What Did You Do To Your G-Body Today? [2023]
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Pulled the ‘80 out of the garage to give the quarter windows a bath to check for leaks. The good news is the car has great heat, left the engine running for a little bit. The bad, they leak in a few different spots on both sides. The leaks seem to be between the new Re-pops seal and the body shell. Nothing between the glass and seal. Going to pump sealer in all around the windows and try to stop it. 
Damn, yea that's what I thought you had was Holley EFI of some sorts, and it was all kinds of problems.
Thinking something went funky and fragged the Engine, as in leaned out or something? If you have a post on it I haven't seen it.
Yeah had a Sniper, I gave them all kinds of time and patience with them running me in circles on what the culprit was. I believe I posted it in here, ended up cracking the #8 cylinder and putting all the coolant in there. Was still able to get it to start and run if I gave her throttle, but it melted the plug and then let it bounce around in the cylinder. Turned out to be a stock 350 block, which everyone I talked to said they have never heard of a stock block cracking there without boost. Went back and forth with Holley, who tried to use the top of the cylinder rust as evidence that it was not in good shape.
So put in a damage claim with Holley then waiting months to hear about, sent them the Sniper for testing as part of it. Hadn't heard anything by the time SEMA came so I went to their booth to see if there was anyone to talk to. All of the guys there were more interested in talking with each other than customers, but finally after listening to them talk to each other for a few minutes they finally ask what I need. I tell them and don't get a sorry or any type of concern, just "we only have sales and marketing people here so they aren't any help". So call when I get back from my trip and deal with more of the there is no contact number for the people handling it they will reach out when they complete the claim. He reached out and told me that my Sniper tested fine with their techs and for that reason they are denying the claim.
I responded probably a month ago asking for more details because I was pretty sure it was just bench tested checking the electronics with no RFI that these units are very susceptible to with no response. So now I am debating on whether it is worth the time to try and take them to court. Here are some pics from the tear down since I am too lazy to go back and look for the post
I remember the electrical issues you had and the ton of back and forth with the parts. If you have that documented there's the history. At one point you were waiting a while for parts.
And yea, ofcourse they are going to say everything of theirs "tested good". That's a given.
Court would be a run around too and you'll lose money because the lawyers will be jacking each other behind the scenes with no care but to make money.
Put the word around in places Holley loses customers. I'm not a fan of companies with lacking customer service and excuses.
And yea, ofcourse they are going to say everything of theirs "tested good". That's a given.
Court would be a run around too and you'll lose money because the lawyers will be jacking each other behind the scenes with no care but to make money.
Put the word around in places Holley loses customers. I'm not a fan of companies with lacking customer service and excuses.
Yeah, I sent them a huge long summary of everything I went through with them which I guess I might as well post here so I can start my smear campaign. Yeah thats what I said, the kicker was that they sat on it for 2 months. I kind of thought that about the court, but last time I did it I went up against my home warranty company without a lawyer and ended up winning basically 10k after all the hassle since for me most times its more of a principle thing. Yeah I usually hate to be that guy that wines about stuff, but the more I have thought about it I am going to make a post in the Gbody group on FB.
| Aug 11, 2023, 2:48 PM |
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Hello Mr McLellan,
I received an email stating you wanted to file a claim with Holley regarding an issue you had with our Sniper product. This is very unfortunate and Holley regrets that you have had this unsatisfactory experience with any of our products. We will need you to provide answers to the following questions to get your claim started.
1) Provide a statement in email about exactly what happened from the time your Sniper Unit was installed until the issue occurred.
2) Include with your statement a copy of your receipt where you purchased this unit.
3) What type of vehicle was this Sniper System installed on? Year, Make, Model along with current mileage on the vehicle.
4) Who installed this Sniper Unit and are they certified mechanic(s)?
5) How long was this Sniper System on your vehicle prior to the issue?
6) Please provide pictures of the engine and engine bay along with detailed shots of the sniper wiring before you remove it from the car. The more pictures the better.
7) Detailed photos of the engine and the claimed engine damage
8) Photos of the car.
9) Include in your statement a quote or rough estimate of what you are expecting from Holley to satisfy your claim if your Holley Sniper EFI System is found to be the true root cause of your issue.
Once I receive this information, I will forward it to Holley Product Management for review. We will also need the Sniper unit returned to Holley for engineering evaluation. We need pictures of the engine and damage. After you provide all the requested pictures, please package these parts, and let me know when they are ready to ship. At that time, I will have someone issue a UPS call tag to have them shipped to Holley. Please provide the address where UPS needs to pick this package up.
Thank you
Jeannie Fish Jones
Quality Manager
1801 Russellville Road, Bowling Green, KY 42101
[email protected] | www.holley.com
| | Aug 17, 2023, 3:12 PM |
We were never able to get the Sniper unit to run correctly and improve on what it was as a carburated motor. We were able to get the car running but would still have constant RFI problems. Numerous tech calls ended with them saying that it is something else causing the RFI, that if I upgraded to all Holley components those issues would go away. We attempted to drive it for a while until it blew a fuse dedicated to the Sniper unit. We replaced that fuse and the unit was much worse than it was before which led to more tech support to make it driveable again.
I pretty much spent the entire summer bouncing between your technicians with their different suggestions of how to trouble shoot while missing multiple shows I had signed up for that cost money to be part of. Throughout the process it changed characteristics 5 or 6 times and each time I spoke with a technician a different solution would be offered without connecting to the advice from the previous technician; I was getting run in a circle buying time because from the beginning it seemed to be a problem specific to the Sniper.
I followed each of the different suggestions that the techs said which was always different from what the previous one said and they would say that no that wasn't the way to confirm no RF or some of the other problems they were suggesting. The first one said I had to buy and install a fuel gauge at the Sniper to be sure it was getting enough fuel which it was getting 50+.( ) The next one suggested wrapping the sniper and distributor in tin foil to be sure there was no RF, and that there was likely RF coming out of my Taylor plug wires or the distributor.( ) When I talked to the next guy, he said that wasn't the best way to do it that I should run a ground from the battery to ground the throttle to make sure there was no RF.
The next guy then says no that isn't the best way and it is likely the IAC, shipped out an IAC that did not fix it. So then the next guy wanted me to finally run a data log and send it over, I sent that over to him and never hear back after multiple attempts to follow up. After running that data log it wouldn't allow me to do anymore for some reason saying it could not create folder. While trying to get a hold of the guy I sent the data log to I got another gentleman who says he is going to figure it out for sure for me. He assures me that it is a leak in my exhaust within 3 feet of the o2 sensor, says to blow air through my exhaust and spray soap mix to see where it bubbles.
Couldn't find a leak anywhere, throughout all of this I was throwing parts at the car with their suggestion of replacing my Taylor plug wires, the distributor, new plugs since the ones put in at original install looked fouled, and putting the fuel gauge in line to the Sniper. So now I have all these parts on and after the last guy says when I can't find the leak to tinfoil everything and run the pink wire directly to battery for ignition issues, if that doesn't work second is to disconnect the alternator , and third is with all of those then also both relays for the electric fans disconnected to make sure there isn't something else. Once after all of that is done there is still no improvement they finally agree that it is possibly something with the Sniper.
But all they have available is the shiny unit that has been refurbished and will likely not have anything available any time soon, with hopes of being able to make the final event of the year I accepted it but by the time it was processed it was too late to even make that. So I did very much appreciate them sending me the black unit since the polished was not something that fit the look of the car. But every tech I talked to would assure me that they were more qualified than the last person who had me on the tech line and why they wanted to take their own path. Which then lead to a long period of time troubleshooting and changing of characteristics.
I wouldn't consider it whining about anything, you got a crap product with continous issues.
Once we had the new unit up and running the huge RFI issues persisted, which I was told if I went to the Hyperspark distributor instead of the newly purchased distributor that was already on there that it would take care of those issues. So I purchased the distributor and then came to find out I had to buy the coil driver which I did. After still working on getting it running had to buy the ignition box. Once all of that was done and installed I still had RFI issues which was now also affecting not just the head units but also the Holley display (
) While we were still troubleshooting all the RFI we got it running well enough to road test, we changed the plugs again because they still looked to be getting a bad mixture of fuel. (
) Once we had a few local road tests I decided to take it to a car show which resulted in this (
) Once it was towed back to my place we attempted to troubleshoot was wrong and what caused the issue because with a heavy gas pedal start you could get it to run but sounded terrible.(
)
I had honestly thought it jumped timing to cause the issues, but started at the easier options to test by checking the timing at the distributor was still in line with TDC where it should be which it was. Since it sounded terrible we did not want to run a timing light to cause further damage since it sounded like there was a big issue. We then checked a couple of plugs which again didn't look to be getting a good fuel mixture and checked to feel compression when manually turning motor over which there was until the last cylinder. Once we checked the last plug we had found that it had melted which we knew meant the motor needed torn down to see what happened. As you can see from the last video everything was still opening and closing as it should.
Once we opened the motor we found the parts of the plug in the cylinder which had also eaten up the piston from bouncing around in there. When I dropped the motor off at the machine shop they said they had never heard of a stock bore motor cracking there without boost or any additive. They also said that the SBC is very stout being able to be machined out to .80 over. That times they have seen SBC crack it is up in the intake valley or somewhere else. That melting the plug and causing it to bounce around in the cylinder is likely the culprit.
2) Include with your statement a copy of your receipt where you purchased this unit.
3) What type of vehicle was this Sniper System installed on? Year, Make, Model along with current mileage on the vehicle.
1984 Chevy Monte Carlo SS, dash was swapped over to a Dakota Digital unit when everything was installed but while following troubleshooting we had to disconnect power for extended periods which lost the memory of the unit
4) Who installed this Sniper Unit and are they certified mechanic(s)?
Schaaf Inc. yes we are a certified shop of yours as well as many other companies
5) How long was this Sniper System on your vehicle prior to the issue?
Was never right
6) Please provide pictures of the engine and engine bay along with detailed shots of the sniper wiring before you remove it from the car. The more pictures the better.
Engine is already removed, I did take photos during disassembly and asked what was needed at that point with no response. It can be viewed in the videos I provided.
7) Detailed photos of the engine and the claimed engine damage
Crack in #8 cylinder and damage to that piston from melted spark plug bouncing around in it
8) Photos of the car.
9) Include in your statement a quote or rough estimate of what you are expecting from Holley to satisfy your claim if your Holley Sniper EFI System is found to be the true root cause of your issue.
I am not expecting the full amount because obviously it only damaged one of the cylinders but if I am going to go through it I want to do it all right, this is what I have into the rebuild.
If you need to follow up with anything you can call the shop
I had honestly thought it jumped timing to cause the issues, but started at the easier options to test by checking the timing at the distributor was still in line with TDC where it should be which it was. Since it sounded terrible we did not want to run a timing light to cause further damage since it sounded like there was a big issue. We then checked a couple of plugs which again didn't look to be getting a good fuel mixture and checked to feel compression when manually turning motor over which there was until the last cylinder. Once we checked the last plug we had found that it had melted which we knew meant the motor needed torn down to see what happened. As you can see from the last video everything was still opening and closing as it should.
Once we opened the motor we found the parts of the plug in the cylinder which had also eaten up the piston from bouncing around in there. When I dropped the motor off at the machine shop they said they had never heard of a stock bore motor cracking there without boost or any additive. They also said that the SBC is very stout being able to be machined out to .80 over. That times they have seen SBC crack it is up in the intake valley or somewhere else. That melting the plug and causing it to bounce around in the cylinder is likely the culprit.
2) Include with your statement a copy of your receipt where you purchased this unit.
3) What type of vehicle was this Sniper System installed on? Year, Make, Model along with current mileage on the vehicle.
1984 Chevy Monte Carlo SS, dash was swapped over to a Dakota Digital unit when everything was installed but while following troubleshooting we had to disconnect power for extended periods which lost the memory of the unit
4) Who installed this Sniper Unit and are they certified mechanic(s)?
Schaaf Inc. yes we are a certified shop of yours as well as many other companies
5) How long was this Sniper System on your vehicle prior to the issue?
Was never right
6) Please provide pictures of the engine and engine bay along with detailed shots of the sniper wiring before you remove it from the car. The more pictures the better.
Engine is already removed, I did take photos during disassembly and asked what was needed at that point with no response. It can be viewed in the videos I provided.
7) Detailed photos of the engine and the claimed engine damage
Crack in #8 cylinder and damage to that piston from melted spark plug bouncing around in it
8) Photos of the car.
9) Include in your statement a quote or rough estimate of what you are expecting from Holley to satisfy your claim if your Holley Sniper EFI System is found to be the true root cause of your issue.
I am not expecting the full amount because obviously it only damaged one of the cylinders but if I am going to go through it I want to do it all right, this is what I have into the rebuild.
If you need to follow up with anything you can call the shop
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