Not even required.....WE ALL KNOW when buying a CSU or EV hat we will get THE BEST THERE IS with regards to blow-through carb hat & design. They dont need to market it as "staying together while the wanna-be competition blows up" LMFAO

All you new guys remember, buy QUALITY CARB HATS>>>>>>>>>>>CSU or EV....or you could be posting pictures of an exploded egg too

Save a pot, buy an EV or CSU hat!

-Carm

 

Toma,
I guess I'm the only blow through guy who ever had a lean backfire, and that makes me clueless???? Listen to yourself. The car has backfired previously yes. I sent the metering blocks out and Kevin said it could have possibly been a problem with PV's with my previous lean condition. I get the carb back with a new PV and BRPV and the car went lean again. I don't what you do for a living but maybe you should become a tuner because you talk like you get shit right the first time.

Ugly,
Tell me when did I bash SDCE or Chris? I just simply made it known I was not a happy customer and would not do future business with them. I guess anytime a customer lets people know about a bad experience their bashing the company instead of stating the facts. I never blamed them for the backfire on the car, maybe I'm wrong for thinking the hat could withstand a backfire. As it was said before I assumed a bad enough backfire would pull the threads out of the carb before it destroyed the hat.

 

I don't know what to say here. While I agree that a tuning mistake blew the hat apart and SDCE is not liable for fixing/replacing/refunding for it.....they should. The fact here is that SDCE came on this board touting their hat. Everyone was skeptical due to the fact that no one, at least as far as e-thugs on here, is running them. SDCE made some big claims about better distribution etc. Now a problem happens that is not directly their fault. As Tim said they should have stood right up and taken care of the situation so a positive post would have been made. Instead they chose to stand behind their position and not go above and beyond for their customer. You cant try to break into a market that you are not in by refusing to go the extra mile. CSU is very successful in the world of blow thru carbs and a big reason for that, beside the fact that they make a nice carb, is that Kevin will help you in any way possible.....way above and beyond what is required. I have personally had Kevin call me back while at the track in a test session at 9pm on a week night. Who else would do something like that? SDCE is not liable at all here but they should have put the customer first and ate the cost of the hat to show they are willing to go above and beyond.....especially since they came on here trying to get a piece of this market. They have left a sour taste with many on here....I doubt they will do more business with this crowd.

 

There is so much hate and negativity here I am not going to reply to individual people.

The points I want to try and clear up are as follows:

Again, do you consider HUGE full throttle backfires NORMAL?? We have had backfires through our hat several times...beyond normal carb sneezing stuff with NO PROBLEMS. People keeps saying we should make it stronger....we designed it with these scenarios in mind, we didn't design the hat to be JUST strong enough to hold boost, we went above and beyond to make sure it held up for unforseen consequenses WITHIN REASON. Alot of guys here obviously dont understand the pressures involved in the kind of backfire necessary to rip the hat apart. Yes, the EV hat can withstand more pressure....but what does that proove? Very little.

Someone picked on our warranty policy....look at 99% of performance parts manufacturers....it is EXACTLY the same. We deal with companies EVERY DAY that ship bad parts out of the box and wont stand behind them. We have eaten THOUSANDS of dollars in the past year alone in labor time fixing bad parts for customers. We are not out to screw anyone, if it is our fault, or there is a CHANCE it is our fault we will make it right. Blowing carb hats up with REPEATED backfires is not normal wear and tear.

There are NO quality issues with the hat and it holds up to what it is designed to do. This instance went WELL past the realm of normal backfires.

In regards to the weld, you can see the gussets and where they were ripped from the shell halves. The hat blew apart before the 1/4in carb stud because we use upgraded studs and nuts, the strongest threaded rod you can buy.

Rich- Alot of the points I made were not directed at you, I know you dont blame the hat or anything of that nature. And I dont think you are bashing us...just sharing you're experience...the bashing was done by everyone else. We are still willing to work with you and help you out if you change your mind. We'd like to make this situation better, but we stand firm on our decision....let us know.

 

I have read the other thread too. What I see is SDCE came here and talked alot of shit.
They told everyone their stuff was the best stuff in the world! This started a big
pissing match, not really. More of a put your product where your mouth is! SDCE made
lots of big claims.

Fast forward. BOOM!

Does this company continue its, I'm better than you, we don't build carb motors, if we
do they only make 700 hp, our hat is better than your hat, it must be all Kevins fault BS!

If think SDCE dug the hole they are in and it is a deep hole. Now it is raining and they
don't ladder and can't swim. I guess if SDCE didn't have such a smug attitude when they
came over here maybe it would be so bad today.

 

I hear you Chris but the options you gave me would not make it any better for me. Every option you gave me somehow involved me spending more money with you/SDCE, no thanks.

 

wow, after seeing the new pics, i think some struct. updating may be needed-over the years, i have broken a couple hats, they will break right where the stud is-i use large washers with rubber under them now, always felt that area should be thicker
my guess is the sdce hat, having the larger vol due to that size, had more surface and therefor more mixture to expand
true, a backfire is a tuning issue, but can happen to anyone, and you hope some of the parts survive
based on the new pics, if it was my product, i would want that back, so i could analize it and make my product better-i would offer to refund the money, or replace it, the customers choosing-i realize the manf. cant control a product once it leaves and what someone does with it, but in this case, it wasnt someone using a 24" pipe wrench to install, or a no bounce on a supercharger pulley-my guess is this hat needs to be tested for max psi, and some kind of burst panels installed, like some of the nos plates have, do to its extended vol.
when someone has one of these blow up in their face, the lawyers will be down loading all this stuff, lol

 

Question: If I buy a $6000 PSI supercharger, the engine back fires and the rotors slap the case or into each other. Who pays? Is it PSI's fault, no. A good company (I think personaly) would offer advice, maybe help on the repair - but I would never expect them to pay for it.

I think SDCE did well - but you can't please everyone.

 

Again, did I ever state the backfire was SDCE's fault??? I was just expecting them to stand behind their product a little more.

 

Customer satisfaction goes along way in this sport(and on this site). They didnt do well. Eat the $200 and show that you are a company trying to help out the customer in any way you can. It would go over alot better in the long run. They tell you how good this hat is, yet nobody on the site uses it. They dont have many real world examples and then when something happens they dont stand behind it? Yeah, where do i send my money?

 

Nothing you said is true at all....we never insulted anyone, never blamed Kevin for anything, and never had a bad attitude. It all started with me replying in a thread of someone looking for a hat...I was blindsided by a bunch of guys demanding proof proof proof.....so I started another thread with all our proof. How is that and "im better than you" attitude? We damm well do build carb motors, and we build them for street guys....who all have ASKED FOR under 1000hp. If Kevin and C&S want to build 2000hp 6sec blow-throughs they wont get any competition from us....just not our ballfield; does that mean we dont know to make a carburator work, or how to design a hat???....No.

 

The issue now is nothing they do will be good enough.

 

quote author=AlexL link=topic=107487.msg1059725#msg1059725 date=1207055398]
The issue now is nothing they do will be good enough.
[/quote]

If it involves me spending more money out of my pocket with them, your right!

 

this seems to a common business practice with alot of these companies......and thats why most of them don't survive these incidents.

carb'd cars backfire sometimes.......your tune is a little off, or you made a mistake.......lean pop. especially a blow through setup......it just happens sometimes......hell my procharger hat survived a bunch of those over the years haha.

I'm in the fence business.......we do alot of work for the government, and large commercial clients.....however you always run into these issues with regular homeowners......99% of the time its NOT your fault......but even when it isn't, you can't be like "pound sand, not my fault"

acting like that isn't why we've been in business for almost 40years.......for example im in the middle of a job at a guys house.......i hit his sprinkler line with the auger on the bobcat and ruin a SHITLOAD of it. It says RIGHT IN the contract text if you don't know where the lines are im not responsible for them......but did i fix it? you bet your ass i did, because if i tell the guy, sorry i annihilated your sprinklers....call an irrigation guy......

he tells his neighbor.....his neighbor tells 3 people, etc etc......next thing you know you're the unprofessional asshole that ruined someones yard and refused to fix it.

Business is alot like politics.....you don't always get to be right......even when you are.

 

I have lurked on the site for over a year.

From what I have seen is this IS the best turbo site in the WORLD. (period)
There are alot of good people on the site that will help others, if not bendover
backwards to help.

Proof, wouldn't have have expected people to want proof?
SDCE says so it must be.....



99 ataboys and 1 oh shit
99 people can tell the great stories about you and your shop.
But the one oh shit story is the one they will remember.
Politics sure is!

 

I will be the first to say that I would still buy a sdce hat, becasue i believe in their theory in their hat design. Having said that, there has been ZERO real life third party testing. Practically no body on this site that have tried it out. And their one third person test, that bought the hat it blown up in less than a week. Would you personally spend 260 on a product with this review? I don't know about others sitting on gold, but i would rather wait and question it until someone proves that it does work and perform in real life situations.

So i think SDCE should understand all the questioning, and can't get mad at people questioning it because there is no proof other than YOUR TESTS. Not trying to be difficult, but maybe i am not seeing it as some others are seeing it, including SDCE.

 

I'm REALLY torn here as customer and company owner. You try your hardest to please customers all day long. Then you get customers like Toma said. They'll fuck anything up and want a refund on parts with no warranty. Customer came in yesterday saying his drive shaft was hitting his E-brake cable, but he hadn't hit any large bumps. I throw it on the rack and guess what, he has a blown shock and it's leaking all over my floor. So either he hit something so hard he blew his shock and hit his drive shaft, or his already blown shock caused the problem.

So my point here is where do you draw the line ? Does he now go ask holley to fix his carb because the stud pulled out ? Or fix throttle blades when they get tacoed ? Or ask JE to replace pistons because they couldn't withstand the detonation ? Sure they're strong, and made to take a beating. But if you surpass its rating, your shit outta luck. He made the mistake in tuning, not SDCE. I think Tim is right and he could have squashed it by just giving money back whether he was right or wrong in the matter. But that's Chris's choice. I guess what what I'm getting at is why everyone is holding this company to different standards than you would any other company if your neglect broke their product ?

 

the issue isn't whether they should have refunded the money or not......it's that they KNEW full well what they would have to deal with if they didn't......but they did it anyways. Do you think this situation has no cost them alot more than $260? I can guarantee its well beyond that now........being pennywise and pound foolish won't get you far in business.

and theres also the concept of warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.........not in the legal sense, because just about every company on earth disclaims that for race parts (except moser) but in the common-sense arena.....

you KNOW people are bolting these on carburetors.........with blowers.......you KNOW that carbs backfire occasionally if they're tuned incorrectly........you KNOW that you're selling this product to john-Q general public, not hendrick motorsports.........so mistakes WILL be made. So being an intelligent person, it would be in your best interest to build a part that wouldnt self destruct with a backfire.....hell most stuff doesn't even with the most violent blow ups........

I've made things "right" even when i didnt have to in the past....because i knew damn well it was in my best interest to do so.......its too late now for that here i think.

There are tons of companies out there that have had WAY more foolish and asinine things screamed about on message boards and payed the price for them......and they were even more clearly in the right than SDCE is here.......most of the time people take steps to crush the problem before it hurts their business, and then smash some boxes in their shop later to deal with the aggravation.

this is the internet, and what the reality of the situation is doesnt matter........the only thing that does matter is peoples perception of the situation

 

You obviously didnt take the time to completely read the thread. I understand people want unbiased testing...I dont want people to listen to what we or anyone else tells them, but I do want them to think for themselves and think about what is put in front of them; not listen to what the internet tells them to do. As soon as someone asked for some unbiased testing, I said no problem and went out looking for someone to do the work....amazingly noone in this industry has the right tools to do this kind of test properly, so finding a properly equipped dyno proved a little harder than I thought. I found someone and they should have the hat in their hands as we speak and he will be putting all 3 hats through their paces in the next couple weeks.

Exactly....did you miss the part where we DID make sure it will stand up to normal mistakes and problems? We have had backfires with no hat problems.....Rich had some BAD stuff going on to blow the hat up.

 

I didnt see that no, but regardless......like i said, if it were me i would have made this go away immediately......because this is now costing you alot more money than it would have to "give" someone a new hat or a refund or whatever the case may be.......

as i stated before, in business alot of times.....you're wrong even when you're right because you have to continue to be in business tomorrow