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It was quite ironic though, because they gave me the VIP treatment when I rolled up. And for those that don't know my situation, in short, Stillen tried to screw (rape) me out of a lot of money and parts. But more on that later. (scroll down for pics) The show was mediocre at best, with tons of bells and whistles, for an overhyped dog and pony show of their latest and greatest products. Mr. Millen was ever present with his minions patrolling the parking lot insuring chaos didn't follow, and pedaling his goods upon the mindless masses with their digital cameras and slack-jawed expressions. When I first arrived with two other fellow tt.net members, we anticipated being on the main strip of street that served as an overflow for the show going car. To our surprise, the gentlemen directing the show cars told us to veer to the right, which lead us to the very heart of the beast... Right smack in the middle of the show, near the dyno machine. Little did we know, we were also being used as pawns, because it turned out that Steve (Millen) wanted vehicles on the main lot with his product visibly shown. No matter, the SMZ kit is one of the best out there, so I didn't mind. So after eating the free food, a few conversations with other tt.net members, and watching some 300ZX dyno runs, we all headed out to the Toyota festival down at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. As for my historic ordeal with Stillen, I've never really explained it to many people on what happened, so here it goes: Back in 95', I had done a cluster of mods to my stock twin turbo. First it started off with redoing most of the suspension (shocks, tension rods, A-arms, springs, and a few other items). The next time around it was another cluster of engine bolt-ons (dual intake, blowoffs, larger radiator, sport 500 turbos and a few others that slip my mind). And in both situations I paid a few grand worth of work and parts. After about a year, I decide to purchase a new SUV and use the Z as a project car, so I went though Stillen buy me a Denali, and hook it up with tv's vcr, wheels, and a few other things. This was years before the whole ghetto-fied tv craze started, when they were too expensive for the "common consumer" to buy. Once the truck was done, I used it as my new daily driver and gave them my Z to do a full on engine build up. Keep in mind though, that this was YEARS before I knew about Greg Dupree, twinturbo.net, and the general "Z scene". So Stillen started with building up the block, extrude honed, ported, polished, blue printed, balanced, 3/5 angle valve job, and a sh!t load of parts and labor that totaled in the 5 digits. The car ran great during the test run, and immediately after the build, I shipped it to a local body shop to have them do the chameleon (some of you so eagerly despise), kit, and custom gas cap. The car was in the shop for approximately 8 months, and once it was done, it was sent back to Stillen to finish up their work. Once I picked it up again, I immediately had the interior done, which took all but a couple of weeks in preparation for my first Motorsport (West Coast Nationals, 2000) show. During the time I was detailing the engine for the show, I noticed it was missing the aluminum lower radiator hose, so I brought the car down to Stillen and they installed it for me. I was fortunate enough to win Best Modified 300ZX, and after that I started to add chrome to the engine, so the car was down once again awaiting chromed parts. And once again, I inspected the car for other parts that I had paid for. And one of the things missing was the Greddy Tranny cooler. So they shipped that out to me the following day. Finally, after the equivalent of 3 months of "officially" having the car from Stillen, I started having engine problems. It had a rough idol, and there was a lot of black smoke. I immediately told them about it, and they agreed to take a look at it. After their brief diagnosis, they told me that I would need to leave it, and they'd get to it "when they had a chance". They couldn't find out the problem right away, and whatever it was they told me that because I had the car back for so long, anything could have happened. They said I could have ran it hard, or threw a wrench or screw into the manifold when I put the chrome parts on it. From a business point of view I can understand that last statement, but when one of your customers spends almost 6 figures on a new vehicle, and parts for another, you'd think they'd be more than willing to do what it takes to ensure customer satisfaction. So after a couple of conversations with the service manager, and my salesperson, it turned out that they were getting their information crossed on due dates and parts. On top of that, Steve's main Marketing person was a sort of PR person and handled all customer inquiries, but he was very uncooperative and not understanding of my situation, despite how many times I explained it. So after taking possession of my vehicle, I had it towed to Precision Z out in the valley (Greg's old employer), but they wanted $6500 just to look into the problem. It was at this time, I went ahead and contacted the Better Business Bureau to have Stillen investigated. At first, the BBB was against me, stating that since I had a vehicle that was not "street legal", there was nothing they could do, but I finally convinced them that it was smog legal(which it was). And after a month or so of investigation, they found Stillen in violation of 4 different offenses, to which they were fined. A week or so later, I get a call from Stillen's insurance company asking me for an estimate on the costs to repair my Z.... The rest is history, and here I am. :
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Guess who showed up in the Stillen parking lot this weekend? - 
