Looking for status on member Catorce (Adam w/Taormina Racing)
 

I'm looking to get in touch with Adam who owns Taormina Racing and goes by user name Catorce on here.
I've emailed, called, pm'd him several and I mean several times but get no response.
I want to make sure he's all right first of all. Then I need to finish up a business deal with him.
I'm not out of anything but he did send me some new piston squirters (at no charge) that I need to return to him. The return address label was damaged in shipping to me so I have no way of sending him his parts back. I can't seam to find an actual business address for him either.

If there's any Cali members who may live near him or knows him to have him please check in.
I hope all is ok with him and is more due to the covid lock downs in CA.

Thanks for your help.

Your concern is admirable. In these crazy times we all need to look out for each other.

You might try this address

Taormina Films, Inc.
32565B Golden Lantern St
Dana Point, CA 92629
Contact: Adamo Cultraro

Phone: (310) 892-2235

Thanks Henry.. I have that phone # but still no answer. I'll send stuff to the address once I make contact.


Thanks again for the help.

I have been trying to buy piston squirters from his website for a while.
I’ve tried email and I’ve even messaged him on here.
He might be working under cover...

I purchased a set of piston squirters in September. In October Adam said it would "be a week or so now for the next batch". No response since then.

I hope he's well. I also hope I get the parts I paid for.

Many people waiting for thousands of dollars of cases too - he seems to go MIA for a time and then bounces back in angry that everyone was looking for him :0

First, I hope Adam is well and will surface shortly no worse for wear.

I only make this offer because life is short and a disassembled 911 serves no one. I have in stock a few new factory 964/993 cases for sale. Contact me if this will help while you await the "newest, greatest" cases.
That's not sarcasm (all though I'm well known for it) it's genuine anticipation.

We get phone calls regularly from people looking for Adam, his cases, and their money.

Emails go unanswered and voicemail boxes are full as of this afternoon.

I recommend anyone considering doing business with this guy does their homework.

He has thousands of our dollars which he promised to return to us and did not.

Buyer beware.

^^^^^^ What Charles said,

He did what Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue did... (took the money and run) if you get the reference.... :)

Cheers

If the issue with completing this project is simply finance and not product failure, perhaps Adam would consider selling the project.
That won't make him whole but it might allow some return for his investor. If anyone can get a hold of Adam, I might be interested.

We would be too. Mid 2000's, when we were creating the 3 piece fuchs, creating an engine case set was one of the option paths we went down. We would not have started with a 3.6 platform, but that is irelevant. We pushed it off and thought about cylinders and heads, but that market has great products already available. Ones we likely would not be able to improve.

The engine case thing though.... There is another fellow that has had some success creating small bore cases. His name escapes me but there are threads on here about his project. Seems to have been successful and very well executed.

One should never understimate the costs of developing a product. Adam likely did. The costs to develop the wheel were rediculous..... Time, materials, testing, more time, more material, more testing oh my..... If you want it to be the best, it costs...

This engine product got very close to completion. I believe he was working with Jeff at Rothsport. I would really like to know what the failure (design wise) was or what issue prevented it from coming to production.

It could not simply be cost.... that is easily solvable.

Cheers

I would suggest you contact member Cobalt and have a long conversation about Adam’s castings. Anthony (Cobalt) spent a couple decades making castings and parts for military and aerospace use. He is an expert in this kind of manufacturing and has had a lot to say on Rennlist about it since the pictures of prototypes first surfaced and problems started to arise. I think he will quickly convince you that you don’t want this stillborn project.

This is the dude selling fake air cooled cases, correct? Complete vaporware as I recall with zero cases ever delivered.

The thread posted by scootergt3 from Cobalt on Rennlist sheds a wee bit more light. I trust his expereinece in the subject matter. It amazases me that he appears to maybe still pedalling these cases to new buyers. I would love to see proof of that, or maybe I missed it.

Either way, I hope this guy never gets a foot hold ever again in our industry. He makes people skeptical of people/companies that are solid gold. Makes it more difficult for us to ply our trade as we have a bad apple in the cart.

I think a shop or two built a motor or two with some prototype cases??? The shop(s) that built these motors have been VERY silent... Either they had no money in the game or signed an NDA? Or???

We have a few friends and clients that put deposits down on a case, and we had a freindly gentlemans agreement to build a motor from one of the cases. Too bad these good folks are likely going to be financially hurt by this fellow.

Cheers

Looking at his machinists IG page https://www.instagram.com/carmansokey/?hl=en
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1665578065.jpg

At first glance, seems like the machinist is spewing the same sales BS that Catorce did - shops have run the case hard with success, he says? You would think that information would be solid gold to people who embellish every aspect of the project...even saying how the cases were ready to rip, before even testing or building a single one.

IN either case, he offers to talk via DM so that could be the only sliver of hope to obtain a case...or at least a paperweight for your money.

If these people have not already filed a court case against these "case manufacturers" to try to recover their deposits/funds, shame on them. This whole thing stinks to high heavens. I am so glad I did not place an order for a case several years ago. This seems to be nothing more than fraud. I hope our members and others recover their funds.

Gadzooks!!! I am so glad that I did all my dealings through PayPal and when it started to go sideways I used the dispute function before the time I could dispute elapsed. I received my full deposit back in the fall/winter of 2020. I just noticed that the oil consoles were NLA and found this thread.
Hate to see the project die, the dream collapse and the funds of many evaporate.
Hope you all get something back out of this or they come through with something.

This guy is still collecting money and promising people blocks. Buyer beware! Run away.

We know we'll never see the money back that we spent with Taormina so we are going to push ahead are going to be stocking the Noonan billet blocks which are 100% proven and are being manufactured by a company with a solid reputation for quality and integrity.

Charles,

Has anyone approached PCA about getting these billet engine blocks approved for PCA Club Racing? As of right now, they are not legal. Any race car with one these aftermarket blocks, if protested or discovered, would not be allowed to race with PCA at all.

To be frank, it's impossible to have a discussion with the club racing rules committee. They only listen to the racers and those racers that have shops or vested interests get their way. As a manufacturer, my feedback falls on deaf ears. The racers have to speak up themselves and make the argument as to why they need to make them legal.

Good luck getting in touch with Adam. He is gone into the wind. He is not responding to emails or phone calls. We have been trying to get in touch with him for almost 8 months. We have tried email, phone calls, certified mail to multiple addresses as well as to principals in his company with no luck. It appears that he is no longer in business. He owes vendors over $5600 in unpaid bills and we have heard that he owes staff over $7000 in back wages. It appears that he has had these problems for awhile. His California home is currently in pre-forclosure too. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS MAN !

If these blocks are direct copies of a Porsche block. I would think there would be some kind of copy right maybe even patent infringement. I don't think Porsche would be ok with that. If they had been changed in some way as to avoid this. Then they are not Porsche. Why would PCA cave and allow them to be used in Porsche racing events.

You may want to read up on the many threads over the years regarding these blocks.

wow
 

I did ordered from things from jeff and he seem to be very nice guy and helpful and the products was great at the time
so sorry to hear about other didnt workout .
since the pandemic every things changed

A patent only lasts 20 years. Anything Aircooled is older than that.

Just to clarify, this Taormina guy was leveraging Jeff Gamroth's name and reputation to sell these block. Jeff had no involvement in this "project" outside of being the first to use one and provide feedback as to the changes needed to make the block useable.

Covid had nothing to do with all of us getting ripped off by Adam Taormina. A leopard can't change its spots.

Amateur racing is generally about maximum participation. Club racing, regional racing and even some low level national events are designed to offer the enthusiast a way to get seat time and test their driving skills. Single brand enthusiasts who can't find the parts necessary to participate, move on to an easier classification/brand.
If Porsche still offered original parts, restrictions would make sense but new cases and even race worthy used cases are getting rare. I understand the need to preserve originality but in some cases [pun intended] it's just not practical. If an after market part offers no competitive advantage, why restrict it?

I'm not a racer, but I agree with Henry. The more these parts can be sold and used, the less expensive they will become, which is also good for the aftermarket, non-racers, like me.

Spot on. I've had this same discussion with those in charge that make the rules for Club Racing and it fell on deaf ears. Unless the racers themselves lobby for a rules change, nothing will change.

It took about a decade to get the PCA to allow our LSDs as a direct replacement for original ZF and GKN units. Change is glacial with that group.

Regards,

Matt Monson
Guard Transmission Llc.

Has anybody bought anything from Taormina in recent times, how did that go?

I like their oil filter console but don't want to support a business that has ripped people off, unless they are using that money so they can either refund the customers who have made down payments, or deliver them the actual engine cases the have promised....

LOL... stay away.. better off burning your $$ you will never get the part

It's pretty clear that no one should give this guy a single $ for anything.

hey guys Im ashamed to admit I was one of the first to order one of these cases. Im paid in full and I was in contact with him for a long time. now he has ghosted me too. Im guessing Im out $5k now? anyone have a word of hope for me?

Wade

Unfortunately no. All we can do is make sure no one spends a single dollar with him and he exits the Porsche community. Adam is nothing more than a con artist.

Any luck sueing him
 

Has anyone had any luch sueing Adam toi get their money back? If so Could you DM me the lawyer you used?

Wade

This is so sad to hear. I think any legal action will cost way more than what its worth. spend 15-20K to get 5K or nothing if he has claimed bankruptcy.

He called me many years ago asking if I wanted to but some cases. I told him I would but after he had them all figured out and they were tested. At the time the finish was poor.

I give all the benefit of the doubt. I hope he had honest intentions about producing these cases. Sadly he went about it the wrong way in my opinion. He should have asked companies like mine and Charles as examples to invest in the design and production in return for exclusivity and profits. These with experience could have guided, suggested and even controlled the production and quality. Reading into his posts, he had no real idea how to do this and accepted the advice of the wrong people. Then trying to do the machine work in house was wrong. He invested in expensive machines and tooling I think. This done on buyers money and asking potential buyer to pay up front was the wrong way.

When it all turned pear shaped he probably ran out of money, had nothing left to pay back what was owed and has chosen to disappear. Another fatal error. Own up to your mistakes and do what you promise. If you owe money back, at least cop to it and make amends any way you can. Tell and be honest that you have no money.

I can tell you our failure pile is way higher than our success pile. But this is the business of development. You try you fail and you continue. But you have a clear understanding of the scope and costs involved before you start. In all of our development, successes and failures, we would never take money from customer before. That would make the funding easier, but has huge implications when it goes wrong.

Several years ago we were tasked to "hotrod" a 991.1 GT3 engine. Opening the engine we found serious issues with the Finger followers. These were hydraulically controlled poorly. The design was major screw up. We developed a modification where the fingers became solid with lash caps. All new fingers, axles, stand etc were all made in Switzerland for us, 20 engine sets min for these 24V engines. I funded this all myself. At the time we had the solution so it made it easy to proceed. Also at this time, some of the owners threatened Porsche with a class action suit. Porsche responded by giving then a day at the Atlanta center. A full on "dog and pony". Porsche proved it does "snow" in the south in the summer. Porsche then gave all 991.1 owners an additional 10 year warranty on the fingers. Our business went up in smoke. I am sitting on sets of extremely expensive parts with a huge investment. Maybe it will turn back to us in the next couple of years. My point is, I invested over 160K on the parts, hundreds of hours in the design etc and came up with nothing, yet.

This is the way it should be done so customers are not harmed.

Well said Neil. Have developed another product for these cars (not engine related) and agree.

Reading between the lines of your post, if paying attention, was worth the read... :)

Cheers

It seems Adam (Taormina Racing) has a pretty good start on the project and certainly monies invested and committed.
It would seem to me that given the right plan, this deal could be saved. Pennies on the dollar of course for creditors/investors but something is better than nothing.
I've been involved in a few of these "turn around" projects but until Adam is ready to surface, only ugly remains. The business plan failed but the product is sound.
If Adam would be willing to sell/trade the assets of Taormina Racing to another investor with an understanding that obligations owed by Taormina Racing be addressed in the transaction, something good might happen here.
There is certainly a market for the product.
Of course there is no telling what financial obligations still exist vis-a-vie Taormina Racing but a conversation would seem in order.
It's been a while since anything positive has come from this situation, but if patterns, design & production programs and manufacturing contacts still exist, who knows what might be possible.