Import tuning and maximizing performance... the good life

So you've got it made. Or so you think... 25 years old, married, bought a house, doing your dream job, tuning imports day in and day out. Making $750/week and everybody that's older then you says damn you're doing good. That is until you figure in your $1650/mo mortgage, $375/mo truck payment, $220 credit line payment, about $600 in credit card bills, you inherited another $30,000 in debt from you wife's school bills and previous credit cards, and on top of it all, $100 for cable and $125 for utilities. You're behind on basically every bill you have and you just seem to wonder where the money can come from.

Yes, that's my life. It's depressing, but in the same uplifting. At one moment it piles you into the ground near the point of desperation, and the very next, makes you extremely grateful for everything that you do have.

I mean, at least I was able to get this far. I've gotten a taste of the American dream, what everybody wants to have. I'm certainly not wealthy beyond imagination, but everything I have is special, and everything I've done in the past 2 years of my life has at least had purpose. Where once I was happy throwing a few thousand dollars into my car, I'm now perfectly content to eat $.25 noodles 3 times a day to keep my food costs down. I've sold my race car, looking to get rid of my truck as it's horrible on gas, yet looking forward to putting a completely paid for, liability only on insurance low budget Nissan or something on the road. It won't be flashy, it won't be a record setter, but it will be one of the few things I can call my own and not the banks.

My life has had twists, success brought me friendships, and when it failed, I lost them. Not because it was a mixing business with friendship type deal, but I myself failed and walked away from them humiliated. I could not face them with what had happened, no way out, no way to fix it. They knew the situation, but ultimately, I had deserted them.

I still live my passion through my work. I get to wake up every day and go into work happy. I work at a very small shop, only 4 employees, where I am the shop manager and lead technician all at the same time. The economy has hurt us, Import tuning and modification has slowed, but unlike much of our competition, we're not folding and still making a profit. There's plenty of frustrations, which you will read quite a bit about in posts to come.

This will probably be quite an unusual blog in the months and years to come. There will be plenty of days that you may read about me ranting on life's more important matters, and others where I am just sharing knowledge on tuning imports from basic EFI fundamentals to forced induction and other car performance setups. I really don't know where this will all end up on the internet, but hell, if it helps one person in life then it was worthwhile. I know I'm not alone in these deals, but I will make it through them, and hopefully my writings and rants will help others with it as well.