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Again this is Martin from AMS.
This will be the last post I make about this. The people wanting to sell this block.. do what you want.. the people wanting to buying it, do what you feel is right. I will state the facts and leave it at that. Did company X break the law? No. Did company X act unscrupulously? in my opinion and everyone I've talked to.. hell yes.
1. We approached company X on 9/6/2012 to make us a Nissan VR38 Billet engine block. We ship them all the parts they will need to design a block (stock block, internals, gaskets, etc). We are told it will take roughly 16 weeks.
2. We visit the company on 10/8/2012 and discuss the project further and bring with an Non-compete. We speak with owners son as he is in charge of the project and he says he doesn't want to sign anything and to get things complicated. He says that if anyone approaches them for a billet block he will just refer them to us or they will give a price to them that will steer them to us as they don't want to deal with end users. This was my decision, albeit not a smart one, to go ahead with this project and trust them on their word....lesson learned.
3. We communicate for the next 4 months going over design reviews that they are sending us, giving feedback, etc. We are shown pic of 3d rendering and are asked if we approve the design? How the hell can we approve it from that? We ask them for 3D cad so we can check measurements on our side. We are told no, they can't give that to us. So we ask for detailed pics of certain important features and dimensions so we can reviews. This process goes on a few times with a lot of our time invested in reviewing and approving or changing.
4. The year 2013 consists of very poor communication on part of Company X where they are not getting back to us for weeks at a time or sometimes over a month!! At one point we send an email questioning them what is going on and why is this taking 4-5 times longer than they promised? The owners son responds telling us to basically screw off.
5. I get involved with trying to contact the company and smooth things out. I call the company and the secretary tells me that Mr. X (owners son) is no longer there, great, let me talk to the owner. I look up the sons name online and find lawsuit with him as the defendant...promising news. I speak with the owner him and he says he's taking over. Things progress and communication is still horrible on their end (weeks go by with no response on their end). If we had a dollar for every time we were told... it's going in the machine next week to get made....
6. 2-4-2014 (1 year and almost 5 months after we were told 16 weeks) we get our first billet block sample (that we paid up front for 1 year 5 months ago). Upon first inspection and trying to bolt stuff up on an engine stand it's waaaay off. Some of the pics you see that we posted in our blog with bolt holes off, spacing off, incorrect surfaces. etc.. i mean we have folders of pictures, dimensions we had to check etc. We document all of this , pack up the block and send it back.
7. We spend the better part of 2014 waiting for company X to fix all the issues. Communication is again poor, we're told every time we call that they're not in, we leave numbers, messages, no avail. When we do hear back. it's 'oh a few more weeks, it's almost done". At this point this has taken so long what other choice do we have? we decide to wait. This goes on until mid NOVEMBER of 2014.. over 2 YEARS since they started the project.
8. 11-17-2014 we get the revised engine block back from them. The block is still not right! there are major issues with the design and machining. At this point we're not confident in Company X's abilities to fix the issues and to save time and more iterations of the block We decide that we will make the changes and fixes and document them all (and provide this to Company X) so they can get it right on the next iteration of the block.
9. January 2015 , after us making changes to the block and fixing it we have a running engine. We pack up, take the car to Florida for half mile testing and drag strip to see how the engine holds up. At the half mile event we see that blowby is significant and crank case pressure gets higher and higher as we run it (max 44 psi boost and it ran 224mph in the half mile).
10. we spend the next 4 months we spend testing and debugging the block. Yes it would worked sort of, the car went fast, but the bore would distort and other issues would pop up. We discussed with Company X that we need a stronger sleeve design than what they had. We contacted a company that specializes in sleeves to come up with something that would work better (The design is totally different than what Company X first used, and remember this because this will come up in the end).
11. Sleeves are designed and sent to Company X for them to incorporate into the block design, along with all the fixes and changes we had to make to the block.
12. We wait a few months and on 12/14/2015 we get 2 billet blocks out of an order of 10 blocks to be made. We can't wait to get more, there is a line for these things! Sadly upon inspection we find problems.. problems that concern us because now there are fundamental issues like holding basic machining tolerances, and other features are still not machined correctly! Again, we start documenting the issues and are preparing to go back to Company X AGAIN to have issues addresses.. when we get wind of people pushing 'same as AMS billet blocks' online to our own customers... then we get pictures and message confirming that these are the same billet block company X was making for us.
13. 12/22/2015 I attempt to make contact with Company X to address this issue.. GOOD LUCK! I spend the until january 5th calling almost every day, leaving messages, ect.. telling them it's very urgent they call me back.
14. 1/5/2016 I finally speak with the owner and I presume 'Billet GTR' member here that made this post. I dare you to tell me I'm lying when i say the following.... I tell him that we've heard that people are soliciting sales of an 'AMS billet block' online and ask him if he knows anything about this. He says yes, we're selling a GTR billet block and it's not the same as our (AMS) block, it's a design they made on their own. I ask him if he thinks it's right that we approached them with the idea, gave them all the parts necessary, design reviews, debugging, testing and now they sell a GTR block. He says it's not the same , (AND THIS IS IMPORTANT), he says that their block will use their original sleeve design as he thinks it's better. He tells me that they have a ton of time and money wrapped up in this (which I agree,and we do also) and he needs to sell blocks (admitting right there that he has time and money in THAT PARTICULAR DESIGN). At this point I see where this is going.. he wants to make money even if the block isn't ready or is right, (not the way AMS operates!) . Seeing the situation I ask him what it would take have exclusivity and he said I would have to buy a lot of blocks from them, which I was planning on doing anyways if the blocks were correct!!! He tells me to email him this request and he'll think about it. I send an email asking him this question just to see what he would say. At this point our mind is made up... we're not working with thieves.
And here is where we arrive today. A block being offered for sale that has been tested, debugged, reviewed, and retested by AMS. EVEN THE SLEEVE DESIGN THAT WE IMPLEMENTED AND THEY SAID THEY WOULDN'T USE!!!! Company X has proof it's their design? Tell me yes and we'll post links up to all the design changes, features, etc we have documented on our end that I can point out in the pictures are used in this 'new version' of their block. And yes we're still sitting on those two blocks we received from Company X that are still not correct.. will you take them back and refund our money?
In the end we made an emotional post, we wanted to let the public know that a product was being offered for sale around our back that we put hard work, money, and time into. And worst of all, it's still not right. Did I make a horrible decision of not having something in writing with Company X? yes! Was making the initial emotional based post and blog worth all this drama? probably no. Does my gut say I just got taken advantage of by a company doing unscrupulous business practices? YES! The things I've witnessed and learned from being in business over the past 15 years really make me question human integrity in general.
Martin Musial,
President, AMS Performance
