Riding the Wave
The passion for fast imports is still going strong at Cartune Auto Repair in San Diego.
The original article was published in the February 2024 issue of The Shop magazine.
By: Mike Madriaga
In the 1990s, import car builders in San Diego who specialized in Japanese vehicles had a tough
time competing at the nearby Carlsbad Raceway quarter-mile track.
“The hot rod builders laughed; there was no acceptance really for import drag racing back then,”
recalls Justin Lim. “They would say, ‘What are you doing here?’”
This pre-golden era was years before “The Fast and the Furious” showed the world 10-second
import tuners.
“We were mocked on and off the tracks,” Lim says.
In the mid-’90s as a teen, Lim was tinkering with his 1986 Honda CRX in El Cajon, east of San
Diego. His dreams were big.
“One day, be able to beat those hot rods. Once I graduated from high school and got a job, I
upgraded to a 1993 Honda Del Sol Si, which I later turbocharged with one of the first GReddy
kits installed in the U.S. around 1996.”
Lim’s import tuning obsession forced him to get a second job while attending college. But it was
worth it, he says.
“I’m not gonna lie; afterward, I didn’t lose many races.”
That perseverance and determination developed while building and racing Japanese import cars
against monster V-8s would also be helpful in creating a successful import tuner business.
SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC
Fast-forward to September 2023, and the builders of Japanese import cars at Cartune Auto
Repair in San Diego are kickin’ asphalt and taking names at the track. The shop is buzzing in
preparation for the 2023 SEMA Show.
Lim, 45, is now at the helm of Cartune with his business partner, Jeff Oleksow. Maybe
surprisingly, he attributes some of the shop’s success to surviving the pains of the pandemic three
years earlier.
THE SHOP magazine is created for professionals in the restyling, performance automotive, and hot rod aftermarkets.
Besides Lim and Oleksow, Cartune had four other employees back in April 2020 during the
pandemic’s initial stages, including Jakob Lim, Justin’s son. All six import tuners have remained
employed at the shop since the COVID-19 shutdown.
It was tough for businesses in those times of uncertainty—almost 40,000 California-based small
businesses had reportedly closed by September 2020. Meanwhile, tuning outlets found it twice as
challenging to stay afloat, as they were limited in selling and installing many performance parts
as state and national regulatory agencies investigated various shops in San Diego County.
A July 2020 memo released by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) read in part: “CARB
enforces against individual vehicle owners (consumers) that have violated the law by tampering,
modifying, or installing illegal parts on emission controlled vehicles operated on a public
highway. Violations of these requirements are subject to penalties up to $37,500 per violation.”
So, one of the services Lim offers at Cartune is converting modified vehicles back to stock.
“Thank goodness automotive repair (was seen) as an essential business,” recounts Lim.
The Cartune team downshifted its business model and reverted to repairing and maintaining
stock vehicles to make it through the slowdown.
“And we hit record numbers during the pandemic,” Lim continues, “as people needed to travel
with their cars, which then saw the normal wear and tear, and had to have them serviced.”
These days, he estimates the shop is about 80% general repairs and 20% high-performance
tuning. Before some of the emissions crackdowns, it was closer to a 50/50 split.
Such is the necessity of doing business in California.
“It’s tough to get parts. Now, you can’t even get a header. It’s been hard to get parts because the
laws have changed.”
Compliance is mandatory for Cartune, he adds, pointing to YouTube reports of shops that were
hit with huge fines for illegal upgrades.
“That would wipe me out,” he notes.
EFFICIENCY & EXPERIENCE
To stay profitable, Cartune turns customers away if their projects are unrealistic. Lim uses the
example of a time-consuming 2WD-to-4WD conversion.
“We can do that on our own cars, but we need to have open lifts and keep things moving in and
out daily. That’s the best way to make money and keep people happy.”
Some of the maintenance jobs the shop provides are oil changes, brake and pad installations,
wheel and tire swaps, alignments and manufacturer-scheduled maintenance.
“In the next year or so we’ll be getting up to date with the newer cars still under warranty,” Lim
forecasts. “Eventually, those warranties will run out, and we want to be ready.”
The shop’s eyeing new Honda Civics and the Toyota Corolla GR, among other imports, as
potential revenue sources.
“We have to buy new equipment for that stuff,” Lim notes. “In the following year, it will be more
training-based and getting all our equipment up to spec for that transition.”
Cartune Services has seven lifts in its 4,500-square-foot facility that includes a Dyno Dynamics
AWD dynamometer.
“I had a 1972 240Z with an RB26 that we just dynoed,” Lim says. “It had conservative
horsepower at 400. That car is so light, about 2,300 pounds, and it moves.”
Performance is still an important part of the shop’s recipe, of course. The website
(cartuneindependentservice.com) touts, “At Cartune Auto Repair, we also have the expertise to
work on vehicles that need reliability—race cars.”
Mike Madriaga’s byline
From mild to wild, the shop does suspension upgrades, exhaust and intake installations, wheel
and tire upgrades, roll bar and seat installations, safety restraint mounting, turbo installs, engine
and transmission rebuilds, and differential and LSD work.
The shop uses a Snap-On Zeus diagnostic scanning tool for engine and transmission diagnostics.
“You can view live data and actuate various electronic components on a vehicle, like operating a
solenoid or opening a window,” Lim explains. “It can also be used to program PCM, TCM, keys
and immobilizers.”
The shop has a 4.8-star rating on Google, 4.5-star rating on Yelp and a 4.9-star rating on
Facebook, with customers highlighting prices and turnaround times as company strengths.
RIGHT-HAND DRIVE
Lim has many customers with right-hand drive vehicles that were imported from Japan. Because
San Diego is a military city, many of Lim’s customers once stationed in Japan shipped a car or
two back to the States for free as a military perk.
“This morning, we had a RHD Toyota Supra from the 1990s come in,” Lim reports. “It was like
the one in (‘The Fast and the Furious’) movie” in which the late Paul Walker’s character drove
an orange ’90s Supra and a gray 1999 Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R.
Cartune’s parking spots are often filled with ’90s Hondas, including Civics, CRXs, Del Sols and
Preludes. Some are ready for the track with large front-mount intercoolers; others are stock and
showroom-clean.
“Some people are spending like $20,000-$30,000 on these Hondas,” Lim says. “They were going
for less than $3,000 not too long ago.”
During a recent visit, a Midori green Honda Civic owned by Dennis Caco, founder of the
Autocannon clothing brand and the creator and artist of Max Boost, a comic book based on the
import lifestyle, was parked in the shop’s lot.
The Max Boost comic had a monthly spot in the 1990s-2000s Import Tuner magazine, for which
Lim did some freelance writing. At the turn of the century, the print magazine was one of the
bibles of the then-import community—Super Street, Turbo and Sport Compact Car were among
the other big players.
“Dennis Caco and I caught up with one another a few years back when we met here at Pann Auto
during its 20th anniversary car meet,” Lim reveals. “Afterward, Dennis and I started meeting up
at High-Performance Driving Events (HPDE) on little track days, and it’s grown to us meeting at
more serious track days like VTEC-Club days.”
Another vehicle depicted in the Max Boost comics is the car nicknamed after Godzilla, the 1999
R34 GT-R. It is nearing its 25th anniversary, and it’s getting harder to find in Japan and more so
in the U.S., Lim explains.
“It’s because of the 25-year rule. Basically, once a car reaches 25 years of age, certain regulations
don’t have to be followed to conform with USDOT rules and regulations.”
Word on the street is many collectors are scooping up 1999 R34 GT-Rs for similar reasons.
“Next year they’ll be 25, and that’s why there’s so much hype behind it. I heard some brokers
have stashes, and they’re waiting for a boom to bring them out,” says Lim. “We worked on a
couple of R34s—one is a regular customer. Mainly, I see more R33s, and we’ve worked on a ton
of R32s.”
The R32 and R33 are earlier Nissan Skylines with similar twin-turbo configurations.
FATHER & SON
Mentioned earlier, Jakob Lim, now 22, recently worked on a 1993 Mazda Autozam AZ-1—a
two-seater kei (micro) car with a three-cylinder turbo engine.
“They open up with gullwing doors,” he says enthusiastically. “I heard there were only 1,500
from that year, and we had three of them here at the shop we worked on.”
Meanwhile, Jakob is the shop’s fastest road racer and his trophies are proudly displayed in the
main office. He’s also the first person to greet walk-in customers.
Justin says the father/son work partnership is special and seemed destined from years earlier
because of Jakob’s longtime automotive affinity.
“We got Jakob his car when he was 14 and started building it,” Lim says. “When he was 15, they
allowed him to take his car on the road race track for the first time, and he was driving on a track
before he got his license.”
Jakob took to it quickly.
“I used to be faster than him, but not anymore. We can’t catch him,” Lim says proudly.
Looking back to his own teenage tuner days in the ’90s, Lim says builders utilized Haynes repair
guides and performance magazines to create speedy, dependable projects in the days before
YouTube and online guides and forums.
In those years, Lim remembers rendezvousing with his buddies and hitting illegal drag races in
San Diego County. In the mid-1990s to early 2000s, they’d meet at Fire House, Kearny Villa
Road, Wild Animal Park and other clandestine spots.
They’d also race at the now-defunct legal quarter-mile track at Carlsbad.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
This was also around the time technology caught up with passion, and Lim was ready to realize
his goal of beating some of those traditional hot rods down the track.
“We had a friendly rivalry; we’d throw revs at the V-8s on the streets.”
In the early days, Lim had taken a second job at a bank to help fund his automotive projects. Not
long after, he acquired a 1993 Toyota MR2 Turbo, which was stolen about a year later.
Utilizing the insurance money, he funded Rice Works, his first car shop, which was located in El
Cajon. It stayed open for a couple of years.
In 1999, Lim bought his first new car, a 2000 Honda Civic Si in the Electron Blue Pearl finish. A
month later, he turbocharged it utilizing a Drag 2 turbo kit.
His projects were still funded by his 9-5 banking job.
“But I wasn’t passionate about banking, so I started working at Pann Auto,” Lim recounts, one of
the largest import shops in San Diego in those days.
Initially, Pann Auto was divided into two suites—one for automotive parts sales and the other for
automotive parts installation.
The owner decided in late-2008 that he no longer wanted to deal with the installation and service
side.
“He offered to partner with me and my business partner, Jeff. Cartune was later officially opened
in February 2009.”
Fourteen years later, Lim admits it’s not as easy wrenching on vehicles every day as it used to be,
but he still loves the passion and creativity of the industry.
“Maybe I’ll start thinking of transitioning out of the automotive repair business and doing
another type of automotive business that’s less physically intensive,” he says.
But it won’t be an abrupt departure.
“I have good employees—many of them have been here for more than five years. If and when
the time comes for me to start thinking of getting my exit plan going, I’d like to give them a
piece.”
In the meantime, he’ll continue being a focal point of the San Diego tuner scene.