Edelbrock E-force Owner's thread and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by tracerit

Haha I would've taken you up on that a few months ago but all eyes are on the Edelbrock now. Gonna miss those late night E85 fill ups with the two gas cans

Why not Edelbrock + E85?

[pandamancer]

I knew I would get some flame-age for my comments/questions.

Let me be clear, I am not asking Edelbrock to warranty anything, let alone a 36k mile warranty on a 100k miles vehicle. They have OFFERED a constrained warranty and I am simply trying to understand the intricacies of said warranty and ALSO understand what the community feels would be a reasonable set of metrics to determine the true, in-use reliability of this system as applied to our vehicles.

Edelbrock is a business. Businesses make decisions in their best interest, not necessarily their consumers. When a decision can benefit the company AND consumers it is a slam dunk. A warranty is not this. Something like a warranty carries risk to the company so doing something like limiting your exposure to this risk via constraints on the application of the warranty is a prudent business decision. I recognize this, and I also recognize their offer of any warranty as an excellent gesture to the community.

Offering a warranty that you never have to fulfill is functionally equivalent to offering no warranty at all other than the boost to good will your company will earn. I will go so far as to say every business would be ecstatic if they never had to make good on a warranty claim, whether by building quality products(as I fully believe is the case with Edelbrock) or by constraining the application of the warranty(which it seems Edelbrock is also doing).

One final note(Edit to add):
The basic warranty Scion provides is 3 year/36k miles but the POWERTRAIN warranty is 5 years/60k miles. Edelbrock's warranty is about the powertrain, not the rest of the car, so the relevant manufacturer warranty for comparison purposes is 5 years/60k miles.

[86fun]

When I read the warranty I thought it looked like a way to sway low mileage customers, who still have the factory warranty and may be wary of losing it, to buy the kit since the car is relatively new on the market. That's about all I see as an intention/advantage out of it.

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah, nearly everyone I know with this car (including myself) has avoided modding it until the warranty runs out. This basically says, no need, for the most part. You are right, the powertrain is a bit longer, but it's still a good deal. And don't forget, this is not a warranty for their product, but for the car we are talking about. Their product is warrantied regardless of mileage/age of the car your install it on.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by pandamancer

I knew I would get some flame-age for my comments/questions.

Let me be clear, I am not asking Edelbrock to warranty anything, let alone a 36k mile warranty on a 100k miles vehicle. They have OFFERED a constrained warranty and I am simply trying to understand the intricacies of said warranty and ALSO understand what the community feels would be a reasonable set of metrics to determine the true, in-use reliability of this system as applied to our vehicles.

Edelbrock is a business. Businesses make decisions in their best interest, not necessarily their consumers. When a decision can benefit the company AND consumers it is a slam dunk. A warranty is not this. Something like a warranty carries risk to the company so doing something like limiting your exposure to this risk via constraints on the application of the warranty is a prudent business decision. I recognize this, and I also recognize their offer of any warranty as an excellent gesture to the community.

Offering a warranty that you never have to fulfill is functionally equivalent to offering no warranty at all other than the boost to good will your company will earn. I will go so far as to say every business would be ecstatic if they never had to make good on a warranty claim, whether by building quality products(as I fully believe is the case with Edelbrock) or by constraining the application of the warranty(which it seems Edelbrock is also doing).

One final note(Edit to add):
The basic warranty Scion provides is 3 year/36k miles but the POWERTRAIN warranty is 5 years/60k miles. Edelbrock's warranty is about the powertrain, not the rest of the car, so the relevant manufacturer warranty for comparison purposes is 5 years/60k miles.

Said warranty is offered, because if there are no failures, then offering it has no cost to them. I'd argue that the warranty still has a function in a "you never know" scenario. The best warranty is the one you never have to use.

To me, this is a win-win scenario. Owners of newer cars have the peace of mind of having a powertrain warranty, everyone else gets the knowledge knowing that Edelbrock is so confident in their kit that they're willing to warranty a powertrain *they did not even design*.

By your logic, shouldn't Honda not offer a powertrain warranty at all? I mean, how many civics and accords blow their engines during the warranty period?

[pandamancer]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Said warranty is offered, because if there are no failures, then offering it has no cost to them. I'd argue that the warranty still has a function in a "you never know" scenario. The best warranty is the one you never have to use.

To me, this is a win-win scenario. Owners of newer cars have the peace of mind of having a powertrain warranty, everyone else gets the knowledge knowing that Edelbrock is so confident in their kit that they're willing to warranty a powertrain *they did not even design*.

By your logic, shouldn't Honda not offer a powertrain warranty at all? I mean, how many civics and accords blow their engines during the warranty period?

I think this is a misinterpretation of the logic. Honestly, it depends on which side of the fence you sit. The best warranty to a consumer is one that, when called upon, warranties the parts it is intended to cover. The best warranty to a business is one which they never need to pay out on. "Pay out" is used liberally, I really mean one which is never used.

And no, Honda should ABSOLUTELY offer a warranty which is exceedingly NOT likely to have to be used. They "provide" the "peace of mind" to a consumer without ever having to pay for it. This peace of mind engenders good will in the eye of the consumer and costs very little to the company. Something akin to free publicity.

There is an argument to be had around a company like Honda or Edelbrock having invested the resources to build a reliable product, but they are in fact banking on their engineering teams having engineered a product which won't fail when they offer a warranty on said product. This is the "confidence" so many of you speak of.

All of this debate around the warranty is ultimately not moving forward my outstanding question of what criteria do *YOU* have for deciding if the kit is reliable or not. Unless of course your only criteria is that they offer a warranty, in which case you should(and some have) be saying you already believe they are reliable.

I'm sorry for having the owner's thread with warranty debate.

Now back to your scheduled programming.

[NotSoJDM]

Is there really only 9 owners! I think the first page needs an update with new owners


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[pandamancer]

One other question I have:
Has anyone run this kit with JDL UEL headers? Would it be reasonable to expect similar gains to the Gruppe-S UEL header or perhaps a different EL header? Given the S/C is forcing so much more air through, is the header choice more about flow/restrictions and less about exhaust pulse dynamics?

[Uplink]

Originally Posted by pandamancer

One other question I have:
Has anyone run this kit with JDL UEL headers? Would it be reasonable to expect similar gains to the Gruppe-S UEL header or perhaps a different EL header? Given the S/C is forcing so much more air through, is the header choice more about flow/restrictions and less about exhaust pulse dynamics?

In. The S/C is forcing air in the engine. If it were forcing through and out the exhaust you'd want to get that checked.

@CSG_Mike could probably speak to this better but the pulses should still be reasonably the same due to cylinder firing order and occurrence/rpm. To that side of it, your EL/UEL should play the same part as in non-FI. That should help with scavenging. The other side of it is, the less restrictive/more volume header should help evacuate more exhaust volume per pulse but at a slightly lower velocity.

[Uplink]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

I think you'd be okay with any of the proven lightweight batteries. I'm 99% sure the KC Machine battery would be just fine. (We sell that too!)

Has anyone tried this yet for confirmation?

I'm REALLY happy with the KC Machine / Shorai setup. We've been having nights in the high teens sporadically the last few weeks and the Shorai cranks (albeit slowly) every morning. Runs like a champ for the rest of the day. You'd never know it wasn't stock.

That gives me enough confidence to say it should work perfectly during normal temps but probably best to put the stock battery in for colder temps.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by pandamancer

All of this debate around the warranty is ultimately not moving forward my outstanding question of what criteria do *YOU* have for deciding if the kit is reliable or not. Unless of course your only criteria is that they offer a warranty, in which case you should(and some have) be saying you already believe they are reliable.

Unfortunately, the warranty, build quality and impressions are all we have to gauge reliability since its such a new product. Only time and street/track miles will tell how reliable this kit really is. Basically, its the trade off of being an "early adopter", so if you're on the fence, you can always just wait it out

Originally Posted by pandamancer

One other question I have:
Has anyone run this kit with JDL UEL headers? Would it be reasonable to expect similar gains to the Gruppe-S UEL header or perhaps a different EL header? Given the S/C is forcing so much more air through, is the header choice more about flow/restrictions and less about exhaust pulse dynamics?

If i remember correctly, I believe Bob @Drift-Office has a " case study" showing minimal gains were observed with headers with SCs in general

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47101

But that's based on a vortech kit, so YMMV.

[NotSoJDM]

Originally Posted by Uplink

Has anyone tried this yet for confirmation?



I'm REALLY happy with the KC Machine / Shorai setup. We've been having nights in the high teens sporadically the last few weeks and the Shorai cranks (albeit slowly) every morning. Runs like a champ for the rest of the day. You'd never know it wasn't stock.



That gives me enough confidence to say it should work perfectly during normal temps but probably best to put the stock battery in for colder temps.

FWIW, I am running the 11lb battery setup that FT86SF sells, and it has done great in the cold. It was 18F or some bs the other morning, and it cranked just fine. I let it sit for over a day without driving it and it started up fine in the colder weather as well. So far so good.


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[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Uplink

Has anyone tried this yet for confirmation?

I'm REALLY happy with the KC Machine / Shorai setup. We've been having nights in the high teens sporadically the last few weeks and the Shorai cranks (albeit slowly) every morning. Runs like a champ for the rest of the day. You'd never know it wasn't stock.

That gives me enough confidence to say it should work perfectly during normal temps but probably best to put the stock battery in for colder temps.

Give the battery a chance to warm up. Turn on the radio/headlights for ~30 seconds before starting, and it'll crank like a champ.

[tracerit]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Why not Edelbrock + E85?

That might happen in the future. Who knows haha. But right now I'm dealing with a squeaking clutch again... Had my throw out bearing replaced last summer, thus new noise is when I left the clutch out.

Would an upgraded clutch such as the act street HD be a good part to go with to accommodate edelbrock +e85?

I figured if greasing the fork doesn't fix it I'll bring it in if they service the car and open up the transmission I'll just get an upgraded clutch.