Quote:
Originally Posted by imapdog
titles due any day now from state.
prob lost my profits in the carb upgrade learning curve on the x20.
carbs have always scared me and i now know why my instincts were to stay
away from them. i do come out knowing lots more about them, but
the voodoo is real for me.
almost ready for business.
hopefully this test run at least breaks even.
|
The carburetor "voodoo magic" feeling will disappear once you start to grasp it more. Remind yourself that a carburetor is a simple fuel metering device. All you are doing is calibrating the meter to deliver more or less fuel. Every throttle range has it's own main meter and all of those meters work together and add to the next one.
You may have taken a small loss or broke even on the first one, but now that you grasp it, the rest should be simple. Plus, now that you have figured out the jetting, pretty much every bike after that will more or less need the same formula for your area. That will make initial setup very quick and easy.
One advantage of them being technically used bikes is that you can state the sales as-is.
This idea is actually something I had considered doing with the Hawk 250. The issue is, the labor hours going over the whole bike like I do combined with the materials, would easily tack on $500 to the price of the bike. If I could get a deal on a few of them cheap enough (say $1000/ea.), and then do all of the improvements necessary to make them a GOOD bike, it might make them worth it to some guys, but it would still be potentially placing them in the $1600-1700 price range.
Heck, at that point it would likely be a lot cheaper for me to spec out my own bike with a manufacturer and order a container of bikes, but then that comes with it's own mess of headaches. I honestly wish I had the means to open my own shop to sell these bikes legitimately. My idea of the perfect Hawk includes a 450cc engine though, which would price it well out of the "cheap and cheerful" market.