C-Murdock

On April 8 I had my fully built turbo Honda Prelude towed to Motorsports Performance in Frederick Maryland. Owned and operated by Paul Efantis, the current record holder for a Supra on street radials. You know, the purple Titan racing Supra ? Paul was supposed to tune my AEM EMS for me. I get there, and he asks if I brought my laptop. I told him no, I did not own a laptop, but was looking into purchasing a cheap used one. He tells me that he will use his fathers laptop the next day, and to come back tomorrow. So I leave my car there. I come back the next day, and he says he is downloading the new software, because the software he has "wont work" with my car he claims. He tells me that he will work on it when he gets back in 5 days from Texas for a race. I wait, I come back when he gets back and he cannot get my AEM to connect to my car. He tries everything and calls AEM and nothing works. He says it turns out to be a wiring problem, and thats why my car stopped running when I had it. I thought it was the program that I wrote back in January because it was 20-30 degrees out and since it was around 80 now that the car was running so rich the car wouldn't run. So I wait another few weeks for him to finally fix the problem he says by going through my wiring harness and hooking up a relay or something (he didn't explain at all really what he did) and also unhooking my boost controller, turbo timer, Rev speed meter, etc. He says the AEM is connecting to my laptop now and he is going to tune just with the wastegate spring and that I should take it to the person who built my car and have them fix the wiring problem. He tells me every day that he will have it tuned by tomorrow but every time I call I get the reaction "I didn't have time to get to it today." My car has been at his shop for almost two months just to be dyno tuned. I am picking it up tomorrow un-tuned, and all of my electronics unhooked so I can take it to another shop that has a dyno and tunes the AEM and hopefully will fix my "wiring problem." I am taking it to Modified Motorsports in Harrisburg, a shop that has more experiences with Hondas.

The sad thing is, I am going to have to pay Mr. Efantis for labor on an unfinished, uncompleted job. I will never visit, drive by, or praise this shop again. If you are in the MD/VA/DC area and you plan on going to MSP for anything, please think twice. Paul Efantis is trying to race in the pro circuits and run a shop at the same time with only few mechanics on hand. He has been gone for races approximately four times when my car was just sitting at his shop, waiting to be tuned. I am disgusted beyond belief. I haven't driven my car full throttle since june 30th 2002, the night I blew it up when it was supercharged. I thought I was going the better route by building and going turbo, but now I am really regretting it. I just want my car to be tuned and running, so I can enjoy myself and all of the money/time/work that was put into my car. I am still paying insurance and car payments for a vehicle that has hardly seen any driving time this whole year.

Sorry for venting, I just thought I would share my experiences with this shop in hoping to steer someone from the same situation that I have experienced.

Danger

that sucks , how much u got to pay the guy ?

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JonnyDanger &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">that sucks , how much u got to pay the guy ? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I will find out tomorow. He did tell me over the phone that he charges $75.00/hr for electrical work... Im just trying to figure out if there is any way to avoid him from completely raping me...Any ideas ?

ComposiMo

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by C-Redrum &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Owned and operated by Paul Efantis, the current record holder for a Supra on street radials. You know, the purple Titan racing Supra ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Damn, sorry to hear about the situation... however, the Titan Supra is not the same as the Efantis Supra... two different cars.

May want to try to 'haggle' with him though... normally when you pay people do do labor, you expect something to be fixed. Play 'columbo'... it never hurts to ask seemingly 'dumb' questions.... sorta like: 'hey, since you didn't fix it, think i could get this for free, and maybe tip you $100 cash for taking the time to help me out a bit?'

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ComposiMo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Damn, sorry to hear about the situation... however, the Titan Supra is not the same as the Efantis Supra... two different cars. </TD></TR></TABLE>

sorry, saw the Titan sticker on his supra though...

Danger

$75 an hour ??? i hope he only worked on it for an hour . i couldnt see myself paying that much for something that was never completed . like the other guy said $100 at the most .

C-Murdock

things are rediculous, I know. But he has my car, and I need it from him, and he pretty much is owning me right now.

Mr. Softee

dont let that shop ruin your turbo experience! take it to a better place and all will be okay!

man im glad i can work on my own car shop nightmares SCARE me.

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94goldjungsr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
man im glad i can work on my own car shop nightmares SCARE me.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I wish I could say the same thing...

IloveNewt

man, tell me about it. I havent been able to enjoy my car since day one of the turbo. Good luck finding an EMS tuner. Maybe you should go hondata?......wait...thats not gettin me anywhere either...

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MordecaiPSI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">man, tell me about it. I havent been able to enjoy my car since day one of the turbo. Good luck finding an EMS tuner. Maybe you should go hondata?......wait...thats not gettin me anywhere either... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Hondata ? that means more money for my car.....

Sonny

That sucks, man.

If there are no tuners in your area that are familiar with the EMS and you do not plan on tuning your own car, you should consider switching to a system that people in your area have experience with...whether it be Hondata, Speed Pro, whatever.

Yeah, it's more money for your car, but look at the money and time that you wasted already by waiting on this shop.

It sounds like you are in over your head with the EMS. I only have limited experience with it and I can say that although it is immensely powerful, ease of use (especially for people with little tuning experience) is not one of its good points. For 95% of the people out there, Hondata is powerful enough to get what you want and easy enough to do most of it yourself.

Sonny

DaveF

how can u bitch about the ppoblem when you didnt even know what it was in the first place?


how do know he wasnt just fixing your "other" mechanics rigged *** wiring job or something. could have taken all of that stuff out to help "single out" the problem. who knows....

im tring to bash on your or anythong but just sit back and think about it.

maybe even work on your car yourself, you might learn something in the process and it might actually get done right, hey if ya **** up all ya got to do is go and fix it yourself, not pay some other shop to find the problem for you.

good luck though. sorry to hear about your bad experience.

C-Murdock

Obviously you didn't really pay attention to my post. Im complaining because my car has been sitting at his shop for two months that could be out of there in a little over two hours. He never even explained the problem to me anyways, it was always "we are getting to it" or "we didn't get a chance to work on it" and they always told me they were going to work on it at night but in reality they were out of the shop by 6 or 7 at the latest most of the time.

1fstevo

May I ask what made you decide to tow your car to him getting it tuned.

IloveNewt

Try Altered Atmophere i think in Gaithersburg? They dont do hondata but just migth do AEM.

prelude beast

altered atmosphere do tune aem ems they have it on their orange street turbo civic and they made good horse power i heard 541 horse power.

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by [Evo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hybrid]May I ask what made you decide to tow your car to him getting it tuned. </TD></TR></TABLE>

close and tuned the AEM EMS..

LJR-LUDE01

the sucks, I remember when you had problem with your block... you had some bad luck... hope you can work out a deal and don't get rape by the shop.... I would suggest you try to learn how to tunned the EMS yourself if no one around you knows how to.

GruvyTune

That story is rediculous! Its high time people stopped letting themselves get screwed over. Let him know you want your car returned and that you will not pay him a dime. If he refuses, you hand him a letter of your intent to sue him and then see what his reaction is. More than likely he will rather wash his hands of this. Just don't walk in there with an attitude that this guy can and will get away with this.

civicqm

Hey man I am sorry to hear about all this, I know you have to be furious. I can stand behind him on this post and it has been totally rediculous how this has been handled. However, on a better note, my friend was just at Modified Motorsports and said that the guys there were awesome. Very helpful and knew how to tune all standalone. So on the brighter side you will be havin a nice tuning done,I have heard more than one horror story about them...


Modified by civicqm at 9:40 PM 5/26/2003

mskibbz-T

http://forum.aempower.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=1500

bgod

this just goes to show that the most important part of building a car is building a relationship with a shop. no matter what you get charged as long as it's within reason. dealing with one shop and one shop only will work wonders for a person's stress in this import culture.

and to use standalones which that particular shop has some expertise in.

hope you get your car out and finally tuned before the summer is over.

C-Murdock

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mskibbz-T &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">http://forum.aempower.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=1500 </TD></TR></TABLE>

one of the first things tried...He said my ECU wasn't getting power.

alpha

Couldn't have said it better. I'm glad I have a tuner who I can trust and is very cool.