stillen makes some nice bolt-on parts but I have never been impressed with any of their FI applications.


Congrats on getting the issue resolved with your car!


DAN

True, look at their past FI history.

The issues were never resolved

[wishihadnav]

[QUOTE=weiboy718;884824]thanks!

Car will be going to GTM soon!


Yeah Sam had mentioned that to me briefly that you'd be bringing it in...congrats you wont be disappointed!

[superchargedg]

I see your on here to....good luck and yes Stillens old s/c really did suck.

[weiboy718]

This is even more interesting how Stillen is trying to tell my buyer not to buy my kit, if he did they wouldn't sell him any parts needed. That's a good one Stillen! GOOd way to spoil my sale. Is That the best tactics you have against me? That is straight up bad business!

[#452-LE]

Thank the Heavens above and 6lb-7oz baby Jesus I did not buy this kit.

[LiquidZ]

This is an absolute mess of a kit. Trash trash trash!

[weiboy718]

Originally Posted by LiquidZ

This is an absolute mess of a kit. Trash trash trash!

I say Crap Crap Crap instead

[Jamaica]

Wow that's kinfa shady what stillen did to prevent your sale

[Liquid_G]

Originally Posted by weiboy718

This is even more interesting how Stillen is trying to tell my buyer not to buy my kit, if he did they wouldn't sell him any parts needed. That's a good one Stillen! GOOd way to spoil my sale. Is That the best tactics you have against me? That is straight up bad business!

wtf? They flat out said "we will not sell you parts" to this guy?

[roplusbee]

If that is the case, that is pretty poor. I could understand them refusing to warranty the items, but just flat out denying service is poor.