JDM 302E Engine Owners - Check In!!

[skwerl]

Brian, you didn't follow the build over on fnsweet. Gerald worked with Jim for months trying to get the tune nailed down and they kept taking a week or two each time to send him yet another tune that couldn't even start the car, or if it did then it ran like shit. The other tuner was Lito and I think his reputation speaks for itself. Lito's first revision ran better than 3 months of JDM revisions. JDM dropped the ball on the tune and I knew right then and there that they would use that as their excuse to deny any future warranty. Unfortunately the damage was probably done before Lito's tune ever got run on the car. Gerald had several hundred miles on the JDM crap tune before contacting Lito. By then the breakin was already complete.

 

[Vinnie5.0]

I have had my JDM motor for a couple of months now. I couldn't be happier. You guys want to JDM to warranty something that wasn't their fault. The engine did not fail due to mechanical failure. It washed the cylinder walls due to having too much fuel. All JDM did was build the motor. The tune was over fueling the car which washed the walls. They didn't build the motor with the walls already washed. Why would they warranty someone else's mistake. That is like me selling you some furniture that needs assembly and u over tighten all the screws and the thing falls apart. Then you say it's my fault. I understand that Gerald is upset and he has a right to be. But everyone has to take a minute here and think about what they are saying before they say it. As for the chunk of metal in the pickup, he needs to find where it came from. I know I don't post allot here but that's because I do is stuff for a living and by the time I am done at the end of the day I just wanna relax. But right now I feel I need to put my professional opinion out there and everyone needs to chill. And cylinder walls can be washed down at any point in time at any mileage. Not just at break in.

 

[BadPiggy]

I have had my JDM motor for a couple of months now. I couldn't be happier. You guys want to JDM to warranty something that wasn't their fault. The engine did not fail due to mechanical failure. It washed the cylinder walls due to having too much fuel. All JDM did was build the motor. The tune was over fueling the car which washed the walls. They didn't build the motor with the walls already washed. Why would they warranty someone else's mistake. That is like me selling you some furniture that needs assembly and u over tighten all the screws and the thing falls apart. Then you say it's my fault. I understand that Gerald is upset and he has a right to be. But everyone has to take a minute here and think about what they are saying before they say it. As for the chunk of metal in the pickup, he needs to find where it came from. I know I don't post allot here but that's because I do is stuff for a living and by the time I am done at the end of the day I just wanna relax. But right now I feel I need to put my professional opinion out there and everyone needs to chill. And cylinder walls can be washed down at any point in time at any mileage. Not just at break in.

Probably shouldn't have posted this time, either.
I'm curious... WHAT is your profession since you gave us your professional opinion?
It's obviously nothing to do with being an automotive technician since you had JDM build your engine.

You don't know the full version of this build like "skwerl" and myself do.

If you had to wait 4 months to get a tune just to start the $30k motor you just had built...you wouldn't seek a tune elsewhere???
If you say "NO" I'll be calling bullshit on that...with a quickness!

 

[weather man]

9,000 plus miles on someone else's tune. 600+ HP on 91. What is reasonable vs unreasonable to lay at JDM's feet? If it was burning oil at 1,000 mile mark??? No way to go back and see if the intial hone was F'd.

 

[Vinnie5.0]

I would tow the car to them. If I was paying that type of money for a warranty I would make sure I kept the warranty. You didn't modify your car and then when it broke go to the ford dealer and blame them. I understand you guys are upset. And you have every right to be. Everyone on here seems like a very tight knit group. I get that. I'm sure a big part of him choosing JDM was the warranty. But if someone else tunes the car can you blame JDM for it getting too much fuel.plus airing out your dirty laundry in a public forum does no one any good. Gerald has only presented facts through this whole ordeal. You guys are jumping in bad mouthing the people he is trying to get to help him out.

He runs the car very hard. If you look at professional road racing no one runs superchargers for a reason. High rpms sustained on any car will burn oil. Add forced induction and that amount doubles. You can't tell for sure when the walls became washed. But I bet if you put the car on the dyno now it won't make 600.

 

[BadPiggy]

9,000 plus miles on someone else's tune. 600+ HP on 91. What is reasonable vs unreasonable to lay at JDM's feet? If it was burning oil at 1,000 mile mark??? No way to go back and see if the intial hone was F'd.

Why is nobody getting this?
Here's the story about the tune as we were told on the fnsweet forum by Gerald.

Gerald waited weeks just to get a startup tune...WEEKS.
The car was a no start...on the original tune.
Weeks go by, finally a revision tune.
Again, no start.
The thing finally starts but runs like a slug.
More revised tunes came.
This went on for a few months.

FINALLY, he contacts Lito and Lito gets it to finally run.

So no...Gerald was not running someone else's tune in the beginning.

I would tow the car to them. If I was paying that type of money for a warranty I would make sure I kept the warranty. You didn't modify your car and then when it broke go to the ford dealer and blame them. I understand you guys are upset. And you have every right to be. Everyone on here seems like a very tight knit group. I get that. I'm sure a big part of him choosing JDM was the warranty. But if someone else tunes the car can you blame JDM for it getting too much fuel.plus airing out your dirty laundry in a public forum does no one any good. Gerald has only presented facts through this whole ordeal. You guys are jumping in bad mouthing the people he is trying to get to help him out.

Tow the car to them?
Gerald is in Washington STATE...JDM is in NJ.

 

[weather man]

If you had to wait 4 months to get a tune just to start the $30k motor you just had built...you wouldn't seek a tune elsewhere???
If you say "NO" I'll be calling bullshit on that...with a quickness!

Being upset over the initial tune delay and the current problem seem like seperate issues to me. Although I can see how irritation with the first might make you wonder about the current. It sucks that JDM and you are so far apart.

 

[Vinnie5.0]

So what was the exact difference in the tunes? Unless you see the fuel maps then you don't know if the tune from lito was compensating for something that was wrong to begin with. I'm not denying he could have built a bigger motor for the same money. He was paying for the warranty as I did. Was the gap between tunes a little long. Yes. Did he void his warranty by having someone else tune it. Yes. The only way you will see what the hell really went wrong is to get the maps from the JDM tune and Lito's tune and see where the difference is. You can argue all u want. You are protecting a friend. I get that.

 

[BruceH]

Your comments are not fair to JDM. They have offered multiple times to look at the motor. The OP has ignored most of JDM's suggestions in this thread. Your calling them out on warranty when they do not have the motor to examine. The OP was also running a tune from other than them. How can you really expect JDM to warranty hardware running someone elses tune? Tunes make or break motors. Do you really expect them to pay some other shop to take the motor apart and say whatever? I think JDM is being pretty damn generous to try and work something out if he gets the engine to them.

Gerald couldn't drive the car without it stalling out until lito tuned it. That's a fact. JDM was unable to provide a driveable tune for him. I suggested lito to him when he was going through the issues and it was the correct choice. Manuel had him up and running right away.

As far as a warranty goes I don't think anybody should expect a warranty on a performance motor. There are far too many variables. Aftermarket parts, machine work, the tune, trying to run race motors in a daily driver, etc.

You pay your money and take your chances. Or you do it yourself and take your chances with less money.

The only company I'm aware of that warranted a defective short block was FRPP.

 

[weather man]

Gerald couldn't drive the car without it stalling out until lito tuned it. That's a fact. JDM was unable to provide a driveable tune for him. I suggested lito to him when he was going through the issues and it was the correct choice. Manuel had him up and running right away.

As far as a warranty goes I don't think anybody should expect a warranty on a performance motor. There are far too many variables. Aftermarket parts, machine work, the tune, trying to run race motors in a daily driver, etc.

You pay your money and take your chances. Or you do it yourself and take your chances with less money.

The only company I'm aware of that warranted a defective short block was FRPP.

I get the initial tune issues. I think the OP should talk to JDM on the QT and see just what kind of help they could provide. The distrust issue just may be to big to overcome.

I agree with you on the warranty issue. There may be some pure assembly issues that would be easy to identify, but most motor issues that come up here are not clear cut or are clearly a tune issue.

 

[Gray Ghost GT]

I had zero faith in the JDM tune after they struggled to get their new engine to pass an easy NJ/MD OBD-II emissions test coupled with the fact it was pulling timing due to detonation. My tuner easily got the same engine to pass state emissions and eliminate the detonation that caused it to pull timing - in the end making more power safely.

I'll see if I can locate and scan the before/after dyno chart. It also took way too long to get JDM to revisit their tuning issues and the engine build went way over schedule as other "higher priority" projects were moved ahead of mine based on phone calls to the shop. Now that the engine has a year on it with a better tune, I'll be taking it to the VIR road course this summer for its *real* test to check the quality of the build.

I should have been reimbursed for my time/expenses for making the trip to JDM for a re-tune, which had proved unsuccessful, or at least pay for the tune I received from Hi-Tech Tuning that fixed their problems. I won't mention the Whiteline product recommendations that were also later removed due to a product recall vs. parts I preferred.

 

[skwerl]

The engine burned oil from the very beginning and it got progressively worse. The car never ran up to expectations or promised performance. Jim has a lot of balls coming in here and claiming he "worked with" Gerald on the tune when he flat out dropped the ball. If ignoring repeated requests for a workable tune is what Jim considers acceptable service then shame on him. It burned oil from the very beginning due to many hours trying to get it to run on JDM's crappy tunes and the rings/cylinders polishing instead of seating due to never getting loaded properly.

 

[Vinnie5.0]

The break in itself could have done it if the rings were not set properly but that is very hard to not realize sooner. It might not have been either tune. As for the service he recieved I cannot speak for that and you can't either. Everyone is treated slightly differently at everyplace. And when places are busy they are busy. You know how much Gerald spent but you don't know what other projects they were working on at the time. Plus Jim said that the tune down time was during the assembly. This is between Gerald and Jim.

 

[JoshK]

http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75126&highlight=JDM

http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69727&page=12

 

[Vinnie5.0]

As for wanting to pass emissions. Really? You built a car that will outperform most any other car on the street. Buy a sticker. I want every ounce of power out of the car. I don't care about emissions.

It's a shame you guys didn't have the same great experience I had working with JDM on building my motor.

Through this whole conversation we has discussed 3 different possible ways the walls could have become washed. If anyone can show me proof on which reason caused the washing I would love to see it. The only reason I started posting was to try and get everyone to calm down. An entire forum putting hate of JDM out in the open is not going to help this guy get his motor fixed.

 

[JoshK]

No hate on JDM here, but the links I posted above were enough for me to decide not to use them long before this thread came along.

 

[DiMora]

Skwerl, BadPiggy, and BruceH are 100% correct.

Gerald tried for WEEKS to get a usable tune from JDM. If you followed the daily blow-by-blow, Gerald did not want to use a tune from ANYONE other than JDM because he wanted to preserve the warranty.

Keep in mind that Gerald chose to buy a COMPLETE setup from JDM, including tune. Not just a short-block...this was an epic build of TigerHonaker-like proportions. Gerald spared no expense...full suspension make-over from BMR, Koni yellows...A arms...new exhaust...new T56 Magnum tranny...the whole banana. JDM's part in the build was the powerplant. Block, heads and blower - all assembled and ready to bolt-on. Tune included.

The ONLY reason Gerald went to Lito for tuning was because JDM could not provide a usable tune. He did so with great hesitation...not wanting to lose any warranty that JDM was offering.

IMHO, It's entirely possible that the engine was built correctly and within acceptable spec for the components used, and the poor start / run attempts coupled with JDM's "easy break-in" procedure are the culprit.

In various posts concerning this build I've seen JDM blame Gerald on three separate occasions for the "problem":

• Break in oil issue - Gerald's fault
• Injectors too big / too rich / washing cylinders
• Using Lito's tune instead of JDM's

Yet, JDM did offer to help with the re-build. I do respect and admire JDM for saying they will do what they can if Gerald ships them the engine.

If you are in Gerald's shoes...you have to decide what is best. Crate-ship the engine back to JDM and let them have a second crack it at under "warranty", or do you do it again either yourself or allowing another builder to try it?

After all he's been through, I think his current decision is sound - go elsewhere. JDM had their shot. Just my opinion.

 

[weather man]

Vinnie! Use the edit button!

If the OP can't do the work himself, be silly not to see what JDM could do for the shortblock.

 

[Vinnie5.0]

That is fine. I hate to see anyone with car troubles period. Especially a mustang with problems. We are all on the same team here. I might be a jets fan and you might be a Patriots fan. End of the day we all love going fast. Without tuners like Jim and Lito we wouldn't be able to push the limits. Instead of everyone getting up in arms we should all be asking how we can help. And pointing fingers never helps.

 

[JoshK]

Don't you ever call me a patriots fan ever again!