If this Rating system had negative stars, they would get a negative 10, 000!!!
Jimmy is a fraud! Larry's Performance shop knows nothing about performance, or honest dealings. I don't know about Larry himself, but I believe Jimmy/Jim is his overgrown kid, and if dad was an honest person, well that family trait got lost along the line somewhere!
It's been a while since my experience with Larry's "Performance" shop, and I wish I had placed a review about this place a long time ago, but here it goes:
I was a naive 20yr old with money burning a hole in my pocket, and Jimmy sure knew how to grab me by the ankles... and shake me up side down that is, and the other analogy wouldn't be wrong either.
I had a 72 Chevelle with a 350 that had a sleeve in it, I probably could have fixed how it was running by buying a new carb, and getting it dyno tuned, or tuned by someone that knew what they were doing. Anyway, it was my decision to get a 350 stroker put in instead, I was going to go to a trusted shop in Bellflower, but one of Jimmy's friends recommended me to Larry's "performance" Shop in Montebello.
So I tell him that I want a 350 stroker (400 crank), and I forged pistons, forged crank, because I want the option of running Nitrous later down the line, so I want the strongest components. They started on the motor; I was working 80hrs/wk at a phone company & didn't have much time to check in, but would keep contact over the phone, and would come in periodically to make payments as I added a couple of upgrades... like a roller cam (which he sold me a solid roller cam, even though this car was for street applications, not strip applications-you constantly have to adjust the valve lash with these & are impossible to keep on a daily driver)
Anyway, He squeezed more money out of me for that (more than any cam install should cost looking back on it), then I went in to make a payment on the cam & asked him to throw in roller rockers while we were at it, and he pulls out a set of roller rockers he said he had shipped to someone, but they sent them back, and he would give me a price break on them and sell them to me for $250 for the set (which was cheap compared to how much he was milking me for already) so I agreed. When I went to see the engine that day, it was bright orange, and I had specifically told him to paint it black because my car was going to be midnight blue, and I didn't want a bright engine block. He had said, "no problem", and jotted some note down, and since this was a "performance" shop, I figured they could paint an engine the color I requested. Well I told him, that the engine color was wrong, and he said that he'd have to take the engine a part to pant it, and asked if I wouldn't mind if he gave that to another customer (canary yellow 72ish camaro), and build me a fresh one, and I said, "well as long as you put the parts in it that I paid for, I don't care". (That was a huge mistake!)
When I picked up the car, it sounded great at idle, like a monster was outside the office, but when I tried to drive it away, it died, and I called him, but he said I needed to have it dyno'd...
Don't you think a place with the word "Performance" in the name could adjust the timing and the carb on a car, (even if it needed fine tuning) enough so the car would run decent?!
Anyway, I went and got it dyno'd, and it ran great for 1 week and a half, but then the valves were very noisy because of the Solid roller cam, that I had to learn how to adjust the valve lash, and it wouldn't be so bad if it was once every 3 months with an oil change, but every 2 weeks would put it up at 6 times at least per oil change cycle!
Well eventually I got the valves adjusted by jimmy's friend that recommended me, and he said that one valve in particular was tight, I came back a week later because the valves still didn't sound right, and he had to adjust that valve again, and said that the roller rocker had too much play in it. So I told Jimmy, and get this! He sent me to a place where he had bought these roller rockers with his discount card to buy a new set (admission of guilt).
Fast forward: when I'm cruising to work at 70mph loving my chevelle while it ran well, and BOOM! ClAGLAGLGAG!!! A Cool looking smoke screen right out of Spy Hunter covered the entire freeway. My engine blew!
I later took it apart and found that 1) the serial number of the engine didn't match the paperwork because of the swap 2)the cheap Japanese roller rockers he sold me had damaged a valve, and that valve head had broken off, disintegrated my piston, and scattered hypertectic piston material all over the rest of the engine (I had specifically ordered Forged).
Cost of Larry's RIP-OFF $10, 000!!!
Replacement to crap roller rockers the shop said they stopped selling, because they were $80 Japanese crap (sold to me for $250 at a "deal")
$300
Price of life lesson that "Jimmy is a THIEF" - RAPED!