I am just posting this and warn any new Black Friday customers to consider canceling their orders, and for people considering buying the kit in the future the kit to look elsewhere.

TLDR: A majority of the kits break, including several LHT Performance installs, and there are several weak points and design flaws inherent with the kit. When it does break, there is a high risk of terrible customer service (they outright won't replace parts out of warranty), and borderline fraudulent practices.

I broke a bolt after 500 miles on the kit, dozens and dozens of others have as well. I tried to get a machine shop to fix it, but they were worried about damaging the Rotrex blower. After finally giving in, I sent my supercharger to KW. Two weeks in their possession (for a 5 minute fix), they over-nighted it to the wrong state. They promised to overnight another new unit to me... and didn't. 40 days after shipping the blower to KW, they don't know where my blower is, and yesterday they said they are out of replacements.

***Ironically, they posted dozens of Rotrex blowers on Instagram a few days ago, and today a friend called to ask if they would sell him exactly what they claimed was not in stock. They confirmed they had them in stock and offered to sell him one. I called a few minutes later... and they lied to me saying they didn't know when they'd get any in stock.

I cannot recommend more emphatically that you do not buy anything from this company.

For some background, here's a timeline of events:

-Black Friday 2018: KW S2000 Black edition kit purchased, supercharger arrives but is not the black housing.
-5/5/19: Kit installed and finally tuned.
-10/6/19: 500 miles later, the pulley bolt breaks
-10/23/19: After multiple machine shops are worried about rotating the blower backwards to extract the bolt, I inquire with Doug Haley about sending it back, expressing my concerns over numerous owners having ridiculous turnaround times, and Doug says, "As for the turn around time, as soon as we get it, we will work on it."
-10/28/19: After getting back into town from work, I send the blower to your facility.
-11/1/19: Doug acknowledges receipt of the supercharger
-11/5/19: Inquire about progress, since it is one bolt to extract and send everything back.
-11/6/19: Doug says "Have have engineering currently working on your unit"
-11/8/19: After asking again, Doug said " Unit has been gone through and it should be shipping Monday. "
-11/14/19: Emailed Doug for a tracking number to ensure I'd be in town when it arrives.
-11/15/19: No reply so I email him again. At this point we are two weeks out from it arriving at your facility.
-11/18/19: Doug replies saying it should have arrived that morning. Instead, it is shipped to the wrong State (Ohio). If I had been provided with a tracking number as requested, I could have saved you guys the cost of shipping it overnight to the wrong address.
-11/18/19: Doug promises that I will have a supercharger by Wednesday of that week. "Yes, I can. I'm waiting for the other Ryan Wagner to confirm he has it to send to you. If not, I'll overnight you a new unit"
-11/19/19: Doug says " Can you please confirm your shipping address for me? We'll be sending you a new unit"
-11/19/19: Doug says "I have a black 92, 85mm pulley, and full oil kit going to you overnight"
-11/20/19: Doug informs me that he lied, and the original blower is being sent from Ohio to my address. The new blower was recalled and I would have to wait until at least 11/21/19.
-11/21/19: I write to Doug, "Just an update, for some reason you guys did sign on delivery so I cant be home to sign for it, the delivery driver didn't leave a slip for pickup at facility or front porch drop-off, and I'm out of town until Saturday most likely. Not sure how many attempts they'll make, but you may want to keep that other 92 packed."
-11/22/19: Doug says, "I think warehouse did that to ensure it got picked up by you. I can have it held at a local hub if that will work for you?"
-11/25/19: I email Doug to say that I still have not received it, have no door tags for delivery (probably wasn't even attempted at this address), and he had still not given me any info on where to pick it up (I can't pick it up without a location!!)
-12/2/19: A full 10 days later Doug contacts me saying he's working on it. He does not answer when he sees it's my number, others have called immediately after me to test if he's ignoring my number, and he is.
-12/4/19: Another KW employee, Joel, had to call me and let me know that UPS can't find the blower, and there are no blowers available.
-12/5/19: Another S2000 owner calls Joel, asks if my exact blower is in stock, and Joel says YES!!! I called an hour later, and Joel lied and said NO. Left a Voicemail with the Manager/CEO of Group A... Several hours later: Nothing.

 

40 days and 40 nights I'm following the Facebook group right now it doesn't look good for KW right now
I have been so close to pulling the trigger on this kit as well. I hope it all gets fixed for you.

Or they come out with a V3 kit and finally fix all the shortcomings

 

That would require a full redesign by ditching the cogged belt. It seems after extensive reading that common knowledge dictates the cogged/toothed/Gilmer setup is not suitable for street use, and larger companies like Paxton I believe specifically do not warrant blower failure if it was run with a cogged setup.


A manually-tensioned cog drive is simply too finicky to utilize on a street car. Richard from TTS advised KW directly on their poor design choice and was ignored. KW is very aware of the issues, but it’s cheaper to just simply continue to warrant failures within the one year timeframe and tell you to kick rocks afterwards vs retconning the entire thing and admitting the issue / full redesign.

I really regret my input in the big thread. I feel like I gave people (including myself) a false sense of hope that this kit could potentially be made reliable. I recently jumped ship myself and sold my kit NIB at a loss before I could have any issues myself.

Aside from LHT, the KW name carries a horrible reputation amongst the s2k community. There’s a reason why SOS sells their kit for 5k without fuel or EMS year-round while conversely KW can sell their kit with fuel and EMS for LESS than that throughout the year and still turn a profit. I don’t think anyone has paid full retail price for a KW kit.


Waiting on s2000Junky and RAIN H8R to really get this party started lol!

 

Having installed 4 of these kits myself the fact there is no easy way to measure belt tension is the biggest flaw of the kit. I've managed to shave a few hours off install of the kit itself but the most time consuming part by far is making sure the belt tension is good. If they could redesign the kit to have an automatic tensioner it would easily resolve most of their issues. As far as the customer service... yea its definitely lacking from them and will likely end up costing them whatever they have left of their reputation.

edit: I'm also going to mention that LHT has not stopped installing these kits which leads me to believe they have at least some faith in the kit itself.

 

I've said my piece, the kits obviously speak for themselves

 

Its unfortunate that TTS doesn't have a US dealer. Someone that could offer local shipping and support.

 

That is a hurdle, or less then ideal I should say.

 

Sorry to hear OP. I've been following this on facebook as well. Let's keep this civil and hope you get a blower back. The good old days of taking care of the customer are gone.

 

I really like LHT, but I can speculate that retailers of the kit push the kit to consumers because they make $2,000 on the sale of the kit itself, plus the labor of installing which could be over $1k with clutch and fuel improvements. This is likely why they will continue to sell the kit.

The kit has been junk since day one. I would have loved to be the one to post about all the shortcomings and customer service issues, but I didn't feel I was worthy since I dont own one. I do have a list of reasons not to buy KW sc kits, but I'll leave that alone.

 

and I can also respond to that as a current business owner that a business is only as successful as their reputation. I doubt LHT would drag their company name through dirt due to the reputation of a 3rd party vendor. Even autozone stopped carrying cardone parts because of their increasingly high failure rate and this is the same company that has shit parts inside of duralast boxes.

LHT has installed over 60 kits on the s2000 and I have read of 2 failures. The 3 biggest flaws of the KW kit were the vtec solenoid bolts (corrected), the fuel pumps (most people replace immediately with walbro), and the fact that it comes with very poor directions on how to properly tension a cogged style belt.
Im not trying to say this kit is perfect nor will I sit here and defend their customer service or lack there of. All i'm saying is that I've had my kit installed for 3.5 years with no issues on the part of the KW kit. And since then I've installed 3 more kits all with similar results.
I was fortunate enough to grow up around v8's with cogged blowers (friend's not mine), I've seen what happens when they are too tight, and I've been lucky enough to have installed more than 20 old VW manual tensioned timing belts and if it wasn't for that I would have absolutely over tightened the belt on this kit because of a serious lack of instruction. This is not a kit that I would recommend anyone who doesn't have a good amount of automotive professional experience to install, and even the instructions do say professional installation recommended.