I
I bought his turbo apex a few months ago, I live in Alaska and he lives in Utah so I was not able to inspect the sled before purchase. I took his word that it was in good shape. After several thousand dollars in parts and countless late nights in the garage it still does not run properly. Before I bought it he told me it had just been gone through, was running perfectly and needed nothing.
On my first ride on this sled I made it a mile from the truck before it started smoking like it was on fire, I could smell and hear oil burning. I limped it to the truck and when I got home I found oil in the intake. The oil return line was too long and had a bend in it below the turbo where oil could collect. The compressor seal on the turbo was completely shot. Andrew told me it had always smoked and this was normal.
I couldn't find a local shop who wanted to rebuild the turbo so I had a 2871 over nighted from paul at impulse turbos as well as a larger oil return line. When I got the sled back together and on the snow it ran terrible as soon as it started building boost, occasionally it would spike and I saw 27lbs of boost once. So back to the garage.
I found a pinched waste gate diaphragm. As far as I know the only way to pinch a diaphragm is to reassemble the waste gate wrong.
This was keeping the waste gate from opening and causing the sled to over boost which broke the boost sensor in the fuel box taking away all boost fuel.
That was the main issue with the sled and the reason I know it didn't run right when he sold it. Since fixing that I've found many more problems and after each one I fix I find another.
This is the oil breather line from the crank case.
Three of the four header tubes were cracked, one was broken all the way around.
This is the damage to the tunnel from the header, although it isn't affecting the performance of the engine it may have shortened the header life.
I've fixed about half a dozen boost leaks so far, a lot were caused by poor quality work like this. Most connections were over tightened, but a lot of vacuum lines didn't even have zip ties.
Andrew is aware of all the problems I've found on this sled, and when I had to replace the turbo he offered to buy the original off of me to help with costs because he was more concerned with how he was perceived than making money on a sled sale. I declined his offer then because I wasn't looking for charity believing that he thought he had sold me a good running sled.
Now two months later I have less than ten miles on this sled since I bought it, I have several thousand dollars in parts fixing problems that existed when he sold it and so I asked him if he was willing to refund some of the purchase price to compensate for my parts/labor/lost riding time or I would sell it back to him for the purchase price and he would be receiving the sled back in MUCH better condition than he sold it. He declined both, told me I bought a used sled and stuck to his story that it ran great when he sold it.
Andrew does not work on his own sleds so I believe he didn't know about some of the problems. But there is no possible way this sled ran properly when it was sold. I wouldn't recommend buying a sled from him.
On my first ride on this sled I made it a mile from the truck before it started smoking like it was on fire, I could smell and hear oil burning. I limped it to the truck and when I got home I found oil in the intake. The oil return line was too long and had a bend in it below the turbo where oil could collect. The compressor seal on the turbo was completely shot. Andrew told me it had always smoked and this was normal.
I couldn't find a local shop who wanted to rebuild the turbo so I had a 2871 over nighted from paul at impulse turbos as well as a larger oil return line. When I got the sled back together and on the snow it ran terrible as soon as it started building boost, occasionally it would spike and I saw 27lbs of boost once. So back to the garage.
I found a pinched waste gate diaphragm. As far as I know the only way to pinch a diaphragm is to reassemble the waste gate wrong.
This was keeping the waste gate from opening and causing the sled to over boost which broke the boost sensor in the fuel box taking away all boost fuel.
That was the main issue with the sled and the reason I know it didn't run right when he sold it. Since fixing that I've found many more problems and after each one I fix I find another.
This is the oil breather line from the crank case.
Three of the four header tubes were cracked, one was broken all the way around.
This is the damage to the tunnel from the header, although it isn't affecting the performance of the engine it may have shortened the header life.
I've fixed about half a dozen boost leaks so far, a lot were caused by poor quality work like this. Most connections were over tightened, but a lot of vacuum lines didn't even have zip ties.
Andrew is aware of all the problems I've found on this sled, and when I had to replace the turbo he offered to buy the original off of me to help with costs because he was more concerned with how he was perceived than making money on a sled sale. I declined his offer then because I wasn't looking for charity believing that he thought he had sold me a good running sled.
Now two months later I have less than ten miles on this sled since I bought it, I have several thousand dollars in parts fixing problems that existed when he sold it and so I asked him if he was willing to refund some of the purchase price to compensate for my parts/labor/lost riding time or I would sell it back to him for the purchase price and he would be receiving the sled back in MUCH better condition than he sold it. He declined both, told me I bought a used sled and stuck to his story that it ran great when he sold it.
Andrew does not work on his own sleds so I believe he didn't know about some of the problems. But there is no possible way this sled ran properly when it was sold. I wouldn't recommend buying a sled from him.
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