[SIXJAK]

All the moderators on camaro 5 have been bought. It's a good ole boys club. Whetherm it's with free or discounted parts or just preferential treatment at events and what not. That's just how the auto industry is. Everyone knows its not what you know but who you know. It's just much much more so in the auto industry. And then you have forums where it's all about the clique mentality. Everybody wants to be one of the cool kids. And you can't say anything about someone who is viewed as one of the in crowd.

I guess. Too bad a lot of guys who SPEND the money with the vendors got burned. Had I known about the sticky on Mafia Motorsports I obviously would have never sent RX a dime. Back then the mentality among most of us was "the big boys like Hennessey and Lingenfelter are just ignoring us LLT guys and Tracy is really helping us V6 guys.

Little did we know he was peddling rainbows and fairy tales and the LLT V6 crowd was simply the next group he could take advantage of. Unfortunately with the help and cover by some mods on a forum.

 

[Envy]

Honestly...I have a hard time understanding how all this happened to so many people. I investigated FI for my V6 over 3 years ago and it wasn't that difficult to come to the conclusion that if I went that route my car would be a test mule and I know that if things go bad a performance shop WILL NOT be responsible for a car owner's financial losses. I was particularly interested in having TTs since I already had a SC'd Mustang...but once I found out that Jay Leno with all his money, mechanics and GM's engineers couldn't make it happen...I knew there wasn't any performance shop that was gonna make it happen for me.

Then I had a conversation with Tracy Lewis on the phone when I wanted to order my catch can from him and we discussed several things including MAF sensors and he didn't seem to have any understanding on how they actually worked. Since I was pretty much a newb myself at the time...I brought our discussion up here on the forum...but I never mentioned his name because he was a sponsor at the time...and several people confirmed what I already thought which was the person I had the discussion with wasn't that knowledgeable...yet Tracy kept insisting that I was the one that didn't know what I was talking about.

Not only blowing them up but catching fire and killing people and he has the "links to prove it"

Did you ever even bother to ask for those links?

I would think that the company he says is blowing up cars and killing people would have a great "libel & slander" lawsuit against him! LOL!

Did he ever mention the name of a company?

I don't want or mean to be harsh here...but do you guys believe EVERYTHING someone tells you? I am by nature (it comes with age...lol) a doubter...I want to believe what people tell me...but life has taught me to be smarter than that so I research everything...and if the story doesn't check out...I walk away. And I certainly wouldn't use ANY performance shop without checking out a few references first.

(I thought it was pretty professional he didn't bash other shops to gain a customer).

This quote came from another thread but I wanted to use it here because ANY shop owner that uses this kinda tactic to gain business is blowing smoke up your ass. A good performance shop is kept busy by doing good work, gaining repeat business and referrals from happy clients. They have NO NEED to knock other people's work so they can jack their clients. I think this is the biggest RED FLAG of all when it comes to any kind of business but especially performance shops.

 

[patriotpa]

He needs to be added to a "Hall of Shame" thread.

 

[Strick]

To this day I have idiots in Tri-County Camaros promoting his shop. Dave Smith stop drinking the god **** Kool-Aide and sending members of your club to this shop!

 

[DallasMike]

Honestly...I have a hard time understanding how all this happened to so many people. I investigated FI for my V6 over 3 years ago and it wasn't that difficult to come to the conclusion that if I went that route my car would be a test mule and I know that if things go bad a performance shop WILL NOT be responsible for a car owner's financial losses. I was particularly interested in having TTs since I already had a SC'd Mustang...but once I found out that Jay Leno with all his money, mechanics and GM's engineers couldn't make it happen...I knew there wasn't any performance shop that was gonna make it happen for me.

Then I had a conversation with Tracy Lewis on the phone when I wanted to order my catch can from him and we discussed several things including MAF sensors and he didn't seem to have any understanding on how they actually worked. Since I was pretty much a newb myself at the time...I brought our discussion up here on the forum...but I never mentioned his name because he was a sponsor at the time...and several people confirmed what I already thought which was the person I had the discussion with wasn't that knowledgeable...yet Tracy kept insisting that I was the one that didn't know what I was talking about.




Did you ever even bother to ask for those links?



Did he ever mention the name of a company?

I don't want or mean to be harsh here...but do you guys believe EVERYTHING someone tells you? I am by nature (it comes with age...lol) a doubter...I want to believe what people tell me...but life has taught me to be smarter than that so I research everything...and if the story doesn't check out...I walk away. And I certainly wouldn't use ANY performance shop without checking out a few references first.



This quote came from another thread but I wanted to use it here because ANY shop owner that uses this kinda tactic to gain business is blowing smoke up your ass. A good performance shop is kept busy by doing good work, gaining repeat business and referrals from happy clients. They have NO NEED to knock other people's work so they can jack their clients. I think this is the biggest RED FLAG of all when it comes to any kind of business but especially performance shops.

A lot of very intelligent people got burned by Tracy. I can only speak for myself. But when we started our project we looked at every option out there. We are not engineers. So we needed a plug and play "kit". From my very first conversation with Tracy I knew we were going to run into issues installing the "kit", but I've installed turbo kits before and that was pretty normal. I figured with a little fab work and reworking some things we would be able to accomplish what we needed. When the "kit" arrived all we had were a couple of turbos in a box, a bunch of tubing and some old used oil feed lines. No couplers. No clamps. It was missing everything we needed but the main parts. So then Tracy flew in to install this kit. He did buy the couplers we needed and overnighted them. We had already paid him for a bolt in kit so him "buying" the things we needed out of the kindness of his heart as he likes to say is bs. And after 20-30 runs to different places for supplies he didn't provide and I guess forgot he needed. Which I paid for in the sum of about 1000 dollars in addition to the money we paid for the kit. We had something bolted together. Then we tried to run the car. Oil oil oil. Blowing EVERYWHERE. we ended up pushing the car into SEMA. Tracy blamed it on our engine builder. So we know how to trouble shoot. We disconnected the turbo kit from the car. Turned it on and guess what. No oil. Car ran great on motor. At that point we were back from SEMA and just were fed up. We agreed with Tracy to send the kit back but not before he sent us a check and it cleared our bank. We were still out about 1300 from stuff we bought to make his kit work but hey lesson learned. We got our money back for the kit at least.

What it boils down to is a lack of options in the v6 world. You tend to look past your gut feelings when you want something to work really bad. For us we thought we could make it work. Perhaps we could if we redid every single thing about his kit. But we've lost interest and moved on.

 

[Strick]

And the list gets longer smh.
Maybe the catchcan would of solved the oil blowout lol

 

[Nutbutt]

I think you got it right, If you want something to work bad enough you tend to overlook the signs. Still doesn't mean companies should be free to lead people along.
There are just very few kit options out there for the LLT. Its just a sad thing since these cars really can perform with the right hardware and tune.

 

[GretchenGotGrowl]

I have to agree with Mike. We make mistakes when we want something bad enough. Those mistakes are made worse when our trust placed in others is shattered.

Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

[SIXJAK]

I totally get where Envy is coming from. My wife sniffs out Dbags within the first 10 secs of meeting them. Lol. In this area women seem better able to check their bravado at the door and figure out the correct move.

However, when you have an entire forum enabling what essentially is a con man then a lot of us stupidly fell for his sales pitch.

I think the issue here is I was told turnkey. In fact I waited for a few of these kits to go out just so I would not be experimental. Mine was very experimental. No real instructions wrong parts, an experimental tensioner, a never used before "tweener" pulley. There was a brief moment right after I received it and started going through it with my hack backyard installer and listening to him comment about how s****** the welds looked and questioning the design of the tensioner and looking at the incomplete instructions where I thought about just sending it back. Had I done that however I bet I'd still be asking for a refund.

My kit made my car run like a clunker. My installer is to blame though even though none of his kits work worth 2 squats. Even if ran it sub 10's I wouldn't have enjoyed the car.

A guy once told me you can never too much about someone you're about to buy something from or do business with.

 

[TrekGTO]

Project SYN R G was the final straw for Randy and I, Tracy was to come home from the SEMA car with wads of cash to settle all accounts but there was no $. Gretchen sat on the lift for a month striped down waiting for Tracy to design a TT Kit for the SEMA car, then he just put the bulk parts in boxes and shipped them to TX. The final result would not have been any different but he didn't even try to make anything until he went to TX. Shortly after I left all those parts were returned to RX, I was never paid for the Super Chiller or got it back, just add that to the long list of $, parts, tools, labor I lost.... That incarnation of RX closed by end of the year

 

[V6owner]

Project SYN R G was the final straw for Randy and I, Tracy was to come home from the SEMA car with wads of cash to settle all accounts but there was no $. Gretchen sat on the lift for a month striped down waiting for Tracy to design a TT Kit for the SEMA car, then he just put the bulk parts in boxes and shipped them to TX. The final result would not have been any different but he didn't even try to make anything until he went to TX. Shortly after I left all those parts were returned to RX, I was never paid for the Super Chiller or got it back, just add that to the long list of $, parts, tools, labor I lost.... That incarnation of RX closed by end of the year

which he should be shut down for good