Heat shield options?

[mscott]

sucks, i wanted one too.

[sharky]

buy some abs off ebay, use carbords as templtes, cut with a dremel or whatever. cost 420 and a bit of your time. I have extra weather striping if you need some

[JGood]

I didn't want to rag on them when you said you were buying from them, but I never liked that company. Back in the Roadfly days, there was a discussion regarding the uselessness of intake setups on stock m20's. A representative of Signature Motoring (I think Robert?) tried to tell me he was going to have me sued for defamation of K&N's product or some shit like that. That's all it took for me to decide I was never going to deal with them.

[kamotors]

buy some abs off ebay, use carbords as templtes, cut with a dremel or whatever. cost 420 and a bit of your time. I have extra weather striping if you need some

+1 making a nice custom shield only takes about a 1/2 hour.

[nando]

it depends. mine is a pain in the ass, and I don't have time to screw around with it. being able to buy something would be nice.

[sharky]

being able to buy alot of things for our cars would be nice but since we have 20+ yr old german cars with engine swaps sometimes we have to improvise and make it the way we want. I didnt make my own as I am planning on going SC soon so its a waste but working with ABS is fairly easy.

[e30bri]

buy some abs off ebay, use carbords as templtes, cut with a dremel or whatever. cost 420 and a bit of your time. I have extra weather striping if you need some

What thickness abs did you use?

[sharky]

1/8 or a 1/4 is fine, go the extra step and get a bit of heat and sound deadining and put it on there too, better than anything you can buy resonably

[C-T]

I didn't want to rag on them when you said you were buying from them, but I never liked that company. Back in the Roadfly days, there was a discussion regarding the uselessness of intake setups on stock m20's. A representative of Signature Motoring (I think Robert?) tried to tell me he was going to have me sued for defamation of K&N's product or some shit like that. That's all it took for me to decide I was never going to deal with them.

I am surprised that they have been around that long. Given their complete void of professionalism and support I cannot fathom how they have stayed in business beyond a few weeks. I paid for the shield on November 3, and it wasn't until November 9 that I was next contacted by Dewi, their "engineer," who said he'd be handling the shield. He then waited another two days to send me the pictures marked up for the measurements he required.

I was frustrated then, given that it took them 8 days to make some markings on the photo I sent them and get it back to me, but I should have known then it was indicative of a supremely sub-par business acumen.

it depends. mine is a pain in the ass, and I don't have time to screw around with it. being able to buy something would be nice.

Yes. This. I had high hopes when I provided the requested measurements that they were the real deal despite my gut telling me that it was destined for failure. Fact is, I am no good at fabricating even a simple item like a heat shield, and prefer to leave it to people who at least pretend to know what they are doing. Sadly, Signature Motoring failed to even do that.

This was Signature Motoring's response to my email detailing my concerns that it was now two weeks past their promised ship date, and that I was now extremely concerned:

I was informed of your inquiries from Dewi earlier and I believe he responded to you. Your order included a custom intake-hole heat shield that was not available from general stock, so time-to-ship will vary substantially. However, your order was completed and you can look forward to receive it shortly.

Enough was enough. I have no interest in doing business with Signature Motoring out of principle at this point, so my response was pretty clear:

Peter,

I received the below email on December 20:

Reply from Dewi@signaturemotoring.com
to Me
date Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 5:23 PM
subject Re: Your E30 heat shield order.

Hello,

Just to update you, we will be shipping your heat shield out on Monday with the custom intake hole.

Please explain to me how "time to ship" varies substantially when I was told the shield would ship on November 23. It is now December 7th, two weeks after the promised ship date, two weeks without any contact or email from Signature Motoring explaining why I have received nothing for my money except unprofessional silence.

Like I told you when I started this fiasco, I am a staff member at Bimmerforums.com and I have an entire forum of swapped E30 owners watching my experience with great interest. They are aware of how I have been treated by Signature Motoring, and like me they are supremely disappointed - They just aren't out $145.00 but that's OK, because soon I will not be either.

Due to the failed promised ship date and unanswered emails, I have filed a dispute with PayPal to start the process of having my money returned to me. I will be furnishing them with the email from Signature Motoring with the promised ship date of Monday, Nov. 23, and since I paid by credit card I will be contesting the charge as fraudulent. Unless by some miracle you can convince me that Signature Motoring is somehow more trustworthy than you have proven so far, I will be refusing shipment of any packages from Signature because I cannot take the chance that it will be filled with wood shavings to weigh it down in order to get my signature on file that I signed for something.

I have no confidence in Signature Motoring, and will not patronize a vendor that displays such a black hole of customer service. You have done nothing to gain my trust, indeed your every act from taking my money, to unacceptable response times to emails, to the final lack of communication two weeks past your promised "ship date" reeks of fraud and low-brow Internet scamming. If you truly are a real business, for your own sake I hope you do something about your utter void of professionalism if you honestly hope to stay in business.

While I can almost write the tripe that you will doubtless concoct for me in response, I'm sorry, I am not interested in any more empty promises from Signature Motoring.

CMT

It is of particular note that their "customer service representative" has not seen fit to reply, not even to apologize for the joke that is their "service," and certainly not to attempt to try and salvage the relationship. Why would he? After all, I am sure that damage control is as beyond their scope as true customer service. They have also failed to respond to the PayPal dispute that I opened a few days ago, which I suppose is a good thing because when it escalates to a full claim it will allow me to get my money back without having to contact my CC company for a charge back.

At this point I just want my money back so I can forget that worthless companies like Signature Motoring exist.

[JGood]

Well done, their jaws probably smacked the floor upon reading that email. That's about the most shit talking you can do while still being totally professional.

Sorry it didn't work out for you, but thank you for sharing your experience with the rest of us, so we can learn from it as well.

[e30bri]

has anyone used the e30 "sport"box (from the is). I made mine work when i got the miller maf for my m20 by using a silicone hose adapter. Would this be a decent idea? Or is it too restrictive?

[nando]

what's a sport box?

all B25s have the same airbox, there's no special one for the 325is.

it's not a restriction on a stock motor, but it becomes one soon enough.

[FredK]

A sport box is a special "iS" option. During the 1986 DTM season, BMW performed extensive research of maximizing M20B25 intake resonance at upper RPMs, as they were secretly planning on dumping the S14 junk motor in favor of one that fell flat on its VE face at 5500 rpm--the ///S20B25.

Several BMW interns were retained to use a carbide hole saw to add ventilation holes to increase the venturi effect of the PA6,6 airbox. As we know, more sound = more power, a concept proven by the Ractive Corporation. In the end, the combination of a Hengst paper air filter element and 6 50mm holes on the bottom part of the airbox resulted in maximum gains of up to 2-3 PS at the rear wheels.

There will be an examination on this subject during finals week. I suggest you bone up on this little history lesson, as it will be on the test.

[e30bri]

A sport box is a special "iS" option. During the 1986 DTM season, BMW performed extensive research of maximizing M20B25 intake resonance at upper RPMs, as they were secretly planning on dumping the S14 junk motor in favor of one that fell flat on its VE face at 5500 rpm--the ///S20B25.

.

I thought so..... 8)....so anyways is this box too restrictive for the s50, because it would mount up nicely and pull from the stock spot. What do u think?

[C-T]

Well done, their jaws probably smacked the floor upon reading that email. That's about the most shit talking you can do while still being totally professional.

Sorry it didn't work out for you, but thank you for sharing your experience with the rest of us, so we can learn from it as well.

I have a quandry.

I logged into my PayPal account and found this:

From Seller - Ocean Distribution
12/9/2009 15:29 PST

The vendor, Signature, has shipped this order (custom-size CAI shield) through its distributor. You should be receiving it this week. If not, please post a message and we will reverse payment until shipment is confirmed. Thank you.
D.M.
Ocean Dist.

I replied:

Your terms are unacceptable.

In fact do not know what planet considers this kind of contemptible business practice acceptable, but I most certainly do not. I have received no response from Signature Motoring regarding their shipment date that never happened:

http://lolstorm.com/Pics/signature-email1.jpg

The screen capture above illustrates the promise to ship on November 23, and the followup email asking for an explanation on Dec. 3. I waited four days for a response from Signature Motoring, and all I received was a standard/sub-standard "blowoff" email saying that shipping time can vary because I ordered a custom heat shield.

At that point I communicated my complete loss of faith in Signature Motoring to provide an acceptable product along with my intent to pursue getting my money back. I then opened this dispute, and had no communication until the above message.

I have no interest in doing business with this company, and have no confidence that they will deliver on any of their promises as they have failed to act out of anything but the worst type of professionalism. I am escalating this to a full claim, and I will be refusing shipment of any packages from Signature Motoring if they are indeed ever delivered at all.

....I still want that %$^%@# shield too, but not at the cost of my principles.