On Topic Offroad racing

[dylandran9]

Hello I am have been an apprentice electrician for 3 years money is good, but I’ve built offroad cars and I’m really into offroad racing I was considering going and getting a mechanical engineering degree to work for a race team and design learn cad and do what I enjoy but am I wasting my time with this electrician thing, would it help me, or should I go get a job at autozone around cars and go to school full time or something part time and focus on school what would help me out a lot more of what would you guys recomend or wish you did when you were younger that would help a younger person out?

 

[Old Truck Guy]

Unless you have ZERO automotive experience, Auto zone does you no good. You say you've built off road cars in the past. If so, then expanding on that background should be a cinch. I'm sure many teams could use volunteer help, especially in the weeks leading up to the big races.
You are living in a very convenient time for learning stuff. When I first started fabricating, I had to go to libraries and bury my nose in mechanical textbooks to further my knowledge. Lucky you there is a YouTube page for most anything you want to explore nowadays.
LEARN NUT AND BOLT TECH! That goes a long way when asking someone if they need help wrenching on a race car that they have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in, not to mention the investment they put forth for a given event. You'd be surprised how many people turn wrenches that have no business doing so. Aside from crashing, hardware failure has to be one of the biggest causes of DNF's. You'd be surprised how much clamping force is lost by using the same hardware just a second time.
Whatever it is you think you know, KNOW IT INTIMATELY. Don't learn a little bit about a lot of things. A "jack of all trades" knowledge base does you no good unless you're happy being a shop pick up guy or all around helper. Again, knowledge is power.

 

[Matthew Camp]

Laser welding it’s the future .

 

[dylandran9]

Alright good to know thank you guys!

 

[jon coleman]

whatever you do, stay in school, but stay away from debt!!!,

 

[JDDurfey]

I would also suggest that you take your electrician knowledge and apply it to automotive electrical and learn how to wire off road vehicles. It appears to me that someone that really knows how to wire a race car is a great asset to a team.

 

[Old Truck Guy]

I would also suggest that you take your electrician knowledge and apply it to automotive electrical and learn how to wire off road vehicles. It appears to me that someone that really knows how to wire a race car is a great asset to a team.

Ditto that. I'm talking bumper to bumper wiring harnesses', not just wiring some lights with a relay and toggle. There are only a handful of guys that wire race cars well. They are all backlogged, and make a butt load of money. Best part about it is the start up cost and overhead of owning said business is so low because you work in the customers shop most of the time and do not need expensive equipment to do the work. Have car, will travel.

 

[JDDurfey]

Ditto that. I'm talking bumper to bumper wiring harnesses', not just wiring some lights with a relay and toggle. There are only a handful of guys that wire race cars well. They are all backlogged, and make a butt load of money. Best part about it is the start up cost and overhead of owning said business is so low because you work in the customers shop most of the time and do not need expensive equipment to do the work. Have car, will travel.

Exactly. There is a YouTube page called Chad's Fab. I don't follow him directly, but he occasionally does work for another YouTube page I do follow called FabRats. Chad shows up in his motor home for a couple of days and does wiring on a vehicle and then leaves. Might not be a bad thing to look into.

 

[Bebop]

Exactly. There is a YouTube page called Chad's Fab. I don't follow him directly, but he occasionally does work for another YouTube page I do follow called FabRats. Chad shows up in his motor home for a couple of days and does wiring on a vehicle and then leaves. Might not be a bad thing to look into.

I do that from time to time. Being able to compliment your wiring skills with tuning / ECU programming is another huge business opportunity that doesn't require almost any investment.

 

[johnnyweb]

I’m not sure this wire guy/dyno gig is as easy as y’all think. There is many hours spent on the computer programing components and designing/blueprinting the wire harness prior to beginning to concentrically twisting a mill spec wire harness together. Spending 1-4 weeks start to finish is totally normal for a vehicle to get done. You still need tools and equipment to get it done right just not big manufacturering type machines smaller electronic, scanners diagnostic equipment and computers with software instead. Pretty expensive wire crimpers etc for hand tools. Also dyno’s are not cheap and liability on the Dyno is tough to navigate. Showing up at a shop and banging out a TT wire harness/electronics in 2 days is not realistic. I’m just saying.