Avoid this place at all costs. I had a pretty in depth build that I brought to Abel racing, which was to supercharge my truck and get some supporting engine work done, and in the end I had to scrap the entire project and sell it because of how big of a mess it was.
I told Abel a budget of 18,000. Well after everything was all said and done I had spent 22,000$ and that's just the first bill, going over their initial quote Of 18,500 that I was given.
Every time I would visit the shop, which was the only real way to get any answers as email and calls rarely happened, the truck would be sitting off to the side while some other project was being worked on. I know parts take awhile to get in and due to Covid, things could have gotten delayed, but I was originally told they ordered all the parts the day I put a down payment in and waited 2 weeks before dropping the truck off to ensure all parts were in. Even up to the last day, Abel was having to "next day air" parts either because something was missing or because they got the wrong part...
I dropped my truck off with half down payment, and wasn't given an exact timeline, but after multiple visits and seeing the truck just sitting for weeks, the total time came out to just over 15 weeks to get forged internals, cam, and a procharger installed. During break in I had a severe oil leaks and was told first that the drain plug wasn't tight enough, then second time turns out the oil pan gasket was put on backwards, wtf?? After the second fix, it ran no leaks for awhile but started leaking after about a month. One thing to Note is that sometimes Abel will pawn off their engine work to other companies and blame lateness on that.
I gave the truck back and had it returned with a fixed gasket, but it never really ran right. It always back fired and for the money I spent, didn't make much power or appeared to do so.
On my third visit back, I told them it didn't seem to be making much power, and that Andre, the tuner at Abel, was keeping the tune down for safety, but even then i was suggested to run an oversized pulley at the crank so to spin the procharger faster and make more boost, when in fact I was having horrible belt slip and should have gone with a stage 2 kit as this just made the belt slip worse and make very little boost. I wasn't wanting to make any crazy amount of power as it was a daily driver but you would think as a procharger dealer, Abel would know all the tricks for getting a belt driven supercharger to perform well... I was also recommended to run e85 which was a big mistake on my part to listen as I then only had a range of 150 miles, terrible for a daily!
After this I had a gauge installed, and instead of welding an addition bung in, they replaced one of my four o2 sensors and didn't even bother tuning it out so it threw codes for this. Laziness to the extreme!
When I picked my truck up for the final time I discovered a dent in the passenger door, and when confronted, I was accused of lying, and that my truck was conveniently not in front of any cameras while in their possession so no proof. After getting the sensors fixed, I found that the knock sensor was unplugged as to avoid any additional tuning, and was left to dangle where the exhaust melted it, causing me to have to replace it for proper vehicle functionality.
The tune on my ram 1500 was the worst part of all of this. I'm new to the vehicle modification scene but I don't believe a truck can be perfectly tuned with an all new fuel system and supercharged on just two iterations. I had my Abel tune looked at by two other professional tuners, and both said it was terrible and lazy trash.
I have given Abel racing multiple chances to try and correct their mistakes but this entire ordeal was a big headache. The sad thing is that I spent about a month researching what shop you go to and Abel racing looked promising. I don't know if this was due to a lack of passion or a change in management but it is certainly not what it used to be. Go somewhere else especially if you have any dodge vehicles. read more
