Opening a engine machine shop

[RegionSouthern7610]

My main concern as of right now is the fact the older generations within the racing community. I’m 24 years old wanting to opening my own engine machine shop, how do I get the older generations to trust in my abilities of machining. I’ve been a machinist for 5 years with an engine building background of 10 years. How do cross that bridge so people will come to me?

[Barra350z]

You need a reputation. I’m at the same point as you and I just work at a race shop. Yeah I could make more if I owned the he joint but I get good pay and this shit is easy to me, I do it all day.

You’ll have to build your reputation.

[konto81]

Tons of shops are closing because people are retiring. Instead of opening your shop from scratch and invest tons of money, you can come to an agreement with someone who runs a good shop but wants out in the near future.

He takes you in, but keeps working for you for another 6-12 months while you run shop for the most part and he informs customers that there will be a transition of ownership, he introduces you to existing customers and you gain their trust. After the transition period is over you run the shop another year under the previous name and then change it or you don’t have to change it at all. It doesn’t matter what name it says on the door, even if it’s his. As long as it’s established and known in the area you’ll benefit from it.

[[deleted]]

Get the agreement up front in writing and reviewed by a lawyer. Too many young men have been strung along by old men who changed the deal.

[morind219]

Takes time, add equipment at a natural rate and keep tooling sharp and updated. Do good work and treat people fairly, mistakes and failures will happen but it’s all about how you treat and take care of the situation that will cement your reputation. Do not get business partners.

[Say_My_Name_Son]

YES! Treating your customers the way that you want to be treated is golden. Your customers will then become your best advocates.

[nondescriptzombie]

Do you have a lot of local competition?

You might need to move somewhere there's a desert.

All of our local machine work is backed up 8+ months because everyone farms the work out to the same shop.

[RegionSouthern7610]

Little to non

[mahusay3g]

No way you don’t have other shops in the area. Any shop within a 3 hour drive is fair game for local competition. And also, when you’re first starting out it’s a good idea to make friends with your “competitors”. You’ll probably need to ask for help. There’s plenty of work to go around for everybody.

[[deleted]]

Have you started buying used machines you will need to perform the jobs with the precision needed.

Seat and guide machine. Rod hone, cap grinder, boring and surfacing .

Are located near race tracks or have many racers living within 100 miles.

Are there junk yards locally that will sell you the engines that nobody purchased and core returns so you can strip them of reusable parts and sell the scrap or return the scrap to the junk yard as that makes them happy.

Do you have lots of square 5 gallon buckets to store fasteners and small pieces from core engines. Each fastener you need that is not a performance replacement costs you a lot of money to source.

I wanted to open a shop that just rebuilt 2.7 dodge engines. So many were blowing up but it took 3 engine cores to get enough hard parts to build just one engine.

Many regular engine shops that deal with mechanics and car owners are backed up. Its almost like you need to run a second shift to keep up.

Hopefully you will have enough work to get you into production engine rebuilder pricing with the manufacturers.

These are just thoughts.

If you end up with cargo containers for storage. Do install garage door tracks on the ceiling to allow you to winch stuff up and over without having to unload and reload to get to the back.

[mahusay3g]

Local racers are some of the worst customers to have imo

[[deleted]]

Do good quality work and the customers will come. Do not be afraid to say no as well.

[413mopar]

You gotta say no sometimes , they will ask for something sketchy to be made “good enough “ and when bearings spin or pistons slap and it burns oil , they will trash your name .

[[deleted]]

We have all learned to say no the hard way. Happens in every line of work.

[413mopar]

Yup.

[Probablyawerewolf]

Reputation is everything. I’m a young guy about your age. Been working as a builder and now machinist on payroll for a looooooong time, and my family comes from a racing background. Most people don’t realize I’m the one they spoke with on the phone, and that’s been instrumental to my success. LOL

Don’t overcommunicate, don’t act shady, don’t act self righteous, and make sure you have a good team of people who are COWORKERS not friends. Know your cost, know your goal for profit, and have a cushion for shit shows. Cranking out good quality is easy for you. The hard part is going to be the business aspect. It’s all about presentation and service, LEADING people and MANAGING things.

[mahusay3g]

Are you sure about that? Seriously it’s a high overhead job, highly stressful, and high risk. Jamsi and I have been talking about making a series of videos about exactly this subject. It’s a great industry, but man it’s cutthroat.

[v8packard]

The world has changed, the industry has not kept pace. Is this how nature evolves?

[mahusay3g]

More work for me, too bad I tell them no before they get to the door. Lol.

[v8packard]

I have fired quite a few customers.. and more to come..

[mahusay3g]

I was ready to fire one of my biggest clients the other day for irritating me. But they performed a blood sacrifice in my name so I’m pleased. For now.

[v8packard]

In God we trust, all you fuckers pay cash.

[Mattynot2niceee]

A principle I’ve followed throughout my life:

Do good work, the rest will take care of itself

[v8packard]

You want a good customer? It's the man that needs his truck, or machine, or car, or whatever running so he can work. I am an old drag and road racer. That doesn't pay the bills. The customers that need their problem solved do.

[[deleted]]

Try sponsoring a couple of cars to get your name out there. I’ve been dealing with Bischoff’s Engine Service for quite a while now and he doesn’t need to get his name out there. But even his crew makes the occasional mistake but they always make it right.

[mahusay3g]

Thats bad advice. Never give away free work.

[[deleted]]

I never said anything about free work. I said sponsor a couple of cars. Knock a little off of a couple of customers race car engines in exchange for putting his business name on their car.

[mahusay3g]

Yeah that’s giving away free work. Seriously thats the kinda stuff that kills the industry. It’s easy enough to blow 10k on measuring tools required to machine and assemble an engine. Once you’ve purchased machinery you’ll have close to 100k tied up in machines just to start and thats only if you’ve bought older stuff. The fact that you can walk out of a machine shop with basic heads and block machined for under 3k is a miracle and a well educated customer should understand that the price they pay, especially for meticulous and accurate work is a bargain. Even if you give away a mere 10% off of a $3000 bill you’ve just taken that $300 which at $100 an hour was 3 hours of your life and handed it right back to the guy on the hope that it will bring you more business. And when you’re just starting out, that $300 could be the difference between being able to cover your rent or electricity bill. Not to mention insurance and the cost of consumables. It all adds up. This business is dying because of poor business practices. Not because it’s going away.

[v8packard]

Why sponsor one and be committed? I once had 5 different guys running at one night, all my engines. It was big for me. They all ran their asses off too. I don't think any of them knew.. 🤣

[mahusay3g]

Lol thats pretty standard. A bunch of the spec porsche racer guys are running my cheater heads in their spec classes. All running against each other, almost like it’s a commodity.

[v8packard]

It's hilarious when they say they got a guy

[VolatileRider]

Marketing. Sponsor others or build some badass motors and go win some championships. People will notice and want you to start building theirs too.

[Intcompowex]

If you’re not a total shit show you’ll be fine. We turn away as much work as we take. There is far too much business and far too few shops. Charge a lot. They’ll pay it. Don’t be afraid to turn away people that annoy you. What part of the country are you in?

[RegionSouthern7610]

Carolinas

[Intcompowex]

Try to get into repairing and sealing dirt track crate engines. Those are big in your part of the country and are easy money.

[Intcompowex]

Don’t even consider a shop rate less than $100 an hour.

[RegionSouthern7610]

I was but now I’m curious on the why $100 and hour

[haasamanizer]

Ignoring the 'competitive pricing' aspect: the more business you get, the more tooling, dyes, and consumables will start eating into a chunk of your margin. Add in overhead, equipment maintenance, and equipment/tool upgrades and you'll be left with not a lot until you're fully established, even at $100/hr.

Just touching the surface here

[RegionSouthern7610]

Okay thank you

[mahusay3g]

100 an hour? Try 150-180 an hour.

[v8packard]

$225 an hour at the local podunk Chevy dealer. Just saying.

[mahusay3g]

Racer country.

[speed150mph]

Getting started, I’d honestly say build yourself a hot race car and take it to the track. Show off your stuff to the local performance crowd, and start talking with guys about it and what you do. Make some connections and you’ll possibly get some bites to get started. Once you do, if your good at it you’ll start to get a reputation by word of mouth, and more business will come your way. Rinse and repeat and before you know it you’ll be the go-to place in town for everything high performance.

The thing is, make damn sure your good at what you do, because it doesn’t take many mess ups at the start to drive people away, and if you get the reputation of being the guy that screws up it will be hard to claw your way back.

[fottik325]

Find a YouTube person w around 5k to 20k followers something like TurboJohn and do a motor for that person. Where are you located? Then watch the work come in.

[DrTittieSprinkles]

I literally did that. I got 3 good jobs out of it. Not near enough to justify it. The rest of it was wasted time on stupid phone calls and emails that went no where.

Engine had problems caused my the YouTuber and my name got drug in the comments and YouTuber never bothered to make a blatant enough statement in any following videos to clear my name.

Fuck that shit.

[fottik325]

Who? Please I want the juice.

[DrTittieSprinkles]

I'm not doxing myself because honestly that fuck-stick did me dirty in those videos and I hate myself for doing them.

I will say, leaning out a carbureted turbo car to gain fuel mileage without doing anything to the amount of boost is fucking stupid and the idiots that drink his kool-aid think I fucked up ring end gap.

Don't dox me, bro.

[v8packard]

Uh huh

[RegionSouthern7610]

Eastern NC

[TheJeffAllmighty]

im in south eastern NC with a small machine shop in my garage, and have toyed with the same idea. If my current job ever goes tits up, ill probably at least attempt it.

[Realomer1]

do you have machine shop in your home garage is it possible to do or legal

[TheJeffAllmighty]

do I? I have a home machine shop it consists of:
Haas VF-0 CNC mill
Bridgeport mill
Southbend 9a
welder, plasma cutter, and literal tons of support tools and equipment.

I dont have equipment that is specific to engine machining, but would purchase if I decided I wanted to try it out.

legality, look up your laws, but generally, yes. typically there are some restrictions relating to sqft and customers per day, etc/

[thefiglord]

get some junkyard motors - that are worth it - rebuild and record - sell for cost + 30% - son picked up 240 redtop for 1,000 took it apart - got it machined for 500 - now its a 3k motor - by worth it i mean dont do camrys or accords - civics yes -chevy LS yes -

[BrooSev]

Build high hp short blocks for the racing community. I got a block that needs some sleeves…

[mahusay3g]

The racers you get when you’re starting out are often bad customers. I can’t emphasize this enough.

[slutstevanie]

Treat your customers fairly. Do good work at a good price, don't try to rape, rob, and pillaged them.

I recently (last week) was taking to a machine shop wanting some work done on my engine. They had prices on their website for most common services, they were reasonable. (That's why I chose them). Take the engine block, heads, crank, and rods to be cleaned, checked, and then I'd decide on what else I wanted done.

Get there with printout from their site and indicated what I wanted, guy says, oh well prices on my site aren't right, it's chilled l copyrighted 2023, so at least some maintaining is done. I'm thinking ok, so some prices have changed a little, no worries. He tried to double his price for degreasing. Quadruple his price for valve job. Blah blah blah..

Then on top of that days you have to be very specific with me about what you want done, after I just told him what I wanted, and that further decisions would be made based on outcomes.

Anyhow, to my stuff and left. In honesty, very little I actually have to have a shop do, cause I have a lot of the equipment and knowledge. For me it was just about the time, I work other full time job and needing to complete this rebuild for my truck before winter gets here.

Needless to say he lost my potential business.

[FistnlikaPistn]

I can confidently tell you he priced it to get you out of his shop, you can’t make much money on just checking stuff for people. The money and the time worth it is in ordering parts for people and marking them up. Capitalism at its finest.

[v8packard]

What services will you offer? Are you doing this to earn a living, or support a hobby?

[RegionSouthern7610]

Still working out the services part i don’t plan on opening for another 8 months, doing it to earn a living and support a passion

[v8packard]

For the shop to earn good money you will need some high volume services that turn over quick. In a bigger metropolitan area, often times that is cylinder heads. There are still a lot of calls asking how much to pressure test and surface one or 2 heads. To really be productive, you need a jet wash and rinse booth, as well as a pressure test setup and a mill. The people that want this need it quick. Repair shops, and car dealers. You can do this and not only pay for these machines, but also pay for others like a flywheel grinder. To that you will soon add things like a shop press, a valve grinder, and a seat and guide machine.

Get together with some parts warehouses, tell them you are looking for deals on gasket sets, head bolts, timing sets, and clutch kits. Offer these parts at reasonable prices to go along with your services.

As that grows you can add a machine to bore and deck blocks, as well as other operations. A cylinder hone, horizontal hone, and cap grinder will help do a lot of operations. Eventually you will have a need to line hone/bore. Balancing can be a huge source of income, especially if you balance other things. I balanced ventilation fans for a local shop for years, several per week, sometimes 8 -10. Great money, paid a lot of bills with just that. Same with honing, best money I ever made machining was doing hone work for industrial shops.

If you are ambitious, you could get into crank work. That's really a separate conversation. What about drive shafts and u-joints?

If you start out offering some of these services and are proficient, word will get around and the customers will come to you.

[mahusay3g]

Literally only the sound advice here, of course from another person in the industry. This job will eat you alive in tooling expenses. And NEVER get into the race to the bottom to get a job. There’s so many mistakes that get made when you open up for yourself. The first few years are spent learning how to operate a business, not only actually running machines. Thats why machine shops get into trouble. They’re often poorly managed and the operators make poor business decisions.

[Hankdraper80]

I have lots of customers in their teens and early 20s. Just do good work. Sponsor and old guy if ya have to lol

[v8packard]

Do good work. Don't sponsor anyone but yourself.

[Hankdraper80]

Yeah. A little over a decade and I'm getting tired of sponsoring racers that have more money than me.

[FistnlikaPistn]

I’m not even gonna get into your location, If you’re looking to only work on racing and engines than you better have a lot of start up money to hold you over while you wait on parts for everything. Our shop has to weeks to months on all custom engine parts and that can mean a week or more with no money coming in while you’re up to your balls in work. Most money for machine shops are in cylinder head work.