Onijdm Swap Issue

SON240sx Automotive
1

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1618/pic0353a.jpg
This is a ca18det swap performed by onijdm on my '91 s13. Engine was sourced from elsewhere.
In brief:
I was quoted $850 for the swap + $100 for Raf/Veloz 's sidemount. The final bill from onijdm came to $1750 (not including motorset), which i still paid. In return I got a car that barely moves. the exhaust wasn’t hooked up and it was going to cost another $300 to install Raf’s oem sr fuel pump, which i was told was needed. It is sputtering, misfiring and surging, bad idle and the dohc tach is bouncing all over. The knock sensor is not wired in. There are many instances of neglect but wiring appears to be the main culprit. One of the coolant heater hoses wasn’t connected and i was told that it was the seal around the butterfly valve which was causing coolant to leak. There were vacuum and hose lines running nowhere and the bov was teed directly to the wastegate. They even left a screwdriver and a fuse/bulb on the intake mani, just to show how much attention they were paying.
Inspite of all this i offered them a chance to look it over, however just for diagnosing it they wished to charge me again by the hour. After going through what i believe to be the most blatant swindle am i expected to fall for it again?

Below is a rundown of their bill:

  1. Swap – Including engine & wiring 10hrs $850
  2. Install slave, Redo ground 1hr $85
  3. Free seized mounts 0.5hr $42.5
  4. O2 housing install 1hr $85
  5. Intercooler + piping install 2hrs $170
  6. Throttle bracket 0.5hr $42.5
  7. Attempted clutch install 1hr $85
    Labour Total $1360
    Parts
    Slave(50), bov(80), coolant(20) $150
    IC, + piping $150
    Rad Hose + IC elbow $40
    Sr Intake Pipe $50
    Parts Total $420

I will have to get the swap redone elsewhere now.
Hope this helps someone.
I would request the admins to not move this post for onijdm. Thank you.

2

what are you looking to achieve from this ? Im not sayin this to be a dick. Are you looking for somebody to help make it right, looking for another shop to re-do everything?
if you want somebody to have a look nad fix whats wrong mp me and we can chat about this, i have batted clean up before for shit like this. its very do-able

farmer

3

It seems to me that he wants to share his experience so the same thing doesn’t happen to one of us.

Sucks for you bro

4

its a good heads up imo

5

pm me I can help out.

6

Looks like a hackjob and a half? Did they even clean out the engine bay or anything before dropping the motor in? It just looks like a butchered swap in my opinion. I would not have paid them for the work. That shit could make them lose their license.

7

Attempted clutch install hahaa

8

if u made agreement for price. why didnt u just pay the 950$?

they only technically charged u extra 400$ on labour for other things. that could have been on included in the swap agreement details. ur engine swap is fixable by the ppl that msged here already or by onijdm to get the small things fixed.

thats a cheap swap price 850$ lets hear onijdm story.

9

Ummmm I wouldn’t even settle for that at all. I would either ask for money back or fix it at their expense.

They are responsible for giving you a CLEAN swap for the agreed amount, and shouldn’t charge you extra to check things over that THEY did wrong.

Doesn’t make any sense to me.

10

waiting for the other shoe to drop. there are always 2 side to everything.

peace

11

waiting for mitch’s response…

12

I saw that too and was like wtf:confused: how can you charge somebody for half done work or an “attempted” install!! thats so arms

Onijdm needs to step in and tell their side to this? cause like WOW!!!

13

thats not acceptable at all. good heads up.

hope this all gets worked out and fixed!!

14

It’s Mitch from ONIJDM. This is a job we did not want to take; Sajed did not have the funds to do any of the work. He brought the car in after he hacked up the car. Metal shavings were in the motor after taking a hack saw to the throttle body. The motor/wiring was hacked up and in very poor condition. The car was a hack to begin with. Throughout the whole build we advised of the running tab for parts/time. Sajed was under a strict budget; so to help we tried to do the minimum to get the car running. We delivered the car incomplete due to Sajed running out of money. We spent more time on the car than was actually billed; plus gave him a discount because he was unable to pay.

We advised from the beginning… several times.

  1. Sell the car
  2. Don’t do any work on the car because it is not in good condition and wouldn’t be worth it.
  3. Doing a swap gets costly. Don’t do it.
  4. Sajed did not have the money to do the work properly; so don’t do it.
  5. If he insists on a fix; put another KA in it. Instead a rusty and poor condition CA18DET was brought into our shop without notice for install. We inspected the CA18 and advised to NOT put the motor in. Sajed insisted.

Sajed was charged the $850 for the straight removal and install of the engine including wiring. Nothing more. This was made very clear.

$100 for a side mount intercooler. This also including all the STOCK piping that was needed. He was also charged for a new Slave cylinder among other parts.

Sajed, should not be pointing fingers or accusing us, or anyone else of a hack job; as he took a HACK Saw to his Engine and wondered what he did wrong?

His car, before we saw it , was a prime example of a HACK JOB.

Regarding the vaccum lines and heater hose. Unfortunately, that was like that on the engine that you brought us. We only touched 4 coolant lines in total. 2 heater, 2 rad hoses. If it was on the engine, it was assumed that it was good to save time/money.

  • Tach , FYI, Tach wiring is running straight and undisturbed from the ECU. NO wire hacking. Follow the Yellow and red wire.

-BOV. the BOV was TEED into the Pressure source that activated the wastegate. We were testing it and its a proper source since it had pressure and Vaccum.

-Grounding, again, I’m really sorry we even tried to help you on this point. We should have left that corroded ground that would have left you stranded somewhere.

  • A clutch was provided by Sajed; he assured us it was for the CA18DET; when installing it was clear that it was the wrong clutch. We still need to charge time for RE/RE.

We only took your job on for 2 reasons.

  1. You brought the car to diagnose your Hackjob and it just happened to be there, at the shop

  2. I felt bad for you and had to convince the guys to accept the job as no one else wanted to do this. Furthermore, you wanted to go CA , no one else.

$1750 was not just labour, but ALL the parts and the requested labour as well.

In addition to that I even said that would could take care of any mistakes if they were done on our part.

It is disappointing to have this outcome; but we did our best to help. But we are a business and cannot do work for free. If Sajed had stuck with our advise and had not tried to cut corners or keep changing his mind on what he wants done after the work has been completed; it might be have turned out differently.

Mitch

15

If that is true, than sorry buddy but its all your fault they told you not to put that motor in and when you dont have proper amount of funds this usually tends to happen.

Heres some advice never ever ever cheap out…that is if you like your car and time.

16

yeah mitch hasnt responded to me on fb lately…

17

there was 1800$ spent , how come i keep hearing no funds …

18

Just wondering about a few things.

Jed240 says the wiring is hacked and the knock sensor is not connected. Is this because your shop didn’t do the work or because the harness he gave you was incomplete?

In regards to the vacuum lines, shouldn’t the shop be blocking these off if they are not being used?

Why did you charge 1 hour for turbo elbow/O2 housing install? This takes like 15 minutes when the engine is out of the car.

Why is he saying that you wanted to charge $300 to install a fuel pump? This should only take 30 minutes; probably much shorter for an experienced shop.

Why is a heater hose leaking? Jed240 says that its a heater hose and not a coolant hose on the motor. You guys obviously have to connect the heater hoses on the back of the motor so someone is lying.

Is jed240 lying about the tools being left under the hood? Shouldn’t the shop do a final look over before returning the car to the customer?

Why is the car not running properly? It seems like with the bill you gave him, the car should be running mint.

I saw this car at Sydney Automotive and agree that the car is hack and money should not be wasted on it. Despite this, it seems like you are taking advantage of this guy since he doesn’t have much mechanical experience.

19

Interesting,

I hope things get sorted out, Good to hear from both parties.

20

+1 I’d go to Stephen. He definitely seems to know what’s going on and he’ll get you back on your feet.