48supertruck

Let me start by saying this is not a debate on to supercharge or not, but that this is a fun hobby and there are some people in this industry who should be praised for their honesty and professionalism to help keep modding our cars fun. I just wanted to share my story. Hope my long winded story intrigues you.

I have a heavily modded 14 C7 Z-51 and a stock 2016 CTS-V which is my daily. The C7 was still kinda stock in the way of performance and was getting boring to drive compared to the CTS-V. I only have a few performance mods like the Akrapovic exhaust, Borla X-pipe and a carbon fiber Halltech intake up to this point. Last year, I decided that I wanted to Procharge the C7 so I started saving my money. I knew I would need about 6k to buy the kit and another 1k for some of the other parts needed, catch can, plugs, wires, thermostat. Well, about a month ago, I had saved up enough to buy the Procharger kit and other parts.

I did a ton of research on the forum and asked a lot of questions to try and put together the best DIY package so I would not waste any money and put together a package I could install myself. I decided on the Late Model Racecraft catch can / breather system and I had already ordered plugs and thermostat from another vendor. I had not ordered the s/c kit yet.

I called LMR and asked for Joe, their parts guy according to the Corvette forum posts I had read. I explained what I wanted to do to my C7 and that I wanted to order their breather system. I know they build some pretty fast cars and I thought their advice would be real world. Joe took it upon himself to give me some very solid honest advice. He informed me that there have been "some" reports of broken piston landings on the LT1 when boost and / or tuning comes into play, his advice was that I should invest in some drop in aftermarket pistons so I wouldn't have to deal with a potential bigger problem if the unthinkable occurred. He said "You are building a car to have fun with and this hobby is supposed to be fun, if I don't at least give you all your options, you will be really pissed if or when the motor gets hurt. Maybe it will never happen as there are 1000's of supercharged C7's out there, but at least you have more information to make the right decision for you". This was not information I wanted to hear, and I did not want to believe him. I had been saving for this project for 10 months and he just popped my balloon. We spent about 30 minutes discussing this and the first hand problems they had seen. He was just being honest and even though I didn't believe him 100%, he said "Go home, do some research and you will find lots of stories and pics of this potential problem". Well, I did that and I found way more information then I wanted, I looked at my options, calculated my costs and it was gonna cost me 10k to do my original plan and remove the the weak link in my overall plan. I felt that Joe's opinion was correct and to keep this hobby fun for me, he indeed gave me the right advice for me. I am in the classic auto parts business myself and giving my customers the correct honest advice is how I run my business too. This policy sometimes can talk myself out of a sale and I will probably never be rich, but I sleep well at night.

I have spent a ton of money modding my cars and I have dealt with at least a dozen different vendors on the C7 and this is the first time that the guy on the phone was not just about getting my credit card number within the first 3 minutes. Joe wanted to make sure I was going to be happy at the end. It was never about the money. I would of just continued to save to do the job right the first time. I stewed about this decision over that weekend and I wondered why the other place that I ordered the plugs and thermostat from who I had the extra same mod plan conversation with did not offer me this information. Very reputable shop, but I am not going to bad mouth them because they didn't do anything wrong, that company just does things differently. They just took my money and made me wait three weeks to get my parts. So I called Joe at Late Model Racecraft the next Tuesday and told him that I decided I didn't want to open the motor to do the pistons nor did I want to spend 10k just to make the car as fast as my CTS-V. I praised him for his honesty and I let him know how refreshing it was to deal someone like him in this industry. We decided to come up with a more safer plan to add some horsepower. I mean, I did have 7 grand burning a hole in my pocket.

We decided that I should do plugs, wires, ARH mid length headers with cats, LMR breather / catch can system, LMR billet thermostat housing with 160 T-stat, some Heat Shield stuff, ported throttle body and tune it. I ordered all the parts from LMR and Joe even let me beat him up on the headers and priced matched them for me and I still got money leftover for Vegas with the Sema show coming up.

I did all the install myself thanks to some other forum posts and all these mods have really woke up the C7 and is it loud as you know what. I have not done the tune yet and NO CHECK ENGINE LIGHT, it has been about 200 miles since I finshed the install. I only drive about 12 miles a day and I been driving it everyday. I couldn't be happier and that is exactly what Joe and I wanted since the beginning. I just took a different path to get there. Thank you Joe @ LMR

Vetteman Jack

It is refreshing to find a vendor that will give you straight info and not just try to take your money. to LMR for doing that for you. We are fortunate to have a lot of those type vendors here on the forum.

Late Model Racecraft

So glad you are happy with your car and the decisions you made to get there. There are always people that want to sell you everything under the sun but do not properly inform customers of possible side effects of said modifications, even if it costs them the sale.

Here at LMR we try and get the best understanding of our customers needs/goals and make sure we far surpass them while giving them all the information they need upfront to make sure the package they are getting is exactly what they want.

If anyone has any questions about an upcoming build or just need some technical advice please do not hesitate to shoot us an email or give us a call. We are here to make sure everyone that mods their vehicles actually get to enjoy them.

DSOMDream

A terrific, no bs informative post. Kudos to you 48supertruck! Paul

brettmess24

Very nice, this is how repeat customers are earned! Love that they have a presence here makes these decisions so much easier.

I too installed kooks long tubes with cats, katech ported throttle body, halltech, katech plug insulators and HP tuners with help by Steve at RDP.

Please do tell the benefits of that gnarly looking breather and are those colder plugs and plug wires?!?

Might have to give LMR some of my $😂

BigBronco

Great people over there. Known everyone at LMR for a long time and always able to get sound advice from them.

Kudos, Joe.

48supertruck

Give a Joe a call and tell him your exact mod list and I'm sure he can give you the proper recommendation for your car and its mods.

AORoads

It takes time and energy to do what Joe did, and frequently it does not come back to you in the form of real money---and that's what biz is in biz to do: make money. But once in awhile, not only do you make money---you get someone like 48 who decides to "spread the word." And the word is good.

If you notice anything on CF, there are those biz that are truly in it for the long haul---a word here, a piece of advice there, no sale today, but people read---people understand what was done. And that person who got the "free advice'? Sometimes it takes years---but they come back to the guy and the biz that gave them that "free advice" and drop money. And again. And again. And tell about it.

Kudos, Joe!

Late Model Racecraft

Thanks man! We have been in business a long time and there is a reason for it. Always be honest with customers no matter what and we always stand behind our builds!