Phoenix Project - major setback

[SXS]

With due diligence, I have cancelled the project with Autocraft/Tvrcraft, and today with the help of Austec Racing have collected all the bits, although I was given someone elses stock heads and I was denied my blower camshafts, due to 'copyright' or something.

After Pauls by-eye analysis, it seems the engine and bits still require a great deal of work. So basically I have been waiting 2 years for my project to finish, and yet it is no where near even putting an engine together.

Austec Racing will have to start from scratch to develop the Phoenix.

There is a no-naming-shaming-policy on Pistonheads and thus I will not post anymore on this, just simply the truth, but basically I have paid £24,500 to craft, and now have a number of bits designed and developed by subcontractors with no specs or drawings or information, basically a box of components and a half finished block. We dont even know if the bits all go together yet.

The viewing of the body was to happen today etc., but due to recent events and todays finding, things are now set-back in a major way

Thankfully Paul has reassurred me he will go all out to get the Phoenix together PERSONALLY even if he has to work through the nights, though he literally has to start from scratch, I wish I knew of Austec Racing's existence and their abilities way back nearly 2 years ago, but I guess I have made a very expensive mistake over the past 2 years, and one which will haunt me for a long time

The delays, the misinformation on a number of occasions, it just all piled up and it got to a point that I could not proceed with this project with the current company.

Paul has seen the phoenix body today and is more than happy with its design and has also made a number of suggestions, but luckily Carbon Al has everything perfectly developed (another great guy who goes way above the order of duty to deliver).

I spoke to a number of other specialists, and I did consider going forward with another specialist, but the size of the project requires full-time management and lots of manpower and in-house development rather than subcontractor dependencies, thus Austec is the only ideal way forward, especially with Pauls background in racing. Sadly for me, this means my project is literally starting ALL OVER AGAIN!

I will be sorting a nice summer's day with Paul at Austec for a public open-day to show the body off to all who have been following my project and the curious too, so please hang with me on this, I am seriously dismayed at what I have been through today, and Paul (bless him) has kept my spirit up all day.

I have got nothing against the previous company in all honesty (even after all this), its all my fault for being totally naive, but truthfully Dave is a good man and Alistar has been a great inspiration, but the lack of management and massive delays and misinformation made me realise that I have been overly patient and a company which has no history in building TVR engines is a huge risk for such a unique and expensive project.

The main reasons for going with Austec (apart from their proven TVR history) is also the luxury of their in-house engine-dyno and lathe/milling machines and their bodyshop, plus Paul has always been genuinly up-front with me in the past as a fellow TVR nut even though I have never used his company's services, but the reports from his faithful long line of customers and many rebuilt engines out on the road is a testament of Pauls ability to look after his customers and deliver on time and within a customers budget.

I guess what I'm saying (without brown nosing!) - thank god Paul came to my rescue!!!!! (even though I've been a live-wire to many of his customers in the past, hey everyone makes mistakes, you know who you are - I sincerely apologise!!!!)

Anyway...

Finally - I can sleep at night!!!!! (although Paul wont be!!!)

[oggs]

sorry to hear this mate..

But at least you now know its getting done

[Equinox]

MMMMmmmm

[stainless_steve]

You have a box of bits that stand you to 24.5k and your not pissed off
On a good note im sure Paul will sort it out,can't wait to see the finished beast

[gbbird]

Sorry to hear this Ash, but i am sure Austec will do you proud!

Any chance of recouping any of the £24.5k from Autocraft?

[Equinox]

SXS said:

I was denied my blower camshafts, due to 'copyright' or something. basically I have paid £24,500 to craft, and now have a number of bits designed and developed by subcontractors with no specs or drawings or information, basically a box of components and a half finished block.

So you cant have "Your" blower camshafts, surley you paid for these in the 24.5K and you did say above that they were yours?. I know you dont want to post on this again but anychance of us viewing a breakdown of the 24.5K just to see where it went?

[purpleheadedcerb]

That's a great shame Ash. If I was in your shoes, I would just move forward with it. What's done is done and trying to get any kind of justice from the situation will just end up taking your focus from the present situation.

Whenever its finished, I'll be there.

Scott

[david smith]

Hi Ash,

feeling for you matey ... your project is huge and I have been let down on a smaller
scale loads of times so I know a bit of what you are going thru ... I hope Austec do you proud!

catch you around .. DAS

[spartacus]

Blimey, really sorry to hear that Ash!

I really don't see how they can prevent you having the blower and camshafts if you have already paid for them? If they don't want another company to see the design they should be reimbursing you to the value of those parts surely?












>> Edited by spartacus on Saturday 6th May 23:50

[Augustus]

SXS said:

...although I was given someone elses stock heads and I was denied my blower camshafts, due to 'copyright' or something ...I have been waiting 2 years for my project to finish, and yet it is no where near even putting an engine together ...basically I have paid £24,500 to Craft, and now have a number of bits designed and developed by subcontractors with no specs or drawings or information, basically a box of components and a half finished block. We dont even know if the bits all go together yet ...The delays, the misinformation on a number of occasions, it just all piled up and it got to a point that I could not proceed with this project with ['Craft] ...but the lack of management and massive delays and misinformation made me realise that I have been overly patient and a company which has no history in building TVR engines is a huge risk for such a unique and expensive project.

This is the company loudly promoted by you SXS as a Speed Six 'fixer'?!?!!? They've taken the gold and kept what they 'sold'?!?!? Late, "misinformation" (aka lies and bullshit?), no history with TVR engines... !!!!!!!!!!!!

SXS said:

I have got nothing against the previous company in all honesty (even after all this), its all my fault for being totally naive, but truthfully Dave is a good man and Alistar has been a great inspiration...

WTF?!?!? How is it your fault? "A good man"??? WTFFFFF????

[andysgriff]

I've been watching this thread with interest as a lot of other people surely have and was disappointed with the setback news. However I wasn't that surprised that it has gone pear shaped at this moment. Developing a one off engine by engineers who haven’t actually produced one for a customer before is a little risky IMHO.

If I had the time and finances to undertake such a brave project (and I haven't) the primary functional requirements for such an engine would be reliability balanced with power. There must be lots of motors out there that could be tuned to the levels of power and torque that you were quoting, without going through a costly R & D phase of a project by developing an extreme variant of what is essentially a rare and fragile engine??

Anyway, I wish you all the best with the 'new' project I really hope the project delivers what you want and what so many people have been keen to see in reality.

[SXS]

spartacus said:

Blimey, really sorry to hear that Ash! I really don't see how they can prevent you having the blower and camshafts if you have already paid for them? If they don't want another company to see the design they should be reimbursing you to the value of those parts surely?

No, I did get the blower, £2500+vat. The blower-camshafts (typical smoother profile cams, Paul has said that these are very simple to make by any of the 3 major cam suppliers in the country so he has no idea why they would have kept them back unless they were not ready? because I've never seen them personally) that were supposedly made for my engine have been kept and I was not charged for them. There was no parts-checklist and all the bits were just sitting on a pallet, the crank was just wrapped in some white shopping bag, Paul was very distressed about the way the bits were just sitting there and did advise that all the parts will have to be checked if they have been dropped or damaged in any way because no engine builder would just leave bits laying around in such a careless state.

[SXS]

stainless_steve said:

You have a box of bits that stand you to 24.5k and your not pissed off

I was really major pissed off over 12 months ago, but theres only so much you can take and then you just go cold with no emotion, and since my younger brother passed away in November last year, my passion for the project was gone on a long holiday, but nevertheless when I was able to recollect all my thoughts, I realised I was not getting what I was promised - service! The phone calls became more harder, at one point I even lost it on the phone and then decided to take legal action, but the solicitors advised me that it would be a loooong drawn out case and because I have hardly anything in writing with signatures, just emails, things would take a lot of investigation and it could go either way in court, thats the bummer!!!! If you're ever promised something, before you pay the deposit - GET IT IN WRITING! TRUST NO ONE!

All I ever wanted was to build the most powerful and fastest TVR in the world with the original british AJP as base engine to finally shine a light up the canals of Japan and the US of A, to say we done this and we didnt use a yank or jap engine..... it will be done by Paul and his team, but sadly the past 2 years have been wasted under the previous company, Dave does still blame it on the suppliers, his last words to me yesterday were, 'Say hi to the missis', needless to say my missis is very much part of this project as I am and her response would be extremely explosive!

[SuPaSpArK]

Keep your chin up buddy..it will turn out OK in the end, just over budget! (Like everything else these days)
supes.

[SXS]

Augustus said:

SXS said: ...although I was given someone elses stock heads and I was denied my blower camshafts, due to 'copyright' or something ...I have been waiting 2 years for my project to finish, and yet it is no where near even putting an engine together ...basically I have paid £24,500 to Craft, and now have a number of bits designed and developed by subcontractors with no specs or drawings or information, basically a box of components and a half finished block. We dont even know if the bits all go together yet ...The delays, the misinformation on a number of occasions, it just all piled up and it got to a point that I could not proceed with this project with ['Craft] ...but the lack of management and massive delays and misinformation made me realise that I have been overly patient and a company which has no history in building TVR engines is a huge risk for such a unique and expensive project. This is the company loudly promoted by you SXS as a Speed Six 'fixer'?!?!!? They've taken the gold and kept what they 'sold'?!?!? Late, "misinformation" (aka lies and bullshit?), no history with TVR engines... !!!!!!!!!!!! SXS said: I have got nothing against the previous company in all honesty (even after all this), its all my fault for being totally naive, but truthfully Dave is a good man and Alistar has been a great inspiration... WTF?!?!? How is it your fault? "A good man"??? WTFFFFF????

The SP6 stuff has nothing to do with this project, I cannot comment on that, I recommended their services in the past based on Daves long history in the motoring trade and connection with Melling the original designer of both the AJP/SP6.

There are a lot of people doing SP6 work out there today, and I have always suggested in posts to call them all up and go with who you prefer but yes, I did also bias myself to craft, but only because of the whole Melling and Daves history thing, but Dave doesnt build engines anymore, he is now a technical overseer.

[mudstud]

The aforementioned company has rebuilt my engine (4.5) over a period of 6 months!. The engine is running very smoothly however still a few things to put right. Will post more when the engine is run in and the odds and ends have been sorted and I can open her up. E mail me offline if anyone wants more info.

[Boosted LS1]

Hello Ash,

I'm also very sorry to hear about this and can understand why your enthusiasm has waned. Sometimes projects die a very slow death when nothing seems to be happening and this has taken forever. Some of it's been quite exciting to look at though, so I hope you can raise your spirits later on. Could you stick in a stockisk motor using a little boost just to get underway whilst the 'biggun's being developed? That would really give you and the project a bit of a lift. Good luck.

Boosted.

[HarryW]

Sad to hear the news Ash, I wondered when I spoke to Paul on Thursday why he was passengering on the road down to the West country, now I sadly know, I feel for you it must be gutting .
On a positive note you've made the first steps towards rectifying the issue. I'm sure good will come of it and as Pauls given you his personal assurances it will happen, albeit slightly changed and delayed.
On a more sobering note I assume you will be discussing the engine spec and its potential with someone different, now with feet firmly on the ground. Perhaps even a lower starting figure may come from it, before winding the wick up on the blower to get it into 4 digits .
The Pheonix has risen...........................

[gbbird]

SXS said:

Dave does still blame it on the suppliers, his last words to me yesterday were, 'Say hi to the missis', needless to say my missis is very much part of this project as I am and her response would be extremely explosive!

I'm sorry Ash but it is no good Dave blaming the suppliers. He and his company were the Project Managers for the Phoenix, and you paid for this, and as we all know who work in Project Management the one big thing to get right is handling external suppliers. This entire thing just stinks of s t Project Management (in addition to shabby work practices) on the part of Autocraft, and if i were you i would try to get something back.

[spartacus]

SXS said:

spartacus said: Blimey, really sorry to hear that Ash! I really don't see how they can prevent you having the blower and camshafts if you have already paid for them? If they don't want another company to see the design they should be reimbursing you to the value of those parts surely? No, I did get the blower, £2500+vat. The blower-camshafts (typical smoother profile cams, Paul has said that these are very simple to make by any of the 3 major cam suppliers in the country so he has no idea why they would have kept them back unless they were not ready? because I've never seen them personally) that were supposedly made for my engine have been kept and I was not charged for them. There was no parts-checklist and all the bits were just sitting on a pallet, the crank was just wrapped in some white shopping bag, Paul was very distressed about the way the bits were just sitting there and did advise that all the parts will have to be checked if they have been dropped or damaged in any way because no engine builder would just leave bits laying around in such a careless state.

So for 24.5k you have a part machined block, a blower, no cams and what about the heads, have they been worked on?