Okay, I know that this will make some of you happy. Over the weekend my stage two SDS dynoed at 176whp. That's not a typo. And that was on the 7th pass after some tuning. I am pretty disappointed with this most recent experience with RIPP, they did not live up to my expectations, either in power of the kit of the quality of service that I received.

Here are the details (it's going to be long).

On Friday morning I showed up at 9am at RIPP. I had made an appointment about three weeks earlier to have their BRAT installed, a WORKS stage 2 clutch and flywheel and a dyno tuning session. I also made clear that I hadn't been able to get their belt tensioner to work properly, and that this was keeping my boost levels under 9psi.

I returned that night around 8pm, they said they were finished. They pick me up in my car and it is running great. Lumpy idle issue is solved, and no CEL. No idea how the car was doing at WOT because I had to break the clutch in. No matter. We get back to RIPP, and I check under the hood and see that the belt tensioner is not installed. What's going on? Well, it turns out that they don't use the belt tensioner anymore, because it has a chance of snapping belts. You don't need a belt tensioner, your belt won't slip if you tighten it enough.

Well that's interesting, because Ross told me in December that if the belt was slipping I should get the BT. No, they say, in the last month we realized that the BT might snap a belt and cause a blown engine. Besides, your belt is fine. This itself sucks because I have spent a lot of time trying to install the BT and it would have been nice if they told me all of this when I called them to troubleshoot.

Okay, I say, let me see the dyno sheet. 176whp. Are. You. Kidding. Me. The belt must have been slipping! How much boost was she running? 8.8psi at 5.5K, they show me a new graph. WTF? This kit is supposed to push 11psi? I have even hit that on my gauge if I tighten the belt enough. Well, they say, our sensor is accurate. Your gauge could be off. I respond, fair enough, autometer gauges suck. But why only 8.8psi? They swear up and down that the belt wasn't slipping. They know slipping belts, and believe them this belt was not slipping. Then come the excuses for why 176whp at 8.8psi. Generally, the lack of LT headers and bored out IM/TB are restricting the air flow. The blower doesn't force air when the engine won't accept it, so the extra boost escapes out the sides. How can this be when the kit is advertised at 11psi? No, wait, they say, UP TO 11psi.

I can't believe that adding IM/TB is responsible for the almost 50whp difference between me and blazenoz, and 20whp between me and the auto-tranny hindered greenpsycho. Whatever. It's almost 10pm at this point, and I wasn't getting anywhere with them. They refuse to acknowledge that the low power output is anything but my lack of mods. They give me a refund for the BT and an extra $50 off the job for my troubles. Little consolation, I think, and I take off.

I drove a lot over the weekend, and I started to open it up after breaking the clutch in a bit. I'm still pretty sure the belt is slipping, the gauge reads anywhere between 8 and 10psi when it tops out. The real way to test this is to tighten the belt, drive around more, and see if I get more boost. I haven't done that yet. But the butt dyno says that she made more power before, when I had the belt tighter than a drum.

Anyways, that's my story. I have the dyno sheets somewhere, and I will post them when I get a chance. But I don't suspect that there are many doubters about a number this low.

Frankly, not much of this matters beyond informational content because nobody in lancerland was buying kits from them anyways. I'm pretty disappointed with RIPP, although I still don't regret buying the kit from them. Last I knew, the used RRM kit that I was considering buying last year has made 135whp at 18 AFR. So nothing comes without its problems.

 

sorry ur experience sucked... i hope it can be resolved with over 2oo whp.

 

it does suck when your expecting one thing and you get something less or worse then that. The great thing is you are in boston so you can go to RIPP easily to get problems fixed and what not...

 

all i can say is wow. looks like boe was right about sds using hp to gain hp, sds on a 4 banger is not a good idea. i paid 3k for my kit and pretty much get 170whp. and 170 wtq.

 

I'm not totally convinced that this is true, although it is probably generally the case. The RA has responded very well to the kit. In my particular case, I think the SDS is fine (It has made 220+ before), it's just that the service that I am getting from RIPP is significantly less fine. Like I said before, I'm not disappointed with the kit, I'm disappointed with the attention that I am getting.

 

I think RIPP'S customer relations sucks, I have no long distance phone service here and posted a question on their forums and after over a week of no response I finally get greenpsycho to give me nothing more than imo a smart **** sort of reply. All I said in return was you guys expect someone to plunk down $4000 for your kit and can't even respond to their questions in in your own forums? His response to that was something along the lines of hinting around that if I don't even have long distance phone service then why am I asking about something that costs $4000. F*ck RIPP is all I can say. If you really want to go fi, then contact RRM

 

that blows, if i put all that time and money into it id pissed too

 

I agree that they need to post in their own forums, it is pretty silly to set up forums and not answer people's questions. I don't blame them for not posting in here though. I actually brought this up with them when I was there, they said there was too much BS going on, even in their own forums. I agree there is a lot of BS, but you need to post in your own forum. Period.

Usually when I email them they get back to me, I guess you're too mad for it to matter now. I think they have felt slighted by the lancer community, Ralliarts in particular, and while they still provide the kits their focus is shifting. But regardless of how they feel about it their sales model has not worked, and it is no use laying blame. Perhaps it would have been better to post at least a little on evom, maybe like how mitsiman does. He chimes in when necessary, is very good at responding to emails, and stays out of the BS.

 

Leaving this here, as it is rather informational (if you're looking at SDS).

Keep the vendor bashing out (and take personal messages to PM), and it'll stay.

 

here's the dyno, for what it's worth. the boost curve is the dotted line above the HP. ignore the scribbly line at the end of the boost curve, they drew that in to show me what belt slippage would look like. they did not measure torque, surprise surprise. something about not getting good RPM measures.

 

Have you done any futher tuning? Or have you just left it as is?