i really hope the intense/zzp vendor bashing doesn't become common place here like it is on cgp. there is nothing wrong with informing others about your experiences with different companies, that's what these forums are for. but it gets difficult to filter out the useful information from the b*tching when threads get to be many pages long and guys are swearing at each other, making no actual progress. i have not modded a car before so i'm here to learn how, and seeing some of this stuff makes it very discouraging i we can't be civil about it. also, as rob said earlier, it is difficult to warranty parts because there is no way to account for all the different setups and combos of heads/cams/intakes/exhaust/ect. gm goes through years of testing on a standard setup and stuff still gets screwed up. as he said, ya gotta pay to play.
okay, about intense/zzp. i do not know the complete story about the history of these two companies and where things went so sour, but it is my understanding that both companies have had problems before, zoomer has gotten some fixed and scott still has to work on things. if someone could post a cliff notes history about these companies that would be cool, so we know what went on without having to wade through dozens of threads of bashing on cgp, i know i would rather not. maybe intense wants to use this opportunity to turn over a new leaf and start somewhat fresh, since there's a big hole to dig himself out of with the 3800 community.
i would also like to say that my bf has a heavily modded gtp with an mp112 blower, and we have had pretty good experiences with intense. could be an isolated incident, i don't know. his torque inverter went out last fall, leaving us stranded at a bar, fortunately not far from home. long story short, we had a friend come and pick the car up, tow it to his house where he took the tranny out, loaded it into his gtp and drove it down to intense. scott completely rebuilt the tranny for next to nothing, which was a lifesaver. i will say that we haven't had a chance to drive it much since it got put in becuase there are problems with the air suspension, but that is irrelevant to this thread. i would say give both zzp and intense a chance with this area, see waht happens, then come up with a judgement.

sorry for the rant , wanted to get my .02 in.

 

cliffs:

ZZP and Intense used to be friendly companies. ZZP slowly realizes intense is just using them. Few years back at an intense drag day, intense's turbo car broke...again... and someone made a comment about it as they towed it by. Words were exchanged between camps and someone goes up to scott and tell them zoomer (owner of zzp) hit him. Zooomer is a trained martial artist but has compelte control. There were witnesses there that swear nothing happened. instead of just kicking out the offenders, anyone associated with zzp was kicked out as well.

Im not suprised at the failed torque converter. A few months back Scott came out and said the TC's they were selling were bad and they had some "new and improved" ones. However, they sold their remaining defective TC's but at a discounted price......wait.....let that sink in..... they sold knowingly defective products and justified it by a reduced price......

 

Wow. Hey JMC- keep up the good work bro! I really appreciate you stepping out there on a limb to test and tune this stuff and give us all feedback on it- and a 17% increase is damned impressive if you ask me. For the other crap in this thread- wow.

 

I am going to address the comments in this thread one time, and one time only. After that, we are going to be 100% focused on what we do best. We help people make their cars fast, and we have fun and make friends doing it.

Sorry in advance for the lengthy post, but this will be the only one along these lines from me...

First off, we won't respond to comments making fun of our company name. That's childish, and from the threads I've read on here already, I don't believe most members will appreciate that sort of behavior.

Our modular supercharger pulley systems are the highest quality on the market today, and do in fact fit the M62 superchargers used in the Cobalt SS, Saturn ION Red Line and Pontiac Pursuit. We feature ANSI-spec pulley grooves, and have our name brand and the pulley size engraved on each pulley.


Mistakes were made with this product - no doubt about it. The person who designed the product never told anyone there was a quality problem until he left the company and cashed his six-digit retirement check. That's unfortunate, and since the day we found out we've done everything humanly possible to take care of all the issues. Here's a recap of the development of the INTENSE LSD for anyone who wants the details of how it developed over time:

History of INTENSE LSD


Correct. Either should work.


On the ZZP, use the center six ribs. On the INTENSE, use the rear six ribs. The front two are for wider belt systems in the future.


Again, we won't respond to comments making fun of our company name. That's immature, and from the threads I've read on here already, I don't believe most members will appreciate that sort of behavior.

You don't like us, and that's fine. We respect your opinion. But there's nothing shady about our practices. In fact, here is a link to some testimonials from a few hundred of our recent customers. You'll notice that all these people have real names (first and last). They're not 'keyboard warriors' who prefer to hide behind their respective screen names.

INTENSE Customer Testimonials


Calling people names and making fun of company names seem like second grade behavior. We don't respond to comments along these lines, and most mature people will agree with this policy. Again, from the threads I've read on here already, I don't believe many in this community appreciate that sort of thing.


We don't 'blacklist' anyone, and we don't hold grudges. We've learned over time that life's just too short for hatred. So instead of spending all day attacking our competitors and people we may not like, we prefer to spend all day taking care of customers, developing the best possible products and having fun.

We did leave the ClubGP message forum thirteen months ago, and we did so shortly after the moderators adopted a 'no moderation' policy. Ironically, they just adopted new forum rules that use the exact same wording we have on our own message forum. So now we're in contact with them to consider sponsoring again.

For anyone that is curious about how we feel a forum should be run, we host www.3800Pro.com, which is the fastest growing message forum in the 3800 world. From what we've seen here, we believe we'll fit in just fine, and that's why we paid for our sponsorship fee earlier today.


Several of our cam grinds weren't specifically dynoed before hitting the market. CompCams does it all the time, and we do it sometimes too. After you've developed a dozen different cam grinds for a specific engine, and dynoed more than 200 cars with the same engine, you end up knowing just a little bit about it. By the way, in 2005 our cam grinds powered the world's fastest FWD Grand Prix (9.64 @ 146 MPH), world's fastest FWD Bonneville (10.71 @ 125 MPH), world's fastest FWD Regal (11.63 @ 114 MPH) and world's fastest 2004 Impala (11.99 @ 113 MPH).


Our ported fifth gen M90 supercharger housing is amazing. Here is a link to a recent dyno we did with this blower housing:

INTENSE Fifth Gen M90 Car Hits 395 WHP and 445 WTQ!


That statement is false. This product was designed and tested by someone who is no longer with the company. That doesn't change the fact that there was a design problem that we didn't know about, and it doesn't change the fact that some product did fail. I personally accept responsibility for these mistakes, and that's why we've done everything in our power to rectify the situation.


That's very misleading. We purchased every available differential core we could find in an effort to resolve the issue for as many customers as possible, as soon as possible. I personally remortgaged my home in order to fund these purchases. We offered free replacement differentials and free installation for customers who could come to our shop. We covered shipping for customers who couldn't. And we gave them each a $75 'inconvenience credit' for having to swap their differential again.

We understand that this wasn't a perfect solution for everyone. But it was way beyond our stated warranty, way beyond what we could afford to do financially, and way beyond what most companies would have done.


Well said. Since this debacle, we have hired the best people available. We have put quality control standards in place that normally aren't found at companies our size. And we have made supplier changes in any and all categories where the products we were buying before weren't the highest quality available, period.


That's not what happened, so I'll give the readers here the undistorted facts. First, this customer came to us saying he wanted to have the fastest Grand Prix in Texas. We gave him a recommended mod list. He agreed to it, we installed everything and dynoed the car. After the dyno, we predicted that his car should be able to run elevens with good traction and good weather. I believe the previous Texas record was ~ 12.35, but I could be off a little bit on this.

We then flew to Texas to help with his first race. He met his goal and ran 12.22, becoming the owner of the fastest Grand Prix in Texas. Even with poor traction and weather conditions he set the record on his first race with the new combination! Here's a thread he wrote about his new record:

John sets record for fastest Grand Prix in Texas!

We had hoped for elevens, and it was clear that with better traction and weather elevens would certainly have been possible.


That's false. We and our competitors all build good cam grinds. In fact, the top six 3800 FWD cars include two INTENSE cams, two ZZP cams and two Stattama cams. Here's a chart that shows the best dyno numbers for most of the common 3800 cams available today for anyone else who wants straight facts:

Top 5 Cam Horsepower Chart for 3800 with M90 Supercharger


As I mentioned above, I am only addressing the comments in this thread one time. After that, we are going to be 100% focused on what we do best. We help people make their cars fast, and we have fun and make friends doing it.

Anyone who wants more facts should feel free to email me at ScottC@INTENSE-Racing.com, rather than bring this message forum down to the level that recently caused others to adopt new moderation rules and ban the troublemakers.


You will not see anyone from INTENSE bash any other vendor on any message forum. We prefer to take the high road. That is an integral part of our business model, and our current team is in full agreement with this approach.


Well said. That was the reason we stopped sponsoring ClubGP last November. We didn't have any interest in supporting that sort of environment. We understand that things have changed and new rules are now in place, so we have been in contact with them about sponsoring once again.


That's a twisted version of what really happened. There were too many defects, so we found a new supplier who could produce a better product. Here are the facts that we reported in our public announcement:

08.02.05 - Pro Torque converters to be discontinued.
Effective immediately, INTENSE™ will no longer be purchasing torque converters from Pro Torque. The three primary reasons for this decision are listed below.

1. Poor quality.

Pro Torque’s defect rate has averaged nearly 13% for the last two years. Despite numerous conversations, emails and even meetings with the owners, they were unable to rectify the ongoing quality issues.

2. Defects not replaced

Although the defective converters have continued to come back from customers, the repaired units stopped coming back from Pro Torque. We have always replaced customers defective converters with no questions asked, but Pro Torque no longer has been covering these units for us.

3. Unkept broken spline credit promise

After we had made countless efforts to take care of customers with defective torque converters, Pro Torque finally agreed to give us an actual credit for each failed unit, so we could try to help our customers cover some of their replacement costs. After more than seven months of follow-up efforts, we never received any of the promised credits.

Our remaining Pro Torque converters will be sold at a reduced price until they are gone. We will no longer be able to accept returns of any Pro Torque converters for any reason. All future warranty issues can be handled directly through Pro Torque, or other distributors who continue to offer their products.


No, not exactly. We didn't 'knowingly sell defective products'. Rather, we offered remaining inventory with a 13% defect rate at half price to any customers who were willing to take this risk. It was a case of full disclosure up front. I apologize if you didn't understand what was going on in this situation.

I want to thank everyone in advance for giving us the opportunity to help you make the most of your cars, and make some new friends. We've already paid for sponsorship here, and we have MANY products well underway for this community. Anyone who calls or emails us can expect to receive a timely response from us every time. We'll treat you with respect, we'll build the best possible parts, and we'll offer them at fair prices.

Scott

 

^^^ Bravo, man. You could have done any number of things here, but the fact that you owned up to past errors, and explained what changes have been implemented to correct them makes me willing to give you guys a chance at redemption.

 

^^^ +1 I will be looking foward for products that you may be supplying us in the future. Thanks for your honesty!!

 

Very good service, they took the time answering each of my every 5 or 6 e-mails . I left also a message on their voice-mail (friday at noon), and they call me back only a couple of minutes later, right here in Quebec City (I was at the speed shop) to inform me of the installation criteria. Congratulations !!!

 

Nice response Scott! Guys, i look forward to working with INTENSE-Racing to bring you all some great products for the Cobalt!

Between Hoosier Performance and INTENSE, there will be some AMAZING things happen in this community in both performance and service.

Look forward to racing and helping all of you!

Rob

 

Wow, some of these posts just got out of line. Don’t get me wrong, people do have the right to be informed, but don’t trash talk someone just because you don’t like them.

Also, as of today INTENSE-Racing is a Supporting Vendor on this site. I feel they have a lot to offer for the Cobalt.

Also, please read our site rules. Bashing the Vendors is not tolerated here.