HELLO MY NAME IS DAVE MYERS I AM THE V.P. OF OPERATIONS AT YANK PERFORMANCE NOW IN RENO. I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU A SHORT BACKROUND OF WHO I AM AND WHERE I CAME FROM AND WHERE YANK IS GOING. I HAVE BEEN IN THE CONVERTER INDUSTRY SINCE 1987 MOST OF THAT TIME WAS SPENT ENGINEERING AND SETTING UP EQUIPMENT TO REBUILD AND TEST TORQUE CONVERTERS. MY FAMILY AND I STARTED THE BUISNESS AND IN THAT TIME WE SET UP OVER 450 SHOPS. MOST OF THEM WHERE AFTERMARKET PLANTS LIKE TCI AUTOMOTIVE WHO I SOLD AND SETUP EQUIPMENT AT YEARS AGO. I ALSO HAVE A VERY CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CONVERTER ENGINEERS AT FORD,GM,CHRYSLER THEY ALSO USE OUR EQUIPMENT IN THERE TESTING LABS FOR NEW CONVERTERS. THESE CLOSE FRIENDS THAT I HAVE MADE AND MANY OTHERS OVER THE YEARS IN THE CONVERTER INDUSTRY WILL INSHURE THAT WE ARE KEEPING UP WITH THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY SO YOU ARE CUSTOMER CAN GET THE BEST CONVERTER POSSIBLE. I HAVE ONLY READ YOUR FORUM FOR A SHORT TIME BUT ONE THING THAT I NOTICE IS LOTS OF TALK ABOUT PRICE. ONE THING I CAN TELL YOU IS THAT WE AT YANK ARE GOING TO BUILD THE HIGHEST QUALITY CONVERTERS THAT WE CAN AND GIVE YOU THE LEVEL OF CUSTOMER SERVICE ABOVE ALL,WHICH YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GETTING IN THE PAST. YANK IS NOT A MASS CONVERTER BUILDER LIKE TCI AND OTHERS WE WILL NEVER BE THAT IS WHY OUR PRICES WILL ALWAYS REMAIN HIGHER QUALITY DOES NOT COME CHEAP. WHEN YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A CUSTOMBUILT MOTOR YOU DO NOT GO AND BUY ONE FROM JASPER OR RECON YOU GO TO A SPECIALIZED BUILDER. IT MAY LOOK LIKE YOU ARE GETTING THE SAME UPFRONT FOR LESS MONEY BUT IT WILL COST YOU MORE IN THE END. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CALL OR E-MAIL ME ANYTIME I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR ANY SUGGESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE OR THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE CHANGED. I LOOK FORWARD TO POSTING ON YOUR FORUM AND HELPING YOU WITH ALL OF YOUR CONVERTER NEEDS.

DAVE MYERS
dave@converter.cc

 

What is Mikes position in the organization now that you are on board?
Exactly what other changes have been made to the orginization.
You speak about pricing but IMHO the biggest holdback in the past with Yank has been there lack of communication with the public, both before and after the sale and poor service in the event of issues.
I'm sorry if i seem negative. I only ask these questions because i will be looking for a new converter this winter and the only reason i was staying away from yank are the above issues. In my opinion Yank makes the best it just wasn't worth the BS to get one.
P.S. ditch the caps in the furure unless you want to yell at someone

 

mike was the owner, now he will be the kickback owner and let dave run things :-)

 

First let me say thanks for the reminder on the caps thing i sometimes forget all of that computer lingo. I guess thats why i build converters.
Mike is the president of yank still and is going to have more time now to work on new products and working with customers. Before when he was in alma he did not have all of the mfg help that he needed we have that now in reno and that is why most of the customer issues did not get tacking care of in a timely manner.
We are also working on a new website which will be much more user friendly with a whole new line up of converters to offer people at the first of the year.

This is why i would like to hear from any of you that might have suggestions on what you would like to see on it.

Yank will be running all of it's converters on a dyno before they are shipped from the factory here in reno.We are hoping by early in February. Also with my manufacturing backround we are now producing most of our own custom pieces on cnc equipment to our specs.We hope that in doing this we can give you the highest quality possiblle.

 

Welcome Dave

 

Hi Dave, glad you registered to the board.

The suggestion I had made to Mike about the website was that I think you guys need to streamline the converter list down to about 7-8 models. I think that some of the 3500-4000 models are a wee bit confusing. I would maybe just have a "Enquire for custom converter solutions HERE" section.

Thanks again for the recent service, I'll hopefully be out once or twice more with the car and be able to run some 9's with my Yank TP for 400 trans.

 

Welcome to the board Dave.

In your post you speak of Yank quality and that quality will always cost more. When I had my failed Yank converter cut open some the parts consisted of stock (S10) OEM pieces. When I bought the high quality custom (read as reason for high price) Yank converter I expected that the parts were of the best and highest quality.

What is Yanks plan for improving it’s well known poor customer service and in my opinion suspect quality issues?

I just saw your 2nd post speaking about “high quality and custom parts” I was under the impression that Yank was already manufacturing these parts.

Good luck in your new position. I hope you can make a positive difference at Yank.

John

 

John thanks for the welcome

First let me start off buy saying that i have cut open many converters from all of the converter builders that you see on this forum and everyone of them has certain parts in them that are stock oem in them as you mention in your post. No converter builder is going to produce the pump or turbine of a converter from scratch the cost would be more than it would be worth.

That is why all of us building converters in the industry start out with oem cores. You also asked about customer service the first thing that we can do is get back to people asap on any issues they have or questions in general.
The next is like i mentioned in my other post we are going to dyno test all of our converters before they ship to help catch any errors if there are such as defective bearings or a bad lockup clutch.Every converter mfg has quality issues we can not control if a part is going to fail.Yank has always had it's own parts made to certain specs but not all of those were made in house before. It may also look like we have more warranty issues than some of the others but we also offer a two year warranty and some of the others only offer a 90 day warranty so you dont here about the the issues after the 90day period where we have to deal with it for two years.

 

I havn't read or seen any real proof of that. The only thing that say a Yank SS3600 verter has over the very popular TCI SSF3500 is that the 21 blade stator makes it feel "tighter" where the TCI 3500 would feel "looser". But from what I have read both verters will perform comparible numbers at the track and the longevity should be on par as well. So is a little "looseness" worth the hundreds I would save by buying a TCI converter? I would have to say yes.

The PT4400 has a huge reputation for being a monster performer so if I ever get to the point where I need that much stall then I will definately consider a Yank. But for a 3000-3500 street/strip stall I just can't see how Yank is worth that much more money.

But good luck with the job and I hope you can get Yank back on track with customer service.

 

Hi Dave,
It's good to have you on board. I'm sure that you'll get things going in the right direction with the quality and the customer service. If you guys come to PRI, be sure to stop by and say hi. Tell Corky hi for me.
Kevin

 

Isn’t the pump and turbine the main parts that determine the stall RPM of the converter?

So Yank just buys pumps and turbines from a company like Sonnax and just mixes and matches them to come up with an estimated stall RPM based on known fluid flow characteristics, engine torque and car weight?

If you buy the pumps and turbines, and probably the bearings, and cover/housing, and hub from a supplier what converter parts are you all custom making on the CNC equipment? How does that improve the quality of the product?

What is “custom” about a Yank converter?

John

 

I totally agree. What makes the difference is how the problems are handled.

I am not so sure I agree with that. I feel sure that most people on this forum speak up when they have an equipment problem especially if the vendor does not treat them fairly.

The warranty (2 years or 90 days) is only as good as the company that does or does not stand behind it.

John

 

Yank and TCI were the two brands my selection process
narrowed down to. Yank had the choices, TCI had the
pricing and at the time TCI was the "unknown" and Yank
the "superstar" in the LS1 community. But because TCI
happend to have a converter that was right in line with
what I wanted, and the price was such that the TCI
installed was about the same as the Yank in a box,
TCI got my buy.

Now, I'm what you might call a "quality aware" person.
I know some stuff about reliability (in a different field)
and failures and manufacturing. It's a truism that
volume drives down failure rates, provided you learn
and correct. Statistically, odds are that somebody
other than you will be the "learning experience".

That's one thing I considered, in going with the
TCI over the Yank SS3600. The Streetfighter is a
big-volume product while at the time the SS3600
was brand new. I put my trust in the manufacturing
as I saw it, over the "technology".

At any rate, all this anecdote is by way of saying
that the argument about "you get what you pay
for", doesn't wash with me in a product quality /
reliability sense. Not when the product price is
reflecting hand labor vs production line, more than
materials. You can't de-embed the production style
difference from the quality picture, it -is- the
quality picture.

I hope the move to Reno puts Yank on a better cost,
volume and quality basis so that the converters are
more affordable -and- totally reliable. Because I
choose, not to choose. Dig it?

Hope this helps you, and wish you the best; make
me believe, next time I shop around.

 

John

We could go on about the internals of a torque converter all day.The bottom line is that we do not buy any billet covers from sonnax and we make all of them here all of our splines are built buy us to our specs out of higher grades of alloy steel and Heat treated in california to my specs. I have also recently got sent to me converters from other mfg who i won't name at this time that have no billet front cover used parts in them and have 40 grams of weight straped to it to balance a 10 in converter.The high amount of weight on the converter is a bandaid for the fact that the converter has almoust .030 tir on the impeller hub. Any time you would like me to post pictures of the inside of these converters and ours let me know i would be a happy to they are not the same. I would reject any converter that came of my welding machine with more than .005 tir on the impeller hub i know the other one does not.

I did not want this to turn into a debate i just wanted everyonre on this forum to know that they are not apples to apples. If you are happy with the converter you are using now that is great. But correct me if i am wrong but do you still have the yank converter in your car or no?

 

At the request of JNorris, I am deleting my original post.

ADMIN

 

Thanks for the recent excellent overnight rebuild service on my Yank 3000 Dave - I believe I talked to you on the phone.

Much appreciated and keep up the good work !

Rob (Bad30th)

 

Dave – No I do not have a Yank converter in my car.
My intention was not to enter into a debate with you either. I was just asking some simple questions that I thought would benefit the forum. Yank rarely gets on this forum and I thought it would be nice for you guys to highlight your selling points. I thought they were valid and insightful questions. My bad if my questions offended you or were out of place.

One thing that does confuse me is why are you trying to drag in and making
reference some other company in this post? Seems a little off topic to me.
My questions were not directed to or were about this mystery company whose converter you all cut open. This is an informative post about Yank not
company "X".


PSJ – My issues with Yank are water under the bridge and have long since been forgotten. I have moved on, as I do not live in the past. No ware in this post have I bashed Yank nor was it my intention to do so.
My questions stem from the curiosity of converter construction. An informed buyer is a smarted buyer.

John

 

Dave, thanks for the fast reply and the great answer. Will you be the publics contact with yank in the future?
Jimmyblue. I agree completely with your manufacturing quality analysis. I think for most people with "lightly" modded cars the SSF3500 is almost to good to be true. I love mine. BUT it is not a custom converter that is tuned in for my car. And there is no way i can lock it up at WOT at the track. I have no problem with the idea of dropping a grand on the right converter.
JNORRIS i think everyone is aware of yanks "sorted" past, but lets give this a chance. Time will tell it always does It appears to me they have made major changes. The kind of money that has been slung around tells me they are trying to upgrade in there weak area's IMHO

 

I have called Yank and I have e-mailed them and I have had zero problems. E-mail was returned the next day and the phone was answered the first time I called.
I have not yet purchased a converter, so I can't comment on the actual service, but like I said, I didn't have any trouble getting in touch with them.

Dave, my advice on the site would be to list all of the converters somewhere. I like being able to check the specs and see what it is that I am going to buy. Right now it is really confusing because the converter that was recommended to me is not listed on the site. The new product listing is very helpful.
Good luck!

 

Dave at Yank, I sent you a Private Message. Thanks