Hey, everyone

I'll try to make this as short as possible, but there is a lot that has gone on in the past couple of days between me and various people of 123ignition so I will try my best. 

I will post copies of a pdf file containing the emails between the various employees of this company. I am pointing out now that I have intermediate experience in mechanics and engine building but there is a lot for me to learn still. This isn't really much of discussion on the fundamentals of timing, installation, etc. This is more so a post regarding quality of a product and quality of customer service. I ultimately don't want people to make the same mistake I made. I understand this can be a difficult situation for both parties and I will get more into that later.

Okay, moving forward. I recently installed a 260z 123ignition programmable bluetooth distributor. With this unit I purchased the coil of their recommendation, along with plugs and spark plug wires. This was to be installed two weeks before my vacation so I could have time to fine tune it and get ready for a big drive ahead. I made a post a week or so ago that I was hearing noises under the hood which was confirmed to be the water pump. I documented healthy compression and no damage to rod bearings at that time. The 123ignition is a pretty straight forward install, though they do not state that you need a timing light for this to be installed properly. You do. I have one and used one but the instructions state you rotate the distributor according to the direction your rotor within the cap rotates and stop once a light illuminates within the distributor. There is a small window you'd get this correct without a timing light. Other customers had this problem.

After installation is complete the car starts up no problem once timing is set. At this point I started having trouble with the app and that it had trouble reading the stock curve information from the app from time to time. This is not much of a problem as information is stored internally within the distributor. I take the car for a drive. Mapped out it was only an 8 minute drive. Within that small time frame, my cruising speed was cut prematurely by the smell of smoke. As I pulled over the engine was struggling to run. The app at this point was telling me there was no vacuum advance. Luckily I wasn't far from home and made it back.

Then my communication with the company begins. I will not post that here as it will be posted in a pdf link for everyone to read below. These emails mostly are asking information about their design of their product so I can get a better understanding of what may have happened. Did it lose vacuum? I just measured healthy compression a week ago, why would shortly after my drive a piston burn up? Issues within the distributor? Maybe this piston was on it's way out already? Both possible and I agreed that there were too many variables to prove. You can see in the emails at one point I tried to diffuse the situation before tensions got high and just stated I would like a refund. The conversation was continued by the director of this company, Ron, and that ultimately I was just trying to scam him. Fast forward and Ron has lost all contact with me. I was to deal with the person I bought it from. Fair enough. I spoke with Ed. Now Ed is a pretty nice guy and even after all this I do believe he is. Ed confirms that there is too many variables and again, I agree, hesitantly. I was told to package it and send it back for a refund in which I, of course, agreed. Upon getting ready for packaging and removing a bracket you must install to mount the distributor I heard something rattling in the inside. I remove the cap to find the coil contact had broken off completely. In that process caused marring inside of the cap meaning it bounced around a bit before falling to the bottom. Whether that can cause problems with misfires? You be the judge of that. It leads me to my point of the multiple times it lost advance in a 20 minute window. Roughly the combined time of adjustments at idle and the first and final test run. How can I be confident that the internals of this distributor can do it's intended purpose whenever the distributor cap can only do it's purpose for 8 minutes? I sent this photo to Ed and Ed did not respond. I called after almost a full business day in which Ed admitted that he did see the photo. Ed reassured me that what happened is normal to happen to a distributor. 

We can also note from the emails that after asking 3 times how these distributors work, my suspicions were confirmed that if this product was to fail electronically that it loses all advance. Not a terribly huge problem but this is where I'm starting to have more faith in old 40+ year distributors over a shiny new one. 

Ending this I feel sorry for Ed. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't know what to do either. You can only do so much in this situation, I guess. I certainly don't know if I would have went with his route in saying "well, I normally charge a restocking fee but I'm waiving that for you." I understand we install aftermarket parts at our own risks. Seeing as I am, I don't know, the 1% I can see how it can be chalked up to user error. After the facts I do disagree and I do think the product is at fault. Do I expect anyone to help replace my engine? No. It'd be nice to cover some cost of it but I'd prefer to replace my engine because of my own stupidity and mistakes. Not someone else's. 

This may rub some people the wrong way. I'm sure some with a good experience with Ed will try to blame me. I don't care honestly. I can't gain anything from this at this point. I just want to share my story and hopefully prevent anyone from doing the same.

If you spent the time to read this, thank you. 

The pdf is only edited to remove all personal information of both parties and to condense. There is a lot of quotes and signatures in the original. It's still a nightmare but only 4 pages and will revise later. Sorry about the watermarks.

123.pdf

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

Your case would be helped immensely if you could rationally explain how timing problems cause damage that would cause low compression.  That lack of reason is why the 123 guys weren't helpful.  There's no cause-effect.  It might be coincidence.

If you find something like a bent valve or loose rocker arm that is causing the low compression,  it's going to be awkward...

12 hours ago, AK260 said:

 

Thank you for sharing your story and for reading. That's funny you share your post because I do recall now reading yours! I could have sworn it was longer than a month ago. Man, time flies.

Also thank you for your well wishes. I plan to get her up and running pretty soon. It's a shame I'll miss vacation but eh. 

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your unit over there, my friend.

10 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

Your case would be helped immensely if you could rationally explain how timing problems cause damage that would cause low compression.  That lack of reason is why the 123 guys weren't helpful.  There's no cause-effect.  It might be coincidence.

Again, which I clarified already. 

Will it be awkward? No, not really. I'll share it here and it will be a learning experience for everyone. Mostly me.  I have nothing to prove, my man. I'll be the first one to say I'm wrong (also stated in emails)

That doesn't disregard how customers are treated when there is an issue with their product.

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

I can at least say it's not a loose rocker arm. In that case, I have a perfectly good engine block with a bent valve for sale. Real cheap.

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

5 hours ago, zKars said:

Sorry to hear of this unfortunate situation and the engine damage. While you'll never know if the cap failure or timing contributed to the engine failure, it will always leave the lingering doubt about the product, even without the customer 'service' contribution.

I too had the center electrode fail in my 123 dizzy cap that left me stranded in a far away place. I wasn't smart enough to carry a spare, as I thought the new one would last longer than 2000 km. Silly me. I carry a lot of spares, before and after that event, but rarely have had to use any of them, but experiences like this make the practice necessary. 

Thank you for reading. I remember coming across your post way back whenever I was doing research on these units. I remember when reading yours I convinced myself that you must have got the only fluke! haha.

I've also come around to carrying various spare parts that can fit in the storage bin by the spare tire. Belts, a fuel pump, filters, a spare cap for your spare cap. Can't be too prepared.

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

43 minutes ago, Rill Cosby said:

Again, which I clarified already.

You haven't clarified anything for people that understand how engines work.  No offense intended, that's just how it is.

Loss of timing advance as indicated by the "app", smoke smell, poor running, low compression on one cylinder.  Just a list of things that happened that might or might not be connected.

Sorry.  Your frustrated, but you're not making things more clear with your posts.  Go get some real information.  Confirm valve lash, check spark plugs for signs of detonation,  add oil to the cylinders for the compression check to see if it's rings, do a leak down test.  Do more.

29 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

You haven't clarified anything for people that understand how engines work.  No offense intended, that's just how it is.

Loss of timing advance as indicated by the "app", smoke smell, poor running, low compression on one cylinder.  Just a list of things that happened that might or might not be connected.

Sorry.  Your frustrated, but you're not making things more clear with your posts.  Go get some real information.  Confirm valve lash, check spark plugs for signs of detonation,  add oil to the cylinders for the compression check to see if it's rings, do a leak down test.  Do more.

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific with that. I meant to say I clarified that this could be a big, huge coincidence. 

You're missing the point of this post. This isn't in the "Help Me" section. Nowhere here did I ask for help on diagnosing a failure. Most of those things have been checked. Again, not what this post is about. What happens if it is shot rings, or if it's this, or if it's that? It will still be my fault by your theory. This is what confuses me.

I've voiced my concerns with Ed in what could have caused this scenario to happen. His response was "very unlikely." I stated "but possible?" He stated "yeah..but unlikely" We discussed timing and how this distributor is supposed to work.

I don't know why I have to explain that varying degrees of timing in each direction can be detrimental to an engine. Pair that up with a distributor that clearly is not functioning correctly as proven by it's own app, who knows what that distributor is doing internally. I have no idea what it's set to, nor do you, nor does 123ignition. Sometimes your senses can't save you before an engine failure. And trust me, I was looking for signs. 

I don't know what you're trying to achieve here. I have way more to lean on here than you do, albeit not much. Maybe you're trying to see it from both sides, but you are reaching, far. Your first thought was to think I got frustrated because something, that I didn't even know was broke yet at the time, happened that I couldn't understand so I started gunning my engine. Come on. There is no way you're not the director of 123ignition himself. 

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Rill Cosby

I'm also still confused by your theory. If I could "beat" up my car before the install, why can't I " beat" up my car with a new distributor that is set to the same specifications of my old, functional distributor? I could "beat" it up 30 minutes before. Why couldn't I after the install?

You're "bad-mouthing" a good company, based on a lack of knowledge.  I do know how engines work, and I know how to determine the cause of a failure.  You have jumped to a poor conclusion and are sticking to it, no matter how much rational advice you're given.  You're spending more time defending a bad position than actually trying to find the truth.  That's why I'm here, to find out what really happened.

I did not read your email exchange with 123.  But if you communicated with them like you're doing here I can see why they gave you problems, and why they refunded your money.  You just wore them out.

4 minutes ago, Rill Cosby said:

I'm also still confused by your theory. If I could "beat" up my car before the install, why can't I " beat" up my car with a new distributor that is set to the same specifications of my old, functional distributor? I could "beat" it up 30 minutes before. Why couldn't I after the install?

It's called a coincidence.  Two unrelated things that happened at the same time.  Your engine was about to die anyway, it just happened to happen right after you installed the 123.

Edited May 23, 20195 yr by Zed Head

1 minute ago, Zed Head said:

You're "bad-mouthing" a good company, based on a lack of knowledge.  I do know how engines work, and I know how to determine the cause of a failure.  You have jumped to a poor conclusion and are sticking to it, no matter how much rational advice you're given.  You're spending more time defending a bad position than actually trying to find the truth.  That's why I'm here, to find out what really happened.

I did not read your email exchange with 123.  But if you communicated with them like you're doing here I can see why they gave you problems, and why they refunded your money.  You just wore them out.

Then why are you even here?