XKR Super G... Going for Mach 1
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Not to take the thread too far off topic, but you're actually wrong here. I'm not going to post our builds, because this is a FP/GTM pro thread and I respect that/them. A little research will show you that the great majority of what we do is "outside of the box" and hence, not "easy".
Who says we make our money in the garage anyways?
Darren
P.S. -- tell your friend that one of the American cars we recently built from the ground up was a twin turbo Viper. It made 700whp on spring pressure (3psi..) and he drives it around w/ 1000whp and 1300ft/tq. Ask him why the owner didn't just build it in his garage.
Back on topic -- sorry Mike!!! Good luck with your new build!
Who says we make our money in the garage anyways?

Darren
P.S. -- tell your friend that one of the American cars we recently built from the ground up was a twin turbo Viper. It made 700whp on spring pressure (3psi..) and he drives it around w/ 1000whp and 1300ft/tq. Ask him why the owner didn't just build it in his garage.

Back on topic -- sorry Mike!!! Good luck with your new build!
Darren....I have never limited what SHOP ( key word Shop..) can be posted in my thread...If you feel like posting a build...feel free.....good info is good info
Thanks for the kind words Darren..
Last edited by XKR; Jul 22, 2009 at 08:54 AM.
So basically you are agreeing with me
I said you make your money on easy stuff (parts sales, basic maintenaince, bolt on installs, etc). I'm sure your dollars/billable hours ratio of any of your 'outside the box' builds is very very little. You'd never stay in business if you only got paid on those 2-6 month builds. I never said you guys dont think outside the box. Dual gt37s proves that
I couldnt imagine 1.3k trq on the street. All that talk might have Mike wanna sell his car and get a V8!
I said you make your money on easy stuff (parts sales, basic maintenaince, bolt on installs, etc). I'm sure your dollars/billable hours ratio of any of your 'outside the box' builds is very very little. You'd never stay in business if you only got paid on those 2-6 month builds. I never said you guys dont think outside the box. Dual gt37s proves that
I couldnt imagine 1.3k trq on the street. All that talk might have Mike wanna sell his car and get a V8!

Not to take the thread too far off topic, but you're actually wrong here. I'm not going to post our builds, because this is a FP/GTM pro thread and I respect that/them. A little research will show you that the great majority of what we do is "outside of the box" and hence, not "easy".
Who says we make our money in the garage anyways?
Darren
P.S. -- tell your friend that one of the American cars we recently built from the ground up was a twin turbo Viper. It made 700whp on spring pressure (3psi..) and he drives it around w/ 1000whp and 1300ft/tq. Ask him why the owner didn't just build it in his garage.
Back on topic -- sorry Mike!!! Good luck with your new build!
Who says we make our money in the garage anyways?

Darren
P.S. -- tell your friend that one of the American cars we recently built from the ground up was a twin turbo Viper. It made 700whp on spring pressure (3psi..) and he drives it around w/ 1000whp and 1300ft/tq. Ask him why the owner didn't just build it in his garage.

Back on topic -- sorry Mike!!! Good luck with your new build!
Last edited by str8dum1; Jul 22, 2009 at 11:08 AM.
Viper would be a V10......really is no replacement for displacement when it comes to tq and pump-gas power.....
powerglide TT viper holds the pump-gas drag record now at 7.99 @ 183 or soo.......on 93 octane....nuts. Not even Mike's car can do that on pump lol....now on the good juice only time will tell
t
powerglide TT viper holds the pump-gas drag record now at 7.99 @ 183 or soo.......on 93 octane....nuts. Not even Mike's car can do that on pump lol....now on the good juice only time will tell
t
you driving pretty daily on this 1000+ whp build? Im sure its not a daily driver but i mean you driving it pretty often? I am just wondering how strong this build is and how reliable it has been.
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So basically you are agreeing with me
I said you make your money on easy stuff (parts sales, basic maintenaince, bolt on installs, etc). I'm sure your dollars/billable hours ratio of any of your 'outside the box' builds is very very little. You'd never stay in business if you only got paid on those 2-6 month builds. I never said you guys dont think outside the box. Dual gt37s proves that
I couldnt imagine 1.3k trq on the street. All that talk might have Mike wanna sell his car and get a V8!
I said you make your money on easy stuff (parts sales, basic maintenaince, bolt on installs, etc). I'm sure your dollars/billable hours ratio of any of your 'outside the box' builds is very very little. You'd never stay in business if you only got paid on those 2-6 month builds. I never said you guys dont think outside the box. Dual gt37s proves that
I couldnt imagine 1.3k trq on the street. All that talk might have Mike wanna sell his car and get a V8!

First off, we don't do maintenance. Second, we don't do bolt ons per se, and when we do, it's VERY rare. Third, parts sales aren't "easy" in this industry. Try 10%-15% margins on a good day, and having to do $250k+/mo net (do the math) every month between 2-3 sales guys in an "import" industry, all the while managing online orders, phone orders, international orders, PM's, emails, and having NO investors. WE alone keep Intense alive and hence owe NOTHING to outside investors, family, or friends. Self-reliance -- Thoreau knew what he was talking about
Regarding billable hours on projects, we don't do it unless we get what we are worth. We are building another TT Viper right now. His bill is at $75k, and he's already paid us that much. When he's done, it will be over $100k.
We look at it like this (Mike can relate): having been in business for 10+ years now, we have a doctorate in what we do. Therefore, our projects are paid accordingly. If you have a heart condition, and you need to see a cardiologist, you don't shop around to find the cheapest cardiologist and then call the best cardiologist and try to low ball him/her based on some freshly interned cardiologist, do you? The same goes with us (not saying that we are "the best" mind you). We've earned to be paid $100k+ for builds of the caliber of the Supra that was just on Super Street, Saad's 8.2x street driven 1500whp+ Supra, 1000whp/1300ft tq TT Vipers, Chris S Twin GT37R PowerLab 1000whp Wald Wide body 350z, etc. If you were a project customer of that caliber and you had your car and $100k+ in our shop, and you came by to check on it, would you want to see us changing the brakes on a Civic? But like go-fast alluded to with his
, builds of these calibers, even with the bill of $100k+ you're not making money hand over fist because when you divide all of the profit by the # of months it took to complete the build then add in all of the tech's pay, etc, you break even, if you're lucky. go-fast knows what's up, I can tell, so I wasn't explaining that for his sake

So yea, nothing's easy -- whether it's the volume of online sales/month or the 2-6 insane projects that are going on at any given time. Would it be easier to have 20 bays, do maintenance and bolt-ons instead? Probably. We've just naturally gravitated to this point and like anything else, it has its pros and its cons. It is what it is, so they say. At the end of the day, when we ship a project that goes beyond the customer's expectations and sets the bar either for us and/or the industry, we have a reason to come back in a couple of hours and open the doors for business again.. and that's the ONLY reason, because if we wanted to be rich, we sure as hell wouldn't be doing this...
Darren
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Darren...... I told Sharif I don't want any Honda"s parked in his parking lot as long as my car is there...Now Chris/FP has to park his Honda across the street until my car is finished...
.... That's what I call respecting the customers wishes

BTW.....Charles/Phunk .... Wow... All I can say for now is.... I am glad he is apart of our community....he will update you all soon!!!!
.... That's what I call respecting the customers wishes

BTW.....Charles/Phunk .... Wow... All I can say for now is.... I am glad he is apart of our community....he will update you all soon!!!!
Last edited by XKR; Jul 23, 2009 at 08:52 AM.
Darren...... I told Sharif I don't want any Honda"s parked in his parking lot as long as my car is there...Now Chris/FP has to park his Honda across the street until my car is finished...
.... That's what I call respecting the customers wishes

BTW.....Charles/Phunk .... Wow... All I can say for now is.... I am glad he is apart of our community....he will update you all soon!!!!
.... That's what I call respecting the customers wishes

BTW.....Charles/Phunk .... Wow... All I can say for now is.... I am glad he is apart of our community....he will update you all soon!!!!
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