He's had my heads since may, and I've had a pair of emails promising me an invoice and then nothing. The phone number goes straight to VM, and my emails are clearly not being read. Anyone have some way to get ahold of him?

 

That doesnt sound good. Every time I emailed them for head work they never got back to me. So I never did business for the very real potential reason you are experiencing.

 

Three years ago when I was building my motor, it took Phil like 3 months to respond to my email (and he never answered the phone then either). Hence why I ended up going with a different vendor.

That being said, I haven't heard of Phil ever just taking off with someone's money and/or products. Covid may have changed things and made it harder for him to respond.

 

The best part is his update from November is still telling people to send in their heads even though he’s got a backlog of many months. What a douche.

 

It's unfortunate but this seems to be an ongoing issue across the board, good vendors who do good work but won't communicate with customers and are so far behind that they lose business due to no longer being reliable. Happens time and again.

 

It’s called greed. That’s all it is.

 

No it's called bad business practices. If he is that busy he should hire someone for 15 bucks and hour to answer phones and emails once or twice a week.

 

Answering phone calls doesn’t get work done. The guy is months and months behind in work but is still actively telling people to send their heads in. Have you even looked at his website?

 

I had the same experience a few months ago with AI. Used a few different email adress and no responses on any of them.

None of his supposed vendors currently list AI products on there website.

 

I used them for my 243 heads a few years ago and it was very frustrating waiting days for emails and not being able to talk to Phil. I will never use them again for that reason. No email to let me know when they were shipping and one day the heads showed up. There are plenty of other shops that do great work with great results.

 

I have a simple practice method that works with everyone. If they won't come to the phone, I won't do business with them.

 

Exactly. Spohn performance missed out on selling me a Strange S60 for this very reason. Forget about AI, there’s plenty of vendors on here that offer good customer service.

 

This is a shame. AI seemed to have a positive reputation - I was thinking of reaching out to them to get my 243's ported but now I'm hesitant.

 

Hard to forget if they have his heads...

 

People being able to use the phone is becoming a lost art, even with professional type businesses.

 

I had Phil do a set of 243s about 5 years ago. While he was very slow to respond, at that point I would get responses. Fast forward to about a year ago, I sent him an email asking him the CC specs on the heads, because I could not remember. I would assume he would keep records, but still haven’t received a response. Fast forward to about 2 months ago, I decided to pull the YSi off my C5 and sell it for a Huron twin kit. When I pulled the headers off, I found I was getting oil blowing out of #4 exhaust. I yanked the valve spring, and found a valve seal incorrectly installed and had ripped in half. Heads have maybe 3k miles on them. I would definitely look elsewhere for stock casting port work these days.

 

AI was my first choice to port 243s, because their top notch work and great value.
After reading many threads and posts from people waiting so long for their heads and being unable to get answers from AI, I decided to send heads to TEA. Heads came back within promised turnaround and communication was never an issue.
It’s sad when talent and potential is wasted because of poor business management skills.
Makes me think of Absolute Speed...

 

Yep, as said above dude has my heads. Supposedly they've been cut already, like last June. Just waiting on him to send me an invoice so i can pay him. Also wanted to pick up a cam and intake at the same time. Also, I was going to tear the heads down after I got them back just as a feel good measure for me.

 

I watch the Race Proven Motorsports youtube channel (when Im trying to go to sleep at night ). I know they have had a hard time getting heads from AI (and they are one of his biggest vendors). After checking the AI website it looks like something may have happened related to COVID sometime between the May-Nov timeframe but appears Phil is back to work now (I hope all is well with Phil and his Fam).

I just purchased the cores for my LS7 project and still plan to use AI (full-well knowing that it will be late summer/early fall before they are ready). Phil is down the street from me and in my opinion has the best LS7 program in the nation. The comment above is the first comment I have heard about quality related to AI; generally they are known for top notch quality (unless there are things I am not aware of??).

Very best,
-Nick

 

I've had some heads done my ai in March in 2019, I didn't have any issues, he responded to all my questions and had the heads done in a month. Hopefully things get better with them because I'll use them again