Richard Pare of ICP

[jtaphorn]

I want to share an extraordinary service experience that I had with a machinist who I was referred to on ApexSpeed. My ‘88 Reynard FC was in need of new rotors and and it was suggested that I contact Richard Pare of ICP in Indianapolis. I called Richard and he gave me an estimate to mill a set of 4 rotors and mount them to lightweight hats, which I would provide, at a price of about 75% of rotors alone from a national vendor. I appreciated the reasonable estimate and was delighted that I didn’t have to deal with the rotor/hat assembly.

After receipt of my rotor/hat assembly, Richard called to ask if the brake pads had overlapped the outside of the rotors. I replied that they did. He suggested that I mount the calipers with pads, back on the hub assembly w/o rotor, and measure the radius from the center of the hub to the outside edge of the brake pad. This would give him the data he needed to optimize the diameter of the rotor to my specific application. Now I’m thinking, who cares enough to provide this level of service anymore.

Later Richard call me back to point out that the hats on the front and rear wheels were mounted to the rotors differently and which was correct or how did I want them mounted and if I wanted them the same? I replied that they were set up that way when I purchased the Reynard, 24 years ago, and I don’t have any insight. Richard replied that he has a friend with a Reynard about the same year as mine and he will drive over to their house and inspect their rotor/hat combo to see how Reynard originally did it. Now I’m thinking, OK this is awfully nice of this guy to perform this level of due diligence for me to get the job done right.

A couple of days later he communicates with me that there will be a delay in the process because the hard drive on his CNC has taken a dump and he has a tech expert coming by to get it up and running again. Now I’m thinking, I really appreciate the proactive communication Richard is providing on turn around time and possible delays. Fair enough.

I get another call from Richard inquiring if I want the old rotors back. He pointed out the there were challenges separating the hats. This was caused by a rise in the hat not permitting a proper width socket to engage the bolts' heads. He pointed out that, if I like, he could mill additional clearance in the hats so that, in the future, I could easily engage a socket to change rotors. Additionally, after mounting the rotors to the hats, He would spin all four assemblies on the lathe to check for runout. Now I am thinking, this is incredibly thoughtful service to care about the future impact of me working on the car and to provide a quality inspection. Had I put the rotor/hat combo together from store bought parts, it would have been difficult for me to correct runout issues.

Richard had my hubs about 2 weeks when I called to get an estimate as to when they would be ready. I was hoping to get them before Labor Day weekend so as to install them over the extended holiday. He told me that he expected to ship them to Texas by Wednesday. I sent Richard a prepaid UPS label to ship them back to me.

That evening, Richard sent me an e-mail saying that if he sent them UPS, the parts wouldn’t get to me til after the Holiday weekend. Instead, he is sending them Fed Ex to ensure I have delivery by Friday and he is picking up the added cost due to delays caused by his CNC machine being down.

I'm no longer a young guy and have worked with numerous service providers both professionally and in my auto hobby for 40 years. This experience has been outstanding as Richard has provided a level of service which repeatedly exceeded my expectations.

What I'm thinking now is that should you require machine work or brake service for your car, I cannot provide a higher recommendation then Richard Pare of ICP. His phone contact is 317 273 0089

[DanW]

Richard and Steve worked their magic on broken parts for me as well. Then Steve provide great setup info that saved me enormous testing time and money.

I've strongly considered a later Citation FF just so I could work with them again!

Regards,
Dan Wise

[bassracer]

Thanks for this write up. I'm in Indy but haven't made the initiative to reach out Richard; just haven't had a specific need for work yet. I'll certainly check in with him at some point.

[R. Pare]

Thanks for the writeup, John - your rotor issue definitely needed something more than just the usual "machine 'em & ship 'em" !

To let everyone else know, he was changing from LD19's ( on an FC!) to LD20's, and the rotors he had were not only drilled to death, but were 4 different diameters on 2 different style hats with totally different mounting methods. He had to do some measuring as he described, so that we could make a guess at what diameter the new rotors had to be - and hopefully we guessed right! He'll find that out sometime tomorrow (keeping my fingers crossed).

Just another variation on some of the strange things you can find on a car this old that has had multiple owners.

[BorkRacing]

I had a similar experience with Richard in regards to a water outlet on my Crossle 32. I needed an odd exit angle and called him. He said he thought he had one but it was in a box of parts in storage. I still recieved it in less than a week and for half of what a new one would have cost. Thanks again Richard!

Robby

[EricP]

I've had similar experiences with Richard. And interesting conversations as well.
A++

[Lynn]

Richard custom fabbed rear rotor for my SoloVee when I changed to disk brakes. The standard VW buggy conversion kit would not work because of the extreme backspacing of my wheels.