Episode 073: JJ Jabaji used to flip cars to make a buck. Hear how he transitioned into building billet Subaru blocks at IAG Performance

JJ entered the car scene by helping friends out with audio and alarms. When he went to college, JJ opened up a small car audio shop. During his senior year of college, he started working with a friend who owned a performance shop in 1996. Before he finished college, he realized that he needed to devote all of his efforts into the performance shop and decided to work there full-time.

Fast forward to 2004 and JJ has started his own shop. He began buying and flipping cars to make some money. This morphed into buying and selling just Subarus and turning modified cars back into stock cars. Then he would sell off the performance parts to make even more money. 2007 was a turning point for JJ and his shop. He had been selling just parts but saw a need in the market to install these parts as well. But then the market took a turn for the worst. To keep the doors open, he resorted to selling Christmas trees during the winter and scrapping U-Haul trucks. He weathered the downturn and has been rocking ever since!

Nowadays, he is shipping out 5-6 engines each day and installing a few more each week. He is manufacturing parts and machining engines all day long. To get to this point, he had to take on a little risk and lease equipment versus saving up and buying them outright. But this risk allowed his business to grow quickly and get ahead of the market to make some money. IAG Performance now has a total of 5 CNC machines in a 24,000 square foot facility and 30 employees. His latest project is a billet block for the Subarus which should allow them to produce much more power. He plans on expanding the footprint of his business to continue to make more products.