I would like to let everyone know about MHR Performance and his business practices. My intentions for this post is NOT to bad mouth or insult the company in any way, but rather to inform others to take precaution when dealing with MHR Performance. I know this is kind of a lot to read, however I feel it is important for those of you that want to have your H22's built and are looking for a good shop (this is obviously not one of them).

I have a silver 2001 Honda Prelude, which I purchased brand new in 2000, which makes me the sole owner (so I know exactly what happened and who put what in my car). I decided to get the engine rebuilt with 154,000miles on her. After researching for credible and local shops and sending out emails for a full month to these shops, very few had replied to my inquiries. In addition, finding legit shops (techs who knew what they were actually doing) that specialized in H-series engines seemed hard enough. Max Ha, the owner of MHR Performance, was one of the few to respond. I visited his web site and read about engines he's built. His previous Euro-R H22 build impressed me and so I decided to contact him for my specific build. We exchanged several phone calls and emails and on May 18th of 2006, I dropped my car off at his shop along with the deposit for the work.

He emailed me a list of the work order and what he planned to do with my motor along with a price quote. Prior to this, I had asked him the downtime of my car in which he replied, "Your car should be done in two weeks max." A few weeks passed by and my car was still sitting at his shop untouched. Every time I would call him and ask when my car would be done, he would reply, "another two weeks" and kept holding it off. The month of August came by and I needed my car (because it was my daily driver) to go back to school asap, so I would try to visit the shop 2-3 times a week just to make sure he was working on my car because when I would call him, he never responded. I left messages on his answering machine, voicemail, emails, pretty much every type of communication medium possible, and still no response about the progress of my car. When I went to visit the shop, he had previously told me that every bolt and nut would be itemized in separate bags so the original bolts would go back into their original holes. All I saw there was all the parts of the engine scattered all over in a clear, plastic storage bin. Nothing was itemized like he said it would be.

I finally got my car back on the 18th of August, but he didn't complete the installation of several things that was agreed on, my already modified Euro-R manifold (which he was supposed to do while the engine was out of the car) along with the Hondata gasket, RC 440 fuel injectors, B&M Fuel Pressure Regulator and Gauge, and my OBDI p28 ECU.

After driving my car out of the shop I thought this nightmare was over. About a few months after I got my car back, I finally get the Euro-R manifold installed. Upon installation, a broken knock sensor was found. Max's employee and I had spotted this back when the block was being put together and Max had told me that he would order a brand new one. After looking closely at the knock sensor, I was surprised to see that it had been SUPER-GLUED back together. I left a message regarding the knock sensor and asked him if he knew about this, he gave no comment.

I supplied him with most of the parts: cams, cam gears, pistons w/ rings, motor mounts, etc. and some how he charged me $600 over the original quote we agreed upon (~$6000 for the build alone).
I call him up after noticing the overcharge and tried to work with him, however he replies very unprofessionally and rudely (ie. listen motherf**ker, don't try to call me a liar or a thief.) I am very disappointed at the way he dealt with this situation. I couldn't believe a shop owner or any business would bad mouth their own customers like this.

MHR Performance, if you're reading this, I want my $600 refunded back to me before I take other courses of legal action.

EDIT: Pictures added

Here are pictures of the broken knock sensor that was put back into my car after the rebuild.





Modified by K-Spec at 4:17 PM 1/29/2007