Considering starting shop What machines to start with??

[nickmckinney]

Carmarket here in EU, especially in Belgium is not good. And as for racing : not a lot of circuits that are still allowed to run races as noise limits get stricter and stricter. Soon the only thing we can still do here in our free time is sitting on the sofa, reading the paper and listening to the birds and pay taxes. Not exactly my cup of thea, but that's were it is going.

We are catching up too, it seems people want to build homes near the race track that has been there 40+ years only to get it shut down for noise after they move in. Then they biach about street racers afterwards when all the tracks are gone. On a note related to the topic, once you tell a prospective landlord you have an engine shop 90% of them tell you to look elsewhere.

[Belgian1979]

Maybe we should move to some desert country where fuel is less expensive, like Saudi Arabia. hmm...we should need to find a way to loose the Arabs.

[MotionMachine]

Yes, it is possible to enjoy honing a block! I've paid my dues with honing...first by hand, then by hand with a little pump/recovery system, then a Serv-Equip air assist, then a CV 616. None of them are enjoyable, although each one was an improvement over the last one. But now I have an SV10 and I can honestly say that I enjoy honing now. All the previous issues with honing are gone. No cooling off period, no hourglass bores, no tight bottom, it will hone to the very bottom of the stroke (great for outboards), no more expensive Sunnen oil, time savings of at least 75% on a V8 block. The diamonds cost more obviously but they last a long time and with the time savings and the quality of the job it's a big gain IMO.

[Dave Koehler]

Maybe we should move to some desert country where fuel is less expensive, like Saudi Arabia. hmm...we should need to find a way to loose the Arabs.

Since they seem to love hot rods and racing to the extreme you MAY want to find a different way. A better world, united by Hot Rodding?

and no more politics in this thread.

[Dave Koehler]

no more expensive Sunnen oil,

Last machine I had was a ck10. Do the newer machines use something different?

[MotionMachine]

You can still use oil with the diamonds but I opted for coolant and have not seen a down side. You can take .005" out of a cylinder and it is just as cool when you are done as when you started. If the machine sits idle for a long time between uses the coolant might get stagnant but I use mine often enough that it's no issue.

[PackardV8]

I have a couple of friends who are in the used automotive machinery business here in the northwest. I asked them to add it up and out here, figure $50,000 in good used machinery to set up to do performance heads correctly.

jack vines

[ProPower engines]

I have a couple of friends who are in the used automotive machinery business here in the northwest. I asked them to add it up and out here, figure $50,000 in good used machinery to set up to do performance heads correctly.

jack vines

Just curious what type of VGS machine and related surfacing equip. was he referring to

[PackardV8]

IIRC, he just sold a Sunnen VGS for $16K

Here's much of what one would need for $27.55K. http://www.1320techtalk.com/viewtopic.p ... highlight= Would still need a washer, blaster and a mill.

jack vines

[nickmckinney]

Newer white Sunnen VGS20 are all over the place for 15-20K at the moment, must be near a dozen right now in that price range that don't seem to move.

[mikes]

This is some good advice here. I might have to break into this by concentrating on half the engine at a time with my budget. I honestly would love to do both. I used a manual stroke winnona hone in the beginning. Was a pain in the ars but it taught me how to make a srtaight cylinder. I could use one of those but it was sooo time consuming compared to the cv616 since we were leaving .005 to hone. The SV10 seems like a nice machine too though. I do want a vb160 type machine so I can bore and surface. The one thing I liked about that machine was I could blueprint bore spacing with the readout and also relieve the bottom of the cylinder pretty quick. I dont thing that can be done with a bore bar. Although crude I suppose I could relieve it with a grinder, just wont look as pretty.

[JoePorting]

Ebay is a pretty good place to buy used machinery.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R4 ... Categories

I would actually think that general OEM business in a machine shop should be going up in the next few years. With most people being too broke to buy a new car, they have to keep the old cars going which means more work for mechanics and machine shops. Have a friend who works as a Goodyear general mechanic. He's been staying pretty busy.

[dwilliams]

If I was going to start over, I'd seriously look into getting a tap burner, cam bearing boring rig, and the latest crack fixing goodies. Then I'd specialize in broken taps and bolts, reworking goobered cam bores in OHC heads, and fixing cracks for other shops. Offer to make a pick-up run in the morning, then deliver the repaired part the next morning.

[TMSJoe]

I could blueprint bore spacing with the readout and also relieve the bottom of the cylinder pretty quick. I dont thing that can be done with a bore bar. Although crude I suppose I could relieve it with a grinder, just wont look as pretty.

I offset the bottom with my Kwikway bar. After I bore and chamfer the top, I shim the bar with a .010 feeler gauge, then cut the bottom.

Building race engines sounds cool but I make real money milling heads and grinding flywheels. You need to do what people need you to do in your area. Right now I have a shop full of race engines. I'll get them done when I get the chance. But I stop working on them when a garage needs a head milled or a flywheel cut.

[Cedarmachine]

If you are currently employed, stay there, form a purchasing plan and sneak up on this.
A real job with benefits and a sideline deal is probably smarter.

I totally agree on this one. Especially to build a customer base.

If I had an employee that was ramping up to go into competition with me, doing work on the side, and building his customer base off my networking, I'd fire him. I would get no opposition from state unemployment or dept. of labor either. It's unethical as hell.

Sorry, but as an employee, your allegiance is to your employer. The customers you bring in are your job security. You are expected to promote your employers business, not your own agenda.

I have a guy do this to me in a way. He would take calls at the shop from my customers and make deals on his own time from those leads. He would also build engines in my shop for his own personal vehicle as "neccissary transportation" but then sell the vehicles at a profit. None of this lasted too long and I fired him. After working for me, he never worked in the industry again. Us shop owners around here all know each other and we share this info.

The guys name is G. Thurston, in case anyone needs a heads up in MN on a lying, stealing, talentless dolt.

What I'm saying is, to the OP, don't burn your bridges, especially when you are still crossing on them.