Well the reality also is that a very large portion of part numbers are being discontinued by Mitsubishi, aka obsolete. Even if they have stock left of it, it is scrapped. We are past 20 years on a large portion of these parts.

I will be sticking around a few more years but we will be dealing with lower parts availability and longer durations to get some of the parts.

The parts availability is the big killer here. Once they're gone, they're gone. Nobody is going to step in and fabricate them. It doesn't make business sense, not when you have DSMers who would never pay the cost of those fabricated parts (unless maybe they're made cheaply in China and sold on eBay).

Let's be real here, these cars aren't going to be widely regarded classics in the collector car community. They're cheap performance and very cool for what they are, but once they are no longer cheap to make fast they will be passed over for Evos and other newer model cars that have more OEM replacement parts availability and are still relatively cheap to make fast.

Sad to see Jack and Shep no longer catering to this market but they have to keep the doors open and pay their employees. And this platform can't keep a shop open these days. Not when a GTR owner will happily pay 5-10 times the amount for a similar rebuild. Once there is no more profit left in the market the market dies. The only people offering services to us will eventually be hobbyists - who will become increasingly frustrated with the fact that the younger crowd won't want to spend any money on those services.

Support the vendors who continue to support the community people!

These cars go for peanuts which is part of the problem. If you look in the "What's my car worth?" thread it's unusual to find a car the community agrees is worth more than the cost of a built transmission. It's not just DSM owners are cheap, it's hard to make money sense when you buy individual parts that are more expensive than the entire car.

Only thing is what happens when the parts are discontinued...

Well, why do you think Jack and Shep are out? Other than the fact that the profit margin is peanuts in comparison to GTR's. Both also usually used 1990 gears, which the 4th gear is discontinued. There is a bunch of stuff that is simply no longer available. Heck, the Evo 4-9 stuff is in the same boat as well because of the manufacturing volume being considerably smaller than the DSM market and spare stock is significantly less. They are already having discontinued part numbers as well.

twicks69 said:

Well, why do you think Jack and Shep are out? Other than the fact that the profit margin is peanuts in comparison to GTR's. Both also usually used 1990 gears, which the 4th gear is discontinued. There is a bunch of stuff that is simply no longer available. Heck, the Evo 4-9 stuff is in the same boat as well because of the manufacturing volume being considerably smaller than the DSM market and spare stock is significantly less. They are already having discontinued part numbers as well.

Click to expand...

On point. Any idea what size stock pile Mitsubishi has in terms of the L91-E92 gear set? Wondering if crucial manual trans parts (91+DSM) are close to becoming obsolete...does Mitsubishi have a central parts warehouse where quantities can be easily determined?

Looks like the EVOIII 2nd gear, 5th gear and intermediate shaft are obsolete. Wondering how many new OEM Evo III 1st gear/input shafts are left?

The Evo 3 2nd gear is simply a 2G DSM 2nd gear. 5th main gear has been obsolete for 2+ years, the intermediate shaft 5th gear is still available, and the Evo 3 intermediate shaft is the same as the 2G DSM.

I would suspect the number of Evo 3 input / 1st gears are low, I still am buying them, but don't expect them to be around in a year or two.

Yeah it's true I have hit a snag in building my transmission couldn't nd the gear I need to finish md730232.I spoke with jack for about 30 minutes a week before he posted on his site that he was no longer doing complete builds seeing if they had the gear and other options not only did he not have the gear I needed but also He said that they had two Dsm transmissions that came in with broken gears that they couldn't get because of being no longer available. Bad situation after getting a customer transmission in that you can't complete. Also if your cluster has any broken gears chances are they will not accept it. I had to purchase a whole 1990 transmission just for the 4th gear I needed.

Although Tim is the one who built my trans a couple years ago (holy crap its been a couple years already!!) I think when this one breaks Ill probably either just part the car out, honestly.. Especially since parts are getting pretty scarce. Im already just about to put my spyder on the back burner to start a new project and I cant see forking out the money for a dogbox, even though I really really want one! Im still probably going to keep with the 4g platform, itll just not be in a DSM, so a lot of my parts issue will be taken car of. ha! Still sad to see yet another awesome vendor leaving though.

I know the dsm guys are poor, but didn't the 3s guys get mitsubishi to run off some more trans's and t cases?

The most they did was get kormex to do some side jobs, otherwise my 3s parts come from Mitsubishi still.

Wow, I never realized tranny parts were getting so hard to find. Now I don't feel so bad about the 5 awd transmissons I've been hoarding

I thought they did a run of trans like 5 years ago. You could buy a new 6 speed for like $1500.

Well that would have been super cool....6 speed!

Everyday we lose good 2g's because of negligent owners. Once only a handful of people own clean 2gs then values will go up. Clean AWD manual 2g's are still very sought out and there are people that will pay top dollar for one.

One thing the 4G63 DSM will never lose is potential.

There was some available at that cheap, but if I recall, they were dealer obsolete liquidation, as they were originally over $7000 new. One of my friends had 100 sets of 1/2 synchros made for the 6-speed at the low low price of $10,000 .

The shortage will separate a true dsmer from the fake ones

This is going to be even better opportunity for a shop that specialize in these rear classics. DSM will become like the late 60's muscle cars with huge followings. You don't see GM or Ford supporting these older cars anymore from factory but aftermarket comes in and fill the gaps. Unlike the muscle cars, aftermarket suppliers will be the "specialize shops" that makes home grown quality parts.

In business you can look at things a barrier or you can see it as an opportunity. If you arn't doing it someone eventually will. The DSM market has shrunk but the demand will be still very high. If I was a shop and specialize in DSM, I would be jumping off my feet. For some one like me I see money in these circumstance.

From a marketing standpoint, If you look at any product that has ever been produced there is a bell curve. Every product has a life cycle. Some never dies, they just levels off. DSM will level off. There will still be hardcore DSMers that still has money and drive their wheels off. They will need parts and someone will make them.

If I am specializeing in DSM right now, I would focus on these things to gear up for the changes in market trends and life cycle.

-Start by developing special relationship with your customer. Seek loyal customers. Pay close attention to your customers. Add value etc.. Adding value becomes ever more critical to your success because the shrinking market. Every customer counts from small to large.

-offer quality services with reasonable prices

- gear up your business to handle the demand from other close businesses. Hire and train more staff.

There is no better time than now to make more money with dsm. If there are barriers to your business start developing strategies to out smart your few competitors that still left in the mark. (In this case part shortage). If you do this I guarantee you will make more money now specializing in dsm then you have ever before.

Well, you would be broke then. Even though I do fine with my transmission rebuilds, the DSM's do not make up the majority of my gross income. There are few customers that want to spend real money on their cars, more are hack jobs or cheap customers with no money to do something properly.

Tim, you can make some more money now with DSM's right Jack is out!

I'm not getting rich off of DSM's. They are a supplement. The other guys are smart to get in the GTR game and make 10-30 times the profit margin of a DSM transmission. People have no problems spending $15,000-30,000 on their transmission alone. DSM'ers have problems spending $1,500 on a transmission that is worth more than their car.

Can always go rwd and put a manual trans from a mussle car proven to handle power, or a power glide or whatever if you like auto, bummer is that although it does work and takes care of thr mitsu trans issue, you loose the awd


15-30k for a gtr trans huh? I see why that is tempting. But in 20 or 25 years there will be teens and young 20's kids driving these gtrs that won't be able to afford such parts. But I'd guess the shops would then move on again at that point. but first gen r35's can already be had for 50k. the people spending 120,000$ with their disposable income on the other hand definately have that extra cash to support the shops. And who can pass up the gravy train.

twicks69 said:

I'm not getting rich off of DSM's. They are a supplement. The other guys are smart to get in the GTR game and make 10-30 times the profit margin of a DSM transmission. People have no problems spending $15,000-30,000 on their transmission alone. DSM'ers have problems spending $1,500 on a transmission that is worth more than their car.

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I agree with you, spending a lot of money also comes with owning super car class machines.

Definitely. DSM people are like people who put $2k wheels on 500 dollar cars . At least we go fast in it.

DSMReviver said:

The shortage will separate a true dsmer from the fake ones

This is going to be even better opportunity for a shop that specialize in these rear classics. DSM will become like the late 60's muscle cars with huge followings. You don't see GM or Ford supporting these older cars anymore from factory but aftermarket comes in and fill the gaps. Unlike the muscle cars, aftermarket suppliers will be the "specialize shops" that makes home grown quality parts.

In business you can look at things a barrier or you can see it as an opportunity. If you arn't doing it someone eventually will. The DSM market has shrunk but the demand will be still very high. If I was a shop and specialize in DSM, I would be jumping off my feet. For some one like me I see money in these circumstance.

From a marketing standpoint, If you look at any product that has ever been produced there is a bell curve. Every product has a life cycle. Some never dies, they just levels off. DSM will level off. There will still be hardcore DSMers that still has money and drive their wheels off. They will need parts and someone will make them.

If I am specializeing in DSM right now, I would focus on these things to gear up for the changes in market trends and life cycle.

-Start by developing special relationship with your customer. Seek loyal customers. Pay close attention to your customers. Add value etc.. Adding value becomes ever more critical to your success because the shrinking market. Every customer counts from small to large.

-offer quality services with reasonable prices

- gear up your business to handle the demand from other close businesses. Hire and train more staff.

There is no better time than now to make more money with dsm. If there are barriers to your business start developing strategies to out smart your few competitors that still left in the mark. (In this case part shortage). If you do this I guarantee you will make more money now specializing in dsm then you have ever before.

Click to expand...

You have to take the market into consideration. The reality in the DSM world is that owners feel everything should be cheap because the cars are cheap, which drives the labor rates and profit way down compared to other markets like the GTR. No matter how much some of these vendors love this platform, it can be tough to make money catering to it if you're not selling on price. And the only way to make money on low prices is to sell in big volume, which doesn't work here.

Ludachris said:

You have to take the market into consideration. The reality in the DSM world is that owners feel everything should be cheap because the cars are cheap, which drives the labor rates and profit way down compared to other markets like the GTR. No matter how much some of these vendors love this platform, it can be tough to make money catering to it if you're not selling on price. And the only way to make money on low prices is to sell in big volume, which doesn't work here.

Click to expand...

Good point. For me I don't want to be cheap tho. I want a good service with reasonable price. If I can't afford something I will wait and save up until I do. I do the same with buying my groceries. You know you can spot a grocerie store that charge a little too much (psst...kroger) by comparing prices. If I can get a better price else where I go there. I think there are dsmers out there who are price shoppers like me but don't get me wrong there are people out there just in for the cheap and don't care about quality. Super car people just have money, I bet price is not an issue for them. I believe Dsm people are in the same categories as Honda/srt/Subaru people when it comes to spending. I have a few Honda friends and majority of them love to save money and they take that to the next level