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A story of screwing up 2 beautiful bikes in search for performance.
It all started when I got my first bike Yamaha FZ at the age of 18. Within less than 20000 KMS of riding the stock bike, I felt it was seriously underpowered especially since it was the time Duke 200 came to the Indian market.
All of these lead me to a famous tuner in Bangalore whom I don't wish to name here since defaming anyone is not my intention. Let's call him Mr. X.
Mr. X was making a sensation at that time by making a lot of custom parts and mods for many bikes which offered a considerable performance upgrade while not affecting the reliability. Well, that is what at least he promised. For my bike, the Yamaha FZ, he had a 180CC big bore kit, high lift cams, racing carb, etc. which bumped the power and torque.
I was still in college during this time and I didn't have any real income to get these mods done as it was pricey for me at that time.
Add to this a constant recommendation from an automobile engineer friend who had the big bore kit in his bike, I gave myself in for the big bore mod.
However, Mr. X was insisting to get it installed along with his so-called 'magic' head work, high lift cam, and racing carb which I declined due to my budget constraint. Later he agreed to install the big bore kit with some sort of valve polishing and re-jet the carb to get some decent performance bump. I agreed and the work took a whole day.
Everything went well and I did the run-in for the first 500 KMS. Later on, I took it for a check-up there and they said everything was fine.
But the bike was clearly running lean at times in lower RPMs and used to knock if not careful.
Around this time my friend was also interested in doing the same mod to his bike. So he came to Bangalore all the way from Chennai for this. We went in together.
I took up my issue with Mr. X and he said it was because I did not do the head work. This time, I allowed him to do the head work on my bike and they assembled everything together. Lo and behold, the bike doesn't run. It is miss firing heavily in all RPMs and unrideable. His mechanic tried everything he could do on the carb and nothing worked. Finally, they gave up and it was 10 at night. I had been waiting there from the morning for this supposedly few hours job.
My friend's bike was also done and we decided to leave as it was so late. I thought I will come back later to fix my bike's issue.
The next day, I go to his shop again to fix the issue.
Mr. X approaches me and says that the fueling is not adequate and needs to install a racing carb for which I have to pay up now. I politely declined this and asked him why this was not mentioned before he proceeded with the head work and in that case, I would have never gone ahead with the head work. Also, my friend's bike which was done last day had the exact same mod as my bike, a big bore and head work with stock carb and it was running fine. His promise was that the headwork would solve my bike's knocking at low RPMs. It didn't solve anything and even added new problems and he was now asking me to pay more to fix the issue. After all, this was not a rare bike I had. It was something he claims to have modded more than 100s of times. So, ideally, he should have known the limits. His mechanic again starts the disassemble and assemble drama for the carb! It was clearly going nowhere and then I get a call from my friend that his valves have blocked up.
I took this up with Mr. X and his reply was that they did not do anything to the valve and so it's not their fault! Mind you, this was a bike which was running fine for many years until Mr. X opened the engine.
It was close to midnight on the second day as well and Mr. X was acting as if I am invisible sitting in front of their shop from the morning. He was not even letting anyone work on my like as he was constantly calling the mechanic working on my bike to do other things and he would go out and never answered any calls. I never lost my composure and I was asking him to do the needful to solve the issue. At the end of the day, he was one of the top tuners in India who was building the fastest Hoda Citys and Civics, even tuning and working on superbikes. What was the big deal for him to make a tiny 180cc single-cylinder bike in running condition!
Since there was nothing much happening, I messaged one of my friends (who sadly passed away later in an accident. R.I.P.) from Chennai who also recommended me to Mr. X and was also a close friend of Mr. X. He also felt bad for my situation and insisted to ask for my money back and leave. Later, he messaged Mr. X to enquire about the situation, and Mr. X was embarrassed and lost it. He came screaming at me with the top of his voice as if he was going to eat me and shouted so much in offensive language! I was baffled since I was sitting in his shop from morning like a dog without even eating anything and I only messaged the situation to my friend since there was no progress! He was screaming at me and asking why I messaged the mutual friend. I was trying to calm him down and said it was only a friend-to-friend talk which he refused to listen. I was surprised to realize what a royal A**Hole he was to make me go through all this and finally shout abuses at my face. I was only a stupid teenager then and was just a boy and what could I have done! I just sat there with my head down! Had it been now, I would have gone to any depths to close his shop for once and for all! This is the most unethical business owner I have met to date.
Finally, he shouted that he was going to fix the racing carb for free or something like that and his mechanic put up some carb in my bike and asked to test ride again. I only wanted to run away from that stupid place for good since I didn't want to see that fraud again. I just took a test ride just for the sake of it and the bike had more or less the same miss firings. I said it was OK and left and decided not to return to that hell again. Also, they took my stock Mikuni Yamaha Crab which was twice costlier than the used Pulsar 180 carb (they call it racing carb!) they had put in my bike.
I had no option but to live with this bike for the rest of my life. I regretted my life every time I gave throttle in this bike!
My friend was also left in a similar situation and I felt sadder for him because it was me who pulled him into all this crap!
Later on a ride from Mangalore to Bangalore, my bike's engine gave up and I barely made it into Bangalore. I opened the engine to find out that the piston rings for the big bore had given up. It was so brittle and was breaking like biscuits. It caused a chain reaction and messed up my crankshaft and clutch bell. I had to replace all this. I called Mr. X to ask if piston rings are available and his reply was that it was not sold separately.
I installed my stock bore and yet the bike never ran well since Mr. X had done head work on its head. I was never able to ride the bike above 60 and there was a 1-sec delay from the time I gave throttle to the actual response. By this time, I got a Duke 390 and parked the FZ at home, and never rode it.
After I got the new bike, I was going to bed that night and was so happy that I finally got my dream bike which I was hoping to own from the day it was launched. As I was laying there thinking of my journey in my life as a biker and I remembered everything that happened with Mr. X.
I opened the Facebook page for his shop and left a 1-star review and let my years of wrath out in an explained review of how he screwed up our bikes. It got a lot of likes and comments and he was not able to report and remove the review. Finally, he messaged me asking who I was and what bike I was talking about as he had no clue. He said it might have been someone else who dealt with my bike and he was asking me to remove the negative review.
He kept messaging me and requested to bring my bike in and he would fix it for free. He said he is busy with races and check with him in 1 month for a date to fix the bike. A month passed, 2 months passed, 3 months passed and he never replied to any of my messages asking for an appointment. Finally, after 4 or 5 months he gave me a date to drop in my bike. I took the seized 180-cylinder too and asked him to do something and see if anything can be done. By this time he had moved to his new shop in Bangalore and was modding so many VWs and Skodas. I think there were no more Honda car owners left to fool. God bless these German car owners looking for more performance. A week later, I get a call from them that the bike is ready. I go to pick it up and Mr.X was not there but there was his new appointee, a car racer. I asked him what was done and he had no clue but kept blabbering. I asked him if they had tuned the bike and he's like this is not fuel injected so we can't tune this! I didn't know what to speak to this person. I politely asked him for the jet size of which he had no clue of too. They had installed the 180 big bore cylinder again on the bike. I collected my stock cylinder and left that place after paying the bill which was for the engine oil. I could see that the bike was smoking from that day onwards but I never really pay much attention now. I only use it for short rides. I am not sure whether the oil leak is from the cylinder wall or from valve seals. I recently threw away his Pulsar 180 "Racing Carb" and installed a Pulsar 200 NS carb. And it runs far better. Sooner or later, I am going to swap to my original cylinder kit and do a whole engine overhaul. My friend's bike is now completely stock now and he also got an RC390.
These incidents happened long back and I thought it was necessary to share them with the biking community to make an awareness of dangerous pits in the Indian tuning scene. Naive riders are always behind ways to increase the performance of their bikes. But most of these don't end well. It is always better to save up and buy a powerful bike even if it is used. Factory horses are factory horses. Stay safe. Thanks for reading.It all started when I got my first bike Yamaha FZ at the age of 18. Within less than 20000 KMS of riding the stock bike, I felt it was seriously underpowered especially since it was the time Duke 200 came to the Indian market.
All of these lead me to a famous tuner in Bangalore whom I don't wish to name here since defaming anyone is not my intention. Let's call him Mr. X.
Mr. X was making a sensation at that time by making a lot of custom parts and mods for many bikes which offered a considerable performance upgrade while not affecting the reliability. Well, that is what at least he promised. For my bike, the Yamaha FZ, he had a 180CC big bore kit, high lift cams, racing carb, etc. which bumped the power and torque.
I was still in college during this time and I didn't have any real income to get these mods done as it was pricey for me at that time.
Add to this a constant recommendation from an automobile engineer friend who had the big bore kit in his bike, I gave myself in for the big bore mod.
However, Mr. X was insisting to get it installed along with his so-called 'magic' head work, high lift cam, and racing carb which I declined due to my budget constraint. Later he agreed to install the big bore kit with some sort of valve polishing and re-jet the carb to get some decent performance bump. I agreed and the work took a whole day.
Everything went well and I returned with my bike and did the run-in for the first 500 KMS. Later on, went for a check-up there and they said everything was fine.
But the bike was clearly running lean at times in lower RPMs and used to knock if not careful.
Around this time my friend was also interested in doing the same mod to his bike. So he came to Bangalore all the way from Chennai for this. We went in together.
I took up my issue with Mr. X and he said it was because I did not do the head work. This time, I allowed him to do the head work on my bike and they assembled everything together. Lo and behold, the bike doesn't run. It is miss firing heavily in all RPMs and unrideable. His mechanic tried everything he could do on the carb and nothing worked. Finally, they gave up and it was 10 at night. I had been waiting there from the morning for this supposedly few hours job.
My friend's bike was also done and we decided to leave as it was so late. I thought I will come back later to fix my issue.
The next day, I go to his shop again to fix the issue.
Mr. X approaches me and says that the fueling is not adequate and needs to install a racing carb for which I have to pay up now. I politely declined this and asked him why this was not mentioned before he proceeded with the head work and in that case, I would have never gone ahead with the head work. Also, my friend's bike which was done last day had the exact same mod as my bike, a big bore and head work with stock carb and it was running fine. His promise was that the headwork would solve my bike's knocking at low RPMs. It didn't solve anything and even added new problems and he was now asking me to pay more to fix the issue. After all, this was not a rare bike I had. It was something he claims to have modded more than 100s of times. So, ideally, he should have known the limits. His mechanic again starts the disassemble and assemble drama for the carb! It was clearly going nowhere and as if it was not enough, I got a call from my friend that his valves have blocked up.
I took this up with Mr. X and his reply was that they did not do anything to the valve and so it's not their fault! Mind you, this was a bike that was running fine for many years until Mr. X opened the engine and did head work and valve lapping.
It was close to midnight on the second day as well and Mr. X was acting as if I am invisible sitting in front of their shop from the morning. He was not even letting anyone work on my like as he was constantly calling the mechanic working on my bike to do other things and he would go out and never answered any calls. I never lost my composure and I was asking him to do the needful to solve the issue. At the end of the day, he was one of the top tuners in India who was building the fastest Hoda Citys and Civics, even tuning and working on superbikes. What was the big deal for him to make a tiny 180cc single-cylinder bike in running condition!
It was close to 12 at night and since there was no progress, I messaged one of my friends (who sadly passed away later in an accident. R.I.P.) from Chennai who also recommended me to Mr. X and was also a friend of Mr. X. He also felt bad for my situation and insisted to ask for my money back and leave. Later, he messaged Mr. X to enquire about the situation, and Mr. X was embarrassed and lost it. He came screaming at me with the top of his voice as if he was going to eat me and shouted so much in offensive language! I was baffled since I was sitting in his shop from morning like a dog without even eating anything and I only messaged the situation to my friend since there was no progress! He was screaming at me and asking why I messaged the mutual friend. I was trying to calm him down and said it was only a friend-to-friend talk which he refused to listen. I was surprised to realize what a royal A**Hole he was to make me go through all this and finally shout abuses at my face. I was only a stupid teenager back then and just a boy. What could I have done! I just sat there with my head down! Had it been now, I would have gone to any depths to close his shop for once and for all! This is the most unethical business owner I have met to date. Forget about how badly he modifies vehicles. He does not even have basic manners or a pint of professionalism!
Finally, he shouted that he was going to fix the racing carb for free or something like that and his mechanic put up some carb in my bike and asked to test ride again. I only wanted to run away from that stupid place for good since I didn't want to see or deal with this fraud's business again. I took a test ride just for the sake of it and the bike was running like crap. I said it was OK and left and decided not to return to that hell again. Also, they took my stock Mikuni Yamaha Crab which was twice costlier than the used Pulsar 180 carb (they call it racing carb!) they had put in my bike.
I had no option but to live with this bike for the rest of my life. I regretted my life every time I gave throttle in this bike! I wanted this mod for easily cruising at 90+kmph on long rides. Never once could I go for long rides on my bike which I used to do a lot.
My friend was also left in a similar situation and I felt sadder for him because it was me who pulled him into all this crap!
Later, while on a ride from Mangalore to Bangalore, my bike's engine gave up and I barely made it into Bangalore. I opened the engine to find out that the piston rings for the big bore had given up. It was so brittle and was breaking like biscuits. It caused a chain reaction and messed up my crankshaft and clutch bell. I had to replace all this. I called Mr. X to ask if piston rings are available and his reply was that it was not sold separately.
I installed my stock bore and yet the bike never ran well since Mr. X had done head work on its head. I was never able to ride the bike above 60 and there was a 1-sec delay from the time I gave throttle to the actual response. By this time, I got a Duke 390 and parked the FZ at home, and never rode it.
After I got the new bike, I was going to bed that night and was so happy that I finally got my dream bike which I was hoping to own from the day it was launched. As I was laying there thinking of my journey in my life as a biker, I remembered everything that happened with Mr. X.
I opened the Facebook page of his shop and left a 1-star review and let my years of wrath out in an explained review of how he screwed up our bikes. It got a lot of likes and comments and he was not able to report and remove the review. Finally, he messaged me asking who I was and what bike I was talking about as he had no clue. He said it might have been someone else who dealt with my bike and he was asking me to remove the negative review.
He kept messaging me and requested to bring my bike in and he would fix it for free. He said he is busy with races and check with him in 1 month for a date to fix the bike. A month passed, 2 months passed, 3 months passed and he never replied to any of my messages asking for an appointment. Finally, after 4 or 5 months he gave me a date to drop in my bike. I took the seized 180-cylinder too and asked him to do something and see if anything can be done. By this time, he had moved to his new shop in Bangalore and was modding so many VWs and Skodas. I think there were no more Honda car owners left to fool. God bless these German car owners looking for more performance. A week later, I get a call from them that the bike is ready. I go to pick it up and Mr.X was not there but there was his new appointee, a car racer. I asked him what was done and he had no clue but kept blabbering. I asked him if they had tuned the fuelling of the bike and he's like this is not fuel injected so we can't tune this! I didn't know what to speak to this person. I politely asked him for the jet size of which he had no clue of too. They had installed the 180 big bore cylinder again on the bike. I collected my stock cylinder and left that place after paying the bill which was for the engine oil. I could see that the bike was smoking from that day onwards but I never really pay much attention now. I only use it for short rides. I am not sure whether the oil leak is from the cylinder wall or from valve seals. I recently threw away his Pulsar 180 "Racing Carb" and installed a Pulsar 200 NS carb. And it runs far better. Sooner or later, I am going to swap to my original cylinder kit and do a whole engine overhaul. My friend's bike is completely stock now and he also got an RC390.
These incidents happened long back and I thought it was necessary to share them with the biking community to make an awareness of dangerous pits in the Indian tuning scene. Naive riders are always behind ways to increase the performance of their bikes. But most of these don't end well. It is always better to save up and buy a powerful bike even if it is used. Factory horses are factory horses. Stay safe. Thanks for reading.
All of these lead me to a famous tuner in Bangalore whom I don't wish to name here since defaming anyone is not my intention. Let's call him Mr. X.
Mr. X was making a sensation at that time by making a lot of custom parts and mods for many bikes which offered a considerable performance upgrade while not affecting the reliability. Well, that is what at least he promised. For my bike, the Yamaha FZ, he had a 180CC big bore kit, high lift cams, racing carb, etc. which bumped the power and torque.
I was still in college during this time and I didn't have any real income to get these mods done as it was pricey for me at that time.
Add to this a constant recommendation from an automobile engineer friend who had the big bore kit in his bike, I gave myself in for the big bore mod.
However, Mr. X was insisting to get it installed along with his so-called 'magic' head work, high lift cam, and racing carb which I declined due to my budget constraint. Later he agreed to install the big bore kit with some sort of valve polishing and re-jet the carb to get some decent performance bump. I agreed and the work took a whole day.
Everything went well and I did the run-in for the first 500 KMS. Later on, I took it for a check-up there and they said everything was fine.
But the bike was clearly running lean at times in lower RPMs and used to knock if not careful.
Around this time my friend was also interested in doing the same mod to his bike. So he came to Bangalore all the way from Chennai for this. We went in together.
I took up my issue with Mr. X and he said it was because I did not do the head work. This time, I allowed him to do the head work on my bike and they assembled everything together. Lo and behold, the bike doesn't run. It is miss firing heavily in all RPMs and unrideable. His mechanic tried everything he could do on the carb and nothing worked. Finally, they gave up and it was 10 at night. I had been waiting there from the morning for this supposedly few hours job.
My friend's bike was also done and we decided to leave as it was so late. I thought I will come back later to fix my bike's issue.
The next day, I go to his shop again to fix the issue.
Mr. X approaches me and says that the fueling is not adequate and needs to install a racing carb for which I have to pay up now. I politely declined this and asked him why this was not mentioned before he proceeded with the head work and in that case, I would have never gone ahead with the head work. Also, my friend's bike which was done last day had the exact same mod as my bike, a big bore and head work with stock carb and it was running fine. His promise was that the headwork would solve my bike's knocking at low RPMs. It didn't solve anything and even added new problems and he was now asking me to pay more to fix the issue. After all, this was not a rare bike I had. It was something he claims to have modded more than 100s of times. So, ideally, he should have known the limits. His mechanic again starts the disassemble and assemble drama for the carb! It was clearly going nowhere and then I get a call from my friend that his valves have blocked up.
I took this up with Mr. X and his reply was that they did not do anything to the valve and so it's not their fault! Mind you, this was a bike which was running fine for many years until Mr. X opened the engine.
It was close to midnight on the second day as well and Mr. X was acting as if I am invisible sitting in front of their shop from the morning. He was not even letting anyone work on my like as he was constantly calling the mechanic working on my bike to do other things and he would go out and never answered any calls. I never lost my composure and I was asking him to do the needful to solve the issue. At the end of the day, he was one of the top tuners in India who was building the fastest Hoda Citys and Civics, even tuning and working on superbikes. What was the big deal for him to make a tiny 180cc single-cylinder bike in running condition!
Since there was nothing much happening, I messaged one of my friends (who sadly passed away later in an accident. R.I.P.) from Chennai who also recommended me to Mr. X and was also a close friend of Mr. X. He also felt bad for my situation and insisted to ask for my money back and leave. Later, he messaged Mr. X to enquire about the situation, and Mr. X was embarrassed and lost it. He came screaming at me with the top of his voice as if he was going to eat me and shouted so much in offensive language! I was baffled since I was sitting in his shop from morning like a dog without even eating anything and I only messaged the situation to my friend since there was no progress! He was screaming at me and asking why I messaged the mutual friend. I was trying to calm him down and said it was only a friend-to-friend talk which he refused to listen. I was surprised to realize what a royal A**Hole he was to make me go through all this and finally shout abuses at my face. I was only a stupid teenager then and was just a boy and what could I have done! I just sat there with my head down! Had it been now, I would have gone to any depths to close his shop for once and for all! This is the most unethical business owner I have met to date.
Finally, he shouted that he was going to fix the racing carb for free or something like that and his mechanic put up some carb in my bike and asked to test ride again. I only wanted to run away from that stupid place for good since I didn't want to see that fraud again. I just took a test ride just for the sake of it and the bike had more or less the same miss firings. I said it was OK and left and decided not to return to that hell again. Also, they took my stock Mikuni Yamaha Crab which was twice costlier than the used Pulsar 180 carb (they call it racing carb!) they had put in my bike.
I had no option but to live with this bike for the rest of my life. I regretted my life every time I gave throttle in this bike!
My friend was also left in a similar situation and I felt sadder for him because it was me who pulled him into all this crap!
Later on a ride from Mangalore to Bangalore, my bike's engine gave up and I barely made it into Bangalore. I opened the engine to find out that the piston rings for the big bore had given up. It was so brittle and was breaking like biscuits. It caused a chain reaction and messed up my crankshaft and clutch bell. I had to replace all this. I called Mr. X to ask if piston rings are available and his reply was that it was not sold separately.
I installed my stock bore and yet the bike never ran well since Mr. X had done head work on its head. I was never able to ride the bike above 60 and there was a 1-sec delay from the time I gave throttle to the actual response. By this time, I got a Duke 390 and parked the FZ at home, and never rode it.
After I got the new bike, I was going to bed that night and was so happy that I finally got my dream bike which I was hoping to own from the day it was launched. As I was laying there thinking of my journey in my life as a biker and I remembered everything that happened with Mr. X.
I opened the Facebook page for his shop and left a 1-star review and let my years of wrath out in an explained review of how he screwed up our bikes. It got a lot of likes and comments and he was not able to report and remove the review. Finally, he messaged me asking who I was and what bike I was talking about as he had no clue. He said it might have been someone else who dealt with my bike and he was asking me to remove the negative review.
He kept messaging me and requested to bring my bike in and he would fix it for free. He said he is busy with races and check with him in 1 month for a date to fix the bike. A month passed, 2 months passed, 3 months passed and he never replied to any of my messages asking for an appointment. Finally, after 4 or 5 months he gave me a date to drop in my bike. I took the seized 180-cylinder too and asked him to do something and see if anything can be done. By this time he had moved to his new shop in Bangalore and was modding so many VWs and Skodas. I think there were no more Honda car owners left to fool. God bless these German car owners looking for more performance. A week later, I get a call from them that the bike is ready. I go to pick it up and Mr.X was not there but there was his new appointee, a car racer. I asked him what was done and he had no clue but kept blabbering. I asked him if they had tuned the bike and he's like this is not fuel injected so we can't tune this! I didn't know what to speak to this person. I politely asked him for the jet size of which he had no clue of too. They had installed the 180 big bore cylinder again on the bike. I collected my stock cylinder and left that place after paying the bill which was for the engine oil. I could see that the bike was smoking from that day onwards but I never really pay much attention now. I only use it for short rides. I am not sure whether the oil leak is from the cylinder wall or from valve seals. I recently threw away his Pulsar 180 "Racing Carb" and installed a Pulsar 200 NS carb. And it runs far better. Sooner or later, I am going to swap to my original cylinder kit and do a whole engine overhaul. My friend's bike is now completely stock now and he also got an RC390.
These incidents happened long back and I thought it was necessary to share them with the biking community to make an awareness of dangerous pits in the Indian tuning scene. Naive riders are always behind ways to increase the performance of their bikes. But most of these don't end well. It is always better to save up and buy a powerful bike even if it is used. Factory horses are factory horses. Stay safe. Thanks for reading.It all started when I got my first bike Yamaha FZ at the age of 18. Within less than 20000 KMS of riding the stock bike, I felt it was seriously underpowered especially since it was the time Duke 200 came to the Indian market.
All of these lead me to a famous tuner in Bangalore whom I don't wish to name here since defaming anyone is not my intention. Let's call him Mr. X.
Mr. X was making a sensation at that time by making a lot of custom parts and mods for many bikes which offered a considerable performance upgrade while not affecting the reliability. Well, that is what at least he promised. For my bike, the Yamaha FZ, he had a 180CC big bore kit, high lift cams, racing carb, etc. which bumped the power and torque.
I was still in college during this time and I didn't have any real income to get these mods done as it was pricey for me at that time.
Add to this a constant recommendation from an automobile engineer friend who had the big bore kit in his bike, I gave myself in for the big bore mod.
However, Mr. X was insisting to get it installed along with his so-called 'magic' head work, high lift cam, and racing carb which I declined due to my budget constraint. Later he agreed to install the big bore kit with some sort of valve polishing and re-jet the carb to get some decent performance bump. I agreed and the work took a whole day.
Everything went well and I returned with my bike and did the run-in for the first 500 KMS. Later on, went for a check-up there and they said everything was fine.
But the bike was clearly running lean at times in lower RPMs and used to knock if not careful.
Around this time my friend was also interested in doing the same mod to his bike. So he came to Bangalore all the way from Chennai for this. We went in together.
I took up my issue with Mr. X and he said it was because I did not do the head work. This time, I allowed him to do the head work on my bike and they assembled everything together. Lo and behold, the bike doesn't run. It is miss firing heavily in all RPMs and unrideable. His mechanic tried everything he could do on the carb and nothing worked. Finally, they gave up and it was 10 at night. I had been waiting there from the morning for this supposedly few hours job.
My friend's bike was also done and we decided to leave as it was so late. I thought I will come back later to fix my issue.
The next day, I go to his shop again to fix the issue.
Mr. X approaches me and says that the fueling is not adequate and needs to install a racing carb for which I have to pay up now. I politely declined this and asked him why this was not mentioned before he proceeded with the head work and in that case, I would have never gone ahead with the head work. Also, my friend's bike which was done last day had the exact same mod as my bike, a big bore and head work with stock carb and it was running fine. His promise was that the headwork would solve my bike's knocking at low RPMs. It didn't solve anything and even added new problems and he was now asking me to pay more to fix the issue. After all, this was not a rare bike I had. It was something he claims to have modded more than 100s of times. So, ideally, he should have known the limits. His mechanic again starts the disassemble and assemble drama for the carb! It was clearly going nowhere and as if it was not enough, I got a call from my friend that his valves have blocked up.
I took this up with Mr. X and his reply was that they did not do anything to the valve and so it's not their fault! Mind you, this was a bike that was running fine for many years until Mr. X opened the engine and did head work and valve lapping.
It was close to midnight on the second day as well and Mr. X was acting as if I am invisible sitting in front of their shop from the morning. He was not even letting anyone work on my like as he was constantly calling the mechanic working on my bike to do other things and he would go out and never answered any calls. I never lost my composure and I was asking him to do the needful to solve the issue. At the end of the day, he was one of the top tuners in India who was building the fastest Hoda Citys and Civics, even tuning and working on superbikes. What was the big deal for him to make a tiny 180cc single-cylinder bike in running condition!
It was close to 12 at night and since there was no progress, I messaged one of my friends (who sadly passed away later in an accident. R.I.P.) from Chennai who also recommended me to Mr. X and was also a friend of Mr. X. He also felt bad for my situation and insisted to ask for my money back and leave. Later, he messaged Mr. X to enquire about the situation, and Mr. X was embarrassed and lost it. He came screaming at me with the top of his voice as if he was going to eat me and shouted so much in offensive language! I was baffled since I was sitting in his shop from morning like a dog without even eating anything and I only messaged the situation to my friend since there was no progress! He was screaming at me and asking why I messaged the mutual friend. I was trying to calm him down and said it was only a friend-to-friend talk which he refused to listen. I was surprised to realize what a royal A**Hole he was to make me go through all this and finally shout abuses at my face. I was only a stupid teenager back then and just a boy. What could I have done! I just sat there with my head down! Had it been now, I would have gone to any depths to close his shop for once and for all! This is the most unethical business owner I have met to date. Forget about how badly he modifies vehicles. He does not even have basic manners or a pint of professionalism!
Finally, he shouted that he was going to fix the racing carb for free or something like that and his mechanic put up some carb in my bike and asked to test ride again. I only wanted to run away from that stupid place for good since I didn't want to see or deal with this fraud's business again. I took a test ride just for the sake of it and the bike was running like crap. I said it was OK and left and decided not to return to that hell again. Also, they took my stock Mikuni Yamaha Crab which was twice costlier than the used Pulsar 180 carb (they call it racing carb!) they had put in my bike.
I had no option but to live with this bike for the rest of my life. I regretted my life every time I gave throttle in this bike! I wanted this mod for easily cruising at 90+kmph on long rides. Never once could I go for long rides on my bike which I used to do a lot.
My friend was also left in a similar situation and I felt sadder for him because it was me who pulled him into all this crap!
Later, while on a ride from Mangalore to Bangalore, my bike's engine gave up and I barely made it into Bangalore. I opened the engine to find out that the piston rings for the big bore had given up. It was so brittle and was breaking like biscuits. It caused a chain reaction and messed up my crankshaft and clutch bell. I had to replace all this. I called Mr. X to ask if piston rings are available and his reply was that it was not sold separately.
I installed my stock bore and yet the bike never ran well since Mr. X had done head work on its head. I was never able to ride the bike above 60 and there was a 1-sec delay from the time I gave throttle to the actual response. By this time, I got a Duke 390 and parked the FZ at home, and never rode it.
After I got the new bike, I was going to bed that night and was so happy that I finally got my dream bike which I was hoping to own from the day it was launched. As I was laying there thinking of my journey in my life as a biker, I remembered everything that happened with Mr. X.
I opened the Facebook page of his shop and left a 1-star review and let my years of wrath out in an explained review of how he screwed up our bikes. It got a lot of likes and comments and he was not able to report and remove the review. Finally, he messaged me asking who I was and what bike I was talking about as he had no clue. He said it might have been someone else who dealt with my bike and he was asking me to remove the negative review.
He kept messaging me and requested to bring my bike in and he would fix it for free. He said he is busy with races and check with him in 1 month for a date to fix the bike. A month passed, 2 months passed, 3 months passed and he never replied to any of my messages asking for an appointment. Finally, after 4 or 5 months he gave me a date to drop in my bike. I took the seized 180-cylinder too and asked him to do something and see if anything can be done. By this time, he had moved to his new shop in Bangalore and was modding so many VWs and Skodas. I think there were no more Honda car owners left to fool. God bless these German car owners looking for more performance. A week later, I get a call from them that the bike is ready. I go to pick it up and Mr.X was not there but there was his new appointee, a car racer. I asked him what was done and he had no clue but kept blabbering. I asked him if they had tuned the fuelling of the bike and he's like this is not fuel injected so we can't tune this! I didn't know what to speak to this person. I politely asked him for the jet size of which he had no clue of too. They had installed the 180 big bore cylinder again on the bike. I collected my stock cylinder and left that place after paying the bill which was for the engine oil. I could see that the bike was smoking from that day onwards but I never really pay much attention now. I only use it for short rides. I am not sure whether the oil leak is from the cylinder wall or from valve seals. I recently threw away his Pulsar 180 "Racing Carb" and installed a Pulsar 200 NS carb. And it runs far better. Sooner or later, I am going to swap to my original cylinder kit and do a whole engine overhaul. My friend's bike is completely stock now and he also got an RC390.
These incidents happened long back and I thought it was necessary to share them with the biking community to make an awareness of dangerous pits in the Indian tuning scene. Naive riders are always behind ways to increase the performance of their bikes. But most of these don't end well. It is always better to save up and buy a powerful bike even if it is used. Factory horses are factory horses. Stay safe. Thanks for reading.
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