Tank, his supra, and the "cover up"
Just because he will prob post this over here, and i want to have the first word.
Tank blew his supra up again, and he started a thread on supraforums.com. I want our side out before he has a chance to skew it his way like he did on supraforums.
http://www.supraforums.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=427530
Why dont we tell the ENTIRE story Tank.
My name is mike, i run the shop where Mr. Tankards car was worked on. Let me tell you everything from day 1.
Mr. Tankard approached us about wanting to purchase a custom 4in exhaust in October of 2006. I had heard stories of Mr. Tankard and he had expressed concern over another local shop that had "done him wrong". I quoted him a price for the exhaust an we did it. Mr. Tankard inquired about tuning his setup on his supra the day he came to do the exhaust.
Mr. Tankards setup was a GT42 , TH350, 1000cc inj, AEM, Jun replica Intake manifold, STOCK NA BLOCK. He stated the car had never been tuned an he had installed the turbo himself with some help from some other friends. The install was half assed, we had to fix an elbow on the turbo to make the IC pipe even fit, i told him it was $140/hour to tune his AEM. Mr. Tankard said "i only have enough money to tune for 1 hour". With such little time, all we did was driveability mostly. we did NO WOT pulls
After 1 hour, the car made 255whp, 5500rpms, and we were done. I wrote Mr. Tankard an invoice stating that his car was not safe to boost. The following weekend, i hear from SEVERAL CREDIBLE witnesses and people about how Mr. Tankard was claiming that "Mainstream got 500whp out of my car". Which was simply not true.
Mr. Tankard contacted me about a week later wanting to fully tune his car. We agreed on a date and i reminded him it was $140/hour for tuning. The day BEFORE his scheduled tuning appointment, Mr. Tankard calls me an says his car shut off an was making a horrible noise. He decribed a "knocking" noise. We told him he would have to tow the car to us because i couldnt diagnose it over the phone.
The car came to us on a tow truck, the distributor was loose (as in all bolts were backed out) and the injector o rings were BLOWN out of the manifold. The car would turn over, but wouldnt crank. We felt it was due to the massive vaccum leak caused by the blown out injector o rings, and the distributor being off. Mr. Tankard had another shop called TOPSPEED install his turbo kit. We noticed that they had used the wrong injector o rings. We quoted Mr. Tankard $300 to remove his intake manifold, replace the orings, drill the manifold properly, an reinstall. That HAD to be done to have the car START. Mr. Tankard agreed.
We fixed the O rings an the car cranked up. It was knocking louder than ANY car i have ever heard, especially a supra. We contacted mr. tankard an told him his motor was gone. The only thing at the time we could think of was that the dizzy had rotated, timing was all out of whack, the car detonated, and blew the rod bearings out.
I explained to Mr. Tankard that the original bill for $300 had to be settled up, and i gave him a quote for fixing the car. He agreed to have the car repaired. IIRC his estimate was for $3500 to basically RR a supra motor, assemble, and reinstall. Mr. Tankard expressed how he was on a tight budget so we helped him where we could.
We told mr. tankard we would need a deposit to begin work. this was about the end of October. We also told him we needed to settle up on the $300 bill. A few weeks go by, an we receive no payment from Mr. Tankard. Meanwhile, he is sending me PMs about how he bought a nitrous kit, AVCR, big screen tv, and other items. This whole time we never were paid.
After about 2 months, I call Mr. Tankard for about the 6th time, and told him enough was enough, we would start charging storage on his vehicle. Mr. Tankard shows up about 6 days later , to FINALLY pay his bill, 2 MONTHS after it was done. His bill had gone from $300 to $390. He paid his bill and told me he would give me a deposit for the car soon.
The end of december comes, and Mr. tankard sends me via paypal a deposit to get started on his motor.
Mr. Tankard supplied the USED RODS,USED PISTONS, USED BLOCK. I bought all brand new pumps, gaskets, seals, timing belt, ACL Race Bearings.
On Jan 5th i started ordering parts for his car. Now we are one of the busiest shops in Atlanta, so i put Mr. Tankards car on the schedule for Jan. 22-27th. that would be the time we STARTED work on his car provided all parts were present. Mr. Tankard repeatedly pushed us to "hurry " up on his car, he expressed how we were working on other cars an not his, complained, etc. This was the same guy that took 2 months to pay me $300, yet he was agitated that when he paid his deposit we didnt "jump right on it".
Mr. Tankard deployed overseas shortly after we began work on his car. We took our time and assembled his motor. We completed the car, and upon completion the only problems we noticed were his Water Temp Gauge didnt work (he stated it never had) and his Boost gauge did not work. His Car has some cheap over lay white face gauges, and everything is miscalibrated. His car reads "0" rpms when it is cold idling. his tach was at least 1200 rpms off by my dynojet. Mr. Tankard never paid us to fix his gauges. We did however replace his Temp Sensor, but his gauge still didnt work.
We dynoed the car, and upon doing a few mild boost pulls, the car boost creeps like CRAZY. Wanting to be gentle on the car, we notice that Mr. Tankard has a 35mm wastegate for his GT42 turbo. We stop tuning, contact mr. tankard, an tell him that his car cannot be tuned due to the boost creeping issue. We also found out the wastegate had a 22PSI WASTE GATE SPRING. So, we can now theorize that the car blew up in the first place because it was prob doing 22psi on pump gas untuned and Mr. Tankard didnt realize it.
We sell and install a Tial 44mm Wastegate an 1 bar spring for Mr. Tankard. After the wastegate change, boost is kept in check, and the car makes 467whp at 17psi with a vacuum T. it makes 44xwhp at 1 Bar. The car NEVER OVERHEATES, NEVER CREPT HOT, NEVER BLEW COOLANT OUT , NEVER showed ANY signs of overheating. Matter of fact the only problem we had was blowing the front main seal out. We replaced the front main seal with a Beck-Arnley seal an that was the only problem we had.
Mr. Tankard had no boost controller, so we couldnt really turn the boost up reliably. We told Mr. Tankard to drive the car at 470whp an enjoy it and invest in a boost controller before we turned the boost up. We also told Mr. Tankard that his car was EXTREMLY short geared, in 3rd gear on his NON OVERDRIVE TH350, he was doing 119mph. We told him to invest in an overdrive tranny or buy a different rear end gear as his car would prob cruise at very high rpms on the highway.
We took the car on several street tests around the shop, prob running off about 20miles on the car. Never had any problems. This was the END of FEB when we finished the car.
I contacted mr. Tankard for final payment, an was told i would have to wait until the "first of the month". I was slightly pissed that Mr. Tankard had repeatedly rushed us to finish this car, yet he AGAIN could not make payment. We wondered if we were going to have to wait 2 months to receive payment like the first time. Well the fist of march comes an Mr. Tankard pays as agreed.
We were contaced that Mr. tankard was going to be back in the states to pick up his car sometime on April 10th. On APril 10th, we cranked up his car (it had been a month since it had ran) an the car had some electrical problems with the ALARM and the idle was a tad too high because it has no IAC (it has an aftermarket manifold). The car drove normal. Me and one of my senior techs drove the car on a test drive and we did beat on the car to make sure the a/f ratios were fine since the weather was a bit warmer than when we had tuned it. the a/f were fine, an the car never went over 202 F. This car has a 195 degree thermostat that was BRAND NEW.
Mr. Tankard then drove his car around the shop, came back, said thanks, and left. I reminded Mr. Tankard that his car still had a malfunctioning Temp gauge, and his Power steering line was leaking. About 30minutes later he calls me saying the car broke down and just "shut off". I asked him to describe the problem an he said "The car started to smoke from underneath the hood , then started to misfire, and i kept driving, then it just shut off". I told him to stay put an we would go pick the car up.
Turbo Dave an i took off with a truck an trailor. When we get to the area, we notice the car has about 1 gallon of coolant on the ground, and theh FACTORY OEM PAINT on the valve covers has melted. We try to start the car, and it is locked up. We knew the motor was gone.
We towed the car back to the shop an inspected everything. The twin 12 in electric fans were still working, the car had coolant in it, and the spark plugs were PERFECT as far as a/f ratios go. there was green hue on them indicating the Headgasket was blown.
The car had been SEVERELY OVERHEATED and Mr. Tankard chose to drive on the car rather than pull over. He drove the car into the ground, so to speak.
The motor is beyond repair, the thermostat was fine, and the car never showed any signs of overheating when we dynoed the car for 5 hours.
Mr. Tankard admitted that he was "cruising at about 3800rpms" which in reality is more like 5000-5200rpms since his tach is off due to the cheap overlay face gauges. He also admitted that he was "going under 80mph, not beating on the car, just cruising".
Since the car no longer runs, we can only assume either he was beating on the car for an extended amount of time, or he was crusing at too high of an RPM due to the short rear end gear and the car got hot. We will never know because Mr. Tankard chose to drive the car an not pull over at the first sign of trouble. Had Mr. Tankard pulled over an contacted us, we would have tried to duplicate the situation in an attempt to see why the car got hot, but we were never given that chance.
Mr. Tankard has almost no knowledge when it comes to cars. Which is not something i would make fun of him for, just pointing it out. He has a reputation for getting work done by shops, then blowing his car up , and then blaming the shop that performed the work. He has had this Supra blow up twice now (less than a week having work done to it) and he blew up a Honda Civic he used to own. He is crass, arrogant, and a compulsive liar. Almost no shop will work on his cars anymore. We simply feel that he bought a bunch of "race car parts" for his street car, and bad things come from that. Do you really think that 3 seperate atlanta shops all of whom have outstanding reputations, have all screwed him over, or is it something else?
We truly fell bad for Mr. Tankards situation, but how are we supposed to warranty a motor that HE OVERHEATED. A motor he supplied USED Parts for? Had the car overheated on the dyno, we would stand behind our work and looked into it. But we never saw any problems from the car. To make this thread andto post private PMs i had sent him back an forth is the last straw.
I will post DETAILED PICS of the gauges, swap, motor, invoices,etc tomrrow, i am at home an can not get those items until i am at work.
I also had a death in my family last week and have been unavailable , Mr. Tankard knew this, but he chose to PM me 4 times anyway asking about his car, and made this thread because i had "not responded to his previous PMs".
Mike
Mainstream Performance
Originally Posted by 2jz240sx
