Originally Posted by MMC Racing (Post 2734730)

Originally Posted by elperuano (Post 2734710)

Not to mention he bought their turbo kit, built motor AND transmission.... that sounds like a pretty penny...

Originally Posted by MMC Racing (Post 2734730)

Originally Posted by MMC Racing (Post 2734730)

Originally Posted by Wattles (Post 2734639)

I was hesitating to post a response on here because I feel the build is not finished. I say that after 1 & 1/2 years build time. I am driving the car and have been for 5k miles now. The car went to GTM when it was 6 months old at 10k miles. (That is the rate I drove, and currently drive it).

To answer the question, the engine is rock solid as far as I can tell. The tune is next to terrible. Running rich (smoke clouds behind me when I put the throttle down all the way - somewhat embarrassing). Acceleration before 3k rpm is irregular and uneven. The car has stalled in 405 (LA) freeway stop-and-go traffic twice now. After 3k RPM the car smoothes out and has TONS of power (I mean tons!).

The bad:
* There is a loud whistle that developed a week after I took the car home. As far as I can tell its a leak in one of the boost controller lines. Sounds like it have a referee trapped under my hood when I develop boost.

The piping is rubbing on the engine bay on the driver's side. This is the pipe from the Tial (wastegate) unit just off the turbo hat runs toward the front of the car/intercoolers. This is the most embarrassing thing. When I have someone in the car and I step on it, you hear a horrible rubbing noise in the cabin when boost hits about 8psi or higher. I got under the engine and saw the issue, but don't have the tools to try and fix this. Rubbing in one form or another has been an issue from the beginning of this build. Sam said it is more "cosmetic" than a real problem. I can't accept that the car sounds broken when I drive.

One day I noticed when I turned there was a scraping sound. This got worse for a few days so I jacked it up (in my garage) and found that one of the 3 bolts holding the piping to the Tial waste gate has worked its way out and was scraping the steering column. I didn't have a tool small enough to try to put it back in so I pulled it out (which was about 2 screw turns).

I started my build as the initial MHI build wanting to only do the turbo kit and exhaust + boost controller. After an engine failure (unlucky me) I have a built engine and transmission. The cost of rebuilding the old one and having it apart anyway led me to spend more to increase the durability (stage 1 engine) of the engine and transmission (stage 4).

To Sam's (GTM's) credit they gave me a big deal on the engine & trans build throwing in the oil pan. Ultimately the turbos were swapped with Garrett's due to some issues with the MHI's. (I think this has happened with the whole MHI group buy). There were worse issues with rubbing in the engine bay with the MHI's as well. (And no, my car is not lowered in any way - stock suspension).

Like many of the others here, updates were few and faaaaar between (4-6 weeks in many cases).
I now refer to my car as the toy or ticking time bomb, because I can't consider it a reliable daily car.

The good:
The engine bay looks superb! The exhaust sounds great! The power is intense! The transmission feels rock solid! I love having a total sleeper that can beat an M5! I can smoke the tires into 4th gear or at 65 on the freeway!

I have contacted GTM about the issues but they seen too busy to fit me in (and I'm scared if I drop it off it will be gone another 6 months!).

I'm at a point where I want to fix the issues and sell the car. I hate saying that because of all the time, aggravation and $$$ I spent on it, but if I keep having issues my wife will drop me and my car off a cliff.

Sincerely an Infinity G37 IPL owner who drove his 2012 (purchases Feb 1, 2012) for a total of 10 months or 15,000 miles and had the car in the shop for the other 16 months. (Initial delivery estimate was 6-8 weeks excluding the need for engine rebuild and trans build)