Bakersfield Performance

[69307]

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good performance shop in or around the Bakersfield area? I'm looking to have some performance mods done (suspension, super charger, etc.) and would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

[Milk 1027]

Cal speed performance is the only one I know of and gets good reviews from the other LSx guys.

[CXRBAKO69]

Yeah same here Cal Speed is the only one I know of that people have worked with. Haven't taken anything there myself though.

[jay11]

DO NOT go to cal speed and preformance. my buddy got screwed over on his turbo truck build and i got screwed over on a tanny/torque converter for my duramax. that place is a joke!!!

[Milk 1027]

Originally Posted by jay11

DO NOT go to cal speed and preformance. my buddy got screwed over on his turbo truck build and i got screwed over on a tanny/torque converter for my duramax. that place is a joke!!!

Thank you for the helpful and detailed response......

Might want to give people more info before you throw someone under the bus.
I've talked to several other people that have worked with them and haven't heard a bad thing about them yet.

[69307]

Thanks for the comments/recommendations everyone!

[jay11]

Originally Posted by Milk 1027

Thank you for the helpful and detailed response......

Might want to give people more info before you throw someone under the bus.
I've talked to several other people that have worked with them and haven't heard a bad thing about them yet.

my friend took his truck in for a turbo build got ****ed over.. it started out as a twin turbo build. jim said he would pull “his” motor, tranny and put a dummy block in to build the turbo kit while his original motor/tranny was being built for the thanksgiving deadline(which was approximately a month and a half away)... months later way after the dead line the turbo kit hadn’t even been finished yet with the stock motor still in the truck. After asking why his motor/tranny hadn’t been pulled and built yet jims response was “wanting to make sure everything was fit to the stock block” next thing we know after the turbo kit was "supposedly" completely done his motor was pulled to be built. but with no verbal conformation to the customer jim swapped his aluminum block out and built a cast iron 6.0. the customer was not informed of this swap when the truck was originally brought into jims he and jim talked about building his stock block (which is his aluminum block) being built. The customer asked numerous times about building his original block. the customer confronted jim about the issue and all jim had to say was "we already talked about the swap,this is what we do with boosted motors and i dont know why you are upset" so basically he pulled a fast one on him and sold his aluminum long block to a guy that has a single cab. to jims defense he stated it as "cal speed and performance long block" but the original discussion with jim was having his stock original motor being built. with that being said the truck is already over 5 months past the deadline. he decided to hack up the owners stock Ypipe with out asking him if it was okay to cut it up and use the manifold mounts. so now for smog purposes the owner cant even smog his truck without having to find a y pipe or buy a new one for around 500 bucks..the truck that was brought in was a lifted show truck with every piece of the suspension either chromed or powdercoated. where the turbos were mounted were below the oil pan so an oil scavenging pump needed to be used. jim did not call the owner and ask if it was okay to weld a metal plate to the lift to mount the pump which cost him hundereds of dollars to re powdercoat. also where the turbos were mounted the pass. side turbo ran into the frame, but did jim call the the owner before cutting his frame!!??? nope!! so now the owner cant return his truck to stock height because the 4wd crossmember ear has been cut off with out the owners consient! also jim spicifically stated he would send pictures of where he thought would be good locations to mount switches in the dash but next thing we know they have already been mounted in locations jim chose not the owner. Jim never once asked where he would like the switches mounted(cut out and second fuel pump).. he blammed all the "mistakes" on his employees and didnt want to take responsibility for their actions. but whats funny is in the begining he said his truck was a custom job and he would be the only one working on the truck... skipping ahead acouple months (7.5 months into the build) the built motor and tranny are back into the truck. oil kept blowing past the seals in the turbos and smoking like mad. after acouple different scavenging pumps he was sure he had one capable of supporting the twin turbos. it still smoked out the exhaust like crazy. along with the smoke show he couldnt get the tune dialed in and would blubber randomly and missing..so he decided to blame it on the turbos thay they were "faulty"... long story short he couldnt get the truck to run right. so after a long discussion the owner decided to supply his own turbo and hot pipes and shit can the original set up sense it was the turbos fault for the truck not running right. so on a monday afternoon the customer dropped off the turbo, hot pipes, and waste gate to jim and he said by friday he would have his truck done.. 5 weeks later it was supposidly done.. but not to the customers liking. he wanted his cold pipes routed from the turbo (passenger side) forward across the grill to drivers side then to the throttle body like a normal front mount kit. but no jim insists he reuses the original cold pipes alredy fabbed up from the old twin kit so he didnt have to lengthen the MAF wires..re basically refused to build it to the customers specifications.. so he goes fron the pass side across the belts to the drivers side, back to the pass side, then to the throttle body. the owner so fed up because he wont do what he wants just wants him to finish it and pick it up. the customer goes to pick up truck and make part of the last payment. he fires his truck up lets it idle for atleast 5 min and notices a CIL. jim pulles out his autozone scan tool and states there is no codes found. so the owner anxious to drive his truck (sense its been almost a year, 11 times the original build timeline) pulls out of the parking lot and gives it some gas and instently the truck falls on its face popping and blubering. he pulls back in and asks jim what happened? he states it must have not been warmed up fully and still in open loop (remember the truck sat and warmed up for at least 5 min prior which is well into closed loop) also CIL back on. the owner pulled the codes with his efi live and 5 current codes pop up. but to jims defense and his POS scanner it didnt show one code. so they get cleared and the owner is on his way to the gas station to fill up. at the end of filling the tank when the pump shut off gas shoots out all over the exhaust and rear axle (which is powdercoated and chrome) so back to jims.. he states he is just going to have to watch it every time he fills up so it doesnt spit gas out of the ni**er rig’d tank vent he installed. the owner who is very fed up with jims bull shit just wants the truck back and will fix all the issues on his own and wants nothing to do with jim any more. he drives back home which is over an hour away and the truck will hardly idle and barley even run. it would pop and blubber like mad. clearly "hours and hours" of tuning that was suposidly done on the truck didnt do much.. jim always told him if there is anything i can do to help let me know but everytime he brought an issue up that wasnt right jim had an excuse for and wouldnt stand behind his work(ie gas tank vent, not fixing anything he did on his own that the owner didn’t approve of like the switches, cutting frame, welding on a powdercoated lift, cutting up his stock y pipe etc etc). problem after problem and excuse after excuse. he never once maned up and took blame for anything that went wrong in this year long build and screwed him out of over 18k.. and on top of that chunk of change its cost him half that just to fix all the **** ups jim did just to make it right and the way the owner wanted his truck to be. also when he went to pick up his stock parts his original parts werent given back to him and the owner had to look through piles of parts just to obtain his original manifolds, airfilter etc he wheels and deals using customers to just make a quick buck cutting corners where he can. After the owner had possession of his truck he started looking into jims work and noticed a lot of flaws. There were numerous exhaust leaks some holes the size of a nickel where there were about 40 weld beads in about a 5 inch section where the pipe made a slight bend but small moon shape slices were welded in to make the bend. The oil feed line to the turbo was crimped badly on both ends (oil pan/turbo) when installed. Cold pipes and IC were still flooded with oil and upon further inspection all the cold pipes were cut with a chop saw but the metal wasn’t cleaned up on the inside from the cut. So metal slivers just waiting to break loose and enter the motor. Also numerous oil leaks from tranny cooler and turbo oil feed. Finder well bracket was cut so half of the passenger side finder well doesn’t even attach any more. The list goes on and on…

now on to my truck:
I had a suncoast stage 4 tranny and a ATS 5 star torque converter installed in my durmax. When I picked the truk up from jims I 1st started it and it was making a werid noise in park coming from the tranny area. Called Jim out to listen for the sound and Jim said it was normal that His truk does the same thing. I said ok, but it's not supposed to be making any noise Jim said it was fine. So I leave hoping it will go away. Well 1week went by and the noise has only got worse. I bring the truk back dwn to jims since I was in twn and asked Jim to pull the tranny to check the converter. Jim Tottaly blew me off and kept saying it was normal. Clearly you could tell Jim did not want to pull the tranny again when he specifically said that if I have any problems with it just bring it in and he'll look at it. I asked him twice more after that to pull the tranny and was given stupid bull shit excuses. So about 3 weeks later me and my buddy pull the tranny to look at the torqu converter. Upon pulling the torque converter out you can clearly see the converter is used!!! It had a million scratches/gouges in it also the input hub had RUST on it. Not just surface rust!! It was rust that had been on there for a long time! I'm no retard but I'm pretty sure ATS is not going to send a brand new converter like that and there's no way there would be rust on it after 3 weeks. There should be no rust at all because that hub is inside the tranny. I paid 1600 for that supposedly new converter. Now I called ats to see if cal speed and Preformance ordered a converter from them and they had no record of cal speed buying a converter. Now it's all making sense that Jim fukd me over because Jim said he had a old converter laying around he would use for a core so he did not have to use mine. Hmmmmm I wonder y he said that??? Because he never bought a new converter in the 1st place so he did not have to send a core back. I brought the converter back to Jim and he sent it out supposedly back to Ats. Well 4 weeks later I get another converter back. I open the box and it's a fukn used converter again. Freshly painted ats purple and you can vaguely see the same gouages. Also you can see sumone took steel wool to the input hub to get the rust that was on there off. Again I'm pretty sure Ats isn't gonna send out that kinda product. Jim gave sum stupid ass excuse that he had trouble with customer service at ats that's y it's a "replacement" converter so now I bought a brand new converter myself from ats not wanting to take a chance that the conveter Jim sent back to me would still be making that noise. I questioned Jim about it all and he ignored me and have not heard from him since! Jim is a complete joke. I spent about 5000 for that tranny build and expected quality service and got nothing. God knows what actually in my tranny he built. I have not drivin it much since the beginning of the year so who knows when the tranny is gonna blow up because he prob put used parts in it.

[RedDragon]

I've used Tec Service's/ Kopp's speed shop for a dyno and a carb tune. They weren't too bad but what I had done was nothing major. If you're thinking about dropping mad $$ then you should look at going to some of the major places in LA.d

On a side note, I always wanted to install a supercharger.... it can't be that hard.

[jay11]

Originally Posted by RedDragon

I've used Tec Service's/ Kopp's speed shop for a dyno and a carb tune. They weren't too bad but what I had done was nothing major. If you're thinking about dropping mad $$ then you should look at going to some of the major places in LA.d

On a side note, I always wanted to install a supercharger.... it can't be that hard.

[jay11]

Just found out that jim at cal speed used a stock fuel pump and 1 walbro 225 when there was supossed to be 2 walbro 225 fuel pumps and he got charged for 2. nice work cal speed along with all the other screw ups on that truck!!!!!!

[BlownChevy]

We are not in Bakersfield, but we are just over the hill Give me a call, we are a stocking distributor and install facility for all of the major brands of superchargers. We have over 40 years of experience in our shop, and LOVE high performance work!

Thank You in advance for the opportunity to work with you!

[69307]

I ended up having CS&P install lowering springs and sway bars. Initially I had a problem ('knocking' noise) so I brought it back in the following day. Jim put my car back up on the racks, re-torqued and re-greased the bushings. So far, so good

[BlownChevy]

Good to hear! Let me know when you are ready for that Supercharger!

[69307]

Will do