dsadsdaiouser

I'm a HS math teacher by trade but we (my wife and I) do all of the work on our C5 except the tune. We have changed the converter, gear, cam, etc. I've been working on cars for almost 30 years just as a shade tree mechanic. We're in the process of purchasing a new home and it has a separate shop on the property. i'm kicking around starting a racing business on the side. My teaching contract is only 18x days a year so I have lots of time to work on other projects. Thought about just doing LS stuff; H/C/I installs, headers, converters, clutches, nitrous kits, fill nitrous bottles, etc. Not looking to make a ton of money or take on a bunch of projects. Just keep it small. Do you think someone could stay busy provided that they did good work? Any advice from anyone who has been there done that? Pros? Cons?

Scott

jdoyle

iTrader: (27)

Yes, I think someone could stay busy provided that they did good work.

I'd love to do something like this in the Dallas area.

YellowTA1

iTrader: (10)

East Texas Muscle Cars in Longview is kind of similar, if I remember right he has his shop at his house, has only one other employee and does all the work, and they are always busy. I think it could be good considering you are on the other side of East Texas and could provide another option for potential customers.

dsadsdaiouser

Stephen at ETMC does all of our tuning and the last time we were Chris was his only employee. I do know that he is swamped and can't seem to keep up. I wouldn't want nearly that volume and would just take on one project at a time to work on in the evenings, over the weekend and on vacations such at Thanksgiving and Christmas when we have time off. I'm thinking it we started a racing business it would help on taxes as we could write off the trailer and other things also. We enjoy working on cars and providing another place to get work done I think would help folks out.

Scott

Bad Chad

iTrader: (94)

If you do good quality work at an affordable price, you will stay very busy. After the 1st of the year, I'm going to quit my day job and go full time.

NemeSS

iTrader: (127)

Still do alot of hi hp builds. But no longe a 100% spd shop.
Predominantly muffler and emissions repair and state inspections.
It's a more stable trade. As in its a daily deal. Cars are in n out same day or next day. With project builds the cars will sit around the shop til done.

chrisLT1

there used to be a really good performance shop right off 155 in flint T&K Performance a guy named chevy owns it mostly mopar and ford shop though

dsadsdaiouser

I think he is still there although we don't get to that area often. Sometimes we eat dinner at the Purple Pig across the street and I'll see a high performance car or two in the parking lot. That's on 155 and we're actually in Flint also but on the 69 side south of Tyler. We're moving to Lakeport which is south of Longview and east of Kilgore.

My plan is to only take on one car at a time. Not really in it for the money but of course making a couple bucks will be nice. We just enjoy being in the garage working; much better than sitting around watching the junk on TV every night. I think if we keep it to one project at a time, do a good job as if we're working on our own stuff, and keep the price right we should be able to build a small business. Probably wanting to specialize in LS or old GM stuff leaning towards bolt-ons and heads, cam, intake packages as well as suspension work. Will also do supercharger and nitrous installs. I KNOW if we do one at a time we can turn things around quicker than many shops we've been in before.

Scott

jdoyle

iTrader: (27)

how did you guys start off?

did you work on one persons car and then the business just started growing itself?

im particularly interested in bad chads response as I would need to continue my day job.

Bad Chad

iTrader: (94)

I've been into racing my whole life so I always had a shop...

I got started when I bought an F-body. The motor was bad and I did not have time to swap motors so I took it to a shop to have it swapped They charged me 2k to swap motors, an month later that motor spun a bearing. Instead of paying to swap the motor again I decided to do it myself. After that I had friends asking to help with their cars then it turned into a friend of a friend asking for help...

I started charging to do the work to make extra money to fund the racecar. It was something I enjoyed and the extra money was nice. I did a few motor swaps and people were impressed with the clean installs so I got several jobs from that. Word of mouth spreads fast and I started getting more calls about work

I tried to take 1 or 2 cars at a time but that's hard when you have a shop that can hold about 10 cars and several cars are taking a month or so for parts and motor builds. 90% of the cars that come to my shop are in and out within 1-3 days and this includes motor swaps if I have everything. I've had a few cars linger around for a few months waiting on parts or owners getting things together.

I do all my work on nights and weekends. Sometimes it gets hard when you have a family that's very active in sports then trying to schedule work in the shop. Once you find that balance you will see its not that bad.

I've been very blessed over the years. I've built some very nice cars and have had the pleasure of working on a lot of members cars on here. I have several shops that sends me their cars when they don't have time to work on them. I'm looking to add about 3,000sqft to my shop within the next year. If you provide people with a affordable price, quality workmanship and completed in a timely manner you will stay very busy. Word of mouth will make you or break you so make sure you go above and beyond to make every customer happy.

whatsa347

iTrader: (6)

I've basically lost hope in any Houston LS performance shop, I've recommended chad to everyone I know, I've even convinced my parents to LS swap their 69 firebird just because chad does such a good job with everything. I'm tired of being bent over for parts that I know the cost for and 3 hours worth of labor turning into a $1000 tab. If you do a good job and stand by your work, you'll be successful.

dsadsdaiouser

Thanks guys for all of the advice and comments. We close on our home in 3 weeks and after we're in and settled I'm going to get some business cards printed up as well as some advertising for our enclosed trailer. After that it will just be word of mouth. Being that this is my "second career" we are only looking to take on one project at a time and get it out before the next one. My plan is to do the work as if we were doing it on our car and keep the cost down since I have no overhead and am not trying to pay the mortgage from the proceeds. Just wanting to make a little side money to pay for racing and improvements on our car. Hopefully as we get going and do a good job word of mouth will keep us busy.

Scott