MNC5

This is very long...

Welcom to MY WCC rant I am only offering this as informational to those considering the risks associated with modifying a car..
The car is a 2000 C5 that I bought from Tony R. (Da Kind) on the Corvetteforum. It was advertised on the forum and I snapped it up. He (Tony) is just as disappointed with the problems and had no idea that the car had these problems. I feel Tony is a stand up guy and had Zero intentions of handing me these problems. Also Understand that the motor was taken apart at the request of Craig in his conversations with Doug @ DRM. And I don't want to drag DRM into this. DRM has done a great job delivering on and standing behind their work. Well read on.. its very long.. I edited a few words from the orginal email for clarity..

My email to Craig @WCC


Anyway, I purchased a 2000 Corvette from Tony R. early this summer. After talking with him about the car at his suggestion I called and talked to you about the car and modifications your company performed to this vehicle. Your comments were very positive about both Tony and the Car. Base on both the reputation of West Coast Corvettes and your personal recommendations;

1. The car would be a low 12 or high 11 second car without nitrous.
2. With a 150 shot the car had possible 10's in it.
3. Your dyno's showed cars with similar mods producing 370 plus rwhp
4. Tony was very particular about this car and how it was taken care of.
5. That you would have considered buying the car for the price I was paying.

Your comments were very influential in my deciding to purchase this vehicle.

Prior to shipping the car I talked with Todd an employee of WCC's. I asked him about the benefits of installing a LS6 intake prior to the car getting shipped to Minnesota. He said that I shouldn't expect to much of a gain but it would hurt the performance any. I opted to have it installed by your company. After receiving excellent customer service from Todd of WCC the car showed up here in Minnesota.
And that's where things started coming apart.. Driving the car it felt fast but not much faster than what I thought a stock corvette would be. I called and talked to Todd who almost quoted the owners earlier comments. The car should be making 370 plus rwhp and have X amount of 1/4 potential.

Well, after driving the car less than 300 miles I thought this just doesn't feel right. I called and made an appointment to have the car run on a dyno. Hoping for at least 370rwhp I was sadly disappointed with a first pull of 323rwhp. The car was running rich and had a MAFT that had been installed by WCC. We turned a dial and ended up with a perfect Air/Fuel ratio but only 327rwhp. I called Tony (Original Owner) and informed him of my results. Neither of us was impressed, and we agreed that I should follow up with WCC on Monday. Todd received a call from me that Monday and he handled it very well in my opinion. His advice was to take it to the track and see how it performed. I agreed as I could easily discount the low RWHP #'s if the car produced the expected ET's and trap speed. The car disappointed by turning 13.2's @ 106's with 2.0 sixty foot times. A call was placed to WCC's and Todd turned me over to a mechanic. Now I was told that Tony bought the headers from another vendor (this is not true according to Tony) and that they weren't matched to the motor package and that the LS6 intake I had installed added to the HP loss. Wow, now it seemed I was tuned into the BS channel at WCC. I called back a few times and was met with a similar song and dance. I thought it was best to let it rest as I was getting very agitated with the lack of support.

Looking for a solution to the missing horse power problem I ended up at DRM in Rockford, MN. I asked them to check the motor for problems, their response was the car runs fine just doesn't make any horse power. Their dyno #'s were very close to the other dyno operators for the car. After discussing my options in having the motor fixed by DRM I decided this would mess up the "WCC motor package" and WCC would then blame DRM for any problems. So I had them yank the motor out so I could deal with it when my schedule permitted. I elected to have DRM install a new motor and have been very happy with the results. But you had a couple of conversations with Doug @ DRM that I don't know the scope of and after talking to you the first time Doug called me and asked if he could pull a head off and check for problems associated with the HP loss. I asked who was paying and he informed me that you offered to pay for the R&R of the damaged cam, provide a new cam and R&R of the head. I agreed and asked him to flow the head while it was off the car. The results from the flow bench were disappointing. Stock LS6 heads out flowed yours by a large margin. Not knowing who to trust as Doug had talked to you and had perhaps had an existing relationship with you I decided to remove the head and cam for testing by an unbiased shop. The results were the same as DRM's... Was it just the poor flowing heads and improperly installed cam that were the cause? Nope..

Again I opted to leave the WCC subject alone for a time because it was raising my blood pressure. DRM proceeded to build the new motor for the car and completed it on time and as promised. I had asked DRM for written assurances regarding RWHP prior to deciding to proceed because of the problems with the WCC mods on this car. DRM installed the motor and put the car on the dyno only to find the power wasn't there. After much time spent by DRM I asked to have the motor engine dyno'ed. DRM pulled the motor and had TPIS dyno the motor. The motor performed as expected and should have been putting down more to the wheels. So I asked and paid for an inspection of the drive line. No drive line problems discovered. I then asked Doug to check the exhaust as the car didn't seem as loud as one of his with the same exhaust run on the dyno prior to mine. Guess what!! The cat's were melted... So I called Tony (Original Owner) and asked who did the tuning on the Car, his response WCC did all the work. Any he went on to say that he waited for one specific mechanic to do the work because of his reputation as being the best mechanic. It seems that the MAFT was a tuning band aid to make the car richer and that it was probably run to lean and melted the cats.

So I called and talked to the big guy (Greg) who told me to punt.. He explained his reasons for not standing behind WCC's work to a 2nd party. I explained that the car was driven less than 500 miles after receiving it and Tony had only put on a couple of thousand miles after it was modified. After receiving some more less than fair comments I informed you that I wasn't willing to except your view and I would get back to you after our working season had come to a close. Well construction has slowed in Minnesota because of the weather and I now have time to deal with this issue.

My suggested Resolutions

1. Pay for 1 of 2 dyno sessions $ 90.00
2. Reimburse me for the money Tony spend having the heads ported.
3. Pay $ 1,000 for removal of the motor.
4. Pay for the new cat's and labor associated with them being melted. $ 1000
5. Pay for the Labor to remove and install the camshaft and head. $500

It is my hope that you take this seriously.

Dennis


Here is WCC reply...

I am sorry for your disappointment but we have dynoed over 20 of our head and cam cars and got 360-375 RWHP. I have never had a car produce those low numbers. Obviously there were other problems with the car. We cannot help the fact that you are not local and took it somewhere to have it fixed on your own. (I did this only after talking to the folks @WCC's) We would have been happy to look at it and I am sure we could have found the reason for the low performance without going to extreme measures such as pulling the motor and the heads. (This was never offered to me) It sounds to me like whoever is working on the car does not know how to diagnose these types of problems. Pull the motor out? Pull the heads & replace the cam with no improvement? This sounds outrageous. After all of this work, it was bad cats? Unbelievable! I could never charge a customer to perform all of these things and not fix the problem. It sounds like your claim needs to be with someone else. I sent a cam to DRM at no charge which now sounds like I sent one that did not need to be replaced. (the cam was damaged due to improper installation I'll post some photos for all to see later)

Also, the law in California is "AS IS" on used cars. So you have no recourse with Tony. He sold you the car way below market. Why would you even try to go after him? He did not charge you extra for these mods. Our service warranty is with the original purchaser which really does not even apply in this case as it turns out the problem was with the cats.

Craig Chapman

(The problem with the cats was just one of the problems caused by WCC's) I have since put this motor in my 2002 Yukon and it only made 50rwhp more that the stock 5.3..

Terry Burger

iTrader: (4)

WCC is some what of a joke. Should have gone to MMS. <img src="gr_images/icons/wink.gif" border="0">

MNC5

I agree WCC is a joke, but I bought the car with the mods done by the previous there.

I had DRM install a stroker 427 and it runs pretty strong. It runs high 10's N/A and will be running low 9's this summer on the juice.

P.S. My C5 will be in February Car & Driver.. It's only a 1/8 page or so on it but I think its cool..

faster67

Sorry to say it but you're probably gonna be SOL. I would ask this first, why was the car taken to WCC in the first place? Was there reason to believe the car was weak initially and that is why the heads/cam swap was done while Tony owned it? When 50rwhp is missing, it's a pretty drastic thing. About the exaust problem, cats just don't usually melt for no reason. At one time or another there was some sort of whacked out fuel/air mixture problem. In the instances where I've seen cats melt, it was because the car was way too rich. The unburnt fuel hitting a lit cat will make it glow cherry red and melt all the catalyst. I wish you the best of luck but I'd say there is pretty much no chance of getting cash out of WCC. They sent a free cam so there's not much you can do about that. Their heads must just suck and there's not much you can do about that either. Good luck!

-Bernie

MNC5

Thanks for the support guys. The reason for the cam replacement was it was visably damaged. It was gouged pretty badly.

As for the heads, yep they are F'ed up. WWC claims that there head porter does Nascar heads for some of the top teams. I find that hard to belive, these things are so over cut in the wrong area's a child could have done better.

I'll post some head flow #'s and cam spec's later for everyones enjoyment.

Dennis

Ebbsnflows

iTrader: (15)

Man...that's unfortunate how this worked out for you. I always hate to hear horror stories like that. Too bad, the article in Car n Driver can't include some info regarding this nightmare. <img src="gr_grin.gif" border="0"> <img src="gr_grin.gif" border="0"> That would light a fire under their (WCC's) A$$es.

Good luck with the new setup. It sounds like you got strong runner now. <img src="gr_grin.gif" border="0">

Reckless

iTrader: (9)

I think before doing anything else, I would've dynoed the car with the exhaust open to eliminate the exhaust as a problem. This takes less than 1/2 hour on the dyno and may have saved some headaches. The folks at DRM should've had the sense to try that IMO.

So are you saying that the CATs were the issue, or was the engine still under-powered?

BIGBOS

Those are really low #'s

flyin red TA

It seems like those dyno #s are on par with a stock 98-00 LS1 with a B1 or T1.

What are the chances that those might even be stock heads?

And what hp did the motor make after the cats were fixed?