Fast And Furious Performance Inc
2002 monte carlo ss, inept, shoddy assembly of custom engine and related components

Fast and Furious Performance owner Gary Simon and sales representative Tim Fuller and I met to discuss my custom automotive project. Gary and Tim both said they could do the work I was wanting to have done and so I agreed to let them do my project.By the time my car was returned to me some 6 months later it was a total unequivocal disaster. Gary can give the good ol'boy talk like the best of them. Makes you feel like all is just fine, I have never had a problem, lah de dah comments. I'm not a knowledgable automotive trained type of individual, there by trusting the shop to know their job and hope all is as they say. This proved to be my undoing when dealing with an inept shop such as Fast and Furious Performance attempting to perform work that is obviously beyond their abilities. I would advise anyone contemplating having them perform any automotive work of any real technical degree to steer clear of them. I'm out almost $40,000 from all the crummy work their shop attempted to perform, which led to catastrophic failure of my custom motor and race transmission, and now am having it all redone at a very very knowledgeable competent shop "Paul's auto and 4x4" of South. Jordan, Utah Where do I begin? Please bear with me and see if you would feel like you got what you thought you were paying for.

My goal was to build a Turbocharged Super car. A very fast and special Monte carlo SS.
Try to fashion it after the power performance levels ZZP Performance and Intense Racing were getting from their 6 cylinder motors. We were going to go for 550 to 650 HP which required a very well thought out and engineered motor, fuel system and transmission assembly. I mean this motor was going to be under an immense strain from all the power we were trying to extract from it, therefore it needed to be assembled to very strict standards. To bad it fell apart with less than 1500 miles on it.

List of problems car had when i received it to drive back to utah,
most became obvious only after i had it towed to a shop and inspected. Don't you want to get mad too?

The shop knew I was taking my car back to Salt Lake City the day the Dynometer session was done. I paid for and flew in a expert Dyno technician from Intense Racing out of Ohio to tune the car's motor. Yet the car was not ready for the technician, even though we had delayed his arrival to permit F&F more time to ready the car for the Dyno session and for the technicians
schedule needs. I e-mailed them when I was told all was ready, are you sure, because if it's not your going to be liable for the airfare, hotel and rental car I paid for to bring the technician out. Oh were ready I was told, so okay here he comes. Brian from Intense Racing said the car was not able to be dynoed due to the numerous severe exhaust leaks, it would barely hold an idle and had to send it back from the Silverstate dyno shop to F&F's shop for repairs. Then when it returned again there were severe vacuum leaks, injector leaks, small fires. What should have been about a 2 or 3 hour process ended up taking almost 14 hours, which in turn caused me to pay the dyno shop for 14 hours of dyno time at a discounted rate of $100 per hour. Even Mike the owner of Silverstate Dyno's said he felt sorry for me, the car was not ready to be dynoed, and helped me out by discounting me the cost. You should have seen the car, the whole front end was still off the car, not even put back together. When the car went to the dyno shop up here in Salt lake it was fully reassembled, that just shows how much the cxar was not ready to be dynoed. So all this finally gets done, I took the vehicle over to another shop to have an anti-theft device installed. Never even made it back to F&F before the car started acting up, blowing fuel pump fuses, sputtering, dying. So I limp it into F&F, we explore a fuel starving scenario, well the after market inline Aeromotive fuel filter is blocked with gravel (from the gas stations bad filters they claim), plastic shards from when they drilled the tank to route the new fuel lines and pump. We have to drain all the fuel into cans, wipe down the inside of the tank, clean the filter. So with that I said my farewells, only the normal 5.5 hour trip turned into a 39 hour trip. The car broke down so many times, sputtering again. Had to drain all the fuel again on the side of the road, clean the filter, go again, sputter to a stop, tow the car with my Silverado, drive the car, sputter to a stop. Finally made it to Salt Lake City. I had to have the car towed from my home to a shop in South Jordan, Utah (how I wish I had found then first) Below is a list of problems they discovered which will explain why it took me 39 hours to drive a 5.5 hour trip.

1. Fuel on top of lower intake manifold... Fuel rails improperly anchored, injector o-rings not sealing as injectors were installed at an angle, all permitted fuel to leak onto a hot manifold. We could have lost the car from this if a serious fire had erupted while driving.

2. Upon removal of upper intake manifold, discovered lower intake manifold had a loose bolt just resting in the unit. This permitted almost a 1/2 quart of oil to escape from the motor and rest on top of the upper intake manifold adjacent to the air flow ports. This causes serious performance problems at a minimum.

3. Had an aftermarket aluminum transmission pan installed, they stripped out a mounting bolt, they used a silicone product to hold the bolt in place instead of repairing the threads in an acceptable professional manner.

4. The transmission was 4 quarts low on fluid when checked in Salt Lake City, yet there was no fluid on the undercarriage, which leaves us to conclude it was turned over to me like that. Because of this, I lost the race transmission that I paid $7,000 for from Intense Racing.

5. The transmission fill tube was broke away from it's mounting bracket. Had a hole in it. This was discovered when they tried to add new fluid as it leaked onto the shop floor. They determined a pipe F&F fabricated was improperly fabricated and did not permit the fill tube's bracket to be in it's assigned place. So they just busted it away form it's anchor point and did not fix it.

6. The turbo exhaust's V-band could not seat and seal as it was improperly constructed and misaligned to the lower exhaust down pipe. Another exhaust leak effecting performance.

7. The brakes "Power booster" vacuum line was almost resting on the exhaust pipe. This would have eventually caused the line to rupture, loosing vacuum and failure of the power booster's function.

8. The newly designed fuel system by F&F had a fuel line supplying the injectors almost again resting on an exhaust pipe. This was the main reason my vehicle was sputtering all the time on the trip back from Las Vegas. It was VAPOR LOCKING as the engine got hotter, the exhaust heated up the fuel in the line, causing sparse amounts of fuel to reach the injectors. GRRR!!!

9. The fuel line exiting the rear of the fuel tank was improperly anchored along the frame, and the line was left to dangle and actually had abrasion marks on it from contacting the pavement during my drive home. Not long before this would have been a small fire or what not.

10. The exhaust system was not secured to it's anchor points except at one point. This would have caused a failure of the custom made exhaust system at some point from cracking and such.

11. The cam's sensor wire wire was not installed at it's anchor point. The rotation of the Vibration Dampner and the wires contact caused it to wear through and it's replacement.

12. Blow off valve or wastegate was installed in the wrong location, prfeventing the use of the larger aftermarket MAF air sensor, there by causing us to have to reinstall the factory smaller one and resulting in lowewr H.P. Potential.

13. No 4 wheel alignment was done even thought the wheels, axles were removed from the vehicle. I was still charged for it though

14. No engine cradle alignment was done even though it was removed from the vehicle.

15. Check brake light was on. They did not reattach the rear brake sensors wires.

16. Lower intake's manifold gaskets installed wrong, left was on the right and right on the left.

17. Fuel tank vapor line was not connected

18. Numerous brackets were left off the reassembled engine, found in the parts I brought back with me. We put them back on in SLC.

19. SLC shop had to fabricate a down pipe to transmission brace as it was left unsupported and would have eventually cracked and failed.

20. Low brake fluid switch was broken at master cylinder housing.

21. During the dyno session, we had 2 small fires, because of serious exhaust leaks heating the valve covers to the point it contorted the gaskets, permitting oil to escape and land on the exhaust manifolds. This repair caused a lot of time to be lost on the dyno time.$

22. Transmission shifter assembly was stiff to operate, itthe exhaust pipes were installed resting against the shifter linkage. Started chaffing a hole in the heat wrap with the little driving that was done. Would have eventually wore into the pipe or wore on the linkage, another eventual failure.

23. Roll cage is illegal, paid for a legal 8 point roll cage, got as illegal 6 point. The tubes attaching to the vehicles rear frame are not permitted to be bent as they could collapse, well these have a bend in them.

24. The roll cage is not properly welded, some junctions are not fully welded, where they come up close to the car's interior finishes, instead of removing the components or masking them off, they just simply did not complete the weld all the way around the pipe.

25. The roll cage was never finished, painted and such, he offered to, but I just said forget it, I will do it in Utah, should have been done though, as he knew I was taking my car back to Utah when the dyno session was over, not wait around for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 days while he put everything back together.

26. The methanol water injection was not completely installed and some components of it were installed wrong, I still pais for a full install$

27. Fuel power lines from the pump speed controller were left in an ungrommeted state, left to rest against raw cut un painted metal where they breached the body. One small spark or short, KAPOWWW!!!

28. The reattached factory transmission lines were not routed through the factory transmission cooler, bypassed to run through what was to be a supplemental transmission fluid cooler not the sole primary cooler, a little 4 x 6 air cooler. Told Gary my transmission gauge said the tranny was getting to 240 degree's, "oh thats okay" so I don't know any different, found out in SLC, thats not good at all. Thanks Gary!

29. F&F was to have all my spare parts boxed up for me to bring back with me, I folund them on carts, benches on the floor, I had to scrounge for them.
And now that I have inventoried my parts brought back with me and the parts actually on the car, I was missing parts I gave them, so they either lost them or who knows what.

30. My factory motor removed from my car was to be brought back with me, it was, but missing all kinds of parts and bolts. I asked Gary why the motor was apart, "well we needed some bolts" I paid you guys money for a new motor, I shopuld have got all new bolts I felt.

31. At no time did I ever observe the shop use fender protectors on the car while working on it. I told them it had a brand new $4600 paint job. So of course I get it back with scratches on it. Plus the ground effects were damaged a they did not have the correct spacers on the lift and crushed the effects into the door bottoms.

32. I had a 3 gauge pod installed on the dash, it was a lousy install. They said it would not rest flush on the dash, so I instructed them to cut the dash mat to fit against it to hide the exposed reveal. They cut it, but about 2 inshes away from the pod. Looks like crap, the pods about 1/2 off the dash and the mat is all hacked up. Had to buy a new one, only more $

33. The cars Interior had numerous grease smudges all over it.

34. I was assured many times that photo's would be taken for me showing the different phases of the build, never got one stinkin photo.

35. My motor blew up in SLC, the $2200 custom heads from Intense Racing were cracked. When we diasssembled the motor, a digital torgue wrench was used, we determined the heads were not even torqued close to the "ARP" bolts manufactures specs.

36. The motor was assembled without using an assembly lube on the ARP bolts.

37. I paid for "Calico"coated bearings and was billed for them, they were not used as they said they were.

38. I asked Gary on the last day if the magnetic oil drain plug was installed, Yes it is, "It was not I found out"

39. The engine block was sent to a shop he used to be machined and knowing the application we were using it for, Extreme HP, he never had the block "Decked" this is a process to insure the heads rest a flush as possible on the engine block. Lost my heads Gary! Thanks only $2200 of mine

40. The final invoice was over by a fair amount. Though we agreed the original proposal was a worst case scenario and it might not cost the whole proposal amount. Well it went over, just lump sums $704.05 for silicones, hoses and such. Nothing broke down, I should have got an itemized accounting like I give my customers, as the original propodal alrady covered those items. Then also I was still charged a 100% for work not completed no deduct offered.

41. I have yet to receive one phone call from Gary, even though I called his shop asking for tech support on my 39 hour trip home, so he knew I was having proiblems. One would think a shop would call and say HEY Greg anything I can help you with, how is everyting, what was the problem. I will make things right for you. "I mean I only spent $16,000 at his shop" I never to this day have got one call from him. When I did tell him about my problems and I wanted him to make things right, he turns my e-mail letter over to his attorney who says not to talk to him anymore. Nice Gary, real nice, Mr. No Honor at all.

In closing, I lost my initial investment as the motor, heads, pistons, valves and transmission were toasted when engine failed. I had to get all new pistons $900, a block, heads, cam, transmission. So all this was close to $16,000 parts and labor. Plus I had to pay the shop almost $6,000 to fix what they could when the car was initially brought in from Vegas to them. And being out of money, I had to refinance my home to pay the $16,000, so there was almost $6,800 in closing costs I'm also paying interest on. I paid almost $12,000 for the 1st engine and transmission, and the $16,000 to F&F to do their phase, plus fly the dyno guy out, pay the dyno shop, all my trips to there taking almost $5,000 in parts to them and checking up on the project. And I missed so important car events I was trying to attend.

The shop lacks leadership and knowledge. I'm sure the men in the shop tried to do what they thought was right, however Gary reassured me his shop could handle the job so he should have been having meetings, making a game plan and closely supervising the whole build. He himself built the motor that came apart so he says. Tool almost 27 days to build the motor, most shops say a week tops. That just shows how little he worked on it, forgot what was done, not done, left bolts out, did not torque bolts down and the whole friking thing came apart. He should be ashamed of himself and his shops black eye this build gave him.instead of embracing this as the unique opportunity this was to build a one of a kind car, he piddled around for 6 months and gave me back a pile of crap. His men told men they all laughed when they heard it caught fire on the dyno machine, as they all hated working on the car and wished it would burn down. That there shows the leader failed to instill in the shop any love for the project and to care for what they were doing with my car and money. They will never have any honor unless they reimburss me for all my troubles, but they wont. He and Tim will never have the courage or HONOR to any such thing, even call and say, "man we blew it on your car Greg, were so very sorry!"

Company: Fast And Furious Performance Inc
Country: USA
State: Nevada
City: LAS VEGAS
Address: 6867 SPEEDWAY BLVD, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89115
Phone: 7024367223

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