This is my first time doing a detailed write up of certain individuals in this forum. I understand that this is the bad member section however this write up consists of great and horrible experiences I have dealt with for the past two years.

Hello to all of rotary enthusiasts, I wanted to share with everyone my experiences with a shop in Metuchen, NJ as well as another individual who is part of this forum. Before I go into details of my experience I would like for the readers to keep in mind that I am sharing my personal experience with facts only. (The span of this entire experience is approximately 2 years long in total so please bare with me if I am missing details or exact dates.)

Just a little about myself to start out, I have been a member of the rx7club.com since May, 2001 and have been a die hard fan of the rotary world since the day I layed eyes on a rhd FD3S in Seoul, Korea Summer of 1999 (I was car struck). I've owned my first FD during college 2002, which obviously was a huge mistake as all my money went into the car like a red headed step child. (I'm sure some of you have experienced this as well.) When I got out of school in 2005 I ended up selling the car to get debt free and pay off some of my student loans. In 2008 I ended up purchasing another FD as no car ever felt the same after driving a few cars.

Ok, so to fast forward, when I purchased my FD in 2008 my car had 92,000 original miles with minor mods done to the car, intake, full exhaust with RB duals, struts bars, silicone hose job, etc. basically almost stock with reliability mods. The car ran great for the miles as it came from a good owner who garage kept it in Ohio and never seen rain. (I was the 3rd owner). Since this isn't my daily driver I put in about 6,000 miles a year at the most on clear weather. About a year later the car started to show signs of low compression at times with slight smell of coolant. Each time before I start her up I had to add a full cup of coolant as it was burning off. I new what was coming as I was expecting a rebuild.

I brought the car over to THE SHOP for a diagnosis and with compression testing turns out it was due for a rebuild. (If I recall the front housing was 98 and the rear housing was 89). THE SHOP was very helpful in terms of recommendations on parts depending on which route I wanted to take before the rebuild started. Since it is a business after all I was being offered a lot more options than I can chew at the time but THE SHOP was honest about costing and attentive with my requests/questions. As I have always driven pretty much stock FD only I decided that I should go for a single turbo build I never got to do. Most shops will not do this but every used part I purchased from reputable sellers on the 7club forum THE SHOP inspected and tested. It took me almost 1 year to accumulate all the parts I needed for the car to be finalized, this was b/c I did not have a lump sum of cash to spend all at once so THE SHOP agreed to allow me to pay bills monthly at a time. Each time I went to bring over parts or payment I got to see the progress of the car which was exciting.

I ended up getting a Stage 3 Streetport with a Gotham Racing single turbo T04Z equivalent 850 primary and 1680 secondary injectors, dual wastegates vented, resonated mid pipe, v mount intercooler, tune from Enzo etc. the whole shabang. Car went through an entire overhaul including Apexi coilovers and black Enkei RPF1. (The list is literally 3 pages long)

When my car was finally complete some time in May of 2012 I scheduled to get a tune from Enzo in Long Island based on THE SHOP's recommendation. I have much respect for Enzo tuning, however I have come to realize that the tune was too aggressive for my taste along with high exhaust temps that would end up fouling my fresh NGK trailing plugs all around after about 50 miles of driving. (switched the plugs twice with the same results) The high end power was responsive and beautiful, however the lower end prior to 3k rpm was just painful to handle from constant backfires to bucking from nearly drowning in it's own unburnt fuel.

Not being happy about the results on the car I contacted THE SHOP regarding my situation around September 2012, immediately Ihor and Rich had me bring the car back to the shop and help diagnose the issue free of charge. They wanted to make sure that as a customer I was fully satisfied and happy with results of the car. It turns out as THE SHOP recommended before that I needed a Twin Power but it skipped my mind. (I know guys it was a stupid mistake on my part, obviously more fuel = needs more spark)

On October 22, 2012, THE SHOP had a none shop employee who is experienced on tuning rotary cars come in to tune my car to make it more "streetable". His name is Lance, known as mono4lamar in the forums and own his own business. On that day of 22nd around 4:30pm I received a call from the shop with good and bad news. (I was thinking to myself at the time, of course with rotaries there is always a possibility of another issue when solving one.) I asked for the good news first, which was the tune was successful and the motor runs great... the bad news is that my car has been clipped on the highway... In my mind this news did not register as I didn't quite understand what this meant, my first concern was if everyone in the car was ok? There was no injuries and as it turns out some old lady sped across 3 lanes and clipped my car.

The following weekend, I went to THE SHOP to take a look at my car and hear the full story of what had happened. Ihor was driving my car while Lance was in the passenger seat tuning. The laptop battery was low and Ihor needed to use the restroom so they returned to the shop after a few runs on the highway. When Ihor returned from the restroom my car was no longer in the drive way along with Lance. Ihor asked Brian (shop employee) where Lance went with my car and said that he saw Lance come out of the passenger seat, hopped into the driver side and drove off. After few minutes a call was made to the shop that he had gotten into an accident...

I wasn't sure how this happened so I had to hear it from Lance myself as this was the first time I ever met the guy. He apologized to me about what had happened and described the accident as follows. He was driving straight on the highway, goes through the toll booth when all of a sudden from the left side an old lady crosses over 3 lanes not seeing the FD crashes into my car. Lance described it as the old lady was trying to cut across the lanes to get into her exit which was right after the toll booth. (As you know toll booths usually have the left or right side for EZ Pass sections while the center areas are the cash booths). I than asked how the insurance information was handled as I was not present at the accident, he said that he provided his own insurance information and I have nothing to worry about. My major concern was how bad the other car was damaged and was the old lady injured? I was told from Lance that there was minimal damage to the other vehicle and the old lady was not injured as she refused for medical service on the scene.

My car on the other end was a lot worse than I had imagined it to be, it was totaled...

In the midst of all this Ihor made an offer to me that he will make sure things will be either replaced or better than it used to be, meaning he was willing to purchase a roller and transfer what was salvageable to the new roller. Again, I was pleasantly surprised on THE SHOP's customer service. Technically, if THE SHOP wanted they could of told me to take it up with Lance and the old lady's insurance since on paper Lance was not a shop employee where the shop insurance can handle this type of situation. It is a very tricky situation as the shop had my car for repairs yet the accident involved a none shop employee who did not have permission to drive the car. Basically, Ihor and Lance will split the cost/hours on replacing my car. I wasn't thrilled about the whole accident mishap but I looked at the bright side of things as I was pretty much getting a new car built from the ground up.

Fast forward to early November 2012, I receive a call from Geico, my insurance provider at the time.

Geico: "sir, has your car been stolen?"

I was surprised so I asked for details on why this was being asked?

Geico: "An accident report was filled out using your insurance information on the date of October 22nd 2013, and the other victim of the accident is pressing charges."

I then asked the agent how can this be when I wasn't present at the accident? I am being pressed with charges when my vehicle was the victim of an old lady's reckless driving?

Gieco: "If you do not know this person would you like to mark this Lance driver as theft of vehicle?"

I didn't know what was going on so for now I just stated, "I don't know who this is so for now I'll say no charges to Lance at the moment."

Geico: "Have you seen the accident report sir?"

I replied that I did not and requested for a copy of the report.

I am giving you the short version of the Geico chat as it was about 1 hour long on what happened.


Fast forward to one week ahead when I received the accident report from Geico.
I was appalled when I was reviewing the accident report due to the complete different story Lance had told me. As you can see the accident report, the mishap occurred before the toll both and portrays my vehicle cutting across 3 lanes in a 90 degree angle crashing into another vehicle on the furthest lane... The witness to the accident on police report is Robert E. Moore JR, Senior Special Agent with the Federal Protective Service. So now, I am at fault along with my vehicle.

At this point I was furious with Lance for lying to me (took me as a fool), but I still kept my cool. I reported this to Ihor and submitted a copy of the accident report so he was also aware.

It took me about a month to get Geico off my back about this accident as they needed another source to pay off this accident that other vehicle's insurance is demanding to pay up. Geico did not want to pay for the damages as the policy holder was not present nor was I aware of the driver taking my car and crashing it. Geico really wanted me to press charges to Lance as theft of vehicle as it would make things much easier for everyone. But still I refused to do that towards him as it would ruin his life and business. (Some you guys probably would think I'm a fool for not going through with it but I believe in karma and do not wish to ruin someone's life.) In the end so I have been told that Lance's insurance which is also Geico handled it. I would never know as I dropped my insurance with Geico after this unpleasant experience and the way they handled this case. Hours and hours of harassment during work hours is definitely not pleasant experience.

Few weeks go by and I visit the shop, I see Lance at THE SHOP working on my car, at this point he is fully aware that his cover has been blown about the lies. He didn't meet eyes with me or talk to me about how he was sorry about lying to us and putting me through hoops with Geico. I just met the guy for the first time when the accident happened and he lied to me so I had little to no respect for the guy nor would I ever trust him in the future. Did he really believe that I would not obtain a copy of the police report when my vehicle was involved in the accident?

At this point I just wanted to get my car back as soon as possible and I'm sure THE SHOP also wanted to as well to put this behind so other customer's cars can be worked on.

Now to the present moment, it is July 2013 and my car is still not complete. The car runs and to be fair I would say it is about 80% complete and the condition of the car much better than my previous. I test drove the car for about 2 months starting May 2013 and returned it back to the shop with a list of things that I noticed needs to be fixed or installed back in the car.

Somewhere between last year and present moment, Lance went MIA and stopped working on my car leaving it up to Ihor and Rich to spend countless hours/money to work on my car. This caused THE SHOP to lose out on a lot more money from the time loss and I'm sure many customers were effected on due dates. (I apologize to THE SHOP customers who didn't get their repairs done on time) This definitely was not the agreement I have been told was to take place. Even though Ihor technically did not have to he agreed to split the costs of purchasing parts while majority of the labor will be taken care by Lance. I understand there are two sides to every story but this one just had me confused, maybe it is my personality but when I obtain a project I stick with it until the very end.

Last I have heard about this situation it has escalated to the point where Lance is refusing to pay his full share of parts costs as well as the difference for not doing the labor work that he was supposed to be doing. It is a chain reaction of events, maybe he is a nice guy in person, however I would think twice about doing any business with this guy.

Originally, I was planning to write a build thread, maybe I will in the future but I felt as though what I have experienced is well worth sharing to the forum community. For those of you who don't know me I am not writing this to kiss THE SHOP's ***, I am simply writing a fair review based on my observation for the past two years on a shop I went to for the first time.
They do quality work and stand by it.

Thank you for your time for reading this thread.

 

Right after the accident happened...


Towed the car back to the shop to access the damages


Upon further investigation car had frame damage marking her totaled...


Another angle to show frame damage

 

That was one sad FD

 

it souds to me like IRP needs to take legal action against Lance for you.

 

oh man... so he was trying to make an u-turn.....

 

You really need to post a thread separately about Lance in the bad guy business section. No kidding....this needs to be told. Big time. If that were my car, someone would be fed through a straw for the rest of their life....

 

i agree with you rx7roller!!!!

 

yes she wasn't having a great time

Not for me but for IRP yes, as the write up states IRP used their own resources to handle this situation which they need to be compensated for. After all this IRP never asked me for single penny as they took full responsibility on handling this whole mishap.

yup looks like he is trying to make a U turn on a highway right before the toll booth

 

Yes I agree, I will post another thread separately so forum members are aware of this whole event. As much as I wanted to take the physical action against him I decided to take a different route at least until the entire dispute is cleared as it can complicate things real fast as young adults.

 

you think Lance is an actual business and has insurance? I really doubt it

 

Well, dont know if he has insurance, but he is registered as an LLC with the State of New York....

 

I see that now- an LLC you can do on legal zoom with little effort, if he had insurance im sure he would have passed it on a while ago to take care of all this because from my chair it sure sounds like he was looking at that laptop instead of the road

 

I would have to agree that he most likely does not have business insurance, but even if he did I don't think he can use it any how as this situation occurred away from his business and it was not on record. To my understanding he builds auto parts and not tuning as a business, no?

 

i gotta say you're an ******* for not pressing charges against lance. let's run down the facts:

1. he stole your car
2. he totalled your car
3. he lied about the incident to everyone and tried to pin it on an innocent old lady
4. he skipped out on the restitution (money + services) he agreed to provide to you
5. most importantly - he injured an old lady (not to mention damaging her car and affecting countless other aspects of her life)

maybe you don't want to press charges because you preferred to have the free labor he was supposed to give you. or maybe you were too scared, too lazy, or just didn't have the time to go through the bullshit of testifying, etc. but man up to the fact that you did it for your own personal gain. don't go around pretending that your a nice guy and you believe in karma and ****. in fact, lance not getting any punishment for his misdeeds is the opposite of karma. let's say you give him a pass now, what happens if he does this again because he never learned his lesson the first time? and maybe the next time instead of a little old lady he hurts, it's someone you love. now that would be karma.

 

I think you need to tone it down a few steps there, fdracer....

truth be told, he could have gotten more "personal gain" had he pursued it the way youre talking about. It would have taken a while but if he fought for his personal gain he would have come out better than he will now. Aside from that, you dont need to come in here and talk to someone like that. Dont agree with him? Thats your right. But dont rip into him because you have incorrect facts to base your opinion on. You have no place taking it that far.

 

I completely agree with you on what you are saying as I thought about all the factors you have listed plus more, but the fact of that matter is you are not seeing the bigger picture other than the immediate facts after reading my write up. If I were to take measures to press charges I would be also taking down IRP at the same time. It will cause a chain reaction of events I would no longer have control over as the hard facts indicate that IRP in the end did hire him to do the job, ultimately it will not end up pretty due to the double edge sword case. Now, if I were to be a selfish bastard as you mentioned I am I would of taken this route to sue Lance as well as IRP at the same time wouldn't I? Bottom line is measures are being taken from IRP towards Lance directly as this was the best option we had after I discussed matters with IRP first. Also, I don't use the word karma lightly as I been through a lot of hoops in my life so far, I'm sure if you got to know me personally you would also agree I'm not an ******* Anyways, no harm done I was expecting negative reactions from what I wrote.


Thanks for the positive input

 

Street tuning is dangerous, we stopped all street tuning years ago to avoid this exact situation. A couple hours on a load bearing dyno would have prevented this. It is not possible to drive, watch a laptop and make adjustments all at one time, safely.

 

In this case the tune started out with someone driving while Lance was tuning on the passenger side but for whatever reason he was tuning and driving at the same time right before the accident.

Btw, awesome oil pan brace on my car now!

 

The glaring hole in the story is that this guy jumped in the driver's seat and took off while the driver was in the toilet. That portion defies logic and led to a totaled car.

It is one thing to do throttle tip in tuning, back and forth in a driveway, but this guy decided to hit a multi-lane highway when he knew he had a driver. That does not make any sense.

 

That is what puzzled me as well.

 

I saw the totaled car when it was stripped of all its parts at IRP when I was having my diff built. I was curious what happened to it exactly as Ihor only told me it got hit by an elderly woman and everything was being swapped to the FD he had on the lift at the time. This was in November before the police report came out. And now I know the whole story behind the cars.

When I was at IRP I got the impression that Ihor was a real standup guy and a good business owner and this whole story solidifies the impression that he made.

 

I'm sure a lot of customers saw my mangled car sitting at the shop for a while, I'm glad that you were able to witness this in person as well. I am doing what I can to let the truth be told as Ihor has become a victim of an irresponsible individual. The rotary community is small as it is and I do not wish for something like this to happen to another member. Imagine having a car built that took a year then right before you get to enjoy the car it gets totaled...

 

I figured that this would pop up after a replacement car was put together for you. This is a long, EXTREMELY long story, that I wanted to go public with in as it got very messy during the whole process. Though I was told by Rich to not open my mouth in the beginning (even to our rotary friends).

I really really don't want to bad mouth anyone here and the first initial agreement was that nobody would talk about this as it could be misunderstood and make "both shops look bad." So even though everyone but me here is going against the original agreement lets jump right in.

I'll post the important facts about this scenario and if "stuff" really hits the fan I'll go out with all the details that will make everyone but myself and my company look foolish, irresponsible, and sneaky. I've always gone out of my way to help others an there are MANY, MANY, MANY members who have come to my shop for free compression tests, consultations, and quick fixes without me charging them a cent. I don't need to have 20k-30K invoices from my customers to make a living...

I also want to say that I have no problem with Gene and genuinely feel bad over this unfortunate *ACCIDENT*. Gene, I tired to talk to many of your friends to sort matters out and have you bring the new car to my shop. I also want to point out how I got viewed as a bad guy throughout this process because I never took the initiative to start spreading rumors throughout the community.

Anyway, here's the important details.

*I was employed to do tuning for IR Performance as they had problems with many other tuners in the past as I was told. I can provide a much better tuning service, help a fellow rotor shop, and make some money at the same time, RIGHT? Win/win?

*Every car I ever tried to tune had huge issues that were never diagnosed prior to giving me the call to drive 3 hours each way to come tune.

*Rich, myself, and a couple other rotary guys just returned from Atlanta's "24 hours of le mans." I did not want to tune the car and informed Ihor that I would return the next weekend. Ihor said "WE HAVE TO HAVE THIS CUSTOMERS CAR TUNED." Unfortunately me being a nice guy and trying to help out I was a pushover and stayed the night "at the shop" so I could tune the car the next day.

*Genes particular car had what I call "variable cells." It was either a failing turbocharger, a difficult to find vacuum leak, or a failing FPR.

*I can't believe I have to address this one. I never stole anyone's car. I informed Ihor that I would just take Gene's car out for a spin to try to put it through a couple more paces before I pinpointed what the issue might be. He said "whatever, I'm gonna take a ****." I wasn't actively tuning the car, rather, I was running datalogs to look at the setup. There was never a laptop on my lap and there never will be...

IHOR was also doing something else that day, I won't bring it up now just to show that I still have a shred of respect here for him.

*Again, I can't believe I have to address this again but lets look at this logically. If I had stolen a car, don't you think I would have received a phone call? I had the car for roughly 30-40 minutes before the old lady hit me from the side and never got a call. I called Ihor after I was nailed by the old lady to inform him of the unfortunate news.

*Most importantly, I wasn't driving recklessly. I was merging back into the EZ-pass lane at very low rate of speed (maybe 5mph) and was struck by the old lady traveling at a high rate of speed.

*When I was hit I was well within 75 yards of the EZ-pass booths (you're suppose to be driving at a rate of maybe 25mph). This old lady was easily doing 50mph+

*When I wrote a letter to the judge about the ticket I was given. I provided pictures and my testimony of what happened that day. Miraculously I got a letter back saying the charges were dropped and all I had to do was send in a small fine.

*Gene and I both had Geico at the time. Geico never raised my rates and I'm pretty sure we can all agree here that they did not find me at fault (another coincidence)

*Gene had no coverage on what we could all agree was a 20k car. If there was proper insurance on the car the insurance company would have paid for the car due to me not being at fault. When I had my one 42r powered 99 spec fd on the road I always carried collision and comprehensive insurance, if you have a nice car that's just what you do right? Who here doesn't agree?

*I gave several thousands of dollars, in cash, without any hesitation to Ihor to fund the unfortunate situation.

I'm going to leave the rest out of it for now. I'll see what everyone else responds with before I get the real ugly details out as to why I "stopped showing up." Please keep in mind myself and my company have worked for many, many individuals over many years building engines, tuning, CNC machining, ext... and if there were small problems we've always taken care of the customer or person.

Never have I ever felt so stabbed in the back after making all the right attempts to go above and beyond. Had Gene come to my shop in the first place we could have used a dyno and more importantly I would have done all the proper tests to make sure the car's ready for tuning.

I've "tuned" many cars at IRP and NEVER was able to complete one due to issues. I'm not sure what that's worth saying but you can read into that if you want.

I'm ending it here as this will be what I will refer to as the "nice post" where I don't say things that my discredit others even though the opposite has been done to me. I have a lot of respect for many people here on the forums but it seems to be coming to an end. All I say here is that this was truly an accident; I never did anything like this on purpose, who would?

If Gene really want's to call me a "poor character" or "bad individual" he did it too early. If he's still having problems with his car I will still honor my extension for him to to bring the car to my shop. I guarantee the car will never run better than if you bring it here to let work on it, all while working on it for FREE.

Again, I've never had any bad thing happen and you can do a search to see there's never been any claim against me. I can't say that you can find that these days with many shops. Everyone else can choose to see where this undeserved thread against me goes from here...

 

I always take your side to posts on the forums here. I can't agree more with you again on this one! Yet, I had to drive the car to diagnose the problems at hand. IRP could never secure a dyno to do any tuning. Again, I never "tuned" a car while driving. I only run datalogs and feel what the car is doing. Ihor or someone else woudl drive the car if I were to do active tuning while driving.

I trust your opinion and have no different viewpoint as usual.

 

uuuhhh, so do you have an explanation for the police report lance? you conveniently left any mention of that out in your post.

and why bring up op's lack of comprehensive insurance if as you claim it was the lady's fault? if that was true her insurance would be paying for all the damages. and if she was at fault as you claim, why aren't suing her pants off as we speak?