B14 HATRED

[Antonio Garcia]

I can offer my comments regarding SR20Dev and Ron's unfortunate
experience with them. Warning, this will be long.

Back in October, I was shopping for a DET. Of course, the "best" choice
on the West coast was SR20Dev. I put in my order soon after the track
day for a DET, SR20's 2.5" downpipe, gauges, JWT ECU, and their stage
II front mount IC kit.

A week after I put in my order, the downpipe arrived. Great! I sent in
a core ECU for reprogramming around that same time too and it came back
to me within a couple weeks. Awesome I thought, and I anxiously waited
for the engine. The engine arrived and it was the most poor specimen of
any SR20 engine I had ever seen. It looked like tar was literally
poured into the engine and was allowed to harden on every surface.

It took Luis' video camera to prove to Chris and his mechanics at his
shop to prove what a POS engine I got. It took about 2 months to get
another engine. It was clean, but was missing parts, most notably the
stock intercooler/piping and intake piping. The stock IC and piping got
to us and we NorCal guys got the engine in by mid January and
everything was fine, but I still hadn't received my stage II FMIC kit.
This finally arrived 2 weeks ago - over 5 months to complete my
order!After *many* conversations with SR20Dev (btw I always called them
as they would never give me any updates), excuses for the delays were
"the wrong end tanks were welded on," "I thought you had a B14 and made
you a FMIC kit for that car," "we're still waiting on piping from
Hotshot and couplers from Turbo Innovations," and they go on and on.
Honestly, I felt dicked around with. How many Antonio's are there in CA
with a B13 SE-R? How could they confuse me with having a B14 when I
ordered the ECU through them?

I guess they can do good work when they want to - witness Shannon's,
Naji's and Zak's experiences, but IMO they are very streaky. Ron's car
is the ultimate example of this. The car overheated in November. After
bleeding the system properly, the next logical step is to check stuff
like hoses and their connections. But nope, they left extremely brittle
rubber hoses on the engine and hoped it would work. They even said the
type of silicone Jay H. originally used for plumbing the H2O injection
was not the waterproof kind. Ummm...exactly what kind is that? They
scratched up equipment in the engine bay - like the polished intake
plenum and the MSD box - and worst of all besides the monkey install,
Ron paid for a BB DET and only received a long block. Injectors, T25,
manifold were stripped and not given to Ron. Ron has tried calling them
so they can "fix" this, but either the phone was busy or no one would
pick up. The phone was even picked up and hung up immediately in one
instance. Ron hasn't heard anything from them at all to rectify the
situation.

With Ron's experience, and mine which pales in comparison, I do not see
myself recommending SR20Development to anyone in the future. Last week,
myself, Ron, and a few of the other NorCal guys began the sad process
of stripping Ron's car so he can sell off the goodie parts. Even though
these are just cars, it sucks knowing a good friend got completely
screwed and you feel for that person.

My $.02,

Antonio Garcia
91 SE-R w/ DET
Bay Area, CA