I purchased a set of ARP's fasteners…
I purchased a set of ARP's fasteners from an ebay seller. The bolts are listed to fit a toyota 3sGTE engine.
After receiving the package from the ebay seller, the rod bolts were fitted to the stock conrods and it was noticed that the new bolts were 1.90mm shorter than the stock Toyota bolt.
The issue being that around 2 to 3 threads were visible inside the nut, it wasnt possible to have a protruding bolt so some threads wouldnt have engaged. meaning the remaining threads would have higher loads applied if the nuts were torqued up. In addition i found a 10mm nut in the kit that didnt fit the rod bolts at all as the remainder were all 3/8 inch so packing error. I sent an email to ARP with all the details and a second email with photos of the problem.
I did receive a reply some days later to the first email butafter that there has been no further communication from them.
I have sent them at least 4 follow up emails and have heard the sum total of nothing from them since. Its like theyre incommunicado, none of their other email addresses that i found work either they simply bounce, the .info address just goes down a hole someplace and is never seen again.
So Im stuck with a set of bolts that DO NOT fit the application on the included data sheet ( you can check for kit number 203-6002 yourself on their site and it still says they do fit- nope, they dont).
So now Im 2 months late on an engine build that should have been done in march with only a few possibilities:
1) modify the caps and rods to inset the bolts (not the best idea) 2) Put in a set of stock rod bolts ( not ideal either) or spend nearly £500 on a new set of rods, ironically with arp bolts fitted...
Ive used ARP bolts before- fantastic quality items but these dont fit the application, and customer support is total pants and im not prrepared to spend £4 a minute on a phone call that might last half an hour to them.
Pull your finger out ARP.com.