I'm almost back. This year was full of mostly disappointment and regret. I am continually learning about what some of these so called "Big Performance Shops" are made of.
While some shops stand by their NAME, by what they do, what they believe in, going out of their way to do right by the customer, others will stand by their LABEL, taking customers time, hard earned money and… for granted.
Please understand I have decided to share some of my experiences not to simply complain. I have decided to write this to help everyone learn what I went through and hopefully prevent all of you from dealing with certain companies that have done wrong by me and my fellow racing buddies.
To begin with, please think twice before ever dealing with Slow Boy racing. They sent me a 2.4l short block, missing one bearing for the balance shaft with the balance shaft installed in the block. After we started braking in the new motor, there was a knocking sound coming from the motor. We called Slow Boy and told them what we found. Slow Boy said it was my fault because I didn't specify if I wanted a balance shaft. We thought this was an interesting way to do business seeing that it was on my invoice that I did want one in the block.
After we told them, they did not offer to help with the rebuild and didn't even return my phone calls. All I can say is, BUYERS BEWARE.
What's more disappointing, I lost a lot of respect for AMS, a company I once had a ton faith and trust in. Although AMS manufactures GREAT parts, however, their customer service is completely opposite.
I was once a very loyal customer. Everything on my car is AMS from the intake manifold to the turbo to the shift knob. And yet…I still get treated with no respect from this company. I am not going to tell you all the bad experiences my friends and I have had with AMS. It is not worth explaining how AMS has been a huge disappointment to me as well as many of my friends because maybe that was a bad part or one bad employee. However, it is necessary to share because as stated before, I would not want ANYONE to have to go through what I went through.
One of the stories I want to tell you is about a problem I have had on my car for the last 3 years. It all started when I got my AEM EMS. That year, I spent allot of money at AMS (turbo, trans, clutch, all motor mounts, VSR intake, AEM EMS, and 2 tunes) ever since I had all that work done on the car my ignition coils would melt or stop working about every 2-3 race events. I was doing a HSAX event at Blackhawk Farms Raceway and my car would not accelerate past 4000 RPM.
I called AMS and told them I was on the way. As soon as I got there I had a bad feeling about dropping my car off because I saw that Ryan Gates' car was being worked on. They were making a roll cage for him. The funny thing is two months before that, I asked them to build me a cage. AMS told me they couldn't do it because they didn't have the space or time……..Back to my story, I dropped of my car and told AMS I have 2 weeks until my next race. One week went by I called AMS every day and they told me they didn't have time to put my car on the Dyno. Monday of the following week AMS called me and told me "we just got your car off the Dyno all it was just the spark plugs making the car brake up". I was so happy that's all that was wrong with my car. I picked up my car from AMS that day and paid $325.00. As I started going home, no more than 4 miles from AMS, the car started breaking up again. I had to pull over and have the car towed home.
When I got home I called my friend Chris W who had a SWEET EVO 9 at the time (but doesn't have one anymore also because AMS screwed him over to) Chris W and I found the problem in 30 minutes. It was the coils. So I got a new set of coils and made it to my next race. At the next race event, the same thing happened again.
No thanks to AMS, I knew what the problem was so I called a shop called Touge Factory where I found my new home. I had never experienced such good customer before. To this day, they have never rushed me off the phone, they always take time to explain what I need and why, and they have the best customer service I have ever experienced. To them it does not matter if you are buying a sticker or building a race car, they give everybody 100 percent excellent service.
I was speaking with Mike L and he explained they did not have any coils for EVO's but will make some calls and get back to me as soon as they could. Mike called me back about 45 min later and told me he will open an account with SparkTech and get me a non CDI coil on plug ignition before my next race. Of course I told him to please order it. The part came in on time and I installed it and was able to finish my year with no more trouble.
To this day I am still shocked that everything went smoothly and the way it was supposed to. I couldn't believe I got a call back within the hour, and that this company went a step further by opening an account just for me, and then...the part came in ON TIME and I was able to accomplish what I planned to.
I know you think that is the end of the story but it's not so please bear with me. Getting back to my story with Slow Boy racing, after fixing their careless mistakes, we got the car to the Dyno at Boomba Racing. While it was there Devin S was tuning my car. During this process he noticed 2 problems. The first problem was the ignition breaking up. The second problem was that coolant started to come into the number 2 cylinder. Obviously Devin had to stop tuning the car. The guys from Togue Factory came and picked up the car. We immediately called Spark Tech and they told us to mail it in to see what had happened with the ignition. After we mailed it in I got a call a few days later from Craig at Spark Tech informing me what went wrong with the car and why. I didn't believe what I was hearing. Craig told me the dwell setting on the AEM was wrong and that was why I had been blowing coils. So he put 4 new coils and also upgraded my ignition to their new sequential design for non CDI ignitions.
Meanwhile, while Spark Tech was fixing my ignition, the head was at the machine shop, once again, getting checked just like I had AMS check it before I installed it on the car. But this time, the machine shop found a low spot next to the number 2 cylinder. I don't understand why AMS did not see this. I paid them full price to clean it and have it checked so that I wouldn't have this problem. And I also don't understand why AMS did not see the incorrect dwell settings on the AEM when I brought the car in the first time with this problem.
I am sick of these companies that don't know how to do good business by not having good customer service Like Spark Tech and Touge Factory. If it wasn't for Touge Factory I would have sold my car like Chris W. The Touge Factory went above and beyond what I asked and expected them to do. I'm so proud to be sponsored by them and I hope to do good for them next year now that they have fixed everyone's mistakes, I can go fast again. Take a look at the pictures at the bottom of the page to see the car that Touge Factory and I built.
