2.1 and 1.7 KB

[sgarlic]

i've heard of way too many freak accidents from KB which WAS my first choice of brand for a blower....now im thinkin i'll go with a centri blower.

the mustang shop i go to has said KB is a very VERY crappy company to work with due to the fact that their superhargers have blown

Do us all a favor, tell us the name and location of the shop so we can all never go there. (this is where me quoting you ends and my rant begins)

KB has been one of the leading companies that kept owning the 4.6's interesting. And unlike a lot of other companies, they haven't abandoned their work on the 2v. They are still researching and working the 5.0's for crying out loud.

What part of paying 20k for a Mustang, 5k on a blower (25k total) and being able to spank most cars on the road isn't appealing.

And anyways, KB's blower isn't the reason for engine failures. It's the engines themselves being too weak for the power (owners fault,) fuel delivery problems (not KB's fault,) tunes that people had modified to push more power (not KB's fault,) going WOT in 5th gear at 30mph, etc. I would be very interested to hear of an instance where the blower failed, or where the blower was totally responsible for an engine failure. Slapping one on a stock engine and blowing the engine is not KB's fault, it's the owner.

 

[00s281sc368]

i've heard of way too many freak accidents from KB which WAS my first choice of brand for a blower....now im thinkin i'll go with a centri blower.

the mustang shop i go to has said KB is a very VERY crappy company to work with due to the fact that their superhargers have blown (aka destroyed... not a play on words) so many engines due to defects, and they are impossible to get ahold of, yet they offer to replace the customers engines and pay for the labor. when i dropped by to have some work done there were 2 stangs awaiting new engines and a 3rd on a flat bed on its way due to KB's superchargers being on the car for only a matter of a days.... anyone run into any of these problems?

Yeah which shop are you going??? Don't tell me it's Apex, because I was their first KB install, and now for the last 2 years, they got addicted to the KBs and install them all day long...

Sure if you have a week engine you can go ahead with a centri, they make less power all the way, so they won't damage your "weak engine"

 

[geoffsgt]

I'd stay away from any shop with 3 blown motors sitting around due to blowers THEY installed...

Lol... "OMG all these engines blew up. Like, the motors must have blown cuz of defekts on the blowar!"

 

[TrueBlue03]

Yeah which shop are you going??? Don't tell me it's Apex, because I was their first KB install, and now for the last 2 years, they got addicted to the KBs and install them all day long...

Sure if you have a week engine you can go ahead with a centri, they make less power all the way, so they won't damage your "weak engine"

yup it was apex....they said th go smoote MAJORITY go smoothly, but they keep getting strange problems with the KB's.....and KB either stops responding to them, OR just offers to replace the motor without askin any real questions. i wish he told me more specifics on the defects and problems.

they also told me that KB keeps losing orders and has multiple people who have been waiting 2 months to receive their blowers and finally get ahold of KB, and get the dreaded answer "we have no record of your order" or ""oh do you still want us to ship that?""......but we do have your $4k

a couple guys there at apex believe that KB knows something they dont. why else would they offer multiple times to replace blown motors without even a second thought??

 

[san~man]

I may be wrong, but I doubt that KB would offer to replace motors at their expense when they didn't do the installation.

 

[TrueBlue03]

well thats the EXACT reason why there could be some defects that they dont want to fill anyone in on.......and thats why people are starting to think there are flaws. i agree completely....why would KB replace a whole motor if they didnt do the install?? they gotta be aware of something that we're not


i wasnt tryin to rip on KB at all. it was just a concern of mine. and im not saying its a bad SC....hell, its still my frist choice when i get the money. i was just curious as to what kind of problems, if any, that any of you guys may have experienced.

 

[stanggt00]

hey stop hating on the centri-blowers they are nice blowers and power is power its just made different ways

i love the fact that i can drive the car out of boost and when some losser pulls up on me thinking o yea easy kill i can step on the gas an take off like a rocket

my car is being set-up for "20mph+ rolling races"i run into more of that kind of race then the light to ligth races

vortech + gears 4.10 = good balance

 

[GDawg]

Every problem I thought I had with my supercharger turned out NOT to be my supercharger. James and Ken (both employees of KB) have been a big help on Modular Fords board.

 

[blacksheep-1]

OK, I'll try to clear some stuff up. i've been hot rodding for over 30 years, mostly bow-ties, did a few magazine cars, stock cars, even a pro stocker back in the seventies,... whatever. The point I'm trying to make is that I have some experience but am relatively new to the 4.6 and blowers. Here's my take FWIW.
I recently purchased a Kenne Bell from JMSchip. I looked at a lot of options and decided on the KB for a number of reasons. I contacted KB and attempted to talk with the surfer dude that answerred the phone and got no where. I still wanted the KB so I bought it from JMS, they seemed like good people and they could have the mark up. Apparently nothing happens fast in California, they take 3 days to box the thing and won't drop ship it. Once I recieved the blower The install sheet was great, the instructions were awesome and it was a complete well done unit. I called JMS on several occaisions and they were helpful, every time I called KB, it was duh...uhhh.. yeah.... in fact I was really trying to get a hold of them for about an hour and their phone was busy, I found out later they take the phone off the hook for lunch. (WTF how about spending $15.00 on an answering machine to tell customers that). In any case the install went great until the chip, it was a PITA the car eventually denied the processor. I took it to racerelated.com in St. Pete, Fla, they told me the chip was not programmed, which was weird since KB wanted to know everything about the car, numbers, vin, computer numbers so they could program the chip. I attempted to call for several days w/o results so I e-mailed KB, they responded by saying that they have so many e-mails it would take 48-72 hours to respond, when they finally did, it was "send the chip and processor back to us". Screw them, racerelated programmed a diablo chip (conservatively) and did a dyno run worth 342 RWHP. I was happy as heck. I'm going to send the unprogrammed KB chip back to them and ask for a refund.
The time spent installing the blower and boost a pump:
18 hours
The time it took for Racerelated to fix the processor issue locally:
4 hours
The time spent yanking around and not getting any answers from KB:
2 weeks

 

[WillDuhhBeast]

OK, I'll try to clear some stuff up. i've been hot rodding for over 30 years, mostly bow-ties, did a few magazine cars, stock cars, even a pro stocker back in the seventies,... whatever. The point I'm trying to make is that I have some experience but am relatively new to the 4.6 and blowers. Here's my take FWIW.
I recently purchased a Kenne Bell from JMSchip. I looked at a lot of options and decided on the KB for a number of reasons. I contacted KB and attempted to talk with the surfer dude that answerred the phone and got no where. I still wanted the KB so I bought it from JMS, they seemed like good people and they could have the mark up. Apparently nothing happens fast in California, they take 3 days to box the thing and won't drop ship it. Once I recieved the blower The install sheet was great, the instructions were awesome and it was a complete well done unit. I called JMS on several occaisions and they were helpful, every time I called KB, it was duh...uhhh.. yeah.... in fact I was really trying to get a hold of them for about an hour and their phone was busy, I found out later they take the phone off the hook for lunch. (WTF how about spending $15.00 on an answering machine to tell customers that). In any case the install went great until the chip, it was a PITA the car eventually denied the processor. I took it to racerelated.com in St. Pete, Fla, they told me the chip was not programmed, which was weird since KB wanted to know everything about the car, numbers, vin, computer numbers so they could program the chip. I attempted to call for several days w/o results so I e-mailed KB, they responded by saying that they have so many e-mails it would take 48-72 hours to respond, when they finally did, it was "send the chip and processor back to us". Screw them, racerelated programmed a diablo chip (conservatively) and did a dyno run worth 342 RWHP. I was happy as heck. I'm going to send the unprogrammed KB chip back to them and ask for a refund.
The time spent installing the blower and boost a pump:
18 hours
The time it took for Racerelated to fix the processor issue locally:
4 hours
The time spent yanking around and not getting any answers from KB:
2 weeks

This makes me feel pretty lucky.

I called them on several occasions and only had a few problems reaching them.. nothing extraordinary. They shipped to my door within 2 weeks of placing the order, with everything I needed.


Maybe they are getting worse about customer service.. but what I can confirm is the quality of the product. I've run it VERY hard and have had no problems at all, plus it's making good, conservative power at 373 rwhp.


Sorry to hear these horror stories.

 

[apexmotorsports]

I just found this thread and need to clear some things up.

#1-KB Makes great blowers and we very rarely have any issues with them. Ever since I took over the shop 2 years ago we have become the largest KB Reseller on the West Coast outside of KB themselves. I would highly suggest getting a custom Dyno tuned chip if possible... KB tunes are hit and miss..

#2-Yes KB is hard to get ahold of sometimes. They've also had some turnover in staff which may be one of the reasons for the customer service issues.

#3-I personally have never heard KB has offered to pay for an engine. Nor should they ever have to unless something real bad happened with one of their blowers. Maybe this is something they told Chris (General Manager)

#4-Yes we have 3 cars at our shop with blown engines... 1 car was from another shop which REFUSED to repair the vehicle until we ripped the engine apart to show the cam was slamming against the pistons because of inadequate piston to valve clearance. I felt so bad for this customer because he had spent over $20K and the shop was completely unwilling to help him until we stepped in.. that was the car going on the flatbed when Steve (TrueBlue03) saw it. None of the other 2 cars with blown engines are the result of the blower install or the fault of the blower.

 

[sgarlic]

Ok, so who is lying, TrueBlue03 or apexmotorsports?

 

[apexmotorsports]

Ok, so who is lying, TrueBlue03 or apexmotorsports?

TrueBlue03 (Steve) is a good customer and I would not say either one of us is lying.

After thinking about it we have had small issues with their kits, bad tunes, wrong brakets, incomplete kits, wrong pullies, but they have always taken care of it. One thing which is very irritating though is when they leave out important details about certain kits which need additional fabrication

Maybe KB has changed their stance about warranting engines since I spoke to them a month ago. If they have that would be great but I highly doubt KB would do that. Only Saleen & Roush does that on their S197 kits with their tunes.