Vender Reviews: 944 Enhancement, Vitesse, Kokeln, Lindsey, Paragon, Rennspeed & More!
04-01-2007, 06:36 PM
#1
The Carnage King
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
Vender Reviews: 944 Enhancement, Vitesse, Kokeln, Lindsey, Paragon, Rennspeed & More!
I originally posted this in the 944 Turbo forum in May of '06 but have updated it a few times. I think it's worth reposting here in the General 924/944/968 forum. Please keep in mind that these are only my own experiences, others may vary, but I figured I'd post up my own experiences with some vendors.
After nearly two years of my car being put together, torn apart, put back together, and so on a and so forth. It's finally on the road. I figured I'd take this opportunity to put some vendor reviews in writing so you can all learn from my experiences.
Lindsey Racing:
Mike and Dave were EXTREMELY helpful, although a few times I did receive the wrong item. I called them back and it was quickly rectified. I'm running their fuel rail/lines, Manual Boost Controller, Mild steel exhaust, and Stage V intercooler. I had a set of their intercooler pipes and I've ordered misc. maintenance stuff from them too.
Fuel Rail:
It's a nice piece and well made, however my biggest gripe about it is the anodizing. I've seen 3 others than I can recall in recent memory and not a single one looks good. The coloring on mine over the past 2 years has becoming splotchy and faded and generally looks bad. The lines, regulator, and associated hardware fit well and work great. You NEED to remember to use a second set of injector seals for the injectors to sit on in the manifold though, or you WILL leak.
Manual Boost controller:
Easy to use, easy to setup, works fine in single or dual mode. Nice thick high temp vac lines that come with it.
3inch Mild Steel Exhaust:
Great universal exhaust, however you can tell it's universal as I had to do some hammering on exhaust mounts to get them to line up. Sounds awesome with my Borla XR1.
Stage V intercooler:
I cant comment on it, as I dont have any dyno runs to back up gains (yet). It does look mean though in that nose panel
SpeedForce Racing:
I've got Tim's MAP intake Pipe, along with a Tial wastegate and his adapters.
MAP Intake Pipe:
Nice piece, but certainly overpriced. Quality welds and finish.
Tial w/Adapters:
Shipping was a little slow, but was all cleared up with a phone call. Adapters and tial fit like a glove even on my one piece crossover on a nearly '86 (at the time). Running it open dump now!
944 Racing Short Shifter:
To be honest, I was disappointed with this item. The shifting was great, but to say the install was a PITA would be an understatement. The shift linkage was the COMPLETE wrong size by about 2 mm and had to be "adjusted" to get it to link up with the shift rod to the shifter in the cabin. I'm running a weltmeister adjustable one now.
American International Racing:
I keep calling these guys back for splitters... I've gone through a few in the past few years. I love the way they look, and they are easy to install (with the bumper cover removed). The best looking splitter for a 951 IMO. Always prompt shipping and a quality product. The destruction of mine was a combination of animals on the back roads around my house (lots of rabbits, raccoons, etc) and a stock suspension. I suspect I'll go through them less often with the Bilsteins now. I wish they'd make one in ABS plastic though....
GT Racing:
I'm running Hank's Slim Rear Bumper, Fenders, Hood, Bumper Cover, and the Stage V header panel for Lindsey's intercooler. The hood fits great and you can retain the stock latch mechanism. I've seen both the fiberglass and carbon hoods from GT and to be honest I'd buy the Fiberglass one every day of the week over the carbon. The carbon one just feels flimsy, is hard to mount, and generally a PITA in my opinion. The fenders we pulled the inner metal from the stock ones and bonded it to the Fiberglass GT ones so we still had an attachment point right in front of the doors. They bolted up with little drama. The header panel looks great from 10ft, but the gaps are not perfect. The fiberglass bumper cover... well this is where I'll admit defeat. I'm honestly not a fan of this piece and should've thought it through before buying it, but I figured if I was ordering everything else, why not? I'll be moving back to a Porsche OEM Poly bumper, the fiberglass one doesn’t take much abuse before it starts to fall apart. Again, all fiberglass parts are really intended for race use, my car looks pretty good from 10ft, but closer and you can start to see where gaps don’t perfectly line up. Doesn’t bother me, but certainly not good for those of you with "show" cars.
Kokeln:
I'm running three things I got second hand which are Kokeln products, their torsion bar delete, solid trans mount, and their intercooler pipes with a tial BOV. I can say the build quality on both is great, the pipes fit like a glove and had the provisions for a banjo bolt and air temp (which I suspect was welded in by the PO of the pipes). They look great etc etc. The rear subframe is significantly lighter than the stock torsion setup and gets rid of most of the bushings in the rear that cause alignment issues. My car with the stock rear was terminally toe'd out, which while fun at AutoX was a bit nerve racking in the snow. Hopefully this will have corrected those issues. I suspect it's about 18-25lbs lighter than the stock one. I cant fully comment on how it drives as I haven’t had the car on the road long enough. Maybe I'll do a comparison with photos of a nearly stock 951 vs mine in a slalom R&T style. The trans mount is nice, I knew my old one was shot, it definitely adds A LOT of gear noise into the cabin, which doesnt really bother me, but on a daily driver I would just go with a stock replacement. Overall, the guys over at Kokeln were very helpful with me understanding certain aspects of their products and installation. A bit pricey IMO, but that's Porsche.
Vitesse Racing:
I originally bought a Stage III full kit from John, but when I started dissecting my car after having it running I realize how much of a project I was in for (more on that later). His customer service is some of the best on the market, I called him with all sorts of questions and small issues and he always did his best to help me. Very prompt with his emails too. The Stage III turbo spools quickly and the power comes on hard. I'm only running it at 10psi right now, but next week we'll be finishing the tune and turning the boost up. I eventually ended up selling off the piggyback, chips and MAF and moved to a Tec3R Setup from Chris White (944 Enhancement)
944 Enhancement - Chris White:
After playing around with my Vitesse Racing Stage III kit, Chris helped me to diagnose some issues I was having. He first rewired my injector harness and things were running a bit more normally, till I drove it for another 20 miles or so and the car died. After some dissection it became quite clear that my wiring harness was on its last legs. This was when I decided to go with Chris' Tec3R wiring harness. I cant say enough positives about Chris and his customer support. I'm sure his wife is sick of seeing me in his driveway. Chris has helped me wiring, fixing small issues, diagnosing problems, tuning, etc etc etc. You name it, he's probably helped me with it. I requested that he do a custom connector of sorts for a "bulkhead" connector, so when I pull the engine I dont need to rewire the whole car. He ended up using a milspec 28pin connector, while beefy there was an odd bit of resistance that ended up coming through it which was playing with the readings on WinTec. I ended up putting the car back on the trailer and taking it back to Chris' place where he rewired the whole harness for me and had me up and running again in an afternoon. I'd certainly recommended ANYONE looking at engine management go talk to Chris, he is a wealth of information and a stand up guy. I also purchased my Zeitronix wideband (with display) from Chris, came exactly like I wanted, and was easy to hook up to the Tec3R!
Paragon Products:
I order a lot of my standard maintenance stuff through these guys, always extremely quick shipping and when they think something is a bit out of normal with an order they call and email me to confirm what I wanted (or that I didnt forget a crucial part). I will continue to order from Paragon, definitely a stand up business.
Rallylights.com:
My old H9 projects, my current 90mm HID's and my 3rd brake light are all from these guys, quick shipping and they are easy to deal with. If you ever want to discuss lighting options and get pointed in the right direction, I'd give these guys a call.
Redline Safeguard Systems:
I have John's roll bar, and thankfully haven’t tested it yet The welds are nice, my harnesses mount up to it fine, as does my camera mount. It serves my purposes until the car becomes even more serious. He also helped me try and figure out the issues with my rear end a year or so ago when I couldnt get my car into alignment. I'll be heading back for another one this year.
Figured I'd bump this with new additions.
Spec:
I felt the need to make a separate post about this, because I figured it would get lost in my build thread, and I felt they needed some recognition on this. A little over a week ago I ordered a Spec lightweight flywheel for my 944 NA engine through Lindsey Racing (who I have a long standing relationship with). It arrived on the 9th of March, unfortunately damaged. Honestly the box looked like UPS had played soccer with it, so I immediately contacted Dave Lindsey about it. Unfortunately for me, it was after business hours Friday, so I had to wait till Monday to hear back from him. After a few exchanged emails, Dave informed me that he had been in contact with Spec and since it was dropped shipped from them he had informed them of the problem and I should contact Justin @ Spec. So, after Dave assured me I'd be taken care of, and that I should give them a call, I rang Spec up. Again, another roadblock in my project... Justin had left the office for the day. So I spoke with one of his associates, who instructed me to take photos of the box and the flywheel and send them to his email.
This is where my real contact with the people at Spec begins. I awoke this morning to an email from Justin, explaining their end of the situation and that I should call him for more details. He was nothing short of helpful, and apologized profusely for the situation (despite it really not being their fault). He arranged with the UPS claims department for someone to come pick the box up from me and go through the proper channels (and never ending paperwork) to get the situation taken care of. The bad news, as if there wasn’t enough already, it was going to take UPS ~2 weeks to take care of the claim. Uhhhgg. I of course, still had the option of ordering another flywheel and tying up more cash in aluminum market, which to be honest, I didn’t want to do. I informed Justin that he had been more than helpful and I really appreciated with how painless they made a less than ideal situation for me, thanked him for the help and said I'd just wait it out with UPS. That is usually where this type of claim ends, even with specialized companies like Spec, I was extremely happy with their level of commitment to solving the problem.
To my complete surprise about an hour later my phone rang, it was Justin from Spec. He informed me that he had talked it over with the proper people in the company and they were sending me a new flywheel, on their dime so I could get my project done. Ecstatic does not even begin to describe. The flywheel (though damaged thanks to UPS) was incredible quality, and at 5 3/4 lbs should be an absolute blast with a nice cam and individual throttle bodies. I've also had a Spec 3 clutch in my 944 Turbo which made close to 400whp with zero issues in the clutch department.
Nothing but the best from Spec in my dealings with them, honestly some of the best customer service I've encountered.
Racer's Edge:
Bought some wheel spacers from Karl to experiment with optimum fitments on my BSA's. I ordered them, and he called me a couple hours later to let me know that a few of them had scratches on them, and that the price had changed a few dollars per spacer. Certainly looking out for his customers! As they are just wheel spacers I didnt care, but I did appreciate the phone call. I'm considering ordering his rear sway mounts for my m030 bar. Definitely another company I would do business with again though.
CDOC
Ordered my gold heatshield foil from them, quick shipping, quick email notification, easy to use website. No real human contact, but everything went smoothly.
Overall I'm very pleased with the people I've dealt with over the past few years, and would recommended most of them to my fellow Rennlister's. This isnt everyone, but I havent put enough miles on my car or I didnt deal with the other companies directly enough to comment.
Rennspeed Racing
I started off with Dan (sharky47)'s stainless exhaust studs. I had asked him if he was planning on making them with allen keys in the ends of them as quite frankly, the torx Saturn studs suck. He tooled up a set and sent them my way. Shipping was prompt and he was very very easy to work with. Especially considering my time tables (limited). The studs arrived, with each one individually packed in plastic 3 days later. (Texas to NY) I begal installing them and they went in without an issue. Well, this is where I decided to torture test one of Dan's exhaust studs. I pulled out a pair of vice grips and one of my cheap hardened allen keys and went to town on the exhaust stud. While the stud never failed, nor did the allen cut in the end of the stud strip, I absolutely destroyed my allen key.
Needless to say I dont think any of you will be destroying Dan's exhaust studs anytime soon. My only complaint is the odd size of the Allen, it's not a standard (for these cars) metric size. Dan has said he felt 3mm didnt leave enough sidewall and 2.5mm was to small. Which after using these I can completely understand, and agree with. Big thumbs up to Rennspeed Racing, I plan on using his products again, and will be trying out his 16v Valve cover hardware soon.
Happy Boosting
After nearly two years of my car being put together, torn apart, put back together, and so on a and so forth. It's finally on the road. I figured I'd take this opportunity to put some vendor reviews in writing so you can all learn from my experiences.
Lindsey Racing:
Mike and Dave were EXTREMELY helpful, although a few times I did receive the wrong item. I called them back and it was quickly rectified. I'm running their fuel rail/lines, Manual Boost Controller, Mild steel exhaust, and Stage V intercooler. I had a set of their intercooler pipes and I've ordered misc. maintenance stuff from them too.
Fuel Rail:
It's a nice piece and well made, however my biggest gripe about it is the anodizing. I've seen 3 others than I can recall in recent memory and not a single one looks good. The coloring on mine over the past 2 years has becoming splotchy and faded and generally looks bad. The lines, regulator, and associated hardware fit well and work great. You NEED to remember to use a second set of injector seals for the injectors to sit on in the manifold though, or you WILL leak.
Manual Boost controller:
Easy to use, easy to setup, works fine in single or dual mode. Nice thick high temp vac lines that come with it.
3inch Mild Steel Exhaust:
Great universal exhaust, however you can tell it's universal as I had to do some hammering on exhaust mounts to get them to line up. Sounds awesome with my Borla XR1.
Stage V intercooler:
I cant comment on it, as I dont have any dyno runs to back up gains (yet). It does look mean though in that nose panel
SpeedForce Racing:
I've got Tim's MAP intake Pipe, along with a Tial wastegate and his adapters.
MAP Intake Pipe:
Nice piece, but certainly overpriced. Quality welds and finish.
Tial w/Adapters:
Shipping was a little slow, but was all cleared up with a phone call. Adapters and tial fit like a glove even on my one piece crossover on a nearly '86 (at the time). Running it open dump now!
944 Racing Short Shifter:
To be honest, I was disappointed with this item. The shifting was great, but to say the install was a PITA would be an understatement. The shift linkage was the COMPLETE wrong size by about 2 mm and had to be "adjusted" to get it to link up with the shift rod to the shifter in the cabin. I'm running a weltmeister adjustable one now.
American International Racing:
I keep calling these guys back for splitters... I've gone through a few in the past few years. I love the way they look, and they are easy to install (with the bumper cover removed). The best looking splitter for a 951 IMO. Always prompt shipping and a quality product. The destruction of mine was a combination of animals on the back roads around my house (lots of rabbits, raccoons, etc) and a stock suspension. I suspect I'll go through them less often with the Bilsteins now. I wish they'd make one in ABS plastic though....
GT Racing:
I'm running Hank's Slim Rear Bumper, Fenders, Hood, Bumper Cover, and the Stage V header panel for Lindsey's intercooler. The hood fits great and you can retain the stock latch mechanism. I've seen both the fiberglass and carbon hoods from GT and to be honest I'd buy the Fiberglass one every day of the week over the carbon. The carbon one just feels flimsy, is hard to mount, and generally a PITA in my opinion. The fenders we pulled the inner metal from the stock ones and bonded it to the Fiberglass GT ones so we still had an attachment point right in front of the doors. They bolted up with little drama. The header panel looks great from 10ft, but the gaps are not perfect. The fiberglass bumper cover... well this is where I'll admit defeat. I'm honestly not a fan of this piece and should've thought it through before buying it, but I figured if I was ordering everything else, why not? I'll be moving back to a Porsche OEM Poly bumper, the fiberglass one doesn’t take much abuse before it starts to fall apart. Again, all fiberglass parts are really intended for race use, my car looks pretty good from 10ft, but closer and you can start to see where gaps don’t perfectly line up. Doesn’t bother me, but certainly not good for those of you with "show" cars.
Kokeln:
I'm running three things I got second hand which are Kokeln products, their torsion bar delete, solid trans mount, and their intercooler pipes with a tial BOV. I can say the build quality on both is great, the pipes fit like a glove and had the provisions for a banjo bolt and air temp (which I suspect was welded in by the PO of the pipes). They look great etc etc. The rear subframe is significantly lighter than the stock torsion setup and gets rid of most of the bushings in the rear that cause alignment issues. My car with the stock rear was terminally toe'd out, which while fun at AutoX was a bit nerve racking in the snow. Hopefully this will have corrected those issues. I suspect it's about 18-25lbs lighter than the stock one. I cant fully comment on how it drives as I haven’t had the car on the road long enough. Maybe I'll do a comparison with photos of a nearly stock 951 vs mine in a slalom R&T style. The trans mount is nice, I knew my old one was shot, it definitely adds A LOT of gear noise into the cabin, which doesnt really bother me, but on a daily driver I would just go with a stock replacement. Overall, the guys over at Kokeln were very helpful with me understanding certain aspects of their products and installation. A bit pricey IMO, but that's Porsche.
Vitesse Racing:
I originally bought a Stage III full kit from John, but when I started dissecting my car after having it running I realize how much of a project I was in for (more on that later). His customer service is some of the best on the market, I called him with all sorts of questions and small issues and he always did his best to help me. Very prompt with his emails too. The Stage III turbo spools quickly and the power comes on hard. I'm only running it at 10psi right now, but next week we'll be finishing the tune and turning the boost up. I eventually ended up selling off the piggyback, chips and MAF and moved to a Tec3R Setup from Chris White (944 Enhancement)
944 Enhancement - Chris White:
After playing around with my Vitesse Racing Stage III kit, Chris helped me to diagnose some issues I was having. He first rewired my injector harness and things were running a bit more normally, till I drove it for another 20 miles or so and the car died. After some dissection it became quite clear that my wiring harness was on its last legs. This was when I decided to go with Chris' Tec3R wiring harness. I cant say enough positives about Chris and his customer support. I'm sure his wife is sick of seeing me in his driveway. Chris has helped me wiring, fixing small issues, diagnosing problems, tuning, etc etc etc. You name it, he's probably helped me with it. I requested that he do a custom connector of sorts for a "bulkhead" connector, so when I pull the engine I dont need to rewire the whole car. He ended up using a milspec 28pin connector, while beefy there was an odd bit of resistance that ended up coming through it which was playing with the readings on WinTec. I ended up putting the car back on the trailer and taking it back to Chris' place where he rewired the whole harness for me and had me up and running again in an afternoon. I'd certainly recommended ANYONE looking at engine management go talk to Chris, he is a wealth of information and a stand up guy. I also purchased my Zeitronix wideband (with display) from Chris, came exactly like I wanted, and was easy to hook up to the Tec3R!
Paragon Products:
I order a lot of my standard maintenance stuff through these guys, always extremely quick shipping and when they think something is a bit out of normal with an order they call and email me to confirm what I wanted (or that I didnt forget a crucial part). I will continue to order from Paragon, definitely a stand up business.
Rallylights.com:
My old H9 projects, my current 90mm HID's and my 3rd brake light are all from these guys, quick shipping and they are easy to deal with. If you ever want to discuss lighting options and get pointed in the right direction, I'd give these guys a call.
Redline Safeguard Systems:
I have John's roll bar, and thankfully haven’t tested it yet
The welds are nice, my harnesses mount up to it fine, as does my camera mount. It serves my purposes until the car becomes even more serious. He also helped me try and figure out the issues with my rear end a year or so ago when I couldnt get my car into alignment. I'll be heading back for another one this year.Figured I'd bump this with new additions.
Spec:
I felt the need to make a separate post about this, because I figured it would get lost in my build thread, and I felt they needed some recognition on this. A little over a week ago I ordered a Spec lightweight flywheel for my 944 NA engine through Lindsey Racing (who I have a long standing relationship with). It arrived on the 9th of March, unfortunately damaged. Honestly the box looked like UPS had played soccer with it, so I immediately contacted Dave Lindsey about it. Unfortunately for me, it was after business hours Friday, so I had to wait till Monday to hear back from him. After a few exchanged emails, Dave informed me that he had been in contact with Spec and since it was dropped shipped from them he had informed them of the problem and I should contact Justin @ Spec. So, after Dave assured me I'd be taken care of, and that I should give them a call, I rang Spec up. Again, another roadblock in my project... Justin had left the office for the day. So I spoke with one of his associates, who instructed me to take photos of the box and the flywheel and send them to his email.
This is where my real contact with the people at Spec begins. I awoke this morning to an email from Justin, explaining their end of the situation and that I should call him for more details. He was nothing short of helpful, and apologized profusely for the situation (despite it really not being their fault). He arranged with the UPS claims department for someone to come pick the box up from me and go through the proper channels (and never ending paperwork) to get the situation taken care of. The bad news, as if there wasn’t enough already, it was going to take UPS ~2 weeks to take care of the claim. Uhhhgg. I of course, still had the option of ordering another flywheel and tying up more cash in aluminum market, which to be honest, I didn’t want to do. I informed Justin that he had been more than helpful and I really appreciated with how painless they made a less than ideal situation for me, thanked him for the help and said I'd just wait it out with UPS. That is usually where this type of claim ends, even with specialized companies like Spec, I was extremely happy with their level of commitment to solving the problem.
To my complete surprise about an hour later my phone rang, it was Justin from Spec. He informed me that he had talked it over with the proper people in the company and they were sending me a new flywheel, on their dime so I could get my project done. Ecstatic does not even begin to describe. The flywheel (though damaged thanks to UPS) was incredible quality, and at 5 3/4 lbs should be an absolute blast with a nice cam and individual throttle bodies. I've also had a Spec 3 clutch in my 944 Turbo which made close to 400whp with zero issues in the clutch department.
Nothing but the best from Spec in my dealings with them, honestly some of the best customer service I've encountered.
Racer's Edge:
Bought some wheel spacers from Karl to experiment with optimum fitments on my BSA's. I ordered them, and he called me a couple hours later to let me know that a few of them had scratches on them, and that the price had changed a few dollars per spacer. Certainly looking out for his customers! As they are just wheel spacers I didnt care, but I did appreciate the phone call. I'm considering ordering his rear sway mounts for my m030 bar. Definitely another company I would do business with again though.
CDOC
Ordered my gold heatshield foil from them, quick shipping, quick email notification, easy to use website. No real human contact, but everything went smoothly.
Overall I'm very pleased with the people I've dealt with over the past few years, and would recommended most of them to my fellow Rennlister's. This isnt everyone, but I havent put enough miles on my car or I didnt deal with the other companies directly enough to comment.
Rennspeed Racing
I started off with Dan (sharky47)'s stainless exhaust studs. I had asked him if he was planning on making them with allen keys in the ends of them as quite frankly, the torx Saturn studs suck. He tooled up a set and sent them my way. Shipping was prompt and he was very very easy to work with. Especially considering my time tables (limited). The studs arrived, with each one individually packed in plastic 3 days later. (Texas to NY) I begal installing them and they went in without an issue. Well, this is where I decided to torture test one of Dan's exhaust studs. I pulled out a pair of vice grips and one of my cheap hardened allen keys and went to town on the exhaust stud. While the stud never failed, nor did the allen cut in the end of the stud strip, I absolutely destroyed my allen key.
Needless to say I dont think any of you will be destroying Dan's exhaust studs anytime soon. My only complaint is the odd size of the Allen, it's not a standard (for these cars) metric size. Dan has said he felt 3mm didnt leave enough sidewall and 2.5mm was to small. Which after using these I can completely understand, and agree with. Big thumbs up to Rennspeed Racing, I plan on using his products again, and will be trying out his 16v Valve cover hardware soon.
Happy Boosting
