Guys at 50/50 Racing
04-03-2007 | 08:04 PM
#11
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 13,485
Likes: 68
From: Chiswick
Hey guys,
I unfortunatly had Brian of 50/50 Racing work on my car.... A simple short block swap with 3mm headgasket install turned into a nightmare....
His customer service is absolutely horrible... Never calling me back when i left a message... Blatantly lying to me when he told me something different the day before... and when i called him out on it... he would say that I was mistaken...
I had my car shipped to him in late december... because he offered me a deal i couldn't refuse... Unfortunatly i have learnt that when it is too good to be true, it usually is... I paid him for all parts upfront... This includes 750cc RC injectors, a Cometic 2mm Headgasket, AEM EMS, 3bar GM map sensor, a honda rebuilt short block, 3inch pulley, a stage 4 ClutchMaster clutch, a tune designed to run these components and about 200 dollars in gaskets and fluids... The plan was to have him install this stuff in about 2 weeks and then fly down with my friend Marcus "cherry04" and drive the car back up to Jersey...
First headache... He can't find the 3inch pulley for the Comptech Supercharger... So he wants me to find it for him... $70 later i've got a pulley shipped to his home/garage, yes he works out of his one car garage....
headache #2... the friday before i leave for florida (i leave sunday morning) he says that the headgasket that he bought is damaged.... 300 dollars later i get a 3mm Inlinepro headgasket shipped to his home/garage... which isn't said to be delivered until monday... so marcus and i have to reshedule our non-refundable tickets for 150 dollars... for the next wednesday...
Headache #3... I get a call at 3am in the morning on wednesday... telling me that i shouldn't fly out because the main bearing seal is broken and the car can't be rebuilt until the next weekend... So i reshedule the flight for the next sunday... at another 150 dollar charge...
Headache #4... We fly to Florida... (the plan had been for him to pick us up at Pensacola airport at 12... which is about 45 minutes away from his home/garage... We land at 11:45... i give him a call... no one picks up... 12:00... i give him a call... again, no response... call at 12:30... nothing... I call at 12:45 and i get the answer machine again... 12:50... he calls me up and says "sorry, i was sleeping, i can't come pick you up for at least another 2 hours... So i spend 100 dollars to get a rental car and let him know we are on the way... he tries to convince me that i should wait at the airport until one of his people could pick us up... i say no...
Headache #5.. we are 5 minutes out and Brian calls me up and says that i should go to some gas station because my car's battery has gone flat while he was trying to fill up my tank for me, and the car is just sitting at one of the pumps... I ask him why it had gone flat when the battery had just been replaced... he responds with a shrug and tells me to drive to his house... pick up some starter cables and head on over to pump...
Headache #6... we arrive at the gas station and there are two kids sitting in my car... one with a laptop, the other just hanging out, smokin a cigerette in my car... We connect up the cables and the car just turns over and over and over... Thankfully i had planned ahead and brought some new spark plugs.... wrenches.. and a torque wrench... Marcus and i pull the plugs and see that they are just drenched in gas.... I have never seen plugs that fouled... We put in the new plugs and the car starts up... but runs badly.... very badly... I limp the car back to his home/garage
Headache #7... I find out by talking to mike, one of the kids that brian was letting work on my car, that the tune i had paid 150 dollars for was infact the base AEM map, designed for stock injectors, stock map sensor, and stock compression... I was surprised the car ran at all.... Driving home in my car was becoming a smaller and smaller possibility...
Headache #8... I ask brian why the injectors that are on my car don't have RC's stickers on them... He responds by saying "oh, i thought you wouldnt mind if i installed these 880cc injectors i got from some other guy i was doing work for... They are InlinePro ones though! He also took the liberty of hacking up my injectors wires and shoddily installing a resistor box...
Headache #9... Brian gives me his laptop because he can't keep the car running... this is after he had wired my Wideband reader incorrectly as well as installing it in the anti-fouler plug on my test pipe... We get the reader running correctly... but its useless because i can't program an EMS... and these guys couldn't either...
Headache #10... My car, in the shape that Brian of 50/50 racing had left it, was barely drivable down the street...and to consider driving it back to jersey was just insane... I am angry... very angry.. and im sure it was apparant... Brian then has the audacity to say that everything about the car was perfect except for the tune... I ask him to fix the steering that is off (the wheel is pointed to the left when it goes down the road...) he says "of course!" I can't even look at him... we drive home to jersey, in the rental car... leaving my car back in florida... 300 dollars in car rental fees later, we arrive in jersey... I make an appointment with Jeff Evans to tune my car correctly and pay 800 dollars to have the car shipped back to jersey...
Headache #11... Jeff recieves the car... and tells me that the tune was for a stock car... he also looks at the Map sensor and sees that it is a 1Bar map sensor instead of the 3bar sensor he promised me... and it had been wired incorrectly so it was telling the ecu that it was seeing 30psi of boost all the time... it had to be replaced... i also need a new battery because whatever the guys down in Florida did to it.. it doesnt work...
Headache #12... i get the car back and the thing seems much much louder than it was before... i chaulk it up to being the supercharger running more boost... I change the oil the next day and see a large oil stain where the oil had been leaking out of the headgasket.... The car had under 50 miles on the new motor and it was already leaking oil.... The car also comes back with my center console cupholder broken... and he either scratched the hell out of my own one or switched out my one for another...
Headache #13...The belt Brian put on my supercharger was not thick enough... so it only fit on 3/4 of the grooves from the crank pulley to the supercharger pulley.... Within 200 miles the belt shreds and leaves me stranded on the side of the road... thankfully i had another belt to replace it with
Headache #14... i baby the car for 1500 while the new clutch wears in... The clutch still feels pretty hard and makes some weird noises when it is released...
Headache #15.... My car blows up... I am on the highway... i downshift a few gears and give it some gas... suddenly i loose all power and i look behind me to see plumes of white smoke coming out the exhaust... I pull over to the side of the and have the car towed back to my house....
Headache #16.... I start to pull the motor apart... The bolts that went into the starter bolts were standard sizes instead of metric... lots of bolts on the car.. including the manifold bolts were able to be removed by hand... (possibly the reason why my car was so loud...) this isn't including all the bolts that were stripped... I found the reason Brian didn't fix my steering... He not only bent the rack but had also stripped the bolt that holds the steering column into the rack... There was less than one turn of thread holding the entire thing together... Imagine if it had failed on the road... we pull out the tranny and find the Clutchmaster stage 4 clutch to be infact a Honda Pressure plate spray painted black.... the paint comes off in my hand... I am still taking the motor apart... and im sure I'll be even more shocked as to what i find...(pics to follow)
I can't blame anyone at this point as to why the motor blew up because i haven't taken it apart... but if i was to go on past experience alone...
Please, do not use Brian and the rest of the guys at 50/50 Racing... I don't do this as much for me, but to prevent anyone else out there from being screwed over as much as i did...
I unfortunatly had Brian of 50/50 Racing work on my car.... A simple short block swap with 3mm headgasket install turned into a nightmare....
His customer service is absolutely horrible... Never calling me back when i left a message... Blatantly lying to me when he told me something different the day before... and when i called him out on it... he would say that I was mistaken...
I had my car shipped to him in late december... because he offered me a deal i couldn't refuse... Unfortunatly i have learnt that when it is too good to be true, it usually is... I paid him for all parts upfront... This includes 750cc RC injectors, a Cometic 2mm Headgasket, AEM EMS, 3bar GM map sensor, a honda rebuilt short block, 3inch pulley, a stage 4 ClutchMaster clutch, a tune designed to run these components and about 200 dollars in gaskets and fluids... The plan was to have him install this stuff in about 2 weeks and then fly down with my friend Marcus "cherry04" and drive the car back up to Jersey...
First headache... He can't find the 3inch pulley for the Comptech Supercharger... So he wants me to find it for him... $70 later i've got a pulley shipped to his home/garage, yes he works out of his one car garage....
headache #2... the friday before i leave for florida (i leave sunday morning) he says that the headgasket that he bought is damaged.... 300 dollars later i get a 3mm Inlinepro headgasket shipped to his home/garage... which isn't said to be delivered until monday... so marcus and i have to reshedule our non-refundable tickets for 150 dollars... for the next wednesday...
Headache #3... I get a call at 3am in the morning on wednesday... telling me that i shouldn't fly out because the main bearing seal is broken and the car can't be rebuilt until the next weekend... So i reshedule the flight for the next sunday... at another 150 dollar charge...
Headache #4... We fly to Florida... (the plan had been for him to pick us up at Pensacola airport at 12... which is about 45 minutes away from his home/garage... We land at 11:45... i give him a call... no one picks up... 12:00... i give him a call... again, no response... call at 12:30... nothing... I call at 12:45 and i get the answer machine again... 12:50... he calls me up and says "sorry, i was sleeping, i can't come pick you up for at least another 2 hours... So i spend 100 dollars to get a rental car and let him know we are on the way... he tries to convince me that i should wait at the airport until one of his people could pick us up... i say no...
Headache #5.. we are 5 minutes out and Brian calls me up and says that i should go to some gas station because my car's battery has gone flat while he was trying to fill up my tank for me, and the car is just sitting at one of the pumps... I ask him why it had gone flat when the battery had just been replaced... he responds with a shrug and tells me to drive to his house... pick up some starter cables and head on over to pump...
Headache #6... we arrive at the gas station and there are two kids sitting in my car... one with a laptop, the other just hanging out, smokin a cigerette in my car... We connect up the cables and the car just turns over and over and over... Thankfully i had planned ahead and brought some new spark plugs.... wrenches.. and a torque wrench... Marcus and i pull the plugs and see that they are just drenched in gas.... I have never seen plugs that fouled... We put in the new plugs and the car starts up... but runs badly.... very badly... I limp the car back to his home/garage
Headache #7... I find out by talking to mike, one of the kids that brian was letting work on my car, that the tune i had paid 150 dollars for was infact the base AEM map, designed for stock injectors, stock map sensor, and stock compression... I was surprised the car ran at all.... Driving home in my car was becoming a smaller and smaller possibility...
Headache #8... I ask brian why the injectors that are on my car don't have RC's stickers on them... He responds by saying "oh, i thought you wouldnt mind if i installed these 880cc injectors i got from some other guy i was doing work for... They are InlinePro ones though! He also took the liberty of hacking up my injectors wires and shoddily installing a resistor box...
Headache #9... Brian gives me his laptop because he can't keep the car running... this is after he had wired my Wideband reader incorrectly as well as installing it in the anti-fouler plug on my test pipe... We get the reader running correctly... but its useless because i can't program an EMS... and these guys couldn't either...
Headache #10... My car, in the shape that Brian of 50/50 racing had left it, was barely drivable down the street...and to consider driving it back to jersey was just insane... I am angry... very angry.. and im sure it was apparant... Brian then has the audacity to say that everything about the car was perfect except for the tune... I ask him to fix the steering that is off (the wheel is pointed to the left when it goes down the road...) he says "of course!" I can't even look at him... we drive home to jersey, in the rental car... leaving my car back in florida... 300 dollars in car rental fees later, we arrive in jersey... I make an appointment with Jeff Evans to tune my car correctly and pay 800 dollars to have the car shipped back to jersey...
Headache #11... Jeff recieves the car... and tells me that the tune was for a stock car... he also looks at the Map sensor and sees that it is a 1Bar map sensor instead of the 3bar sensor he promised me... and it had been wired incorrectly so it was telling the ecu that it was seeing 30psi of boost all the time... it had to be replaced... i also need a new battery because whatever the guys down in Florida did to it.. it doesnt work...
Headache #12... i get the car back and the thing seems much much louder than it was before... i chaulk it up to being the supercharger running more boost... I change the oil the next day and see a large oil stain where the oil had been leaking out of the headgasket.... The car had under 50 miles on the new motor and it was already leaking oil.... The car also comes back with my center console cupholder broken... and he either scratched the hell out of my own one or switched out my one for another...
Headache #13...The belt Brian put on my supercharger was not thick enough... so it only fit on 3/4 of the grooves from the crank pulley to the supercharger pulley.... Within 200 miles the belt shreds and leaves me stranded on the side of the road... thankfully i had another belt to replace it with
Headache #14... i baby the car for 1500 while the new clutch wears in... The clutch still feels pretty hard and makes some weird noises when it is released...
Headache #15.... My car blows up... I am on the highway... i downshift a few gears and give it some gas... suddenly i loose all power and i look behind me to see plumes of white smoke coming out the exhaust... I pull over to the side of the and have the car towed back to my house....
Headache #16.... I start to pull the motor apart... The bolts that went into the starter bolts were standard sizes instead of metric... lots of bolts on the car.. including the manifold bolts were able to be removed by hand... (possibly the reason why my car was so loud...) this isn't including all the bolts that were stripped... I found the reason Brian didn't fix my steering... He not only bent the rack but had also stripped the bolt that holds the steering column into the rack... There was less than one turn of thread holding the entire thing together... Imagine if it had failed on the road... we pull out the tranny and find the Clutchmaster stage 4 clutch to be infact a Honda Pressure plate spray painted black.... the paint comes off in my hand... I am still taking the motor apart... and im sure I'll be even more shocked as to what i find...(pics to follow)
I can't blame anyone at this point as to why the motor blew up because i haven't taken it apart... but if i was to go on past experience alone...
Please, do not use Brian and the rest of the guys at 50/50 Racing... I don't do this as much for me, but to prevent anyone else out there from being screwed over as much as i did...
I wish sometimes we weren't because at least his car is running...
04-05-2007 | 06:00 AM
#19
Registered User
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 350
Likes: 0
From: Asheville, NC
I almost went to Brian to have him do my 2JZ swap and all I have to say at this point is thank god I didn't. He lied to me or was just too ignorant to know on many occasions. He is using Aristo motors in his 2JZ swaps and he told me he was using an AEM EMS to tune these cars, which is 100% not possible right now. That's from AEM. He bad mouthed PRS2K several times and when I contacted PRS, he called Brian on 3 way for me and Brian denied every last thing he said. He also mistakenly quoted me two prices for the 2JZ swap. One over email, one over the phone and there was about a $3,000 variance. He told me his car had a R200 rear end then admitted it was stock. He told me his car makes 900 or so hp but never can produce a video or legit dyno. I recorded a few of our calls where he completely lies to my face about a couple of members here and about the work he does. The guy shouldn't be allowed to touch ANY vehicle. I wouldn't let him change my oil.
04-05-2007 | 06:04 AM
#20
Registered User
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 350
Likes: 0
From: Asheville, NC
Another thing to keep in mind is the guy is a salesman when it comes to this stuff. He is a very good liar. I am a very hard sell on things and it was hard for me to see the bullshit he was feeding me until I got off of the phone with him. I am posting this for one reason and one reason only. I don't want ANYONE to have to deal with the problems arising with Brian doing any major work to your vehicle. I was very close to sending him my car and thankfully I did some research before I did it. When I see the attention his car and shop are getting it just scares me.