I have no interest in talking to you on the telephone. I simply wanted to point out the potential hypocricy of your above statement about using failures for marketing purposes.

When you make statements like that, it may be a good idea to back them up with some proof. Otherwise, it may be construed as a marketing tactic to dissuade buyers from using that type of product (as apparently happened if you read the other replies in your thread).

 

>>Randy 720-841-1002
>>Andy, I would like to talk over any questionable ethics you have heard or seen from me to make sure there are no misunderstandings

I've only seen two vendors on the NAM site willing to put their phone numbers online, then specifically asking people to contact them about things discussed in the forums. This goes a long way in my book.

 

Oh, just to add something to the Denso plug question...

I put denso IK22 plugs into my car about 1000 miles ago. No problems yet.

 

>>1. I'm not sure what software this customer was running, but the A/F ratios of Shark, EVOTech, Powerchip, AmD, and any of the others I have tested have all been at about 12/1 or richer at full throttle redline. Not too lean by any means or anyone's definition. I challenge anyone to show differently on the dyno at full load with the ECU set up for the modifications on the car. We did test lean during development, and found that it actually loses power anyway, so there isn't a reason to do it. If, as it may be implied in this thread, the customer was using Webb Motorsports software, I haven't heard hide or hare from him - that seems odd if the software really is being held even partially responsible for the failure.


Randy and all,
I'm not taking anyone's side on this but A/F sniffed from the tailpipe isnt always indicative of whats going on in the CC. Its quite possible for there to be pockets of lean and pockets of rich as the AF mixture is never homogenous. While it may have something to do with computer controlled event timing (fuel/ignition), it could also have to do with a poor cylinder head rework, a poor mismatch of the two or high cylinder pressure. That fragile electrode doesnt leave me with warm feelings but I'm speaking from 0 (zero) experience with denso plugs, only from a combustion research point of view.

--
Cheese (Now 17% Smaller!)

 

In the NGK vs. Denso debate I'll remain mute, but will add that *all* iridium plugs have temp numbers that are higher than platinum plugs.

It seems counterintuitive that a platinum plug would have somehow survived where an iridium didn't.

'splain lucy. 'splain.

Jeff

ps: In response to earlier, I recall that the NGK iridiums were quoted as lasting 27k miles. Non-mini application, though

 

Andy,

No problem. As soon as the image situation is sorted out, I will be happy to post the pics of the end of the shaft, and the visible oil trail from the seal, as well as the empty gearbox (although all of those could have been faked - so the real proof is hard to offer without some sort of trust I suspect). Several local customers have seen the supercharger that seized and saw the oil trail, so I have witnesses!

Randy

 

RandyBMC,

You may wish to re-read what you actually wrote. I'll post it again, for the third time:

How do you know that heating a hub compromises the seal at the end of the supercharger shaft? How hot does the seal get during that hub installation process? How hot does the seal get while the supercharger is spinning at 14,000 rpm? Is it hotter than during the installation process?

I have no doubt that your supercharger actually failed, and if you re-read my posts, I never expressed any doubts like that. What I haven't seen is any evidence to back up your assertion that "the original style hub that requires heating definitely compromises the seal at the end of the supercharger shaft ".

I am happy for you that you sell a wide range of products, presumably with varying levels of priofitability and difficulty of installation. What that, or your home phone number, has to do with you making claims based on a failure, is beyond me. :???:

 

My claims of the failure have to do with the fact that the unit failed, and anyone who has seen the seal in question can know that while the supercharger does get into a high heat range - 200F + - the heat required to get the hub onto the shaft is a minimum of 450F (and I would bet those that use an acetlylene torch wouldn't agree that they aren't closer to 550F). The hub is then placed onto the shaft within 1/4" of the seal in question. The mass of the shaft is not enough to fully dissipate the thermal mass of the hub without heat transfer to the shaft. There is an equation to determine the thermal distribution based on both mass and distance, and the distance side of that equation is just to small to prevent the seal from taking serious heat from the hub placement.

Like I said, to me marketing would be using the failure of someone else's product to tout your product. I sell quite a few products, all at differing margins, as you stated above. Another illustration to show that I just tell it like it is and give the best product my recommendation. I usually end up selling stuff I have less margin in. I get the MSD coilpack for example at quite a bit less than what I get the Pilo coilpack for, yet I recommend the Pilo, even though there is little margin in it for me comparatively. There are a ton of examples that I could share, but don't feel like it is appropriate here in the forum - another reason why I let you know I would be happy to discuss the matter personally.

To pull it back on topic - the iridium plugs may run hotter, I'm honestly not sure, but they may also have a better ceramic, considering that the design paramteres may allow for that additional operating range. I'll check into that.

Randy

 

RandyBMC wrote:

I'm not sure why you are avoiding the point. How hot did the seal get during installation? Was it damaged when you installed the hub? If so, why didn't the oil leak out right away? If you install a brand new hub on a brand new supercharger by heating it, is the seal visibly damaged?

Pictures of your post-mortem on the blower don't show damage occuring at the time of installation, do they?

All I am saying is you made a bold claim that " the original style hub that requires heating definitely compromises the seal at the end of the supercharger shaft", without posting a shred of evidence that heating the shaft during hub installation actually caused or even contributed to the failure. Maybe you have some valid, scientific reason for stating that, but I haven't seen it yet.

 

I have the Denso plugs but am more interested in the possibility that when I installed the style pully that needs to be heated up (in my case with the an acetlylene torch) the seal might have been damaged. My pully has been on for 7 months and about 12K miles. If I haven't had a problem yet, will I? I used a wet rag to cool the pully as soon as it was in the correct position so I hope no damage was done.

 

I'm not trying to avoid the point Andy. I am trying to answer your claims that I was marketing by posting what happened.

Here are the facts, and I hope they are directly answering your questions:

1. The seal on the shaft failed, period.

2. The seal was exposed to heat that was outside the normal operating conditions.

What temp? - I can't answer that, but I can say without a doubt that it was higher than the seal is normally exposed to. I don't think that point is arguable - the hub shaft is in the 500F area when installed, and the dissipation area just isn't large enough to prevent the seal from being exposed - as I stated above. Again, I didn't have a thermometer on the unit, but if you have watched the install of this style pulley, which I'm sure you have, you know of what I speak. The unit wasn't damaged when the hub was installed, and in fact worked flawlessly for 9000 miles or so. Why did it leak later - the seal was compromised during the install, which greatly accelerated the wear on the seal. How much, and how long would the seal have gone are not, unfortunately, answerable questions in the real world, as this was not a testbed but a real, driving car.

The shred of evidence is the trashed supercharger, the oil trail from the seal, and the lack of oil in the gearbox of the supercharger. That is undeniable, and I haven't seen it on another car yet without a heat-on pulley. Considering that the seal was exposed to the greater heat - again we don't what the exact temp was, since the temp was not the concern during the install - and the seal failed significantly prematurely, and it is an obvious issue that when the hub is placed so close to the rubber seal that it has to be exposed and compromised, the failure is a conclusion that is drawn. To further back it up, I was saying that it is an issue while I was using that pulley, and thankfully only installed a handful using that method, specifically because of my concern over the seal and heat. I voiced that before the supercharger failure online I'm sure ('cause I know you are good at digging up old quotes ).

I still don't see how this conclusion is hypocrosy. Let me know if that didn't directly address the question you asked.

Randy

 

>>I have the Denso plugs but am more interested in the possibility that when I installed the style pully that needs to be heated up (in my case with the an acetlylene torch) the seal might have been damaged. My pully has been on for 7 months and about 12K miles. If I haven't had a problem yet, will I? I used a wet rag to cool the pully as soon as it was in the correct position so I hope no damage was done.


Dan,

I doubt it. I use the car mercilously, and if you read the original post on my website, there are other factors to consider as well. I know this car has more track time than any other car in the country, so the additional heat caused by the turmoil I put the car through was also a contributing factor. Watch under the supercharger pulley for the trail of oil. I have a couple of superchargers here, so if you see a problem, give me a call and I'd be happy to get one of them to you. Was your seal compromised? I'm sure, but if everything else doesn't add up just right, then the circumstances for a failure may never materialize.

Hope that helps!

Randy

 

RandyBMC wrote:

So, in summary:

1) You don't know how hot the seal got during installation.
2) You don't know how hot the seal gets while in use.
3) You do know that the seal wasn't damaged during installation.
4) You do know that the seal was compromised during installation.

How do you know that 3 & 4 are true if you don't know the answers to 1 & 2?

 

Common sense.

 

Does the seal manufacturer have a limit for common sense being applied to their product? :smile:

 

Ahhhh, Sexual frustration manifesting itself in a forum....

Andy.. Lighten up man.

 

Mr. Whoa,

Maybe you don't care, but I am concerned about the scare tactics that Randy is using to dissuade people from using a type of pulley that many of us have. If that doesn't interest you, feel free to disregard this discussion.

 

Andy, I wish the two of you could have taken this off-line. Both you and Randy have made your points a long time ago in this thread. Randy has offered to speak with you to get to a mutual understanding. Please take him up on calling him, so we can get back to the point of Denso plugs and get people's experiences with them.

 

I understand what your doing... I just think that your always such an "unpleasant" person about it. Your method of discussion seems to be ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. Seems kinda unproductive and remindes me more of a forum for Counter Strike than a car enthusiasts forum....

I have spent time with Randy in RL and I found him to be an excellent person. Very Nice, very knowledgeable, Honest to a profit loss... Before political situations made him leave the boards, he did a TON for this community, on these boards. Im sure that anyone who has met Randy can say nothing but good things about the work he does, and the level of professionalism/experience he brings to the table. I have seen you rip into tons of people on these boards, in some cases I thought they had it coming and you were "fighting the good fight". In this case it seems like your just looking for someone to throw mud on. You seem like a very intelligent person, and your logic is usually spot on, sometimes it just seems to me like you enjoy getting "kills" on the boards.

 

dominicminicoopers,

You are right. I'll take this to another thread.

 

Okay, back to the topic of spark plugs. :smile:

Randy, thank you for sharing your experience!

Ironically, Randy had a bad experience with NGK, whereas MINI-Madness with Denso. Although the results were catastrophic in both, I think they're probably isolated cases. It might be difficult to determine what caused what due to other modifications.

Since I already have both Denso IK22 and NGK (from JCW), I'll do a trial myself between the two. Soon I'll have 5000 miles on my car with the NGK. At which point, I'll remove NGK plugs to see their condition, while running the car with Denso IK22 for the next 5000 miles. Meanwhile, I'll also try to feel if there's any noticeable performance difference between them.

 

Whoa man! I am going this afternoon and there are ton of posts to this discussion. Looks like another interesting fight as we have concerned citizens scaring off vendors. First Randy, then M7. Now it looks like Randy again. Watch out Pilo!

Anyway, I think there are no problems with either plug. Both have been used in OEM applications, both are highly recognized plugs. I doubt you will feel any performance difference in either plug. I think the failures were coincidence and were failure points from other factors. If either plug had serious issues, we would have heard about them all over the place, since these plugs are not just Mini specific.

 

>>Does the seal manufacturer have a limit for common sense being applied to their product? :smile:
Doesn't matter as "Common Sense" doesn't seem to be something you understand. You have already discredited yourself by your hostile comments.
Thats my .02.

 

dgszweda1 wrote:
If vendors are scared off when their claims are questioned, then they are in the wrong business.

apexer wrote:

It's funny, my thermodynamics professors never asked me any questions about common sense. Maybe it is common sense to you what the heat transfer is between a ~1/4 lb steel hub heated to 550 F and a ~2 lb steel shaft at ambient and a ~1/10 lb (?) bearing at ambient, but it isn't to me.

You can both complain about me in a different thread where I'll post some calculations. See you soon.

 

I have read this entire thread. Why…. well I was bored.

What is wrong with Mini Vendors? I find this thread to be highly entertaining. One vendor gets on to address an issue and another one consumes the thread to cover his own butt and make sure his sales don’t deplete for that product. What a circus!

Where was it implied that a customer was using Webb Motorsports software? I think this is highly egotistical of Randy to think that this thread implied any of his ECU products. Thread jacking for marketing? Maybe..

As of matter of fact I don’t know why you guys are still talking about this after the first page. Clearly it was said that there were several contributing factors and probably was an isolated incident. Bla Bla Bla

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Denso’s or NGK spark plugs. The key here is to make sure you adjust your heat range when you have modifications to your car.

I too like Andy find it completely unacceptable that vendors want to post BOLD statements on these forums with no or little data. Do you vendors think of NAM as just a marketing tool? If you guys are going to post here you better know what you’re talking about and have solid data to back up your claims.

Pulley talk:

You can’t just discount other vendor’s designs and products without real evidence. Heck for all we know Randy got his pulley half on and it seized. Then used a torch to heat up the pulley on the shaft then toasted the seal. If this was the case he could really use one of many stories to explain why.

This may or may not have happened but the point is that it’s not what you know Randy, but what you can prove. It’s just like court. You are in this business to make money and most people who make mistakes don’t like to publicly admit they made them. We are not saying you made any mistake or are lying etc but making bold statements can’t come from you or any other vendor without evidence.

I find that all the vendors who post here just think that we are suppose to believe everything that comes out of there mouth. We get the nasty ones that badger customers when they ask for proof. We get the vendors who make outrageous claims just for glory seeking then never back anything up. Heck I have even seem some out right lie to make it seem that they fully tested products and don’t.

The point is having data pretty much ends all conversations, pictures are worth a thousand words.


_________________
Willis