dude, you NEED 500whp to deliver pizzas… to argue that would be insane
on that note, i am going to split this thread. 1 good one to stay here, and another drama filled monster to make its way to OT.
i am signing out. VW bashing is too easy.
My VW smokes a lot.
This thread just dosnt make any sense at all now… lol
Still best post in thread. :lol:
i was going to move it to the trash, but there were some good rips from both sides, and thats good entertainment.
You know, you guys are right, shops like APR and AWE are a horrible ripoff, I’m sure the HC shop looks just like this
http://www.awe-tuning.com/pages/facility_tour/index.cfm
I don’t care who you are, thats a damn sweet facility :eek:
nothing to see here
dude, its just a bunch of red boxes. i have a whole room full of brown boxes
that building and its contents are what make up a good portion of that kits cost.
hc or gforce may not be that large, but they do good work. its not the size that matters, its how you use it 
Having CNC mandrel bending capabilities sure would get rid of all the pie cut arguments that always show up on here :mamoru:
the mines skyline uses a piecut exhaust :shrug:
this argument is almost as good as the vw vs honda argument. i may need to make this the official “argue about shit that doesnt matter or have anything to do with you” thread.
lol
Guys, it seems as though everyone here is missing the boat. You guys are all claiming that this kit is “Overpriced”, which it really probably isn’t too badly. All of the people that are saying it is overpriced are seeming missing the fact that there are tooling costs, prototype costs, R&D costs, etc.
Here is a general sum of what we here at **** incur when we design a new caliper for production.
- R&D and Design. First off, it starts from concept to prototype on Solidworks, and this can take at least two solid weeks to get even close to what is a final design. Then you have to test the model in Solidworks, and we happen to use Cosmos for Finite Element Analysis, and usually when that is complete, we have to tweak the design even further to make it suitable for use. For this stage, you are talking about an Engineers time, Design team’s time, and R&D’s time. As just an estimate, this time can cost anywhere between $5,000 to $20,000 in time invested in just DESIGNING THE PART! Think of all the involved departments, Engineering, Design, R&D, Quality and Production departments!
- After the R&D, you move into the prototype stage where you make a “hard” part that you can play with. Now, with Production involved, we have the Engineer’s working with the Machinist’s to actually spit out a part, from solid billet (Material cost’s alone are usually about $1,000 to $2,000 because your first piece you spit out are generally bad) to create a part that you can actually use for fit-up’s and testing. Even before you begin the fit-up’s, Quality and Engineering are working to VALIDATE the part to make sure that they are even suitable for use on a vehicle. So, at the conclusion of your prototype, testing and validation stage, you are in the neighborhood of $10,000 at least.
- After this, now you move into the R&D stage where you do your fit-up’s to the vehicle, and further tweak the design to make it suitable for use on the actual vehicle. Once you are in this stage, you generally go back to stage one and start all over again by making new revised pieces. Also when you go back to the previous stages, there are cost’s rolling up again!
- Now that you have a piece on the vehicle, you can begin to test and validate the piece you are designing on the vehicle to make sure that the fit form and function are all acceptable. Sometimes even at this stage, it revert’s back to the drawing board.
- OK, so now you have working “hard parts” on a car. Now you can start the tuning stage to make the part’s actually work on the car, and perform with a level of safety, reliability and performance. This probably cost in the area of $3,000 to $6,000 of time spent, not including finding a willing donor vehicle that you can use. Let alone the cost of “how you make it worth the owner of the car’s willingness to let you use his car.” Generally, whatever you put on the car, you leave on the car, but remember, there is a cost there as well.
- OK, so now assuming you have a working kit, you certainly cannot manufacturer all your parts out of billet stock because of the cost, so now you move into sourcing your parts through purchasing efforts. Jesus the time involved here! Tooling costs alone for a cheap job can be around $3,000!!
- So now, 5 month’s later you have price competitive parts on your shelf that you can sell.
- Now, how are you going to sell these parts? Marketing!! Advertisements & all associated costs!
- Now, how do you get these people to install the stuff, Instructions! Now you have to get R&D to generate instructions to actually bolt the kit on, and this can take at least a week to get even something as simple as this done.
- OK, now you are ready to start selling.
So, with all of that being said, even by leaving out A LOT of small subtle details that also cost money, you are about $50,000 in debt just to design the damn kit so you can sell it.
So now, how do you structure you pricing? You structure it so that you can be competitive, but also make up you $50,000 you are in debt because that’s what it cost you to make / design it.
Now, there is also a markup for all your parts, and this is the only real questionable area of the cost of that kit. Depending on how much they mark it up is really the deciding factor in if the kit is overpriced.
There is soo much more involved that almost everyone on here seems to be willing to accept. Here you have a product that a company spent almost $50,000 in designing, and had at least 10 halfway intelligent people involved, which makes their kit more well thought out that the average “cutting pie slices out of bent doughnut tube and fabbing your own 4,000 weld tubular header because you don’t have access to a proper tubing bender type.” I would be willing to bet one of my paychecks that their log type manifold will flow only marginally less, possibly even more, than any fabbed manifold I have seen on ANY OF NYSPEED’s car’s yet.
Ignorance to the fact that people on here don’t seem to understand what is even involved in developing that log type manifold is what seems to be most prevalent here. Just the tooling alone to be able to friggen make the damn manifold cost’s more that a lot of member’s cars on here!
Guys, without knowing exactly what their markup is, but assuming it is probably somewhere around 30-40%, truthfully, I don’t really see that kit as being overpriced because of all the associated cost’s in just making the kit, and trying to make a profit off the kit! Remember, you have to sell enough of these kits to recover your initial investment! Plus, one heavily weighed benefit is if any part failed in anyway, you can pursue getting another one as warranty. Plus, if you car blows up, you have a recourse of action.
Truthfully, as far as what I have seen for home built DIY projects on this board, as well as the Barf’s, I haven’t seen but a few impressive project involving a mechanical part. Most of the people in this area have an idea of what they want to do, and follow what other people (Specifically big companies with R&D) have done in the past. Yeah, I have seen some people build stuff, make stuff, and design stuff, and what not, and I have yet to see a piece that I stand back and say, yeah, that’s a good “WELL DESIGNED” piece. Everyone that I have seen here know what they want, but if it came down to it, there are probably less than 5 people on this board that UNDERSTAND how a motor works. There is a HUGE difference in “knowing how it works, or knowing what happens” inside of a motor, but there are very few that really truly UNDERSTAND how a motor is SUPPOST to work. Most of the people on here that I have seen so far know what has to be built in order to get something to work, but few people understand why it works.
See, a perfect example of what I see most of these people on the board as being:
Someone tell me that they know how to port a head. Ok, anyone with a die grinder can port a head, so what? Do you really understand what you are trying to do? Yeah, you can say that you are trying to increase the volume or flow of air into the head, but if you didn’t hear that from Joe Blow, you would never be able to answer that question because I can guarantee that you can’t explain to me the theoretical operation of a motor. Seems as though a lot of people are calling themselves “real” do it yourselfer’s, when that isn’t the case. Most people on this board are excellent and taking other people’s design’s and copying them and not being true innovators. I am not saying that you have to reinvent the wheel, but what I am saying is this:
Most of the DIY on this board are good a fabbing up something because they go by the “A to B” principle. Here is what I mean:
Someone wants to build a turbo manifold, and they see 4 exhaust ports that they have to connect to one single big inlet on the turbo, so they start connecting the holes by the “A to B” principle. They see that company “A” made theirs look like this, and that company looks pretty reputable, so that have this image in their mind that it needs to look like theirs. So they sit there and fab their shit up never understanding WHY their manifold looks the way it does. Take a look at manifolds for the EVO’s, I mean shit, there are at least 10 different manifold design’s out there. Can anyone explain in ENGINEERING ,THERMODYNAMIC, KINEMATIC and PNEUMATIC dynamic terms as to why one manifold is a better design that the next? I think not….
In this thread alone, all I have seen so far is people shooting off their tongue because they once bought a turbo off e-bay for $500, and they made their manifold for $100 in parts, and bought their AEM EMS for $1400 and BLAM, their kit is better than “XYZ” company. That my friends, is the purest form of ignorance because you never invested R&D to find how well your manifold works, researched different turbo’s to see which one works the best with your specific motor, and invested time in destructive testing to take a look at the longevity of your product that you made. This thread is bullshit because all it is is a bunch of do it yourselfers that COPY other companies designs without ever truly understanding WHY they built it that way. Yeah, I can build the exact same thing as the HKS turbo kits with parts off EBAY for probably HALF of what HKS sells it for, so what, good for you, I will give you a pat on the back for saving a buck or two. Bow, the first person that can tell me WHY they built their manifold the way they did, and not because it just “has better flow” than the next one, I will buy you a beer. I want to hear someone talk to me who whet through several manifold designs because they felt as though it wasn’t efficient enough, and the flow characteristics of their exhaust were more turbulent due to the inherent design than laminar and created pressure pulses through the exhaust turbine.
I dare to hear one of you start to compare wherein the differences lie between their log type manifold versus your DIY manifold. I want to hear your ENGINEERING REASONS as to why their log type manifold is crap, and I want to you explain it to me not by referring me to another website because they said so, or posting link’s as to where to find the information.
Most of you people are just flaming a kit because it is $4,500, and a kit for your specific car cost’s $1,400. Knowing that you can fab it up with $2,00 in parts off e-bay, but not offer any sort of warranty, guarantee, R&D backup, instructions, etc… is just terrible.
Building stuff because you saw someone else build it that way is ignorance, and a true lack of understanding of what you are doing. Shit, I can get my 80 year old grandma to build a manifold just like 7/8 of the ones I have seen built on this board, and all I have to teach her is how to use a bandsaw, welder and how to surf the internet to look for pictures.
This sole basis that some of you are using to judge this kit stem’s from one thing, ignorance. Maybe you should try building the EXACT SAME manifold you have on your car, and try selling it. Sorry to tell you, but most people would laugh at you.
Think about this guys, I typed 4 fucking pages to try to make you guys understand that just because a kit is $4,500 DOESN’T MEAN IT’S EXPENSIVE. Look at what is backing the product, look at the cost’s associated with developing the kit. Look at the cost it took to design the kit!!
Fuck you guys are so judgemental it makes me sick…
I wasn’t commenting on the pie cuts, I was commenting on the people that make the comments on the pie cuts. I have no problem with pie cuts. I like pie.
fucking :werd: Tkklemann
IBallthesackridersdontevenreadit
tickleme: its been covered, after we found the cost of the kit, that it was a kit, and its cost we all agreed that it wasnt a horrible price.
your a day late, and for that you have to buy me a beer
we all have to listen to the guy with the times new roman font. teehee.
If you asked, i could probably tell you which manifold was best suited for a designated application. And if you are talking to me about what i bought off ebay:
I have experience in thermo, fluid and other engineering applications. Alot of the people who design this shit for big companies only follow a precident from a company befor them. But these companies have the dollars to invest in FEA programs. On top of this i doubt they tested more than 2 manifold designs. A sand casting pattern is not a small undertaking. They are probably looking at 7000+ per pattern. I don’t care how big their company is, they arent going to fire off 20 different designs and R+D them all.
What it comes down to is that a reasonably designed homebrew manifold is going to perform just as well and cost a fraction of the price.
That’s what I would do. He can do whatever the shit he wants to do.
But i do agree with you that alot of “DIY” is really “CIY” (copy).
That is why when i do something, I try to avoid seeing other peoples finished products and generate something on my own, from a clean slate. The wiring for the RB for instance. There are a few guides explaining how to do it, but instead i sat down with a service manual and the harness and figured it all out on my own. I am not looking for kudo’s, merely agreeing with you.
While i hate people who throw money at stuff and don’t know what the fuck is going on, I also can’t stand people who “do it themselves” but don’t actually know what they have done. Like SR20 swaps. They are so fucking easy because all you need to do is google it and you will have 20 pages of instructions. After that, it’s all just reading and turning a few wrenches… not a ton of skill… Ask them what was the green wire that they spliced to the red wire and they wont have a fucking clue.
EDIT: and the manifold on the 240 was not well designed. In fact, it wasn’t designed. I just threw it together… so don’t get on me about that.
That is so true.
i hate to say it but i agree with teh walter
rightside down is up?
left is right?
OMG
Fuck you, get the fuck out of here… :shoot:
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“(:tup:)'(:tup:)”“”"*|(:tup:)(:tup: )*****(:tup:)
just because.