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Originally Posted by Gordon Monsen
The story in a nutshell. I had had Peter do about $18,000 worth of work on my car since the day I bought it new. Then, in Nov., 1998, I told Peter I wanted to go single turbo. Peter told me I could just buy Ed Taylor's car, which Ed had traded in to Peter for a 3 rotor conversion. I talked to Ed about his old car, but passed, because I knew Ed had raced the car. I knew my car was perfect.
I told Peter to upgrade mine. After a lot of haggling we decided to port my motor and rebuild it to race car tolerances, put a "like-new" used single turbo on it, and do a bunch of other stuff, like a custom race intercooler, etc. Peter quoted me a "500 HP turbo motor". gave him my car in January, 1999, and picked up the car in late march.
The car ran like a piece of shit. Much worse than when I gave it to him. Less power and almost undriveable. I took the car to a new guy near me, Dave Barninger of a new shop called KD Rotary. Dave agreed that there was something really wrong with the car. Brought it back to Peter. Picked it up a few weeks later and it still ran like shit. Went to MADS and showed it to Peter. He drove it with me on the race course, hard. It ran OK flat out, but was still undriveable at normal pace. Took it back. Took it back to Peter who said he would install an electromotive TEC II. Called after a few weeks and they said he was in Greece or something.
They said they wouldn't be getting to it for a while, so I went and picked it up around end of may, 1999. On way back, it caught fire. Had it towed to KD Rotary. They found the wiring harness had melted and caught fire. Built new harness. The car had pieces falling off it, they fixed. The IC pipe from compressor kept coming off, losing boost and banging into the hood and denting it. Bunch of other stuff. I spent about $14,000 over many months of not driving the car. In July of 2000, KD and I took it to a dyno and it only made 275-300 RWHP, or less than before taking it to Peter. They said the turbo was bad... and, I had put on less than 2000 miles since picking it up from Peter.
KD Rotary sent the turbo to Majestic Turbo and they rebuilt it. Opened it up and put in bigger compressor wheel, balanced and lightened the spindle. They said the turbo wheel had caked up with burnt oil and the vanes were chewed up badly. Wheel couldn't spin well and wouldn't be balanced and couldn't make much power. Suggested it had been raced hard and abused. Got it back in august and Dave put it back in the car. Took it out for a test drive the first week of September, 2000 and it blew up. (The motor). back to KD rotary. Dave took the motor apart and emailed me on September 19th and told me the motor was shot. Said it looked like a motor with 80,000 miles of wear and said the housings were so badly chewed up, it couldn't;t be rebuilt. Dave also said the engine, btw, wasn't my original engine, but the number on the block was from a guy named Ed Taylor's car (gave me the vin and I had Mazda run it).
I bought a reman, Dave ported it and reassembled everything for another $4500 or so. In later September, the 26th, I sent Peter a letter asking for my money back. Peter replied and said nothing doing. I though hard about suing him, but didn't think the cost was worth it. Over the course of the next 5-6 months though, I blasted PFS and Farrell on the Internet. So did many others who felt "ripped off". in June of 2001, Peter Farrell sued ME and Malloy Mazda and john duff and David Penner for defamation, and conspiracy to put him out of business by saying bad, untrue things about him on the Internet. He had duff fired and arrested for embezzlement.
After a year of legal bullshit, we had a trial. All this drained me and my family emotionally and the legal bills for 2 law firms ran me well into 6 figures. As you know, the jury did the right thing. That's it... almost. a few months before the trial, I posted to the Internet asking if anyone had bought a silver 1993 RX-7 from Peter Farrell in early 1999 (Ed Taylor's car was silver). a guy emailed me and said he owned the car in question. I verified it by vin. He said he had bought it from a guy who said it had had a 1995 18,000 mile motor transplanted in it according to the guy he bought it from. I called that guy and he said Peter Farrell had sold him the car in march of 1999 and said that the motor was like new and had come out of a 1995 RX-7 I verified the vin on the motor and it was mine.
So, what Farrell had done was take Ed Taylor's motor out of his car, turbo, electronics (boost controller, additional injector controller, downpipe, turbo and all, and put it into my car. This is the engine from the car I had turned down buying, because I thought it had been abused. that car had sat at PFS from July of 1998 to march of 1999 without anyone buying it, probably because it ran so bad, and had stuck it in my car, without rebuilding it or doing much of anything to it. He took my perfectly good motor out and put it in Ed's car and was now able to sell that for a very good price. He made money on both sides of the deal without doing any work at all. How much money? hard to say, but he sold Ed's car for something like $19,000 and I have a bill for the motor he put in, my motor, for $3800. He sold me the turbo and motor for just under $10,000. Cost to him? about $1000 worth of work.
That's the story.
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