My worst experience dealing with anyone in the performance world.
THANKS, ZZP
My wife bought me a turbo kit from ZZP on Black Friday for a Christmas present and I was soon to learn this was the biggest mistake I would ever make dealing with an aftermarket company.
I had a good friend do the install who is an ASE Master tech and has done all my work for the last 20+ years. He is very detailed and always goes beyond what I would call a clean install. He has built multiple cars for me and my family and has built top fuel dragsters. I’m not saying he is the best mechanic on this planet but he is damn good.
Holly Hell this thing is fun now!! Can’t really get into it due to it being cold and having an old Nt555R tire on the back. Ordered new rims and tires as soon as I got home from my mechanics' house. A few days later less than 100 miles driving home with my wife cruising in 5th gear smoke starts coming up from her side. Motor is destroyed, gone, can’t use anything even the cams.
I promised my wife we would be going to Slingshots in the Smokies (when it was still in May) so I called Kyle told him what happened and told him I needed a motor and fast!
I got a longblock so I could simply swap it in. This was the biggest piece of junk! Upon 1st inspection there is quite a bit of blasting material in the head, I am guessing they didn’t hot tank it afterwards??? Kyle told me it would be fine and just use a shop Vac. I should have returned it at this point if I knew what was coming.
Motor gets installed and it sounds like a diesel motor and just doesn’t sound right. Going back and forth and being told to swap this part out with this and that I looked for a company that was closer to me. I found DDMWorks. I talked to Dave and towed the Slingshot down. Plugged up the laptop and found the tune was complete garbage, timing was all over the place. Ended up leaving it with DDMWorks and having it retuned.
About 500 miles in timing chain access plug falls out spitting oil all over the place, got a tow and ordered a replacement.
Two weeks later the timing chain tensioner almost falls completely out, another tow and its misfiring now. Kyle at this point isn't being much help so I called Dave and he ended up coming to my house on a Sunday to look at it and we both agreed it needed to go back to his shop.
Having DDMWorks retime the Slingshot I was informed that no GM timing components were used even the lifters, I guess this could be my fault for not looking at the invoice but spending this much on a forged motor I didn’t think to ask. I got the invoice and had my wife pay it to get things moving, never looked at it other than the price. DDMWorks replaced everything with GM parts. We noticed that one of the timing guides was missing a bolt so the oil pan was pulled to look for it. No luck they just didn’t put it in (weight savings I guess). There was crazy slack in my “new timing chain” and nothing was torqued down, this might be why bolts were falling off.
Picking up my slingshot I was told about having some piston clearance issues and would need to be looked at but I would be able to go to Maggie Valley and enjoy Slingshots in the Smokies. Well while there going downhill in vacuum, I started to make a little white smoke. Shortly after it looked like a 3am forest fire behind me. Turned around and headed back to the fairgrounds. In less than 20 miles I lost a ¼ quart of oil. Kyle asked me to bring it by the tent and when he was looking it over, he noticed my rear ZZP exhaust was just kind of hanging there due to the bolt sheering off, oh yea I had to get this exhaust due to the one that comes with the kit breaking the welds because it’s heavy and doesn’t have any support. It’s a known issue apparently as well would have been nice to know this before sending it off to Jet-Hot to be coated, it did last almost 100 miles though, JUNK!
So why didn’t I let ZZP fix their mistakes? Well I was told I would have to send it to them at my cost both ways I'm in NC so it would have been expensive. I would have probably done this if so, much stuff wasn’t wrong with this motor I mean why should I pay more money for someone to fix mistakes that are newbie ones. You talk about how big you are but you won't even cover the cost to re time a motor due to an issue cause by unproper assembly.
I posted what happened on one of the Facebook groups and Zoom (the owner) finally stepped in and tried to downplay me and try and make me look stupid. Starting with DDMWorks touched it then there were major issues, then my mechanic installed it wrong, he installed the boost controller wrong, and so on.
Zoom even stated if I would have bought a build from them, they would have covered it. Well what the hell is a longblock, clutch, flywheel, turbo kit, and your rear exhaust considered??
And If you are wondering.
The clutch sucks, it’s the worst thing I have ever driven, you are going to look like you have never driven a manual. If you are on an incline good luck! Kyle told me it needed to break in and get the air out, but we did bleed the clutch???? I can’t wait to get rid of this thing!!!!!
The rear section exhaust, oh boy! So, I think it sounds good and it looks pretty cool. It all stops there. A 315 is all you're going to put on the rear so If you had plans for a 345, sorry. You have to dent the hell out of your lower water pipe to get it in and it's going to rest on it, I'm sure this heats thing up some. It's actually hotter in the slingshot compared to the front exhaust, you can definitely feel the heat in the trans tunnel and I have the DEI heat management kit as well as extra heat management material all in my slingshot. The rear does bottom out, I was told this wouldn’t be an issue
So, in the end after spending over 10k with ZZP they won't do anything for me, told me to pack sand. I even told them I'd sign an NDA if they would help me, they didn’t care. Blocked me from social media and wouldn’t even pay part of a bill to retime my slingshot. Tried to belittle me on Facebook and downplay everything. Last but not least, Zoom acted like bolts randomly falling off a motor they put together was my fault.
This January I am having all their parts removed and replaced, and I do mean every part. My engine will be pulled and built correctly by DDMWorks. I can’t say enough about DDMWorks and how they stepped up and helped me with someone else's setup. Dave and his team have been awesome!
And since I know ZZP is going to comment on how I could have spent the money to ship my slingshot to them and pay to have it shipped back for the same or possibly less money. You guys had your chance, this motor never should have left your shop!
So, if you spent over 10K with these guys and you have issues due to their negligence know that for them to fix it you might need to spend another $1,500-1,800 for them to fix it.
ZZP Go Fast Not Broke is total BS
"ZZP Go Broke Fast"