Why the heck won't you start?

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There are eight million stories in Empi city.

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@Michael Pickett

I had an auto electric shop bench test my alternator. It seems the 55 amp Bosch will do that for a few minutes, but 30-35 amps constant load is all it can handle. I'm guessing the 90 amp can probably handle 50-60 amps continuously. Just something for people to keep in the back of their minds that output is rated at peak.

Great catch on the bad diodes! Good on you!

EMPI( every manufactured part inferior)

@barncobob posted:

EMPI( every manufactured part inferior)

No, no, no. EMPI: Every Mistake Passes Inspection

... but seriously, it's nearly impossible to build a car without EMPI parts, and a lot of them are really pretty good. A lot of them are really pretty bad as well. The difficulty is in knowing which is which.

FWIW, the same can be said of some of CB's catalog, as well as AA Performance.

Mitch's post sent me to a Gun & Roses lyric - somewhat modified, of course.

"Take me down to the EMPI-crap city where the prices are low and parts are $hitty."

"Oh won't you please take me hoooooome".

Wow you guys are a tough crowd, they DO make good Zip Ties :~)

EMPI............Empi-Means-Performance-Inferiority......................Bruce

they buy the zips and repackage them..:}

Being that EMPI has purchased JayCee(among others) the quality isn't always crap. I just got the JayCee sump plate and No-leak pushrod tubes from Empi.

Hush Danny!!  Don't let facts get in the way of a good story!

Don't you have a brass thingy to lose somewhere?

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A few weeks ago, I learned the working lifespan of an EMPI interior door handle.

It turns out to be eight years.

Shorter than I would have hoped, but longer than I should have expected.

In 56 years of driving, this was the first door handle ever to break in two in my hand. And I’ve used quite a few door handles in that time - sometimes in haste, sometimes in exasperation, and occasionally in anger. Before this, though, every other door handle has been up to the task every single time.

But not the EMPI.

It’s not like I wasn’t cutting the EMPI door handle some slack. I knew it was a cheap copy of a handle that had been designed by an engineer to withstand certain expected stresses. The EMPI was designed just to look like the original and manufactured at the lowest possible cost.

So, knowing that, I haven’t been using it like a real door handle. I’ve made allowances. I work it gently. Never in anger. I make sure I never use it to pull the door shut. I’ve treated it like a museum piece that should be preserved for future generations.

It still broke.

So, I manned up. I did what I should have done eight years ago. I went to the Stoddard catalog and laid out 70 bucks for a pair of handles that look almost exactly like the EMPI handles, but that cost three times as much.

Why didn’t I do that eight years ago?

Well, this probably won’t make any sense to you, but I was thinking short term. Why waste 75 bucks when I can get almost the same thing for 25? How much difference could there be? Now understand this is just me. I’m pretty sure most of EMPI’s customers would gladly pay three times as much for a properly engineered handle if EMPI stocked their warehouse with them, right?

It must be the nutball, cheapo fringe types like me that EMPI caters to.

There are only a few of us out here, so I don’t understand how EMPI makes any money at all serving this market.

And I’m sorry if I’ve ruined it for the rest of you and you can’t find a decently made door handle at EMPI any more.

It’s mainly my fault.

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@Sacto Mitch, same for me, except I ruined it for everyone who needs a 90 amp alternator. We were clearly using the products in a manner not intended by the manufacturer.

The sad part is that the $75 handles probably came from the same mud-hut/factory as the $25 ones. You don't always get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get.

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I don't know, Michael, that's a pretty nice-looking alternator. You want it to do - what - electric stuff, too?

Stan, you're probably right about the single hut of origin. I'm guessing that's how, uh, 'QC' works there. If it passes, it goes to vendor A, if it fails, to vendor B.

That way, no handles are wasted.

You could always try JB-Welding the thing with some sort of support behind it

but your story reminds me of having a 1983 GTI living where GM has a cold weather testing center and coming out in the AM, at minus 42 and I try to turn the crank handle on the window.  The handle button peels off as if I am peeling an orange around the metal shaft.  Could not believe it neither did the dealer.

This sort of thing didn't originate with EMPI.  Both my brother and I had Ford Pintos for a while in college and the cheap pot metal window winders, door handles, and sun visor brackets in both of them broke regularly.  I think we replaced all of them in both cars at least once.  I sold mine after 18 months while he held onto his for years.  I think all of those parts were broken in his when he sold it.  The amount of cost cutting Ford did with those cars was criminal.

@Lane Anderson, Chevy Vega GT survivor here. Sold it after only 4 engines/rebuilds. Pinto with a bowtie.

Your not kidding Michael, my friend had one... engine went too, and I had a Ford Pinto, no fun and I it was sold in a jiffy.