Great article about the death of local "speed shops"

[optronix]

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/column-what-ever-happened-speed-shops/

Was just putzing around GRM and came across this article, actually originally written in 2016 but apparently reposted yesterday. Interesting timing because I've kind of been thinking about the "old days" a lot lately for some reason. It's a fun, short read, and for any of us like me that is at least a millennial (Gen X are probably the key demographic for these "golden age" nostalgia discussions), it makes you think.

I bought this car because it's great from the factory. I don't really need to do anything to it for it to deliver on everything I want out of a car, up to and including being fully capable on a race track- but I've completely fallen in love with this car and want to keep it for a long time. As such, I am finding out that I do occasionally get the "itch" to start going down the mod route, but I am incredibly selective about parts I'll consider "upgrading" on this car.

This "selectiveness" is compounded by the fact that I can't think of a place I can just go to and browse inventory, or talk to someone who really knows their shit. Sadly, I actually had this with the last couple of cars I did start to modify; an STI and a 911. I have two amazing local specialty shops in IAG and TPC Racing, respectively for those cars. I've been looking for one for Honda/Acura and coming up short. The best I've found is Derek Robinson from Innovative Motorworks in PA, but looking more deeply into it they are deeply specialized and only do engine tuning. I'm still on my own for installs and parts browsing, or god forbid I want to go down the rabbit hole of suspension tuning.

It would just be great if I could cruise down to a local shop and take a look or even maybe sit in a few seating options, or personally see the colors of a few sets of wheels I'm interested in, or even shit as simple as a shift knob or steering wheel. Maybe talk to someone who's done some work on the platform for multiple people and is familiar with things off the top of their head that would otherwise take me hours of collective research and forum browsing to probably come away with partial or biased data anyway.

Who doesn't miss those days?

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[Padre Dave]

This Boomer remembers the days of the speed shop. There was one I walked by every week and always stopped to look at the cars. Their clientele were hot rod guys, and I was a sports car guy (kid) so I never found much to drool over.

 

[evanescent03]

I have two amazing local specialty shops in IAG and TPC Racing, respectively for those cars. I've been looking for one for Honda/Acura and coming up short. The best I've found is Derek Robinson from Innovative Motorworks in PA, but looking more deeply into it they are deeply specialized and only do engine tuning.

Did you end up doing any tuning? I work 5 min from Innovative and thinking about messing with my car at some point.

Also my buddy had a TON of stuff done to his ‘06 WRX wagon by IAG. lol I think he’s sunk like $200k into that car over the last couple years there is no end to modding if you let it consume you. Was thinking it would be fun to get either a G80 M3 or Nissan GTR and mod the snot out of it. Like Texas mile kind of build. I really don’t need to be going that fast tho tbh.

Anyways I’ve heard very good things about Innovative but not seeing much on the forums about them with searches…

 

[optronix]

Did you end up doing any tuning? I work 5 min from Innovative and thinking about messing with my car at some point.

Also my buddy had a TON of stuff done to his ‘06 WRX wagon by IAG. lol I think he’s sunk like $200k into that car over the last couple years there is no end to modding if you let it consume you. Was thinking it would be fun to get either a G80 M3 or Nissan GTR and mod the snot out of it. Like Texas mile kind of build. I really don’t need to be going that fast tho tbh.

Anyways I’ve heard very good things about Innovative but not seeing much on the forums about them with searches…

No, my personal philosophy is buy a car that's closest to where you want it dynamically, and make slight adjustments from there. Engine tuning for me is a thing of the past, a relic from my drag racing obsessions. I have almost zero interest in engine tuning these days, if I ever do any tuning it will be very mild.

That said if I had money burning a hole in my pocket, buying a car for the express purpose of modding and tuning it beyond recognition sounds pretty fun- and if that were the case I've seen enough good will directed towards Innovation to trust them for that. But that's not my purpose for this car.

Now, suspension tuning and just having a place to slap on a few select mods is a whole different story. Still on the hunt for a shop I can fully trust with that, but I seem to have found one relatively close based on a few glowing forum recommendations- but still, they're an hour or so away and lining up logistics is a pain.

 

[evanescent03]

No, my personal philosophy is buy a car that's closest to where you want it dynamically, and make slight adjustments from there. Engine tuning for me is a thing of the past, a relic from my drag racing obsessions. I have almost zero interest in engine tuning these days, if I ever do any tuning it will be very mild.

That said if I had money burning a hole in my pocket, buying a car for the express purpose of modding and tuning it beyond recognition sounds pretty fun- and if that were the case I've seen enough good will directed towards Innovation to trust them for that. But that's not my purpose for this car.

Now, suspension tuning and just having a place to slap on a few select mods is a whole different story. Still on the hunt for a shop I can fully trust with that, but I seem to have found one relatively close based on a few glowing forum recommendations- but still, they're an hour or so away and lining up logistics is a pain.

oh i get it! i've definitely gone more towards simplicity especially with how often i've been goin through cars the past 10 years. going back to stock is work and additional money lost that doesn't make sense to me anymore. with Innovative being so darn close and highly regarded it has been tempting me. the ITS runs great now and has plenty power ... but a tune is also a pretty quick/easy thing to do and usually pretty harmless, in my experience. of course there's always some risk ...

these cars do look really nice with a drop and suspension tuning is something that can probably always be further refined .... to me that's a lot more work/tweaking and i'm pretty happy with how the car feels as is so i'll probably leave that alone for now at least. i also enjoy scraping less often which becomes an increasing concern when lowering even a small amount.

nice to have options ... was/am tempted to trade the ITS for a Supra as mentioned in another thread. that car to me begs to be tuned and would be a ripper but i'm tryin to resist!!!

 

[optronix]

oh i get it! i've definitely gone more towards simplicity especially with how often i've been goin through cars the past 10 years. going back to stock is work and additional money lost that doesn't make sense to me anymore. with Innovative being so darn close and highly regarded it has been tempting me. the ITS runs great now and has plenty power ... but a tune is also a pretty quick/easy thing to do and usually pretty harmless, in my experience. of course there's always some risk ...

these cars do look really nice with a drop and suspension tuning is something that can probably always be further refined .... to me that's a lot more work/tweaking and i'm pretty happy with how the car feels as is so i'll probably leave that alone for now at least. i also enjoy scraping less often which becomes an increasing concern when lowering even a small amount.

nice to have options ... was/am tempted to trade the ITS for a Supra as mentioned in another thread. that car to me begs to be tuned and would be a ripper but i'm tryin to resist!!!

My use case is primarily autocross, so I do have goals at doing some mild to moderate suspension tuning. For now I just have it on Eibach Pro-kit springs, which looks fantastic but I actually kind of wish I just held out for coilovers. But very soon I will be itching to get the front camber dialed in much better than what it is now- I know it may sound ridiculous to many people on here but it's in a near-undrivable state for me at the moment, as far as performance driving is concerned. It's not so much a big deal on the street, but just arbitrarily lowering the car without taking into account the "side effects", primarily front camber, makes such a negative impact that it just isn't the same experience for me. Maybe you can get away with this kind of "half-assed" approach in other cars, but this one to your point is so well dialed-in from the factory that unless you just want to park hard, people really need to just refactor their budget to include installing adjustable ball joints alongside the springs- or else they're making the car dynamically worse.

/rant

And yes the Supra is an amazing platform for tuning. One of the best ever, if you think about it. But as I mentioned in your other thread, I need 4 doors. And ultimately, I just don't think the Supra can overpower my perpetual gravitational pull towards Porsche as a 3rd car. I've actually been looking REAL hard at a Miata lately too...

 

[evanescent03]

My use case is primarily autocross, …. just arbitrarily lowering the car without taking into account the "side effects", primarily front camber, makes such a negative impact that it just isn't the same experience for me.
/rant

I just don't think the Supra can overpower my perpetual gravitational pull towards Porsche as a 3rd car. I've actually been looking REAL hard at a Miata lately too...

Miata is hard to ignore. GR86 is another .. I refer to it as the “cool Miata”. Haha. Porsche is great but their prices are insane. GTS is what GT4 used to cost a few years and did you see the GT3 starting price… sheeeesh. Great cars though. If I’m spending $300+ on a car I’m probably going more exotic (750S). Different animal but the fact that I can remember $140k GT3s and Turbos makes it painful thinking of spending so much on them now. The higher cost may hamper ADM but we’ll see I guess …

I did springs, sweat bars and end links on my ‘09 STI. Granted it may have been installer error (me and a buddy) but it had so many more creaks and thunks that I vowed not to do it again. Suspension is functional and harmonious enough on the ITS that I think I’ll leave it. I’ll repot back after my first track event. I definitely understand wanting to sort it out for autocross ..

 

[optronix]

Miata is hard to ignore. GR86 is another .. I refer to it as the “cool Miata”. Haha. Porsche is great but their prices are insane. GTS is what GT4 used to cost a few years and did you see the GT3 starting price… sheeeesh. Great cars though. If I’m spending $300+ on a car I’m probably going more exotic (750S). Different animal but the fact that I can remember $140k GT3s and Turbos makes it painful thinking of spending so much on them now. The higher cost may hamper ADM but we’ll see I guess …

I did springs, sweat bars and end links on my ‘09 STI. Granted it may have been installer error (me and a buddy) but it had so many more creaks and thunks that I vowed not to do it again. Suspension is functional and harmonious enough on the ITS that I think I’ll leave it. I’ll repot back after my first track event. I definitely understand wanting to sort it out for autocross ..

I can't imagine ever buying another new Porsche. $150k+ for the 992 Carrera T... and whatever they're doing with the mid-engine cars doesn't interest me. If I buy another Porsche it will be used. I'm thinking another 981 or possibly a 997.

And funny you mention the STI that turned you off from modding- exact same for me. I sunk about $8k into a nearly-new 2015 STI but just in engine mods/tuning. It was fun, and sounded fantastic with the distinct Subaru growl through the turbo-back Cobb exhaust... but it introduced so many random ticks and noises I can only guess were due to the fuel mods, and had me constantly staring nervously at the AccessPort for A/F ratio. It was I think what you'd call a "Stage 2+" so it wasn't a wild build or anything, just ~330whp. But from that point on the ends didn't justify the means... in fairness my anxiety was probably introduced by the tuner at IAG telling me that with the new generation introduced in 2015 they changed something I can't quite recall the specifics... but something along the lines of just adding a cold air intake required a litany of fuel mods to support it or it would be too lean. I believe mine was the very first of that generation they had tuned, and it just never felt like the car was as stable as I wanted it to be, even if that was just my perception vs reality.

I haven't done a single engine tuning mod since, until I just bought an Infinity Design intake last fall. It's still sitting in the box unopened in my office...

 

[whtciv2k]

I can't imagine ever buying another new Porsche. $150k+ for the 992 Carrera T... and whatever they're doing with the mid-engine cars doesn't interest me. If I buy another Porsche it will be used. I'm thinking another 981 or possibly a 997.

And funny you mention the STI that turned you off from modding- exact same for me. I sunk about $8k into a nearly-new 2015 STI but just in engine mods/tuning. It was fun, and sounded fantastic with the distinct Subaru growl through the turbo-back Cobb exhaust... but it introduced so many random ticks and noises I can only guess were due to the fuel mods, and had me constantly staring nervously at the AccessPort for A/F ratio. It was I think what you'd call a "Stage 2+" so it wasn't a wild build or anything, just ~330whp. But from that point on the ends didn't justify the means... in fairness my anxiety was probably introduced by the tuner at IAG telling me that with the new generation introduced in 2015 they changed something I can't quite recall the specifics... but something along the lines of just adding a cold air intake required a litany of fuel mods to support it or it would be too lean. I believe mine was the very first of that generation they had tuned, and it just never felt like the car was as stable as I wanted it to be, even if that was just my perception vs reality.

I haven't done a single engine tuning mod since, until I just bought an Infinity Design intake last fall. It's still sitting in the box unopened in my office...

This is where I’m at with Porsche. I’ve driven base models through a gts. They drive EXCELLENT. That said, after driving them I couldn’t justify the price and, my personal opinion, Honda manuals feel better than Porsche manuals. The 992.1 7speed manual i drove lacked the feeling I like on shifts. It is a great German manual, but not the best manual.

 

[ASPEC]

This was an excellent. Years ago, about 15 minutes from my house, we had what many of us called "Speed Shop Row." It was a stretch of highway that had several speed shops on it. You could stop in and physically touch the parts, you could talk to a human being who knew their stuff and would help you compare and contrast parts, etc. All of those subtle nuances you can't get when purchasing online.

Nowadays, there are two of those shops left in that area. One only sells wheels now, but at one time was the go-to for performance. The other specializes in wheels and mild bolt-ons. Seeing these types of shops disappear has always been disheartening.

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