This is a tough one to walk away from but suing him will do no good, he's a deadbeat and doesn't have any money to pay a lawsuit. He's end up filing chapter 13 and you'd be out the legal fees on top of what you're out now. With all the failures you've described, I wouldn't want the engine now anyway. It's a boat anchor because of his inability to build an engine right. I'm sorry but you let this go WAY too long, I'd have been in his face 6 months ago.

 

Chris Konikowski,

You have about 10 voicemails from me, since last Thursday, requesting information about my car.

I arrived at your shop on Saturday to pick up my car, when you said it would be ready, but your shop was closed during your normal hours.

Houston's Performance (where, I found out, you left my car 12 days ago, after its first dyno pull) has communicated to you I was at your shop Saturday, expecting to pick up my car.

This is a public demand that you make arrangements with me to return my car.

Charles

 

WOW!!! That's sad..

 

Charles, I can't go into how I know what I know about Chris K. and SpeedDemon Motorsports but I can tell you without a doubt you will never get a suitable resolution to this situation. My 2 cents is that you should, with assistance from the local police if needed, remove your car (or whatever is left of it) from SD's property. I wouldn't consider legal action to try and recover your losses until AFTER you have removed your car from SD.(read between the lines.)

I'm sorry, not surprised, to hear this horror story about SD. This is just one of many I have become aware of.

I must stress, GET YOUR CAR OUT OF THERE!!!! No matter what condition or state of repair it's in you need to get your car in your hands. Take plenty of pictures to back up any future actions and a witness (like the local police) would be advisable when you retrieve your car from SD. (again, read between the lines.)

Good luck.

 

Chris screwed me over with my car as well. He had my car for almost 3 months and didn't or couldn't fix it. I finally got fed up and picked my car up even though it was not fixed. I had paid Chris thousands of dollars and he really had my motor screwed up. Also, he had dyno tuned my motor and it ran like crap. I went back to a stock computer and it ran better than on his tune.

Get your car out of there and bring it to someone who knows what they are doing. Chris does not know what the heck he is doing. I know of several people that have been screwed over by him. One guy I know spent $19,000 dollars on two motors. The first one blew up right away and the second one lasted a couple thousand miles.

Good luck. Get your car out of there even if it has to be on a flat bed. Trust me, I speak from experience.

 

So has there been any resolution to this situation? Do you have your car back yet? I have been following your saga and am interested to see the out come on your problem. Good luck and let us know what the heck happens.

 

Well at least I got a little over 15k miles out of mine. For what I paid, I think that's BS though. I shouldn't have had any problems, and I went through several issues just to get the car running decent.

At this point, with this many people having trouble, and even the forum can't get a hold of Chris K., I think his forum sponsership should at least be pulled until the current issue is resolved. I know the forum can't get involved in ever issue, but if the vendor doesn't even want to respond to the forum he advertises in, then something should be done. IMHO anyway.

 

I think he is just jerking you around.

 

Damn Charles if you know your car is in that dyno shop in Houston. Go and get it, get it home count your losses and get it tuned somewhere else. Worry about suing or getting your money back from SD later, I would be getting my car back first. Jeez I only wish I had the work SD has or rather had. We have been very slow in the last couple months here in the Northwest....It is all about customer relations and of course QC of your work as that is just as important.

 

You could take him to small claims court. You wouldn't get all your money back (I think $5000 is the limit, at least in this state), but you wouldn't need a lawyer, and a subpeona might grab his attention.

 

I'm sorry man- but I think someone needs to tell you to pull your head out of your butt. That whole thing about Buyer Be Ware should have expired 1 month into the SECOND rebuild - and probably sooner if you would have checked up on your car sooner.

DOn't get me wrong, I empathize with your position and I hate to hear you got your chain yanked... but a pattern arised and after all the crap you listed- you AGREED to buy LT1Edit, take a LESSER motor with cheaper parts and PAY THEM MORE for a dyno tune or whatever??? The first few deceptions can snooker anyone, but now you're on par with "a fool and his money..."

You need to get a flatbed to houston, get your car and find out what's wrong with it. And that BS about an oil leak on the dyno "saving your car if you had driven it home" is another load of bull. This guy lost any credibility 7 months ago and you need to proactively get your stuff back. THEN, you call the police and file a report (or whatever your lawyer - yes you'll probably need one now - advises). Unless of course you can lose $13000 and not get stand-up blood-vessel-popping mad like I would.

If the legal system doesn't work, then I might even try to find his home address and have a chat on his personal phone with whomever answers (or swing by with the local cops).

SO I apologize for my tough love at the beginning of this email, but you need to get moving ASAP. What the best course of action long-term is I really don't know, but the first move is logically recovering your car and assessing the damage with a credible witness and plenty of documentation. Then getting legal advise from a professional and going from there.

Last resort is the Old School way of gathering a couple of Stone cold heavy hitting mother fu...

 

I heard from Chris Wednesday. He said that the motor was running badly, and was not sure why. I told him that I would be picking up the car next Saturday at noon, no matter what condition it was in.

I'll post an update here afterwards.

BTW my car looks just like yours -- a black/black Lt4 (originally) with the same style wheels.

 

He told me the same crap about not knowing what is wrong with it for weeks. I was at his shop every friggin morning in his face. I do believe that he doesn't know what is wrong with it, because he doesn't know what the heck he is doing.

I really hope that you get it back this week from Chris, or at least what is left of your car. However, I am willing to bet that he won't be there or he has some excuse why the car is not ready to be picked up.

Good luck Bro

 

Wow, this is kinda scary as I was about to drop off my car there... so what happened Charles?

 

Out here, if a car is left in a shop for a year, it is considered abandoned property and that guy can sell it. I was in a similar situation with a body shop, heard all the right things, wanting to believe I wouldn't get burned. The above post about him making excuses for you to pick it up will probably happen. Let me share some experience-Grab your proof of ownership, meet the authorities over there and show up unannounced and get your car. Its yours, you own it, he cannot refuse you. I sat back and hoped for the best, as I didnt' have any more money to get it done somewhere else, and watched a 40k/5 year project get flatbedded out of there completely stripped. I have practically no recourse at this point, short of sending the boys up there.
I got pizzed when a few buddies told me I was a fool for leaving it there, but they were right. The car is in the right hands now and should be together sometime this summer.

He will not respond to your posts. Go pick it up, now. Sorry to hear about this. I feel your pain.

 

Going to respond to my own post here:

First, I see the forum has stepped up and removed Speed Demon from the advertisers list. It also appears that all @SpeedDemon S/N's have been removed. to the forum for standing up for it's members!

Second,

On a personal side, I have one broken pushrod on my #4 cylinder (these being the "top of the line" chrome moly ones). I'm now wondering if I don't have some kind of clearance issue and possibly had a valve break against a piston I'm hoping to have the heads off this coming weekend.

 

I'm hoping after you read this post, hell would freeze over before you dropped your car off there, right?