Some of you have seen and participated in my previous discussion here:

Fantastic broke down in Grand Junction, CO

I did eventually make it to the East Coast, and with the help of a few forum members have spent weeks troubleshooting the issue with few results (more on that later). I have mulled next steps for a while and I have settled on a course of action. In an effort to prevent others from having the same experience I did I am making this thread and will be as factual as possible.

The car shop that performed the work on my car prior to the trip was Carl's Place/The900Series a Pelican Parts partner.

The car was brought in for a wavering tach while at constant speed, with no accompanying clutch smell, change in temp or change in engine speed. This turned out to be a bad tach.

While in the shop they recommended installing a crank trigger ignition to smooth out a flatspot in my rpm band caused by my cam and bitz kit, and gave me a quote in writing of $3,000 - $4000, and an estimated completion time of 3 days upon receipt of the parts.

That deadline was extended at least 3 times in various lengths. Total time ended up being nearly 3 weeks after parts were received. At pickup they told me it didn't have a perfect tune but everything hardware wise was sound. I was told that it took them a while because they were learning to install it.

Total cost was $6,000 and change.

I drove it around the Vegas area for 3 days before leaving on my trip. Cold starts were incredibly hard, but I chalked that up to the tune. As soon as I got into Colorado, rough cold starts became no cold starts with colder ambient temps. You can read all about the confusing and downright wrong things Carl's Place was telling me when I told them about it. Even still I held my tongue, because I understand it is an old car and it could be anything, even the need for a tune.

You can read the rest of the saga in the previously linked thread.

Jamie Novak at the behest of icarp, graciously agreed to help straighten out the "tune" issues. Well turns out it is not a tune issue. Here is the fault tree Jamie provided:

- ECU not getting crank signal
- Bad wiring
- Ignition TACH output not working
- Dash tach not getting crank signal
- Bad wiring
- Ignition TACH output not working
- Ignition not working
- Bad ignition module (ECU)
- Bad input signal from VR sensor
- Bad wiring from VR sensor
- Crank sensor not working
- VR sensor bad
- VR sensor not in position.

These are all things Carl's Place touched or worked on and the issue could be any of them or a combination.

Seeing as how I paid double the low end estimate, and 1.5 times the high end estimate, I expected the work would be done correctly and completely.

I have given Carl's Place many opportunities to make this right, either with a partial refund, or by contracting a shop in my area and paying them to fix the issue. They have refused, and only offered email "help," consisting of maybe one unhelpful email a day even outright lying in emails (yep I have it in writing).

So a recap: Work not completed on time, wildly more expensive than estimates, not done correctly and they do not stand by their work.