What’s Going on at FTR?

Just wanted to give an update on the business, because there have been a ton of exciting changes in the past two years and I haven’t really shared them publicly.

From the start, we have been a racing parts company, manufacturing our products in-house and selling them online direct to customer. The other side of FTR, called “FTR CNC” (www.ftrcnc.com), provides design and manufacturing services to other companies.

Over the course of last two years, we’ve become increasingly focused on our manufacturing and engineering work. Today, our clients range from small startups just getting off the ground to multi-billion dollar international companies. Manufacturing and engineering was initially just a side thing, but today it accounts for 80-90% of our business. We purchased new equipment, hired more employees, and the manufacturing side of the business has become the majority of what we do here. There has been a ton of hard work and sacrifice to get to this point; I’m really proud of my guys and their ability to maintain our high manufacturing quality standards while growing like crazy.

With all this growth, there are some changes that need to happen on the racing parts side. With both sides of the business being about 5x the size they were two years ago, we can’t apply the old model we had been using of assembling parts to order and then shipping one by one. It simply doesn’t work at this scale.

So, what changes are we making to Fully Torqued Racing?

  1. Build Inventory – No more “just-in-time” manufacturing, or products being assembled to order. We’re building out our inventory to have one month’s worth of product on hand at any given time. This way, orders can be filled easily and consistently, shipping same or next-day. The website will also reflect realtime inventory status.
  2. Automate Order Fulfillment Workflow – We’re switching to a system that’s actually built to handle the volume of product that we move now, automating shipping settings and pick lists to simplify the pick-and-pack workflow and ensure accuracy when fulfilling orders.
  3. Hire a Customer Service Rep – Customer communication and relationship is huge, and really needs to get dialed in now that we have grown so much. Really looking for the right person with passion, knowledge, and professionalism; if that’s you – give me a shout!
  4. Strengthen Dealer Relationships – We’re a design & manufacturing company at the core, we want to be able to give great support to FTR customers. The best way to do this is by partnering with dealers that have intimate knowledge of their customer’s car, since . I think it’s really important to leverage that knowledge and community aspect into a great customer experience.
  5. Discontinue Some Products – Our new policy is that if we don’t have a bulletproof, scalable process for a product, its not available to customers. Splitter rods, tow hooks, and Mustang brake kits are what we have now. These are the big movers, made in-house, with relatively simple supply chains. There’s a lot of demand for some of our old products, but we just don’t have the time to implement the processes needed to fulfill that demand.
  6. Offer New Products – Since the company is maturing, we’re able to really identify what we’re good at, and I want to highlight those strengths. Our new products coming down the road will likely be more “universal” products that are made incredibly well and and available to a wide range of customers. We just released our new tow hook, I’m really excited about how it turned out.
  7. Bring Back Old Favorites – Every time I peek my head out into the “Mustang socialmedia-verse” there are people asking for the 94-04 chromoly front bumper. We’re not a fab shop so we don’t make it right now, but it’s coming back. Also, we have a prototype S550 bumper that is pretty baller.
  8. Developing Products Collaboratively – You’ll see a few products that are kind of “collaborations”, there’s a lot of products out on the market that we designed without our name on it (those pesky NDA’s), but we have stuff in the works that will be co-branded. A good example is Scotidi products (shout out to my boy! www.scotidiracedevelopment.com). Combining our manufacturing expertise with other people’s visions is really exciting and a lot of good things come out of it.

I hope this brings everyone up to speed on what we’ve been up to. I really appreciate everyone’s patience as all of these changes are happening and new systems are implemented to make sure we can provide the best products possible. Also – if you need some killer machine work done, give me a shout. Thanks for reading!

 

Grand Opening Event – February 6th, 2016

If you’re in Northern California – this is the place to be! Saturday, February 6th at 9am at our new shop in Roseville.

We’ll be having:

  • Open House
  • Car Meet
  • Car Show
  • Prizes
  • Giveaways
  • Live demos
  • Free food
  • Live DJ

It’s gonna be off the hook!

7251 Galilee Road Suite 165, Roseville, CA 95678

Update: New Shop Tour

Hey everyone! We’ve been working nice long 16 hour days while both moving into the new shop and working on filling the tremendous volume of orders we’ve been experiencing (thank you all for that!). This new shop space will give us both the space and the added time/productivity to continue to fill orders quickly and develop some awesome new products that we’re excited to announce in the coming months.

 

SEMA 2015 Coverage

Hey everyone, just a quick FYI, we will be out at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this coming week. If you’re going to be out at SEMA, give us a shout on social media or via email. If you’re not going to make it out there this year, be sure to check our Facebook, Instagram, and right here on our blog to see daily photo coverage of the cars, booths, and people.

If you place an order during this time, please give us a couple extra days to ship it out, since we will be out of town and not able to process orders until Monday. Standard length sweater support rods are processed through our film in network, so they should ship out as normally scheduled.

94-04 GT500 Brembo Kit – Pre-Orders Now Open!

Hey everyone! Now that the final designs and prototypes are done, we are all ready to go with our GT500 Brembo Kit. I know that a lot of you have been waiting very patiently, and I have spoken to many of you personally over the phone, so I know that we have had a huge demand for this kit to finally be brought to market. I’m excited to say that we’re finally rolling into the production stage!

Pre-orders are subject to discounted pricing of $375 (list price: $450). We expect to ship the first production kits on October 1st. They will ship out on a first come, first serve basis, so we will ship the kits out in the order that we receive the requests.

Link for the pre-order page: http://www.fullytorquedracing.com/sn95-gt500-brembo-brake-kit.html

Here’s some info pulled from our website:

Announcing our GT500 Brake Kit!

This kit includes the necessary hardware to mount 4 piston GT500-spec brake calipers to 94-04 Mustang spindles.

Kit contents:
2x Adapter brackets
2x Sets of hardware
2x 0.75″ custom wheel spacers

NOTES:
A set of 3/4 inch custom spacers (included) are required to use this kit. This will add to your wheel’s offset, so plan accordingly.
This kit requires the use of 18″ wheels. Since wheels vary from brand to brand, we cannot guarantee fitment for any specific set of wheels. Based on Ford’s specifications listed here, the Ford Racing M-1007-S1895 and M-1007-S1895B 18″ wheels, or equivalent, have been verified to work.

Our kit includes the necessary adapter bracket, spacer, and hardware, but not the calipers, rotors, lines, or pads. You will need to source the following:
S197 GT500 4-piston Brembo calipers
S197 (2007-2012 GT500 or 2012-2013 Boss 302) 13.97″ brake rotors
SN95 Cobra or stainless steel brake lines

We expect to ship the first kits October 1st. They will be shipped on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning
that your pre-order will secure your spot in line.

2015 FTR Promo is Live!

We spent some time with a local filmmaker, Derek Maves, working on this little 30-second promo for FTR, showcasing some of what we do. Give it a watch!

If you want to check out more of Derek’s work, check him out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/zerek44