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Old 11-22-2022, 10:03 PM   #1
Oilfield_trash21
 
Drives: 2022 Camaro ZL1 1LE
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 17
Avoid this place!

So I take my brand new '22 ZL1 1LE to Herold Motorsports in Houston to have his "H900" package installed on my car. Spencer had previously done a remote tune on my car after I installed headers and Roto-fab intake so I decided to give him a shot on the upgrades. They had my car for over 5 months to do a head/cam swap, blower porting and install a couple other things. This was something that should've taken any reasonable shop 3-4 weeks to do. Especially when all the parts & labor was paid for up front(against my better judgment) After weeks of very little response to messages and catching the owner Spencer in multiple lies, I had to drive 6 hours to Houston to retrieve my car from this con artist. I had made contact with another shop in the area that was familiar with some of what was going on and they offered to take my car in and look over what had been done to it. They found multiple issues with the work that was done. Luckily I rescued my car from this clown before he could get it to the dyno. There's a very good chance that he would've blown my engine with the tuning he had in the car and the half-assed work that was done to it. In his own words, "I was going to shock the internet with these numbers". All at the expense of my engine to promote himself and the joke of a performance shop he has. My car was in no shape to make the 6 hr drive home and barely made the 18 mile trip to the other shop. This is just some of the s**tty work that was found on my car. Instead of using the correct adapter for a boost source at the OEM MAP sensor, they take another MAP sensor, drill a hole in it and screw in a brass NPT fitting with hose barbs on the other side. Then uses a piece of hose to tee off to the meth controller(which had came loose in the pic and was now a vacuum/boost leak) and then finally plug the end of the hose with the MAP sensor to the car. He decided to use a 112mm TB instead of a 103mm TB. So now he has installed an adapter that has gaps above and below the blower inlet which he proceeded to fill with RTV. With this TB and adapter combo, the elbow pipe for the Big Gulp is now jammed in to the radiator and is next to impossible to get the couplers and elbow installed on to the TB. I had originally installed some MSD wires and heat shielding when I installed the headers before taking it to him and had zero problems with the wires. He installs a different brand of wires and now two of them are melted and arcing out on the headers. He charged me $929 for a Katech dry sump pump which is the wrong pump for my car. It was confirmed that a new oil pump was never installed on my engine even though he claims that "he does it on every LT4 cam job whether it was new or upgraded". He finally agreed to refund my money on 11/5 but I have yet to receive it and once again I get zero replies to any messages or voicemails. If you care anything about your car and money, avoid this clown at all costs. Spencer is a habitual liar and I've got plenty of screenshots catching him in one lie after another. If he has ever remote tuned your vehicle, check your knock settings immediately! Your engine would have to be on the verge of something catastrophic before it would possibly detect knock. Hopefully this will prevent someone else from becoming another one of his victims.

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Old 11-23-2022, 03:25 AM   #2
LT1ornothing

 
Drives: 2020 LT1 M6
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That is an awful experience, sorry to hear. Yeah, looks like that shop became a forum member back in early 2020, has all of 30 posts, and has not posted again on the forums since March 2021. I remember them from the forced induction forums when they were promoting their turbo kit. On a Facebook group, they attempted to try to convince me that forced induction was not possible for the LT1 without regapped pistons rings or forged.drop in pistons. I avoided arguing as I had seen many successful factory sealed LT1s with a blower kit successfully installed and tuned and still running. That conversation left me thinking I would never take my car to them for anything. After reading your story, I looked into them again and verified the have all of 30 posts total on this forum, and they have not posted in over 9 months. Anyways, I hope you can get your refund man, glad you could at least recover the car without a blown engine.
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Old 11-23-2022, 05:56 AM   #3
dmcmahan60

 
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File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
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Old 11-23-2022, 07:16 AM   #4
taylorforschool@gmail.com
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Drives: 2018 ZL1
Join Date: May 2021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmcmahan60 View Post
File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
This worked to the tune of one car payment from the dealer in my case. Should of been 3 but was better than none.
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Old 11-23-2022, 03:03 PM   #5
JTS
 
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Join Date: Nov 2021
Location: Az
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oilfield_trash21 View Post
So I take my brand new '22 ZL1 1LE to Herold Motorsports in Houston to have his "H900" package installed on my car. Spencer had previously done a remote tune on my car after I installed headers and Roto-fab intake so I decided to give him a shot on the upgrades. They had my car for over 5 months to do a head/cam swap, blower porting and install a couple other things. This was something that should've taken any reasonable shop 3-4 weeks to do. Especially when all the parts & labor was paid for up front(against my better judgment) After weeks of very little response to messages and catching the owner Spencer in multiple lies, I had to drive 6 hours to Houston to retrieve my car from this con artist. I had made contact with another shop in the area that was familiar with some of what was going on and they offered to take my car in and look over what had been done to it. They found multiple issues with the work that was done. Luckily I rescued my car from this clown before he could get it to the dyno. There's a very good chance that he would've blown my engine with the tuning he had in the car and the half-assed work that was done to it. In his own words, "I was going to shock the internet with these numbers". All at the expense of my engine to promote himself and the joke of a performance shop he has. My car was in no shape to make the 6 hr drive home and barely made the 18 mile trip to the other shop. This is just some of the s**tty work that was found on my car. Instead of using the correct adapter for a boost source at the OEM MAP sensor, they take another MAP sensor, drill a hole in it and screw in a brass NPT fitting with hose barbs on the other side. Then uses a piece of hose to tee off to the meth controller(which had came loose in the pic and was now a vacuum/boost leak) and then finally plug the end of the hose with the MAP sensor to the car. He decided to use a 112mm TB instead of a 103mm TB. So now he has installed an adapter that has gaps above and below the blower inlet which he proceeded to fill with RTV. With this TB and adapter combo, the elbow pipe for the Big Gulp is now jammed in to the radiator and is next to impossible to get the couplers and elbow installed on to the TB. I had originally installed some MSD wires and heat shielding when I installed the headers before taking it to him and had zero problems with the wires. He installs a different brand of wires and now two of them are melted and arcing out on the headers. He charged me $929 for a Katech dry sump pump which is the wrong pump for my car. It was confirmed that a new oil pump was never installed on my engine even though he claims that "he does it on every LT4 cam job whether it was new or upgraded". He finally agreed to refund my money on 11/5 but I have yet to receive it and once again I get zero replies to any messages or voicemails. If you care anything about your car and money, avoid this clown at all costs. Spencer is a habitual liar and I've got plenty of screenshots catching him in one lie after another. If he has ever remote tuned your vehicle, check your knock settings immediately! Your engine would have to be on the verge of something catastrophic before it would possibly detect knock. Hopefully this will prevent someone else from becoming another one of his victims.

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I am sick to my stomach for you, I'm glad you got your car out of there. Does this other shop have it? Was the head , cam, port work done. Just courious on the condition of your car I hope the best for you.
To sum up Im not surprised, it's not only Cars , it's all types of work , construction, plumbing, electrical, I've been told how great they are by so many and my guarantee is better than the other guy. All BS ,you just don't know who to trust doing work. I'm sure there's more good out there , but the 1 or 2 percent of bad spoil it for all.
I hope all is working out for you . Please keep this thread going with up dates on your Car.
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Old 11-23-2022, 04:20 PM   #6
1fastz28
 
Drives: 2022 2SS 1LE
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: St. Louis
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I've heard good things from BC raceworks in Houston, never heard of these guys. That sucks what they did to your car and your headaches. I know the frustration of paying someone to get a job done correctly and them dropping the ball.
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Old 11-23-2022, 04:29 PM   #7
KirillWA
 
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5 months? I would become worried after a month.
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Old 11-23-2022, 05:16 PM   #8
Palutz
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Definitely report them to the BBB and leave a nice review on yelp. Maybe it’ll save someone the headache you went through.
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Old 11-23-2022, 06:01 PM   #9
kropscamaro16


 
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Drives: 2016 1ss camaro
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1fastz28 View Post
I've heard good things from BC raceworks in Houston, never heard of these guys. That sucks what they did to your car and your headaches. I know the frustration of paying someone to get a job done correctly and them dropping the ball.

ryne used to be in cali and he tuned my car years ago he also helped lethal hammer with his car before he moved out of state hes a super good guy and used to tune alot of the fastest ls/lt cars in socal
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Old 11-23-2022, 06:22 PM   #10
Evansa22

 
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Drives: HBM ZLE
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Another victim here, my case wasn't as bad but I could go on and on about his sh**y work and crap tuning. Please stay away and if you happen to see people chatting with him on facebook, please steer them clear. Too many good shops in the area as well.

Hopefully everything works out Ryan, your experience has been horrible. Boost mode should have that thing running right! They working almost done?

Just a few more examples
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Old 11-23-2022, 07:14 PM   #11
Oilfield_trash21
 
Drives: 2022 Camaro ZL1 1LE
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 17
Quote:
Originally Posted by LT1ornothing View Post
That is an awful experience, sorry to hear. Yeah, looks like that shop became a forum member back in early 2020, has all of 30 posts, and has not posted again on the forums since March 2021. I remember them from the forced induction forums when they were promoting their turbo kit. On a Facebook group, they attempted to try to convince me that forced induction was not possible for the LT1 without regapped pistons rings or forged.drop in pistons. I avoided arguing as I had seen many successful factory sealed LT1s with a blower kit successfully installed and tuned and still running. That conversation left me thinking I would never take my car to them for anything. After reading your story, I looked into them again and verified the have all of 30 posts total on this forum, and they have not posted in over 9 months. Anyways, I hope you can get your refund man, glad you could at least recover the car without a blown engine.
Believe it or not I actually got the refund for the oil pump this afternoon.
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Old 11-23-2022, 07:16 PM   #12
Oilfield_trash21
 
Drives: 2022 Camaro ZL1 1LE
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 17
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmcmahan60 View Post
File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
That's already been done and I'm currently taking legal action against him & his shop.
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Old 11-23-2022, 07:35 PM   #13
Oilfield_trash21
 
Drives: 2022 Camaro ZL1 1LE
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 17
Quote:
Originally Posted by JTS View Post
I am sick to my stomach for you, I'm glad you got your car out of there. Does this other shop have it? Was the head , cam, port work done. Just courious on the condition of your car I hope the best for you.
To sum up Im not surprised, it's not only Cars , it's all types of work , construction, plumbing, electrical, I've been told how great they are by so many and my guarantee is better than the other guy. All BS ,you just don't know who to trust doing work. I'm sure there's more good out there , but the 1 or 2 percent of bad spoil it for all.
I hope all is working out for you . Please keep this thread going with up dates on your Car.
Bro, I'm still sick to my stomach over this. Brand new f'ing car with less than 4k miles on it. I owned it for 3 months before I took it to him and now it's been gone for almost 7 months. The other shop has it now but there is a long list of cars ahead of mine. The more they dig, the more they find wrong. I'm going to just go pick it up and do all the repairs myself since there is so much that needs to be fixed. I'm just going to pull the heads and inspect everything from the block on up. That way I know when it's all put back together it's done right. I'm OCD about wiring, hoses, etc and after seeing this absolute disaster it put my OCD in overdrive.
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Old 11-23-2022, 08:19 PM   #14
Oilfield_trash21
 
Drives: 2022 Camaro ZL1 1LE
Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 17
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evansa22 View Post
Another victim here, my case wasn't as bad but I could go on and on about his sh**y work and crap tuning. Please stay away and if you happen to see people chatting with him on facebook, please steer them clear. Too many good shops in the area as well.

Hopefully everything works out Ryan, your experience has been horrible. Boost mode should have that thing running right! They working almost done?

Just a few more examples
Same thing with the hoses on mine too. He actually had a belt rub a hole through a intercooler hose while he was on the way to the dyno with it and had to turn around and go back to the shop. I told him before I went offshore that when I came back home in 2 weeks, I was coming to get my car whether it was running or not. The day I flew in, I told him I was on my way to Houston but I was actually about 2 hours ahead of where I told him I was on the road. He told me he had an appointment at the dyno for 2PM but the Onstar app showed my car hasn't moved from his shop since noon. We pulled up at his shop about 3PM and parked in the lot across from his shop and sat there. I messaged him several times asking how the dyno session was going but never got a reply. We watched them trying to hurry up and throw everything together once the UPS truck dropped off the lower pulley they had been waiting on, another lie I caught him in. When he finally did reply, he said he was half way to the dyno and the meth controller stopped working so he had to run back to the shop to fix it. Lie #2 he was caught in because I had pics and videos of them frantically throwing s**t together to try to get the car to Powerfab before they closed and the Onstar app showed the car had never left his shop. He gets the pulley on after 4PM and leaves out for Powerfab without the hood on the car or, which I found later, the big Y brace that goes under the front structure of the car. We follow him there and he tries to get the car on the dyno but the belt has cut the intercooler hose and the meth controller won't activate because he tied it in to a place on the front of the supercharger that doesn't give a boost reference, only vacuum. I told him multiple times that there was no boost reference source on the front of the supercharger on '22 ZL1's but as usual he doesn't listen because he thinks he's the absolute guru of anything LT related. I found this out when I was trying to hook up my boost gauge and all I could get off the front of the blower was vacuum. Instead of getting the proper adapter for the MAP sensor on the rear of the blower that gives you a boost source, he decided to butcher a MAP sensor from another vehicle and use it for that absolute work of art in the pics I posted. I guess he didn't realize that I have tracked EVERY move that car has made since I dropped it off to him and have documented every message, picture, video, lie, etc, etc. When I finally get the car home, I'm going to take detailed pics of everything he f**ked up and screenshots of all the copy & paste tuning so nobody else has to go through this bulls**t with this guy in this shop or any other shop he opens or works at. It was an expensive lesson to learn but if it helps at least one person to not get f**ked out of their hard earned money by this con-artist then it will be worth it.
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