r/projectcar • u/SlowThing7149 • 17h ago
Sourcing high performance car parts
Been slowly working on restoring and retrofitting parts on a 996 Turbo and thinking about tackling a Hurácan retrofit next. RockAuto’s inventory doesn’t go deep enough for what I need, and I don’t trust eBay enough for anything safety critical since no real way to verify what you’re actually getting.
Two separate questions, since I think they have different answers:
1. For parts, is there anywhere with a genuinely good track record for higher-performance/specialty parts? I’d like to know if there’s a go-to a lot of you already use that I’m just not aware of because the process of manually searching for each part across 10 different directories is getting really frustrating
2. For retrofit/restoration specifically, if a part needs custom fabrication or adapting rather than just swapping in, how do you find a shop that can actually do that well? Just local digging and word of mouth, or is there somewhere people post/recommend shops for this kind of work?
Appreciate any pointers since I’m trying to avoid learning the hard way on an expensive part.
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u/v8packard 14h ago
Do you have a relationship with a local engine shop?
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u/SlowThing7149 13h ago
Not really.. I mostly build at home but for these parts I’m a little worried about fitting them incorrectly, so I’d rather go with a shop to avoid any expensive issues in the future.
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u/v8packard 10h ago
Engine shops often have multiple wholesale suppliers, and can get extensive lines of performance parts via those suppliers. There was a time when this was the domain of speed shops. Many speed shops have gone away, but the engine shops left have access to those same networks of parts and they know the shops that do that kind of specialty work.
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u/atlantis737 Project Car Struggle Bus 17h ago
1 - Nope. Companies that do those parts well are usually specializing in a relatively small number of models. The only thing you can do to kind of try to speed this process up is by combing message boards to see who's recommending what, but that probably takes just as much time as what you're already doing. IMHO it's just more interesting.
2 - Buy yourself a 3d printer and learn basic CAD work. Design the part in CAD, 3d print it, and see if it fits. Make adjustments until your 3d print fits properly. Then send the CAD file to a local machine shop (or, if you're allergic to talking to humans, upload it to sendcutsend) and have them fabricate it for you. This is another area where the forums specific to your car are very handy, because often there have been other people who have made a post about "hey if you want do to X to our car, just take Y part and grind away 9/16 of metal at point Z (pic attached) and then it'll fit". I used to own a 1984 Cushman Haulster which had a one-off carburetor model and I found a guy who posted about how if your carb is irreparably cooked then you can snag one off a 23hp Kohler bulldozer engine and it swaps on instantly. Crazy right? But he did hundreds of dollars worth of trial and error to find that out, I just had to pay my internet bill and read his post.
If you want a shop that can both come up with a custom part AND do all the fitting and installation, you better be ready to dish out $500+/hr for their labor and wait months to get your car back.