Last Chance Fabrication

Last Chance Fabrication is now closed to the public.

This may seem like an odd time to close, given that 2023 was by far our most successful year in business. That said, the rising costs of business, near impossibility to find a new shop in town that allows our type of work, and general stresses of operating has led me to the decision to not renew our lease in Springfield as well as not pursue a new location. Business is comprised of calculated risks, and by my calculations, the risk going forward heavily outweighs the reward.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me over the years, and allowed me to have a small part in your projects. Thanks to my customers I have had the pleasure of working on an insane portfolio of projects, some I could have never dreamed of contributing to. I genuinely thought starting out that I would go under within 6 months due to a lack of work, but you guys didn't let that happen. Here we are 5 years later, at a point where I can close down under my own accord.

I will still consider working along side trusted shops part time that I have been involved with in the past, time permitting. I will still have all of my equipment including the plasma table and will still be able to make brackets as necessary for other shops.

Sorry to say that all other personal inquiries are no longer an option, other than the very few projects that I have already spoken to the owners about.

Thank you again, everyone, for your support, business and trust throughout the years. It has truly meant the world to me.

We skipped Black Friday and Cyber Monday for a reason, to offer a whole month of discounts!

From now to the end of the year, 10% off tig welding services! Just to sweeten it a little more, I’ll take 10% off stainless material on full exhaust builds.

Promo ends 12/31/23 at 11:59PM CST

Sometimes, we get some cool cars in the shop. Other times, we get a bunch of cool cars in at the same time. This was one of those “other” times.

C6 Grand sport, two supercharged coyote mustangs, a Hellcat, and a brand new RS5 all in for standard exhaust maintenance recently.

We’re back in town, and busy trying to respond to all the messages and inquiries from the previous week. In the mean time, enjoy this customer’s supercharged F150.

Nothing too crazy here, just a full stainless 3” X pipe exhaust with FlowFX mufflers. We make these X pipes in house using Stainless Bros material. It’s not the quickest job in the world, but the results are definitely worth the time over using a pre made setup.

Something like this setup interest you? Keep an eye out for some deals this holiday season.

Let’s catch up with one of the projects we finished up a few weeks back. There’s no ducks on the dash of this Jeep, and no expenses spared either. This Wrangler body sits on a custom frame and is powered by a direct injected Gen V LT 5.3, backed by an 8 speed auto and sits on 43” tires.

This one came in after being turned away by another shop. It wasn’t that they wanted a custom exhaust, it was a necessity. I can say with absolute confidence that this was the most challenging project I’ve taken on. No pipe could extend below any link, driveshaft, or the frame. This isn’t as much of a challenge on most cars, but on something with 18” of travel, it’s not easy. There are multiple pinch points where there is less than 1/8” of clearance to fit the 2.5” pipe.

To finish it out the back to the provided custom tip in the bumper, we used the quietest mufflers that would fit (Borla S Type) and custom built a Y pipe and hangers to bolt to existing points on the chassis. If the skid plates are already off, this entire exhaust can be removed in 5 minutes for easy service on the trail.

Heads up! We are going to be out of the shop from October 30th until November 5th to attend the SEMA show. We are booked out for larger jobs until we return, but can still fit in small projects until then.

Want to be first in the shop when we return? Send us a message, our schedule is wide open after we return to start those winter builds.

We’ve had a number of interesting cars in the past month or two for standard exhaust work ranging from muffler replacements to new tips, here are just a few of them.

Please excuse our momentary interruption in service, we are currently in the middle of expanding to increase our efficiency. It’ll be worth the wait, I promise.

This change will bring separated work spaces for both quick fixes as well as custom work, meaning much lower wait times. Beforehand I would have to move the current custom job to get a quick repair in, which is improbable on the best days. We hope to add a 4 post lift in the very near future dedicated to exhaust work.

As always, thank you everyone for your patience while we expand.

Hi everyone, just a quick reminder regarding pricing/operations.

We’ve been getting a lot of the same question lately, “How much does # # cost?” This is not an invalid question to ask, but is not an easy question to answer off the bat.

Quick answer, it will cost what it costs in the end, I won’t be sticking to any particular number before the job is completed. We charge $125 per hour currently, and I do everything I can to net the best result possible for the dollar. Ultimately, I’m not in business to get rich, I’m here to provide a service to my local enthusiasts. In depth answer below.

Custom work, regardless if it’s exhaust, intercooler, intake, repairs etc, is just that. It’s custom! The downside of this line of work is, you never know how long it’ll take until it’s done. When you add the amount of options possible with some fields of our work (custom exhausts) that vary based on multiple factors, it’s impossible for us to give a remotely accurate quote up front. More often than not, we put 1-2 hours into each quote for material alone on custom exhaust/turbo kits. Mufflers are a great example where there are 100 brands that all have different prices and make very different sounds. A $30 parts store muffler will make a very different sound than a Spintech/Borla/Magnaflow/*insert favorite brand here*. Simply asking us “how much to build an exhaust for my car?” is a question we can’t answer unless you know exactly what you want. We are willing to help, but we need some structure to work with from the beginning.

We had a couple of Evos in the shop recently for some odd jobs. The black one was sent over after JD Autowerks finished up the transmission install as well as some new coilovers. We made a new air intake for it as well as resolved some issues with the existing downpipe by simply building a new one. The previous one was on a bind as it made contact with the transfer case, as well as had leaks from the V band, flex joint, and multiple poor quality welds.

The blue one received some reworked charge piping, as well as a custom rally style rear tube bumper which wraps around the quarters and tail lights for at least a little bit of crash protection.

How about a big turbo Honda for your Tuesday?

Matthew brought in his K swapped Civic for a fresh turbo kit this year. We made the turbo mount, and fabricated every bit of piping aside from the slick Justig forward facing header. No more words necessary, the car makes enough of a statement as is.

Wednesday is for weddings!

One of my long time friends approached me with the opportunity to be a small part of their big day. We had the pleasure in taking an idea and turning it into something they can hold on to for a lifetime.

Congratulations Jeff and Madison Densberger, and thank you again for allowing me to be involved. I hope you two are enjoying your honeymoon.

*please note- we do not offer painting services, this was a very special occasion. In the future for any signs or parts needing coated, we will be sending them out to Zach with Lincoln Performance Coatings.

It’s Twin Turbo Tuesday, so today’s vehicle feature is this RCSB Silverado sporting Precision Turbo & Engine twins. Our simple part in this job was making some basic hood exits, wastegate dumps, modifying the charge tubing to the throttle body, and welding in some various bungs.

One thing is for sure, you guys decided I was going to have a busy summer. That means we haven’t had much time to post lately, so over the weekend I put together 5 features for each day this week to show off some of the cool projects we’ve worked on in the previous couple months (in no particular order). Let’s start off with a familiar one.

After finishing the Rock Solid Motorsports tube front on this Camaro, we put together some slick 3.5” stainless fender exits complete with tear drops and some trim rings we made in house, contoured to the bumper.

Hi everyone, we are going to be absent from the shop from now (Thursday afternoon) until Monday the 12th to celebrate a friend’s wedding. If an emergency repair is needed in this time, we will be happy to recommend another trusted shop until we return.

In the mean time, which would you rather take home? The WS6 or Cobra? I’m picking the Ranger.

We’ve been wanting to get a little more involved with the plasma table lately, so we whipped up a trophy for the winner of the Quick Performance Real Street class this weekend at Heads Up No-Prep Racing Series I29 Dragway.
Whether you’re racing or not, be sure to support these events in any way you can to keep them around.

These Rock Solid Motorsports tube front kits take a ton of labor out of these projects. With the weight savings and all the room you create up front, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t install one on your 4th gen.

We haven’t been saying much here lately, that’s because we’ve been hard at work trying to give you guys something pretty to look at.

With that said, here’s a freshly wrapped up twin turbo Camaro for your viewing pleasure. You’ll see more of this car competing at Rocky Mountain Race Week in the near future.

Let’s catch up with one of the projects we worked on previously. A few months back we built a downpipe and did some other odds and ends to this turbo Honda Orthia, and had it back in the shop last month to build the exhaust. As this car is all wheel drive, space was limited. We built a stainless oval system to achieve the extra ground clearance complete with a polished Vibrant muffler.

Happy Friday everyone!

I just wanted to make a quick announcement that I will be unavailable for “standard” jobs for the next month or so to finish a couple of deadlines. Exceptions to ”standard” jobs are emergency repairs, CNC plasma orders and sub one hour projects.

Sorry about the inconvenience, but I don’t want to delay my current customer projects any more than I have so far.

As always, I thank all of you for your patience!

There are plenty of ways we can help make your build process easier, even without bringing us the car. The owner of one of my favorite local street cars, Marc, wanted to correct some potential geometry issues with the front end of his Turbo LS Gremlin. He gave us some basic dimensions to work with and we cut out new control arm brackets same day. He welded them up and installed them on the car.

In an industry where time is money, save time and hassle by getting smaller parts cut out local, tailored to your build. Simple parts like this are more affordable than you might think.

One of our long time friends gave us the opportunity to make something meaningful for his father. He owns a 67-72 GMC pickup and wanted him to have a personalized piece to hang on the wall.

We gave him back a 16 gauge outline of the truck hauling his last name.

We’ve been packing those projects in tight lately!
We recently finished up another first time project for us. The owner of the black Terminator swapped, Whipple supercharged Foxbody wanted to shed some weight, so he opted for a full aluminum exhaust (with mufflers). The kit he ordered from Herfurth Aluminum Racing Mufflers only required a little modification to fit. We trimmed it, welded it, and made some hangers on the plasma table.

In total, he lost 25-30lbs from the exhaust alone from his old mild steel setup with spin tech mufflers, and it sounds killer! Check the comments for a sound clip.

Happy Friday! This isn’t a car that we worked on this week, it’s a heavy duty ramp for a construction trailer which serves as a great example of what we can do with our available equipment.

The original ramp (pictured in the background of the third image) was beyond repair, and off the shelf options won’t put up with the weight of the loaded equipment. We were able to cut the sides and new pivot brackets on our plasma table, saving a couple hours of labor time opposed to doing by hand while increasing the quality at the same time.

Custom brackets are one of the quickest projects we can handle, and can generally offer same day turnaround if measurements are provided.

New year, new tool!

We’ve been spending the last couple weeks setting up and working the kinks out of our new CNC Plasma Table, and are happy to announce new services that come along with it.

We can now cut out anything from brackets, shock tabs, custom gussets with your business name or logo integrated in the design, to one off signs for your business or home and gifts for your special friends like the “Sonoma” emblem pictured.

Introductory pricing special? How about a $25 flat drafting fee under 1 hour, standard hourly on loading/part cleanup, and material at cost (or provide your own).

Have a design of your own you want cut out? No biggie, send over your .dxf or .svg file!

To say it’s been a crazy year has been an understatement. Thanks to word of mouth and the fantastic shops we’ve worked with since we started, you guys have brought in projects we never dreamed we would get to be a small part of. Trying to condense down to 12 cars to showcase isn’t easy, so I picked some random ones throughout this year to wrap things up.

We thank everyone for their continued support, and have taken all feedback (good or otherwise) very seriously. We’re going to do things a little different for 2023, shifting our focus away from volume. Being more selective with the jobs we take on will allow us to focus on higher quality, making sure we put out the best product possible.

To close this year out, we have invested in some equipment to expand our services, which is currently in the setup and testing phase. This is the first step of shifting from welding/fab, to being able to manufacture small products. We will still be happy to perform weld repairs and custom fab. More on this early in January.

Any success wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the shops that believed in me before I believed in myself.

Billet Performance LLC
Redux Automotive
Barnyard Garage
Lincoln Performance Coatings
Evolution Automotive Performance
University Of Destruction

How about one more unique project to close the year out? Billet Performance LLC let us take the reigns on this JDM Honda Orthia for a little bit of fab work. As the owner is keeping air conditioning and adding a turbo, we had to make a tight radius, custom downpipe to clear the compressor. The pie cuts weren’t enough; we actually had to shave down the exhaust housing and cut as much as possible out of the V bands.

To top it off, we recirculated the wastegate, added some breathers to the valve cover, mounts to the radiator, and made some very minor charge pipe adjustments.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on a pretty impressive list of cars over the past couple years, but I can say with confidence that I probably won’t have another Induction Solutions, carbureted, HEMI powered RX7 in my shop again any time soon.

Our good buddy Dylan allowed me to do a little work on this beauty in the making. Our small part in this build process was mounting his radiator, fans, and transmission cooler (we can’t take credit for the bumper support), modifying his headers to fit, and making some sweet 3.5” tear drop bumper exits. We’ve followed the build progress on this car over the past 10 years, and can’t wait to see it hit the road soon.

Unsolicited Tig pic Tuesday

More on this later