My header install. Part 1 of the FPA nightmare!

[Mustang Mike]

Since my other thread is now locked, I will answer Dave's question here. I am sure the extra holes are for high port heads.

I tore the engine down today and sure enough, it was a blown head gasket. I went ahead and tore both heads off even though a compression test showed it was between 3 and 4. So I torqued the driver's side head on and began fitting the FPA header. Well, I am sure my donkey, as seen in another post, could have fabricated the headers to fit closer than did FPA. I am totally fricken pissed off. I went over all the info with Stan at FPA. The headers were made without regard to my CNC slave cylinder. I told stan that I had a hydraulic clutch with the CNC slave. I spent countless hours modifying the tubes ~bd with a ball peen hammer and a torch. I even had to modify the slave cylinder mount. I'm not even sure it's going to work until I bolt the slave back on. So much for the damn ceramic coating I just spend $250 on. It's ugly. I bet I reduced two of the tubes by half at the slave cylinder location. I will post pics tomorrow if I have time. That was just the driver's side. I have not even bolted the head onto the passenger side yet.

[cmayna]

Mike,
Sounds like you need to get out your blender and make some extra stiff margaritas.  Sorry you are encountering so much grief.

[68EFIvert]

That sucks.  I hope the other side goes a little smoother for you.

[Starfury]

I would've contacted FPA before hammering on the headers...

[Mustang Mike]

I would have too Tad, but I was in a friends shop and my old exhaust was cut out and on the floor. I had to get er done so the shop would be available to customers. It sickened me to have to bend the tubes but I had no other options. I also had to get the car ready for storage as it has been snowing. I think these headers were made for an automatic.I had to cut 3/4" off the end of the clutch fork as well. Even if I had the factory clutch linkage it wouldn't have worked. Stan asked me all the questions and I gave him all the different variables for my set up. I reconfigured the angle of the slave cylinder and shortened the bracket. I used a starter heat shield to wrap the slave and everything works just fine. The passenger side all but fell in. It was a breeze. I got it all back together last night and fired her up. She's a friggin beast! I drove it home un corked today from the shop. It had snowed all night and the roads were super slick this morning. I waited until about 4:00 PM when the paved roads dried up a little and it gave me a chance to get her home. The side roads are all ice. On the way home I couldn't help but get sideways in all gears. Now all I need to do is finish the 3" exhaust.

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[68EFIvert]

I am glad to hear you are up and running.  So what head gaskets did you go with?  If you are using the same ones as me let me know if you blow them again so that I can back off the boost.   :rof

[Mustang Mike]

Yes, they are the same. Oh crap, I just blew another. You better dial it down to 5psi :laughing7:

[daveSanborn]

I dunno Mike.  I know you got the DS header on, but it couldn't fit up in there much worse.  Is the clearance between the tube and the clutch slave cylinder going to be okay?

Whenever I'm making modifications to the car, I always ask myself "If I sold this car, would the next owner look at this work and say "WTF was he thinking?"  I'm not sure if the DS header would pass this "test".  I'd take some good pictures and contact FPA.  See if they stand behind their work.  It could've been a simple screw up on their end and they could possibly have a much better fitting header in the mail to you within a couple days.

Just out of curiousity, why go through all the trouble to fit long tube headers?  Going with shorties would have alleviated all of those problems.  Plus, you wouldn't have to worry about catching a collector flange on a pot hole.  The differences in HP gains between long tubes and shorties, IMO, is not worth the headaches.

[Mustang Mike]

Dave,
 I did have 1 5/8" shorties but wanted 1 3/4" long tubes. I did contact the asshole who made them for me. He took the easy way out and said our conversation is over since I smashed "his" header. Here is what he wrote. He is far from a professional. Even if I didn't go about it wisely, he surely could have acted like a professional business man. I spent $650 on headers and just under $300 for the blue thunder valve covers with this idiot.




First off, it's my header. The wrong header to be more specific. I had my
car in the shop and there was no going back since the shop time is borrowed
and is far from home. It started out as a little mod and turned out to be
larger. Like I said, once I started there was no going back. If you want to
act like I killed your first born then be forewarned, I can do more damage to
your business by my word of mouth on all the mustang boards than you care to
imagine. I don't care for your abortion comment. Did you sell me the wrong
header? Because this driver's side did not come close to fitting. I got the
idea of the ball peen hammer from posts I read of people installing your
headers. Like I said, it started out to be a small mod. I could not go back
due to the car having to go into storage for the winter. I have to get it
running to bring it to the storage. As I speak it is snowing and the car
should have already been put up.


----- Original Message -----
From: <fordpowert@comcast.net>
To: "mustang mike" <woosley@mtaonline.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2008 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: headers


> You "SMASHED " our header with a hammer before doing any further
> investigation !  I have no need to continue dialog on this matter. You
> might as well of given my wife an abortion without speaking to her about
> it first !! The particular header you purchased is sold every week to
> customers across the country with both hyd. and cable clutch
> conversions.90 % of our customers have a 4,5, or 6 speed manual !
>
> --
> Ford Powertrain Applications
> Stan Johnson
> 7702 E. 96th St
> Puyallup, WA 98371
> (253) 848-9503
>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: "mustang mike" <woosley@mtaonline.net>
>> Stan.
>>
>>  I just got in from working on my mustang for 9 hrs. The headers you sent
>> me DO
>> NOT fit. I have had to literally smash two tubes to half their size to
>> clear the
>> slave cylinder. We went through all the info and I told you I had a CNC
>> slave
>> cylinder for my hydraulic clutch. Besides crushing the tubes, I have had
>> to
>> modify the slave cylinder mount.There is no way in hell those tubes would
>> clear
>> any slave cylinder. I still have not even started on the passenger side.
>> There
>> must have been a mistake, these seem like they are built for an
>> automatic. I
>> will send pics tomorrow or Monday. I had them ceramic coated locally
>> because I
>> was going to add some weld-o-lets for O2 sensors but I never did. I am
>> into
>> these headers so far $900. Even at the $650 it took to get them to me I
>> would
>> sure think they would fit with no problems.
>>

[daveSanborn]

Well, I'd say you handled the email traffic rather well.  I'd have probably communicated the likelihood of bodily harm to the guy.

He should not have "terminated" discussions with you.  You were already pissed off, ending communication with you couldn't accomplish anything other than escalating your frustration.

He should have taken a whole different approach.... something to the effect of... "Why did you have to modify our header?  You should have called us before doing so.  Now that it's been modified, I'm not sure if we can help you.  Send pictures of where you had to modify the tubes.  Lets' see if we can figure out what happened."

This is all water under the bridge now.

Is "Stan" the owner of FPA?  I've heard his name before.  Before you start dragging the FPA name through the mud, you may want to try to re-establish dialogue with FPA.  Take the "high road" and give them an opportunity to make the transaction "right".

I had an issue with JBA last Spring.  The CS guy I was dealing with on the phone was a complete jerk-off.  I'd ordered a set of JBA exhaust pipes for my '66 and I recieved a cat-back exhaust system for a new Dodge Charger.  Their rep told me to "send the wrong part back and after they processed the receipt of/inspected it for damage... as long as nothing was damaged/missing... they'd send out my order".  He wouldn't mail me my exhaust pipes until after he'd received his parts back.  I told the guy to go screw himself and I was putting his $750 cat-back system on eBay and he could just forget about my little ole $150 exhaust pipe order.  In stepped the guys boss and the matter was settled within a couple minutes.

FPA has been around for a while and I'm sure they'd like to keep it that way.  Try opening up dialogue with them again.

[Starfury]

Honestly, I think you both could've handled things better.  From a sales standpoint, you did pretty much the worst thing you could possibly do in that situation; you made the part unsellable before contacting the manufacturer and trying to figure out why it doesn't fit.  You contacted them after you bashed the headers in, and then basically asked them to make it right.

You didn't bother to think that maybe things wouldn't fit quite right and plan for more shop time than necessary to complete the original job (you've got to know by now that nothing ever goes as easy or as fast as planned).  It's not their fault you absolutely had to get the car out of the shop.  That's not justification to beat an until-then perfectly good part with a hammer.  Even if they did send you the wrong header (which I suspect is the case), what do you expect them to do about it now that you've bashed it up?  Had you called them first, they would've sent you another header and all would've been good.  Now, if they "fix" this for you and send you the right header, they're now out a fair amount of money, simply because you had to have it done right at that moment.

You have to be able to think on both sides of the fence.  Yes, you are the customer and they did screw up, but that doesn't entitle you to damage an obviously misboxed (but likely perfectly sellable) product during installation and then complain about it.

I'm not saying his response is at all justified, but had I been the salesperson that took the call/email, I sure wouldn't have been happy, and you wouldn't have been treated the same as a person who called before trying to hammer on the header.

Don't get me wrong, I am sorry you had such a bad experience, I'm just trying to explain their side of it to you.  Call them and try to talk to someone else and see what they can do for you.  Do NOT call pissed off, it's not going to help anyone.  It's likely not the fault of whoever you're talking to, so yelling at that person is only going to make them mad at you and make them not want to help you.

[Midlife]

Starfury's response is what I would have posted.  Sorry, but I think Mustang Mike is in the wrong here.

[Mustang Mike]

I'm sorry to say that the two of you are wrong. Read the e-mail exchange again. I never asked for compensation or an exchange. All I said was that they sent me the wrong headers. I agree with Tad as far as me damaging the goods. I don't expect him to refund or trade me the correct set. I just wanted him to know that he did make me the wrong headers. He avoided any responsibility when he tried to use reverse psychology and ended all dialog. If he would have followed up with this, maybe his quality control issues would improve. The word of mouth threat was just that. Even thought stan is the guy who doesn't give a crap about his wife, he owns FPA. As a business man, he went about it all wrong. I do agree I was crass in my first e-mail and I was pissed as Dave mentioned.

[Sluggo]

I'm sorry to say that the two of you are wrong. Read the e-mail exchange again. I never asked for compensation or an exchange. All I said was that they sent me the wrong headers. I agree with Tad as far as me damaging the goods. I don't expect him to refund or trade me the correct set. I just wanted him to know that he did make me the wrong headers. He avoided any responsibility when he tried to use reverse psychology and ended all dialog. If he would have followed up with this, maybe his quality control issues would improve. The word of mouth threat was just that. Even thought stan is the guy who doesn't give a crap about his wife, he owns FPA. As a business man, he went about it all wrong. I do agree I was crass in my first e-mail and I was pissed as Dave mentioned.

I'm siding with Mike on this one. You guys need to start reading the entire post before you start flappin your jaws. ~be I
can see why Mike would be pissed. He gave complete and thorough instructions on what he wanted and paid for.

At no point did I read where Mike asked for replacement or compensation. He also indicated that he sent them to a
local coater to be ceramic coated which any of us know would negate any claim regardless.

I was about to recommend FPA headers to a friend but now I'll just tell him to spend a little more and get JBA headers.

Thanks Mike.

[Mustang Mike]

Thanks Sluggo. I was upset but not anymore. I just think he did a wrong thing for his own business by not following up. He, being the owner/supervisor, is ultimately responsible for bad quality control. He is also only as good as his employess. Therefore, if a bad or wrong product leaves his place of business, he should find out what happened. He instead got defensive so he wouldn't have to deal with it. Maybe he investigated and found out they were indeed the wrong headers and didn't want to deal with me. I take full responsibility and would not expect him to make me whole again after what I did to the tubes.

[Starfury]

I did read the entire post (although I did miss the ceramic coating info; I didn't even know FPA sold non-coated headers).  I just think it could've been handled better.  Like I said, Stan's response was unjustified and unprofessional, but my point was that Mike's original letter wasn't exactly professional either, and wasn't likely to prompt a professional response.

I work customer service all day, so I can understand that side better than most.  If you call someone (or send an email) simply to tell them that they suck, they're not likely to be happy about it.  If you call and explain the situation and calmly ask what can be done about it, you're much more likely to get a reasonable response.

That said, I can't blame you for not wanting to use or recommend FPA in the future.  Stan's comment was out of line for any business representative, let alone the owner.  His job as the owner is to ensure customer service, especially with such a small business that prides itself on quality.  In such a small market, you often can't afford the loss of a customer because that one lost customer will result in 20 other lost sales by word of mouth.

[Midlife]

Well, Mike, I apologize.  It really wasn't clear to me in your first post that you weren't expecting them to replace the headers, but simply wanted to communicate a quality issue with what you got.  Perhaps if you had started your e-mail to them with that, the owner might not have been so curt.

[Sluggo]

I did read the entire post (although I did miss the ceramic coating info; I didn't even know FPA sold non-coated headers).  I just think it could've been handled better.  Like I said, Stan's response was unjustified and unprofessional, but my point was that Mike's original letter wasn't exactly professional either, and wasn't likely to prompt a professional response.

I work customer service all day, so I can understand that side better than most.  If you call someone (or send an email) simply to tell them that they suck, they're not likely to be happy about it.  If you call and explain the situation and calmly ask what can be done about it, you're much more likely to get a reasonable response.

That said, I can't blame you for not wanting to use or recommend FPA in the future.  Stan's comment was out of line for any business representative, let alone the owner.  His job as the owner is to ensure customer service, especially with such a small business that prides itself on quality.  In such a small market, you often can't afford the loss of a customer because that one lost customer will result in 20 other lost sales by word of mouth.

Mike is not the professional in this scenario. He is the consumer.

I've been on the retail end of the auto service/parts/body biz my entire adult life. I have been bitched at and cussed out more times than I care to recall. Customers get pissed when they spend large sums of cash and don't get what they expect.Regardless of how Mike handled himself, it is the duty of the owner of the company to at least make an attempt at finding out what went wrong to prevent it from happening again. There is another person on this board who echoed Mike's customer service experience with Stan in a PM about FE headers just yesterday.

[Sluggo]

the owner might not have been so curt.

Or perhaps he's just a prick.

Start your board we discussed. This is a perfect example of how these discussions can wander.

[Mustang Mike]

Update: I wrote Stan an e-mail yesterday as Dave had recommended re establishing correspondence. I have a different outlook on Stan now. I guess we both got excited and said things we probably didn't mean.


Mike, let me say I'm "impressed" ! I mean , for you to take time to smooth things out speaks Volumes of you as a person. I take a lot of time to build headers that "don't cause customers grief. I get no pleasure out of being raked over the coals, so to speak when things go wrong. Unfortunately, there are a ton of modifications and circumstances that can cause my best effort to be less than perfect. For the most part, we have a great customer following. How's that little baby doing? What do you know of Sarah Palin ?
Best Regards,
Stan  F.P.A.



----- Original Message -----
From: "mustang mike" <woosley@mtaonline.net>
To: fordpowert@comcast.net
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 11:56:15 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: headers

Stan,

 Please let me appologize. I went back and re-read my first e-mail. I did
come across like an asshole. Please understand, I do not expect you to
replace any headers that I damaged. I had to get me car out of that shop the
next day. My old exhaust was cut up into pieces by the guy helping me before
I arrived. What started out to be a few small dents ended up being more than
I expected. I still regret denting the headers as they are the nicest
headers I have ever purchased.

Mike Woosley.

[Starfury]

I'm glad you got things semi straightened out at least.

[tarafied1]

WOW, I just read all this and was surprised at first of Stan's response. I too have been in a service roll for over 18 years and know you cannot take the low road no matter what the customer does. I just recently bought headers from FPA and had a great expeiance with Stan. I may not have bought them if I read this before Mike was able to talk with him again. I have a 429 in my 67 with early Crites motor mounts and was using Tubular Automotive long tube headers which had no ground clearance. When I spoke with Stan he knew exactlt which motor mounts I was talking about and built me some headers to fit my application and give me more ground clearance. He said they were $550 uncoated and $850 coated. I went with the polished coating. I should have pulled the motor or at least the heads to get them in but after a day and a half they were in and I'm really happy with them. A bit pricey but I have not found any other options than to have these made and he did a nice job. They even had my name stamped in the flange at the head on both headers. At one point he even called me to confirm some things we discussed on the phone. I'm glad he calmed down for you Mike and sorry to hear of your trouble, this hobby can be frustrating.

[Mustang Mike]

Sounds like you had a great experience with Stan. All that counts is your headers fit and you are happy. They are spendy but the quality is there I must admit. I had no problem with the craftsmanship or the quality by any means. I sent him a picture tonight of my slave cylinder before the engine went in. The duct tape is there because I was grinding and didn't want to get any metal dust in the bellhousing.
I mentioned that I would like to purchase another header. I'll see what he says.

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[daveSanborn]

I sent him a picture tonight of my slave cylinder before the engine went in.

Ah, this may explain why the DS header wasn't fitting.

In your original post, you stated....

The headers were made without regard to my CNC slave cylinder. I told Stan that I had a hydraulic clutch with the CNC slave....

From this statement, I, along with Stan and probably everyone else who read this statement assumed you had a traditional "pusher" slave cylinder that would be mounted aft of the clutch fork.  Although a forward mounted "puller" slave works just fine with your 4 speed, it's not the more common "pusher" slave that's used with T-5, TKO, T56 swaps.

In your initial dealings with Stan, did you explicitly state that you had a 4spd with a "puller" slave mounted forward of the bellhousing?

This would make a BIG difference when designing the clearances for the header.

[Starfury]

I'm not too solid on hydraulic clutch stuff...but it doesn't look to me like that slave is going to be pulling on anything.  The clutch fork needs to be pushed backwards to actuate.