You can not blame somebody ells for your bad decisions, espesialy if you know it was a bad decision.

I noticed in http://www.mr2oc.com/showthread.php?t=163243&page=5 that my shop gets blamed for a fire that totaled the GT40R deuce. Yet my shop has never touched the car nor have we ever worked on the car.

What I don’t understand in the post is why EngineLogics gets blamed by the repair shop for that repair shops own bad decisions.

According to the posts the fuel rail I supplied was substandard.

A couple of questions:

What was substandard about the fuel rail?
Why was the owner that purchased the fuel rail not contacted and informed?
Why at the time was the supplier not contacted and informed?
If the fuel rail supplied was substandard why was it installed in the first place?
What was the repair that the installer made to the fuel rail?

Some answers:

When the customer picked up the rail from EngineLogics, he was showed the fuel rail he purchased installed with injectors on a cylinder head and saw that it was a proper fit.

The installer indicated in an email on12/13/04, long after the rail was installed, that the only problem they had was a leak because the pipe thread side of the AN fitting screwed to deep into the fuel rail thus prevented the pipe thread side of the fitting to seal properly.

Any one that worked with pipe fittings knows that the obvious repair would be to remove 1/16 - 1/8 from the affected side. This would allow the tapered thread to seat earlier. Instead the installer chose to weld the anodized fitting to the rail.

Welding anodized aluminum will cause the weld as well as the surrounding area to become brittle. The additional heat required to weld the Anodized material will also cause the - AN side of the fitting to become distorted thus preventing proper seal under normal tightening conditions. It is also a guarantee for future disaster especially if it is done to something as important as a fuel rail.

Welding the anodized fitting to the fuel rail also immediately voided the customer’s warranty. Not a good thing if the customer was not informed.

Whose to blame if during an engine build EngineLogics noticed that on of the connecting rods used are not properly finished but still chose to install it, surely not the connecting rod manufacturer?

The same goes for a shop claiming to be specialists in their field. If that shop decided that a part is substandard and still install the part then that shop and only that shop, and no one ells is to blame if that part malfunctionor cause a problem.

Shops practicing this kind of work ethics should be very careful because something like this might get them slapped with a liable suite and I strongly advice the owner of the GT40R Deuce to look into it.

The repair shop should have:

Contact the owner and inform the owner about the situation and advised him about their proposed repairs or suggest an alternative. (Was not done)

Or

The shops should have contact the supplier of the fuel rail and ask them to replace the fuel rail or asked them how to proceed with a repair. (Did so months after the install and repair was done)

Or

The shop should have refused to use the part.

Conclusion:

Once in a while all manufacturers will make a mistake and it is how that manufacturer deals with the mistake that is important. If the manufacturer has not been notified or given the opportunity to deal with the error the manufacturer can not be blamed if a repair shop knowingly install the faulty item or makes its own repair to the item without the consent of the manufacturer or the owner who purchased the item.

If blame for the fire that totaled the GT40R deuce has to be found somewhere then it is to be found with the repair shop that installed and made a repair to the “substandard” fuel rail because:

A: The customer trusted the repair shop to look out on his behalf and therefore the repair shop should have know better to install what was according to them a substandard fuel rail.

B: Doing a frowned upon repair without the owners consent by welding an Anodized fitting to the 6061 fuel rail.

C: Not trying to help the customer getting a warranty replacement/repair from the manufacturer

D: Not informing the customer of the repair thus not giving the customer the opportunity to warn the next shop to work on his car that a weld repair has been done to the fuel rail.

To customers:

As a customer you can not blame a shop or tuner for the destruction of you engine if you don’t take proper care of that engine and or if you choose to make substandard modifications to that engine or discus the modification with your engine builder/tuner before you do the modifications.

Last but not least: The availability of fuel rails has never been removed from our website:

http://www.enginelogics.com/conversion.html

^this the first post for those not registered