Kenne-Bell Performance

I’ve had many forced induction cars over the last 25 years. My experience with the Kenne Bell I bought for my 94 Mustang was a roller coaster ride that was thrilling but eventually left me sick. In 2004 I bought a new Kenne Bell blower along with their perdormance chip, cold air intake, and large bore MAF. As soon as I drove it after install I had detonation. Yes they knew I lived in California not too far from them and could only get 91 octane. So they sent me a new chip and things went well for about 3 weeks and then I started hearing rattling from the blower. The rotors were not machined correctly so they started hitting one another. So after a couple phone calls they had me remove the head unit and return it to them. Of course the labor was still my responsibility. At this time they upsold me on a by-​pass kit as well. Ok not a bad idea for a few hundred bucks. So now after some frustration and added cost my stang was up and running.
It was a blast to drive, great torque! So like everyone I wanted more. The chip I bouth from them was their «switch chip» which let’s you have more then one program available. I opted for a 6 lb and 8 lb setting. So I bought an 8 lb pulley and pulley tool from Kenne Bell, flipped the switch and filled up with 100 octane race fuel. Even at part throttle I got detonation. I followed every thing they told me to do, bought everything they told me to buy and again get dreaded frustration. This was only 3 months after buying the blower, chip, etc. So they sent me another chip. Again detonation. So I just put the 6 lb pulley back on and gave up. Bare in mind a trusted and well known local shop did the install and they verified it was the chip tune that was causing too much timing. So 9 months go by and all of a sudden my car wont start one morning. I take it to the shop and they say my chip has failed. I call Kenne Bell and they tell me it’s very rare for their chip to fail and it must be my ECU. So I buy a brand new sealed factory ECU and the car still wont start. I send the chip to Kenne Bell and they finally concede their chip failed. So any normal person would think with all their claims of better quality and superiority over Vortech, Procharger, etc they would rectify the issue. Unfortunately I was at 13 months after my purchase and they refused to provide a new chip. Their solution? Pay another several hundred bucks for a new chip. So over the course of 13 months my car was down over a month because of their defective blower unit, and then couldn’t run 8 lbs as they promised, and now my whole car is not running because of another defective Kenne Bell part.
I decided that I was done with Kenne Bell and their half promises. I went to another tuner and spent $ 480 getting another chip and tune. My car ran way better then with the Kenne Bell tuning. The tuner also explained to me that the actual cost for the Kenne Bell chip and chip holder was only about $ 50 and that Kenne Bell had my chip parameters on file so if they had better customer service they could have cheaply replaced their defective part. Heck if they would have charged me a reasonable price I would have paid it. Instead, even after all their mistakes, they failed to stand behind their product and lost a loyal customer.
After another 2 years I sold the Mustang and swore off Kenne Bell. Do yourself a favor and read the different forums for your respective car. There is a reason Kenne Bell hasn’t grown like other companies.
Performance = great when it works
Quality = hit or miss
Customer Service = lacking
Hype = constant
Repeat Customers = not many

I got the Kenne Bell Blowzilla Supercharger upgrade for the 03 – 04 Cobra… it was a couple of g’s but no car on the street can hang with me. Even motorcycle. They made it so a poor engineer like me can run a lambo and embarrass the guy driving it. Good job kenne bell!