NoCoast Grant Hughes Professional Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
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NoCoast Grant Hughes Professional Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
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NoCoast Grant Hughes Professional Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
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sidewaez Blake Lind Professional Moderator Location: Hillsboro Oregon Join Date: 06/09/2009 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 233 Rally Car: orange AE86 |
Finding good Wholesalers is key, Atech, Motovicity, Rallisport direct and Tire Rack are among the best we deal with; fast, cheap shipping and competitive pricing. It also takes a while to get in good enough with your rep to start getting really good pricing. We sell HANS which was bought out by Simpson and they're much better to deal with than HANS was and have a vast product line we now have access to, Pyrotect is also great to us, G-force seems good as well.
You're right that you don't want to deal with price matchers, I won't hesitate to refer them to amazon etc... you also need to be picky with what you're going to retail, because everything is so specific that you don't want to step too far outside of what you know very well because you'll waste too much time researching. Personal Safety equipment is pretty good to retail because people want to try on helmets, suits and HANS before they buy, but you need to have competitive pricing, a decent amount of inventory as well as some advertising to let people know you have a stocked showroom, its about 80% of our walk-in business. Doing service/install work can be really good as long as you do a good job quoting and don't get in way over your head, these are customers are good ones to sell low margin parts to if you can make some decent money back on labor, usually we charge $30 more/hour if you bring the parts to have us install for a variety of reasons. Keep your head down, you'll make it through this... |
DaveK Dave Kern Mod Moderator Location: Centennial Join Date: 07/11/2008 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 1,085 Rally Car: Compact M3 & Evo IX |
Ummmm...thanks? I can do literally zero of those things (unless car setup or driver coaching is part of the and and and), maybe Tommy would be a good referral for the wiring aspect of things? I know he's looking to pick up a bit of work here and there in between building his mountain house. Dave |
NoCoast Grant Hughes Professional Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
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DaveK Dave Kern Mod Moderator Location: Centennial Join Date: 07/11/2008 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 1,085 Rally Car: Compact M3 & Evo IX |
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modernbeat Jason McDaniel Ultra Moderator Location: Dallas, TX Join Date: 12/14/2007 Age: Possibly Wise Posts: 401 Rally Car: 1963 SAAB Historic, 1995 Impreza Open Light totaled at WRC Mexico, 2005 STi Pikes Peak winner |
Ha! I sent that guy to you after he called our shop in Texas for some help. Come on, I'm trying to feed you the local Colorado guys that call us. Jason McDaniel |
Dirt McGirt Tony Peto Godlike Moderator Location: Everett, WA Join Date: 12/15/2013 Age: Settling Down Posts: 25 Rally Car: 1993 Honda Civic Si |
From the customer side of it all, thanks Grant for sorting out that seat issue with me so quickly.
I ordered a few seats which were drop-shipped, one with a bunch of chipping/voids along the edges of the fiberglass, didn't feel very comfortable with the product. Grant refunded me immediately and we worked out the physical product return at Rally Idaho. Can't imagine it was a profitable exchange overall on his end, but I recommend his business to all racers I know who are looking for seats/harnesses/stuff like that. Same can be said for JVL, great customer service, great value, and you get free life advice with every consultation "Just add more 'Stop-Leak', it's a Duratec, it'll be fine..." |
NoCoast Grant Hughes Professional Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
I appreciate that Jason! It will be a cool car when he's done with it. There was a few things, Megasquirt ECU and wiring to put a 2006 BMW engine into an old E30 shell and such that we would never recommend someone to attempt and most would never pay the amount to have someone do for them. We could probably complete and execute the swap with a few changes but it would likely have a 5 figure shop bill. I do hope he finds the time to finish it and hope we can help him out with other aspects of the build as it'd be an awesome addition to the Colorado Hill Climb series and future events we hope to organize. Here's Jon's build if any are interested. http://johnfriedl.com/category/bmw-e30-rally-car/ Grant Hughes |
DaveK Dave Kern Mod Moderator Location: Centennial Join Date: 07/11/2008 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 1,085 Rally Car: Compact M3 & Evo IX |
Lots of time and effort into that build! Only odd bit is his talk of trying to run 25 or 30psi which is way more than it should need to hit his 400hp target. I'd bet 10psi would do it...not to mention that 400hp is huge overkill for a gravel rally car. Adding a spacer in-between the head and block also seems unnecessary for his HP goal and probably introduces another failure point. Dave |
john vanlandingham John Vanlandingham Junior Moderator Location: Ford Asylum, Sleezattle, WA Join Date: 12/20/2005 Age: Fossilized Posts: 14,152 Rally Car: Saab 96 V4 |
No wonder he din't msake it into medical school twice! Cloud 9 custom super-duper and evidently no desire or interest in learning some of the basics of how modern engines can do what they do on PUMP gas and no ass-splode...Hello Decompression plate, and hello detonation, good bye quench... Where even to start... That boy smoke a lotta da splif, Jah? How do guy get so far up in the clouds? John Vanlandingham Sleezattle, WA, USA Vive le Prole-le-ralliat www.rallyrace.net/jvab CALL +1 206 431-9696 Remember! Pacific Standard Time is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time. |
Pete Pete Remner Super Moderator Location: Cleveland, Ohio Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 2,022 |
I thought that too, but I "overheard" some engine guys talking and they said for huge forced induction power, you want no squish or quench at all since it becomes more of a liability than an asset. But we're talking some super sky high combustion pressures here, not stuff you will see with only 25psi boost or so.
Pete Remner Cleveland, Ohio 1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing) 1978 Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver. |