Sunday, March 11, 2007
When do you call in professional help?
A wise man once said, "There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness." Ok, it was David Barry who said that, and he's arguably more wiseguy than wise man. But it's been clear that with how much ambition I have for the Dart and how little time I've had to work on it, I need some professional help.
S0 this week, I towed the Dart to Autofab Motorsports. It's often kind of hard to find a good mechanic as it is, and when you have something that over the top like a slant six turbo, things get even more tricky. In this case, I know these people fairly well. They have a history of Megasquirt projects, have been working on unusual turbo cars, and best of all, they're two doors over from where I work, so they can talk to me if any questions come up.
But what for people with hot rod projects who don't know someone like that? My best advice would be to hang out at hot rod shows and talk to the owners of the show cars - they'll gladly tell you all about the cars in most cases, including who did the work. You'll get a feel for who is building the good performance cars and who specializes in what. In my case, bringing a Dodge Dart to a shop that mostly works on BMWs was a bit of a stretch, but they're more familiar with my electronics than a shop that normally works on carbureted V8s.
The Dart may leave their shop with a few twists that weren't part of the original plan, but I think they're good touches...
Stay tuned.
S0 this week, I towed the Dart to Autofab Motorsports. It's often kind of hard to find a good mechanic as it is, and when you have something that over the top like a slant six turbo, things get even more tricky. In this case, I know these people fairly well. They have a history of Megasquirt projects, have been working on unusual turbo cars, and best of all, they're two doors over from where I work, so they can talk to me if any questions come up.
But what for people with hot rod projects who don't know someone like that? My best advice would be to hang out at hot rod shows and talk to the owners of the show cars - they'll gladly tell you all about the cars in most cases, including who did the work. You'll get a feel for who is building the good performance cars and who specializes in what. In my case, bringing a Dodge Dart to a shop that mostly works on BMWs was a bit of a stretch, but they're more familiar with my electronics than a shop that normally works on carbureted V8s.
The Dart may leave their shop with a few twists that weren't part of the original plan, but I think they're good touches...
Stay tuned.
Labels: Dodge Dart