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I was thinking I will save up money to start a shop sometime in the future but for now if you want them done i might consider doing before I get all set up financially. Is anyone from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania area that wants swaps and ect. done to their cars? I might have a couple friends that would help out with the funding so look out for us.

This is just an IDEA so don't take it as it will happen but I want it to.

P.S. It won't be just MX-3. and Proteges. I was considering Nissan 240sxs and some V8 chevy/gms

Too bad I don't live closer to ya 'cause I have a chevy v8 in need of overhaulin or swapped or something, it's a tired old 305, and my MX-3 has almost 300 K on it, not to mentiuon I still have save the coin to do it all....Good luck with your new aspiring venture!!

Hmmm i think this could be a really cool idea. I'd say just make it into a shop for swaps in general, or a performance/custome car shop. I think the money for a lift, tools, all the bills, wouldn't be worht it unless you made it into an all around performance shop, specializing in mazda parts though...anybody else have any ideas for him?

If you are into the local scene take a close look at other performance shops. Then downgrade your shop ideas a tad to keep the costs realisitc. (a long time ago these were my ideas) Here in the ATL. My idea was to have a small 2 bay shop that is not in an expensive location. Maybe a industrial park or something so that the shop rent is cheaper. Then one lift, tire machines, big compressor, sand blast cabinet, small paint booth. I'd maybe live in the loft over the office to save money. Set-up a TV and game system for customers to come and hang out. Have weekly meets at the shop to gain notariety. Don't do anything. Start simple, things like you do now, but with better tools and more time. I figured the start-up cash would be about 20K. At the time it might as well have been a million so the idea never left my head.
Good luck and I hope everything works out for you.

bubsy83 wrote:Too bad I don't live closer to ya 'cause I have a chevy v8 in need of overhaulin or swapped or something, it's a tired old 305, and my MX-3 has almost 300 K on it, not to mentiuon I still have save the coin to do it all....Good luck with your new aspiring venture!!

LOL me and my friend want to start this and we have an L98 350 with a 4 bolt main sitting at his house.

PATDIESEL wrote:If you are into the local scene take a close look at other performance shops. Then downgrade your shop ideas a tad to keep the costs realisitc. (a long time ago these were my ideas) Here in the ATL. My idea was to have a small 2 bay shop that is not in an expensive location. Maybe a industrial park or something so that the shop rent is cheaper. Then one lift, tire machines, big compressor, sand blast cabinet, small paint booth. I'd maybe live in the loft over the office to save money. Set-up a TV and game system for customers to come and hang out. Have weekly meets at the shop to gain notariety. Don't do anything. Start simple, things like you do now, but with better tools and more time. I figured the start-up cash would be about 20K. At the time it might as well have been a million so the idea never left my head.
Good luck and I hope everything works out for you.

We are planning on getting a garage built to the house at my friends. And yes, I don't really like Honda's but I will do them anyways. Hopefully the first couple jobs will help us get our equipment. All hand tools for now though but I am still quick

i dont know man, im from brewster, i dont know how big the market would be. or even if that doesnt matter, its really hard to get established and to have the money for everything. but if you get everything together, good luck man

i hope it will work out. The shop is going to be the garage at my friends house though. Hopefully I learn to tune in time for some other stuff and I might want to do a couple honda swaps since they have a wide market and are easy to swap.

Good idea. In my area we got a few performance oriented car shops. Some of them closed down due to competition, lack of business, but mostly lack of good reputation/customer skills. One of the shops has reputation for employees that don't know crap and that overcharge you to even order parts straight out of catalog. Other shop is doing good, tuning/dyno services, turbo/s/c installs, etc. Basically if you get 5 or so shops they all can fix up a car together. Some do stereos, some do tints, and most important the other ones do all the power add-ons.
Now if you get a shop that can do it all and have a great customer relationship you'll stay in business and you might see other shops close down as all the customers will come to your shop.

The cool thing is that I work at autozone and I can start out by handing out cards there. If I start getting jobs in I can start working part time. I already might have my first job booked for the spring too. Wish me luck lol because I am already considering throwing a lot of cash into this Idea. Hopefully I get some Mazdas mixed in because that would rawk. Plus does anyone know if it is worth it to purchase the comercial All Data?

you can NEVER have too much technical info...books, CDs, software programs, etc...

It may be because i live in LALA land, but 20k for startup seems kinda conservative. Don't forget insurance and liability, etc...

Good luck man!!

I agree, you do need to consider everything and anything as far as insurance, taxes, getting good reps with part distributors so you have competitive prices etc. Although for the first year or so while you're starting up you could get away with doing everything under the table. I would deff consider having a ze swap done, but there is nowhere within 50 miles that does anything other than simple stereo and rims(as far as I know), so there is deff a market.

Does anyone know any sites that would supply performance parts that they can recommend?

Does anyone know if this http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-16-TON-HY ... dZViewItem would be good to start off with when it comes to bending intercooler pipes and exhausts? I know it won't be close to mandrel bends but I was thinking maybe it would work. Maybe with stainless steel also.