Here are my responses to Todd's Detailed Post -
Start this off the right way.
Jeff Gaines brought me a 2006 viper built by RSI that he bought SIGHT UNSEEN. Said that it had a fuel smell and an oil leak and that he had ONLY driven it 15 minutes before flatbedding it up to me.
I spoke to the Owner in detail viewed many photos and reviewed work history on the car including all receipts before buying the car. The car did have what appeared to be a fuel smell in my garage and the oil leak I noticed coming from the bottom of the passenger side turbo, more on that later.
We ordered up an AEM Unit and one of John Reeds custom plug and play harnesses before the car ever arrived. It currently had a split second which I dont feel comfortable using to tune 900HP or more. It's just asking for trouble have a TT build and run crummy engine management.
First sign of trouble, doesn't do his own work. Second sign of trouble, the plug and play harness did not have the proper grounding wire installed which was later found out to be one of the reasons for stalling. The split second worked fine and ran the car for 9000 miles. Yes, AEM was supposed to be better and that is why I paid to have it done, or at least that was I had hoped for.
He asked me to go over every nut and bolt on the car when it got to my shop.
Yep - that is correct. I am detailed, forgive me for this.
We first noticed the turbo leaking. I called him and advised it was not a loose fitting like he had thought, and it appears the turbo was just not draining fully too the the turbo oil line outlet being a hair lower than the drain going back to the motor.. His words were (the previous owner stated there were no leaks in the last 8000 miles) So I advised, ASSUMING the old owner was being honest and indeed there used to be no leaks, the turbo cartridge "may" need replacing and this was by far the cheapest thing to try first.
Wrong - He said it appears its the cartridge and charged me $2000 for what was a bad turbo. His diagnosis later proved wrong and the turbo continued to leak. He later realized it was due to oil drain back.
Bad Seals or whatnot. He agreed and we changed out the passenger turbo. 1100 for a turbo, 800 labor to replace and then associated fluids. I recontoured the return line for a more correct angle of flow and NO CHARGE.
Yes, you did take my money and did the work and it didn't fix the problem. You never ate that cost either. You should have done more homework Todd to figure this out.
This didn't fix the leak and it was then decided the turbo's were situated too low. The result of the fabrication from whoever built the turbo kit initially. SO, Jeff complained to the old owner who seemed very standup and the old owner PAID HIM FOR THE TURBO CARTRIDGE AT $1100.00.
Absolutely, the Owner was honorable, more than I can say about you. I still paid all the labor for something that did not fix the problem. I still have the original turbo that was never defective. What am I going to do with this?
We then went over every nut and bolt on the underside of the car. EVERYTHING, rear bumber, shocks, a-arms, driveshaft, transmission, literally every suspension and body component. We found a leak at the fuel filter housing oring, and corrected this. (all this was $200)
Please Todd, you are such a shark trying to tell people you are charging me pennies for work but without telling the whole story.
After the split second box was removed, John Reed flew out and installed the AEM unit and John Reeds plug and play harness. We threw in a new crank sensor as the new AEM Units sometimes need (AT NO CHARGE) and we were off for tuning. John finished all the tuning and the car made 790 at the wheels on 7lbs and 91oct, ran great and we thought we were done. John was just cleaning up a few idle revs when we lost oil pressure. He shut the car down immediately and we started checking everything. After all tests were done and we couldnt blame a sensor or short or bad signal. We pulled the car off the dyno and put it on the lift. Pulled the oil pan to see large chunks of metal in the pan and oil pan pickup.
Yep, all under Todd's watchful eye.
After we took the motor apart we saw a completely shattered oil pump gear, which is mechanically gear driven in the timing cover. A true mechanical failure. Maybe the 8000 miles put on the car from improper machine work done on a stroker motorare what caused this. Who knows, BUT surely not something that was caused by tuning. Besides the car only running 6 degrees of timing. Yes 6 degrees. The car didn't want to make power above 5500 rpm so we didn't see a need to push the motor.
I advised jeff of everything, and we removed the motor and tore it down for inspection. All the pistons seemed good, but we felt the obvious should be replaced, everything in the oiling system due to metal contamination. Regardless, we measured every aspect of the engine to help decide what caused the problem rather than just fixing the apparent problem and putting pieces back together. After everything was gone through, heads, new bearing, new rings file fit etc. We put the car back together. and also, I spent late nights and long weekends to help get the car back to him on his time deadlines.
You are smoking crack. What time deadlines. You continually had excuses and reasons of why I couldn't get the car.
I can't make the engine builder move any faster. Sometimes when you buy something that has a problem, it's wise to take more time, see what the root cause was, and then proceed. all. So Jeff could only say (TODD, HOW LONG IS THIS LITTLE OIL PRESSURE PROBLEM GOING TO BE, WHY COULDN'T IT JUST BE FIXED) I don't need to respond to this on the boards as i'm sure many of you can answer this yourself.
Todd, hardly. It was weeks without updates. This process took 2 months.
AFTER the motor was back in the car. which was about 2 months total. 2 weeks on ordering the AEM and having John Reed fly out and tune. about 1 and a half months having the motor pulled, gone through and reinstalled. I flew out John Reed again as the motor was fresh and the tune needed checking.
That was because I paid to replace new things like a new timing chain that had less play in it and different rings which would change the compression. So yes, a tune was a must and Todd doesn't know how to Tune. He charged me for his Tuner to come out again. I paid airfare and tune.
He originally had 40 thousands ring end gap. A little excessive. We put it back within spec, nonetheless I only wanted to give the car back perfect, as all that come to my shop know how we work. So I fly out John, retune and then Jeff comes and picks the car up.
He states the power was impressive but he cant enjoy the car with the surging he is experiencing. He also stated that after driving it it started dying on him at stoplights, but wouldn't continue doing this. It was intermittant. He said he still had a fuel smell in his garage. He said when it the car was hot it didn't want to start up easy. (This can happen when the turbo's heat up a starter, but I offered to add some started heat shielding at NO CHARGE
Yes, because the car didn't have a problem doing this before as you well know.
, just to help cure what may be a problem.
I tell him to wait for the parts to get here and then bring the car so the car isn't just sitting. He decides to have it flatbedded up early and I say great, we will start looking at it.
They did not look at it right away. It took a few days.
He says "drive the **** out of the car Todd, make sure it's perfect".
Your right - I did say drive the hell out of it. I didn't want anymore issues.
I get the car and go around the block, it starts dying on me so I turn around and head back to the shop. I hook up the laptop and cannot get it to repeat itself. He asks me to drive the car home and check everything, fuel smell in my garage, driveability etc. I do, I even fly out John Reed AGAIN AT NO CHARGE
Thanks - I already paid for his services twice. You are so sincere.
to have him assure the tune is as perfect as it can get. John stays at my house as his schedule was busy and we drive and fine tune all NIGHT. Get up early in the AM to assure cold starts, and cold driveability. We put over 250 miles on the car without one hickup, The car drove as smooth as a stocker.
You did not drive it with John Reed. You told me you drove it yourself and never once said you drove it with John Reed. I still question how you drove it without the car stalling as it did for me when I got the car and Dan at DC when he got the car.
The fuel smell seemed
Seemed - this is a key word. Everything is seemed. Remember the turbo leak he seemed to think was the problem. It wasn't the case nor was his diagnosis the fix either time with the fuel smell. Dan at DC finally fixed it.
to be coming from a permiated fuel line. So I pulled everything apart, and had a new teflon center braided line with new ends made, and installed this all AT NO CHARGE. I also pulled out the break in oil and added some fresh mobil 1 AT NO CHARGE,
You replaced the oil because you said you did not like the viscocity and the oil pressure was too high. You were trying to protect the motor from blowing up again.
and then installed a higher cranking amp battery as the old one needed a charge AT NO CHARGE
Why would I want a white battery that can be seen from the rear of the car. If you do anything, do quality work. I would be happy to pay for it if the battery was actually to match the factory battery. It all comes down to what "seemed" like a nice gesture. Either do it right or don't do it at all.
(and it was a white 1000cc interstate that he was later to tell me it was an eye sore, not thanks. But thats ok, I was doing my best to fix even more problems that existed on the car that I DID NOT CREATE. So in the 1 week of driving his car, putting it in my garage to check for fuel smell in a more confined space vs. the shop, and having John spend countless hours of extra fine tuning, I drive the car down to Jeff late one night. I drove the car because he asked me to drive it and assure there were no issues.
He drove the car because he did not want to flat bed it to me.
The car drove flawless, and only then I delivered the car. He called me the next morning to say he drove it to work, he thinks the fuel smell was fixed, driveability seemed 99% fixed, and thanks.
No you called me this time and I did not say Thanks. I said that the first time I picked up the car after two months. Not this go round with you. I should have heard "thanks for being such a sport" from you. I said I would call you later once I had a chance to drive the car and check the fuel smell.
He calls me later in the day to say he is stuck on the side of the road and his car keeps dying. I advised if it's doing it all the time now it will be easy to find and fix, that unfortunately it never died on me in the 250 miles I put on it with John Reed and delivering the car to him.
Again, you did not do 250 with John Reed. If you did why didn't you tell me this. Its a small point but if you look at the big picture there are a lot of small errors in what he is saying.
I even told him when I delivered the car that I couldn't get it to die at a light. I advised of the sensors we changed and the retune and stated I couldn't say 100% that I knew what was causing it to die because it just wouldn't act up again. Maybe it was fixed, maybe not, BUT we cant fix an intermittant problem if it doesnt act up while in our posession, period.
A&C could not fix the problem, period. It was an issue with the AEM install he did.
Jeff calls me on sunday, and I answer his call as I do all my customers at all times, and stated that he wants me bring all necessary tools to his house and fix the car there. I said I don't even know what the problem is, and besides the fact that it's not even safe to do that, all my diagnostic equipment and tools are at my shop. I apologized and advised that this wasn't an option. He then says to pick up the car on Monday, do whatever I need to do, work all night whatever, and deliver his car back to him on the following Tuesday. At this time we were moving to a new location for the shop. Remember I havent even gotten the glory of hooking up diagnostics while the problem was showing itself. I dont even know what the problem is yet. He states that he doesn't care and if I cant do it in the time frame and dates that he specified, than he will go to another shop.
I told him that I wanted to fix the car as I have NEVER given less than 100% to make any of my customers satisfied. I just cant do it in one day. He then states that he will take the car to Dan Cragin DC Performance.
I called him upset as you can imagine at this point. I said I need the car looked at right away because this is ridiculous. He said I cannot guarantee anything. I said if you cannot give me a time line to get it back I have to bring it elsewhere. So I did.
So he is charged for a diagnosis, a new AEM unit, some additional work etc. He calls me and states that I sold him a defective AEM unit and installed it incorrectly and wants me to pay the invoice at DC Performance. I advised that I would send the AEM in for testing and he said that was rediculous!
Dan Cragin said it appears the AEM unit may be faulty or missing an upgrade but wouldn't know unless he sends it in. I said why am I sending in a new unit when it should work. I said if he suspects it to be a bad unit get a new one and I will send it back to A&C and get my money back. So I did and I never got my money back. Not only did Dan put a new one in, he fixed the issue with the grounding wire that was missing and the 02 simms that caused the car to stall. This was not caught by A&C both the first and second time they had the car.
Well, he sent me the AEM I had sold him, I overnighted it to AEM directly. After all their testing, they tell me that the AEM is fully up to date and has NO faults. ITS PERFECT. It appears that when Jeff bought this car it had o2 simulators on it which apparently where ******* in the wiring harness. These can pose a problem sometimes as they confuse the AEM signals. Jeff was nice enough to send them to us with the AEM and we shipped it all to AEM' facility.
AEM said his whole problem was the o2 simulators. I then even called Dan Cragin at DC Performance. Dan is a great guy and we've been working together for years now. Dan even stated that he wanted to send in the AEM unit for testing but JEFF REFUSED and wanted to purchase another one.
See statement above.
I advised Dan of AEM's findings, he stated again that he wanted to send it in to get checked but Jeff DIDNT WANT TO DO THIS.
Analogy - If I buy an XBox from Best Buy and bring it home and it doesn't work, Best buy doesn't say let me send it in because it is brand new. They give you a new one. I was not interested in sending in a "New" product that never worked. I wanted to return it if Dan thought this was a possible contributing factor. Dan Cragin can verify this if he chooses to partake.
This would have showed that he DID NOT need another AEM and that his fix would have been a very cheap one, to just remove the o2 sensor simulators!!!
And add the grounding wire that neither was ever caught by A&C. The job was over there head.
Dan Cragin sold Jeff a new AEM because Jeff wanted one. This is not my fault, or Dan Cragins fault, but rather the actions of an impatient person not wanting to wait to find an answer, Jeff Gaines.
No it is your incompetence Todd. Its not my fault and its not Dan's fault.
I have spoken with Jeff, at all hours of every day, work late hours and given him parts and services that I never charged him for. I offered to fix the car but just couldnt commit to a ONE DAY WINDOW.
It was not a one day window. I got no answer in terms of a commitment from you. Is that the way to treat a customer?
Jeff, your actions are the sole reason you incurred a $5000 bill at DC Performance.
And for the record, Jeff stated that he was unhappy with the "SUPPOSEDLY" faulty AEM I sold him. I sold him an AEM modified for turbo applications at $2900, a John reed custom built plug n play harness for $1500.00. Including taxes, I charged him $4741.00 for these parts. EVEN THOUGH HIS WHOLE PROBLEM WAS THE O2 SENSOR SIMS AND NOT THE AEM (GIVEN I SENT A COPY OF AEM'S FINDINGS TO JEFF).
I OFFERED TO GIVE HIM BACK $4741 AND HE JUST GIVE ME THE PARTS BACK THAT i SOLD HIM!!!. He refused and said he wanted the whole amount of DC Performance's invoice $5140.
Todd - I challenge you to repay me the $4741 to get on with life. You have my AEM unit. I cannot give you the harness because without it my car won't run. I told you if you want that back deduct the cost of the repairs that Dan Cragin charged me to fix the wiring harness and o2 sensors and retuning the car. Fair is fair. You are being unreasonable.
I offered this as a courtesy! I sold him new parts and he and only he chose to purchase another new AEM. Jeff still has the plug-n-play harness in his car and didnt even send me a complete AEM setup, ONLY an AEM box, no connectors, harnesses, wideband, nothing.
I told you I would send you the wiring that I had in my box. I don't remember a wide band.
Did I screw him over?? Let the members be the judge. There's alot of people on this board that saw your car in my shop and know what took place AND i HOPE THEY ALL POST HERE. I feel bad somebody like you bought a highly modified Viper, you belonged in a stock viper with a warranty.
Well, your right. They probably said what a beautiful car. It was. It is. The person who gets it now from Ringgold Dodge in Georgia will be very lucky. Its a no excuses car. You are right, at this point given what i have gone through I do belong in a stock 2009 Viper. I love it.
Obviously you knew this as you traded the car in almost immediately to Ringgold motors for a new viper. Some people shouldnt own modified Vipers and some people just cannot be made happy. Jeff Gaines is one of them.
That is what an experience can do for you. My wife urged me to get something that had a factory warranty so I don't have to deal with shops like this again.
I've spend countless hours emailing back and forth with you Jeff and phone calls as well. This will be my last long email or contact with you.
The ball is in your court. I challenge you to step up and repay me what I am owed.
Get you facts straight and make sure the people you think are going to back your claims, indeed are. You may even want to contact Dan at DC again and he can tell you that he wanted to send in the AEM just for testing to assure it was not the problem (as any good shop would) but you opted to buy another unit.
There are many that do back my claims and those who haven't gotten screwed from you certainly back yours. It doesn't take but a few to ruin a reputation. You have cost me so much fun and money and taken a great experience and shred it to pieces for me.
I offer no BS no stories, reputable work with too many 1000HP vipers out there to mention.
I highly doubt the "too many" statement.
I was going to try and sell your first AEM for you but will now be sending it to you next week, or you can come by and pick it up at our shop.
Absolutely not - why would I have you sell an AEM for me. that is assenine. You should credit me the cost for it. That is doing $20,000 worth of work and taking care of customers and doing the right thing.
For the record, I would never work on another car that you owned ever again. And im sure after reading this post, many others wouldn't either. After all the emails you've sent, you've been less than a pleasure to deal with.
Don't worry Todd - You won't.
If any board members had any questions regarding this car or this experience, you can call over and chat with me about it. Judge for yourself.
Call Mike Robbins at Ringgold and see what a 10 this car is. He has it up on his site now from the trade in. Ask him how upfront and forthright I have been to do a deal with. That is the only way I DO BUSINESS.
Todd
A&C Performance
951 696 0500
As far as Jeff Gaines, from Gaines Investment is concerned, I will be sending your AEM back to you next week. and Ill even pay for the shipping.[/QUOTE]
. I for one can be very impatient but when your talking about an EXTREMELY modified viper any number of things can cause a problem. None of which is necessarily the installers fault. Im sure every shop has screwed up at one point or another. 
. All 4 of my Vipers have been serviced there, with no issues whatsoever. And I know for a FACT, if there were any issues, Todd would address them. He's the kind of guy that won't go home until he's satisfied with the job he's done. Many times I've called him at night and he's still at work! Now thats dedication
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