No problem. Let me explain. I have all the time in the world for this subject and will do so until I am no longer alive!!

The text below contained within the *****’s is a revised statement of what originally happened with my engine. I apologise to those of you on here who have read it already in its original form but I am repeating this PURELY FOR THOSE THAT WERE NOT AROUND THEN AND FOR THOSE THAT THINK EA KNEW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT WITH BIG BHP ENGINES!!………. And with the demise of EA and this thread I think it is relevant!


***** I returned my car to Engine Advantages to have a GT35 fitted which I supplied myself, replacing the previous T4 sized unit. Now remember that EA’s Brendan (who left to return to New Zealand) built the engine the year earlier and EA’s Paul Hills mapped it at vast cost to me (the vast cost element could be the subject of a different separate reply story!!…£140 for mapping fuel? On top of a full tank??). On the promotional “fliers” he used to send out it said “Engine Advantages guarantee all work” and I believe he also had this on a huge notice on his workshop wall? I have pictures somewhere! So I did not anticipate any problems.

I was led to believe that this GT35 turbo upgrade would only take a few weeks to complete. The GT35 was delivered to Engine Advantages sometime in early May. As time went on into the June, I began to get concerned about how long this work was taking but I bit my tongue as always and not once did I get angry. I was due to go on holiday on Monday 21st June so was a little concerned about whether the car would be ready before then or if I’d have to wait until after I got back. My car would then have been off the road for over 3 months just have what was effectively a bit of fabrication a turbo fitted! Remember I used this car as a promotional tool at shows throughout every summer show season. If only I’d gone to Martin Hadland for this work as Mike Rainbird repeatedly suggested I would not be in this mess – Martin is an expert on external wastegate installation!!

The week leading up to the 1st “big bang”, the car was nearer to completion. However, I got a phone call off Paul on Wednesday 16th June and was told that the external Wastegate spring supplied within the TIAL wstegate was “too strong” and he couldn’t get the boost down “below” 35psi! Paul said it was “more like a 1000bhp spring”! I rang Vince Osbourne who supplied the turbo and wastegate and when I told him what Paul diagnosed, Vince nearly fell off his chair laughing. I managed to get Paul and Vince talking to each other about it on the phone and again Paul repeated to Vince what he’d told me – that he thought the wastegate spring was too strong! Vince repeatedly told me that he thought Pauls diagnosis was very wrong. He knew it was very wrong! Clearly we now know that the real reason Paul could not control the boost was not because of the wastegate spring. It was because of the way Paul had mounted the external wastegate itself. In fact, if he had completely removed the spring, and replaced it with soggy toilet paper, it would still have made what I now know was 3.6 bar!

After numerous 3-way conversations, Vince suggested to prove a point, Paul cut a coil off the spring and Paul agreed to give that a go. The next thing I knew was when I got a text off Paul at 10.40am on Friday 17th June, which simply said “576.6bhp”. I rang Paul back straight away rather pleased thinking all was well and asked when I could pick it up and how much it was. But I was rather taken aback when he said “sniff” £1820 – remember I had supplied the GT35 and external wastegate myself – Paul was just going to fit it! I think Paul used the bhp “figure” to justify the huge fitting cost. I now know that it was to keep money coming in while he was having trouble with Stephen Hendy’s WRC car (several engine failures) and also other cars at that difficult time. I wont mention names here but have them!!

So I turned up at 9.15am the following day (Saturday 19th June) and my car was already parked outside with a warmish engine (?). Even at that time there were a few people there, including Efe who was down to check up progress on his own car which had also been there for ages!! The turbo looked impressive (as GT35’s do) but what worried me and my rather clue’d up mate Glyn, was how he had mounted the TIAL external wastegate – ‘T’ing off the very thin stainless EGR piping with what looked like copper plumbing pipe. Also the big shame of it was Vince had supplied me with a really nice “Tial” one, which due to Paul’s mounting method was hidden under the exhaust downpipe and manifold.

So after about 10 minutes of warming up the car and chatting to Glyn, I asked Paul if I could take it for a test drive. Paul said yes and then I asked “how fast can I go?” to which Paul replied “As fast as you want Ian, that’s what it’s built for” – Efe may remember this, as he was standing right there next to the pair of us when we said those exact words! But this is a while ago now!

So me and Glyn got into the car and went off for a test drive, heading slowly towards the A12. Once the stack dash read 89 DegC. I put my put down but at 6000rpm – a huge bang! Loads and loads of white smoke from the exhaust and the engine went down onto what sounded like 2 cylinders! Glyn said my 35psi boost gauge had gone so far around it was hitting zero again from underneath! We managed to limp it back to Paul’s and he/Glyn diagnosed the head gasket had lunched big time as the smoke was very white – I was now driving the worlds most expensive kettle!

I felt like driving my boot into the fucking door! Paul said “Don’t worry Ian, I’ll fix it” – so I left the car there almost suicidal and went home to face my holiday with that to think about! I rang Paul twice from Spain to check on progress. He told me it had just done the headgasket on number 3. At that point he did not mention anything about any head damage – he said it was “just a minor headgasket failure”!

I came back from Spain the following Monday 28th June and arranged to pick the car up 3 days later on Thursday evening which I did. Prior to that I rang and politely asked if I owed him anything for the “headgasket” repair – I am always like that, I do not take the piss and expect people to go out of their way for nothing. But shock and horror when he calmly said “sniff“ six hundred. We now know why - to be revealed below!

I arrived at Paul’s the Thursday teatime and he could hardly look me in the eye and looked really hassled. I only had 300 quid on me as I had already paid him the full £1820 two weeks before when the headgasket blew (as at that time, he’d asked me to leave him some money to pay the fabricator so I just gave him the envelope with the whole £1820 in!). One thing about me – I always pay my way!!

He virtually threw the keys at me and barely spoke as he was visibly clearly annoyed with another customers car – Stephen Hendy’s WRC Escort which was due to go out on a rally on the Saturday two days later and had unhealthy looking steam coming from the engine area. I now understand from several knowledgeable sources that the engine Paul has built/mapped has let go on several rallies and Stephen Hendy (much bigger than me!!) was losing his “patience” with Paul. I understand that Stephen Hendy was very annoyed with Paul indeed! Apparently he had threatened to break his legs!!

So before I left that Thursday evening I again asked Paul “how fast can I go?” to which Paul bluntly replied “As fast as you want Ian, that’s what it’s built for – it’s all ok now, don’t worry!!”. Hmm, where have I heard this before?? I decided to just get the car home and drove it the 175miles back like it was my driving test! I next drove the car 3 days later on Sunday 4th July to a cruise in Gloucester. Remembering the way Paul had mounted the wastegate I drove the car with a self imposed 25psi boost limit – this was very hard as these turbo’s comes on boost very quickly indeed once the revs are up. I didn’t want to go beyond that because I just had a bad feeling that the boost was still uncontrolled! I was reluctant to drive the car hard – I didn’t trust it! The 4 position boost control had no effect at all!! That told me something!

The next evening, I was due to take a potential customer out for a demonstration of what I could supply him. He turned up and I wasn’t going to take him out as I’d had a new windscreen fitted earlier that afternoon, but he persisted. Anyway, I thought I’d just run him down the local industrial estate and give it a quick “blip” on the throttle. Unfortunately I missed the 25psi mark on the boost gauge but honestly didn’t go beyond 6000rpm (but it was a “race” engine anyway so should have been able to withstand it! - plus Paul had said any issues were sorted!!). I dont even think I had got out of 3rd gear when there was an almighty bang and then the sound of lots of “metal” chunks whizzing underneath the car. I now know that those “bits” were parts of my block, rods and sump as one of my WRC conrods had gone through both sides of the block and one side of the sump. The engine was completely destroyed – there was nothing left that was usable! So I had driven my car 3 times since the April and it blew up on 2 out of 3 of those occasions. And on the middle occasion I was going that slow home on the M40 I was driving like Mr Bean and had fucking lorries overtaking me in the slow lane!

So after my girlfriend had come down to pick up and return the very unimpressed customer back to his car at my house, whilst waiting many hours for the AA recovery vehicle, I rang Paul at 10.00pm from the side of the road and told him what had happened. I was completely calm and didn’t lose my temper once – not at all. In fact the following day (6th July) I was even due down Paul’s as previously arranged with my mate Glyn to have his car mapped. There, I calmly discussed my engine failure a little but agreed to talk about it at a different time! During the brief private chat in his office upstairs Paul’s wife looked upset and told me that they had been having some bad luck with other customers cars recently – Paul gave her a dirty look when she said that – as if to shut her up!!

A few days later, following numerous discussions with Paul, I realised that his “offer” to put it right was not what I quite had in mind! In fact with the damage being what I now know it was, it would have mounted to at least another seven or eight grand or more bill! So enough was enough and I decided to call it a day and part company with EA. Following loads of calls to Vince Osborne (top bloke!!) he arranged for Harvey Gibbs to have the car, and when it arrived there I was amazed what I was beginning to be told.

Oh yes, one important thing, when Paul found out my car was on it’s way to Harvey’s (I did inform him) he asked if I could send him back my T6 ECU so he could erase all of the data and maps on it as he said they were his property and did not want SCS to benefit from his knowledge!! – I now know why as there was some pretty damning evidence on it! When he realised I was not going to do that, he then shadily rang back a day later and suggested I get my car collected from Harvey’s and said he’d fix the car at a “very reduced rate” – with all parts at cost and just £500 labour to pay the lad Tom who then worked for him. With the wrecked block, head, sump, crank, conrods, pistons and baffled sump etc that would have still been a massive bill so I declined the offer and decided to leave the car with Harvey. Why should I pay Paul anything? Paul had supposedly rolling roaded my car at nearly 580bhp on the Friday morning and the day after that, the 1st time I drive it, it goes bang ½ a mile down the A12. The next time I drive it properly it goes bang again and totally destroys the engine! Why the hell should I pay any more? For those of you that know me, I drove the car like a big girl anyway and never took it beyond 6000 rpm!! I was not a hard driver of the car!

Another reason why Paul wanted me to send him back my ECU. The datalogger on it would reveal lots and lots and lots of very interesting evidence!! Oh the wonders of T6-2000 – it datalogs every driving “session” going back ages. It tells you the time the car was started, rpm through the session, how long you drove it for and more importantly – boost at specific times and peaks!! And from this datalogging, I now know that at that precise point the headgasket blew at 9.59am that Saturday morning, it ran a peak of 3.6 bar of boost – that’s 4.6 bar absolute! Due to the lack of wastegate control no doubt. It also ran the same level of boost just before exploding the 2nd time as well.

Even more annoying, from Harvey's analysis of my T6-2000, Paul was working on my car up very late on the Friday evening (18th June) – I ask you why as if we recall he’d texted me 12 hours earlier with a supposedly 576.6bhp figure – so why would he still be working on my car running boost – surely it would have all been finished that morning and ready to collect! Also the following day (Saturday 19th June) when I was due to 1st pick the car up, he started the car very early that morning – I think it was at 6.26am !! Clearly I believe he was trying to get the car running on 4 cylinders from what I now reckon was several head/gasket failures that week as we now know there had been several repairs done to my previously undamaged and mint ported head! The car could not have been road tested properly at all.

So I think Paul knew this failure was going to happen again and he just wanted to say that it was fine when he tested it. He chose that route rather than admit he had made a mistake with the wastegate mounting method and he’d do it a different way! I also believe that the graph for 576bhp done on the 18th June was “not genuine” – how could it be? As both times I had driven it hard the fucking thing blew up! Why would he be working on the car that late if it was all mapped and finished 12 hours earlier. I even think it was possible Paul had problems with the engine earlier that week. I mean the head was knackered and had been repaired in 3 places!

Also Paul only “confessed” to me when he’d heard my car was up at Harvey’s that when my headgasket had 1st blown it had damaged the head. Why didn’t he tell me this before? He clearly wanted to keep it from me! But he knew Harvey would spot it in a second. In fact upon stripping for inspection, Harvey informed me the head was so badly damaged and botched from the previous uninformed repair that he did not want to use it on my new engine as it was not fit for the purpose!

From this T6-2000 we also now know that the maps contained more ignition on 8:6.1 than other well known very high powered engines ran at a much lower compression! In fact the maps were more or less perfect copies of 300bhp 34mm restricted WRC engines – not fit for a huge bhp engine with an enormous turbo.

Basic Facts:

The engine had done no more than 3000miles – never did a track day and was rarely driven hard – I’d just run it up to 6000rpm and then change gear every time.

My instructions were to fit my supplied GT35 and external wastegate assembly retaining the WRC tubular exhaust manifold if possible. Any competent race engineer would have welded a big pipe to the manifold and attached the wastegate to that – just as you do with a 2WD manifold. I did not instruct Paul to use the EGR pipes as method of mounting.

I even asked him before the car went there if he could fit the GT35 retaining the WRC manifold to which he replied “yes, shouldn’t be a problem” !!

Clearly the engine ran uncontrolled limitless boost as a result of the wastegate not opening at all – The EGR pipes were too small to flow enough exhaust gas required to open the wastegate and control the boost. It was a suicide mission from the very start.

His diagnosis of the wastegate spring being too strong was fatally flawed and totally incorrect.

The engine failed on its 1st customer test drive. Not even a mile had been travelled.

Considering his “we guarantee all work” statement I was still asked to pay for the headgasket repair

It failed again the very next time I drove it hard.

Considering his “we guarantee all work” statement, he again asked me to pay for a new engine!

I considered it non-ecomomical to take the car back there as it would have only blown up a 3rd time.!*****


........So why didn’t I sue?? Because I was too fucking soft that’s why!!