GAP Racing (Houston, TX)

[smaylsworth]

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I was referred to GAP by friends and was excited to visit their shop. Tim gave me a tour of their shop and I was able to witness their amazing ability to build very beautiful cars (visited during their building of Stampede)… but behind the disguise of a legitimate shop is an owner (Tim Palazzolo) that has zero respect for his clients. It’s extremely frustrating to see more and more people bring their vehicles to this “builder” and being taken advantage of. I brought my Chevelle there for a dash swap with new gauges, AC and ignition upgrades… 9 yes NINE months later and this is what I paid for:

1. Broken cowl vents (replaced two days before dropping off and witness technician break one in front of me)
2. Wrong alternator / AC compressor brackets as I could not drive 15 miles without throwing a belt, after tinkering with pulleys and brackets for months I decided to rip it all out and just swap over to a serpentine drive
3. Windshield wipers wouldn’t work, next visit they wouldn’t turn off, final visit they replaced the motor/pump (which were good) and broke the fluid nozzles off the hood… which is a simple mistake however shoving the hoses into the firewall and not saying anything is not ok
4. Brand new plug wires were laid across the headers, needless to say by the time I got home they were melted and arcing to the headers (thank got it didn’t burn down)
5. Speaking of burning down, they never installed the supplied relays for my radiator fans, so I called the supplier as they were not working and they informed me that there should be relays…. Pop the hood and notice they not only electrical taped (no head shrink) all of the new wiring… but they tucked it under my battery tray and so when the battery was bolted down it grounded and melted all of the radiator fan wiring
6. None of the gauges were calibrated and bounce all over the place
7. The new ashtray spring was never installed
8. The center vent on the new dash was cracked
9. I had a few parts (e.g. trunk weather-stripping, valve covers, pcv, valve cover breather, etc.) sitting in the trunk that I didn’t get around to installing so I asked if they could let me know how much it would be to throw all this on and I’ll probably have them do it… well I’ll chalk this up as a learning experience because it was $250 to just put the new valve covers on…not getting a quote beforehand and only getting a bill after everything was installed

During the 9 months it took to complete all of this I was told “the car was ready” 4 times… each time I visited it either wouldn’t run or I called them out on more issues. Finally after the 4^th time I lost my mind and was taking my car no matter what but wanted to speak with Tim about how disappointed I was. Needless to say I sat in front of his building with his secretary for an hour and he never came out, even after multiple attempts by his secretary to get him to come out. However the one time I was able to speak with Tim he got extremely combative when I tried and address issues in their craftsmanship. He is very disrespectful and willing to take advantage of anyone that drops their car off.

In the end they scam everyday individuals so they can build show cars (that may or may not run) and get awards. I’ve documented the ~$4,000 in lost cost and am considering legal action, but I have seen many people been taking advantage of far worse than I. Please take this review into consideration, if anything at least research more into GAP Racing and ask local Houston area car guys if they’ve had any experience with them as I am far from the only one with experiences like this.

[smaylsworth]

UPDATE

Finally had some free time to figure out why it was running so poorly... looks like they also purchase the "ready-to-run" MSD distributor and not the correct Pro-billet for the 6AL box. Just replaced it with the correct distributor and wiring to the 6AL box and it works flawlessly. Officially every single piece they touched (and some they weren't supposed to) has either had to be replaced or corrected.

[GAP Industries]

We appreciate the kind words.