Dave Centea got his first bike, a Harley Hummer, when he was sixteen years old and so began his love of motorcycles. After studying automotive repair in high school and a job building street rods for a local company, he realized that working on motorcycles was more fun so he signed on as a mechanic for a Harley-Davidson dealer. Working his way up to head mechanic during his ten years at the Harley dealership, Dave built an excellent reputation for his skill in repairing Harleys but he kept dreaming of owning his own shop where he could provide top quality, personalized service to his customers. In 2000, he opened American Performance, Inc. in a 2,500 square foot facility on Good Road and the resulting word of mouth has been bringing customers from as far away as Cleveland ever since!

Dave will work on any motorcycle, from antiques to the new models, as long as it's a Harley-Davidson. A factory trained mechanic, he specializes in Harley repair, restoration, and high performance engine work but when it comes to Harley-Davidson motorcycles, there isn't anything he can't do. American Performance, Inc. mounts and balances wheels, rebuilds engines and transmissions, restores and custom builds bikes, does head work, high performance tuning, cams, they true and lace wheels, and even do the necessary machine work to make parts you can't find anymore for older bikes. Dave says, "When it comes to Harleys, there isn't anything I can't do except painting. I send them out to be painted because I just don't have the time to paint them myself anymore but there isn't anything else we don't do!" From restoring old flat-heads and FLHs, Dave handles everything from frame-up restorations to installing Dyna-2000 ignitions in addition to selling parts and accessories from all the major dealers including drag Specialties, Custom Chrome, Chrome Specialties, and V-Twin. He does top quality insurance repair that returns damaged bikes to like-new condition and will even build a custom bike for you from the frame up. When you build a bike from the frame up, you get a bike that's built exactly to your specifications. Dave will let you comb his catalogues to select your choice of parts for your dream bike and he'll either custom build an engine for you with cams and compression you specify or you can select a pre-built engine for him to install. The majority of the custom building and the engine work for American Performance, Inc. takes place during the winter months so the bike owners can have both wheels on the road all summer. During the summer months, most of Dave's time is dedicated to service work such as tune-up, oil changes, and cam jobs. American Performance, Inc. also owns motorcycles that range from bikes like the 1966 Harley that's one hundred percent stock to the soft tail that has a Harley frame and tanks along with a 98 cubic inch motor, an FLT dual disk front end, and a Thunder header.

Dave Centea has never met a Harley he couldn't fix and if you're a Harley owner or would like to be, American Performance, Inc. should be at the top of your list of places to visit. Personally, I've never seen any business with a workshop that's cleaner and better organized that what you'll find at American Performance, Inc. Give Dave a call today and while you're on the phone with him, don't forget to tell him that The Advocate sent you!

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