B14turbo hatred

George Roffe geo3@earthlink.net
Mon, 25 Mar 2002 20:38:03 -0600


OK folks, Jay Hassinger asked me to forward this to y'all.  Seems he's
having some difficulty getting messages through to the list and wants to
set a few things straight.

Hi everyone, sorry for the long silence. I was part of the whole Excite!
bankruptcy thing and my new email is
not being accepted by the list yet and my wife and I are in the process of
buying a house so time is slim.

I would like to make some comments about my old car and some things that
were said.

#1 is to Mr. Stewart. Jay, I've been involved with this whole thing since
day one so I speak from first hand
experience. Ron got screwed, bottom line.

I think you may have twisted my words a little, and/or I said things that
were not entirely accurate on the
list. In regards to me "trying to blow up the motor" I never once went out
with the intention of blowing up
the motor. It was presented to me that if I ran the 24.5psi of boost I was
going to try, there was a good
chance the ring lands would collapse. My attitude was "that's fine, it
gives me an excuse to build the motor,
but at least we will find the limits of the stock longblock" I never did
get to run 24.5psi, the clutch went
away at 22psi on the first run.

For the record, the car went down the drag strip in turbo form a total of 6
times. That's it. I only went to
the track twice, and on the third run both times the ACT street clutch went
soft. The closest track to me is
1.75 hours away now that CT Dragway is gone. I don't like to drive a 450hp
FWD car that far from home and
race.

I only ran 20+psi in the car three times. That's it. The car never saw more
than 14psi without some form of
race fuel in the tank and never went over 20psi on the street and 98% of
the time was in the 14-17psi range.
I ALWAYS took precautions to make sure that any engine failure was due to
the physical strength of the motor
and not from abuse and stupidity.

The car was never run on a road course.

The most abuse the car saw was from stop light tangles at our local cruise
scene. (Which was about every other
weekend, I do freely admit that)

The car lived on Mobile 1 changed at 1500 mile intervals or if I ran the
car hard the night before it was
changed.

I had the car since it came off the dealer lot and it was garaged, and kept
in impeccable condition. It even
smelled new.

All tuning issues were sorted long before I decided to sell the car.

Everything done was the best of the best.

That was the condition of the car when Ron received it. He confirmed it,
and so did those who saw the vehicle
in CA and CT.

#2 SR20Developement took a car that was absolutely perfect and wrecked it.
The only fault I have for Ron in
this instance is that he was too trusting of another human being and
prepaid for service and walked away
trusting they would do what they said they would.

I am utterly shocked that some of my work was called "no good" by said
shop. For example the silicone used
to seal the washer tank at the H2o injection feed line. I used the best
Permatex RTV available and sealed the
hole better than the factory would.

I could go on but I think Ron has said it all.

As for Ron's mechanical ability, I will just point out that he has a DET
powered Datsun 510 that is the cats
ass (And many other 510's as well), and an 89 240sx with a full Silvia
conversion. He's not a dumb newbie 16
year old who got a new toy and blew it up. He treated the car with no
expense spared. How many guys do you
know buy a drum of C16 race fuel and stick in their garage to run the car
on it full time just for safety
sake? Exactly.

#3 There are several theories as to why the main bearing let go. The first
being that Ron tried Redline
Motor oil. Some have said this motor oil sucks. Maybe it does. The second
(and the one I subscribe to) is
that when Ron hit the rumble strip on the pass side of the car, he nailed
the oil pan and oil starved the
motor. When this came to mind and I enquired to Ron, he thought and said,
"yea you know, it was right after I
hit the rumble strip the motor started knocking hard"

Or maybe it was just time to let go. Rod bearings seem to be the weakest
link in the SR20.

Well that's about all I have to say on this subject. Remember I can't reply
to the list so no cheap shots
please. If you want to talk to me you can email me privately at
jhassinger@cox.net

Thanks for your time.

Jay Hassinger
"Projects? Yea I got a few"