I have recently been approached by a CNC shop (they normally do tooling for injection molding operations) with excess capacity. They’ve agreed to give me access to their machine shop (most notably their CNC) so that I can design program and run my own parts. This is mostly a feasibility study for me while the shop and I feel out our arrangement. I’m interested in designing some “niche” pieces that have a little marketability (I’m expecting runs of maybe 10 - 20 parts, assuming I’m selling a few outside of Pittspeed), rather than trying to compete with a huge market like Honda or SBC parts. I believe I can design, mock up and test fit just about anything, or if I can’t (if say you wanted a specific turbo manifold and I don’t have a motor to put it on) I would definitely be willing to work something out with a member who would let us test it to keep the part at absolute cost, or a further mutually agreeable discount based on the person’s overall involvement. I’m also working with JTech on this for design/testing, so I expect Gearhead will be involved throughout this operation.
My question to Pittspeed is this - what do you need? I know I’ve seen people saying “I wish someone made…” or “If someone made ---- I’d definitely be in line for one,” so what ARE those parts? Are there swap-related parts you need? Is there something available that currently seems too expensive and you wish someone had a less expensive alternative (i.e. some company only offers a part in chrome when it would cost $50 less and you’d rather have a flat black piece)? Would you be interested in a “weld it yourself” header kit that came with flanges and pre-bent tubing? Just a decent set of non-rusting headers for your not-so-popular motor or chassis application?
Please respond with specific info if at all possible (i.e., “I really wish someone made a Mazda BP header that cleared my Megan Racing H-brace and had a 2.5-inch outlet” means more than “I want a header”). If I could get a few people to agree on demand for a certain part I can run the numbers and hopefully make something happen for PittSpeed. I’ll try to keep a running list of concrete demands at the bottom of this post so that requests will be preserved and I can have a tally of interested parties. Thanks ahead of time for your feedback, I’m hoping to make something happen soon.
Suggested Parts Tally
S-10 V8 Conversion Mounts (S10Blazed_Si)
Flanges (bgblockelcamino)
Yeah I shouldn’t have a problem viewing DWG files.
Yeah it’s all of course going to be about design and finding evidence that at least a few people want your part. I know your attention to detail so if you feel like drawing something or even mocking a part up (broken finger FTL ) that would be a great start.
How about S-10 V8 conversion mounts? There are schematics readily available and they’re rather simple. I know I’ll need a set soon and there is plenty of demand for them around the web. I always thought for some steel plate and a quick weld job that $100 was a bit much. You could most likely under cut that by a good bit.
i need a single ended dildo, 26" long with a 9" diameter. Hard steel, with 1.5" nail like protrusions with hollow, needle like passages and a 4oz capacity reservoir built in to the center with a nipple for injecting something such as AIDS infected blood into said reservoir.
I’ll be PMing you more info. Watch for KOLARDONG.JPG in your PM box. I have a small but devoted client base that will pay high dollar for this item.
Based on my limited research there are at least 4 variants (based on 2wd/4wd and the original motor) of these mounts. Looks like they run from $42 - $83, again varying based on your original setup. Anything other than the 2.8L V6 is $70 or $80 + shipping, so I guess your figure is about right, at least based on s10v8.com pricing. Doing these mounts seems more involved because most of them would require being packed with rubber or urethane (something I haven’t looked into sourcing though I know the CNC shop can get just about anything), but I’ll keep it on the list and certainly consider it for one of the first designs, so thanks.
Just flanges is probably a perfect first project - what motor are you looking at?
If you’re already working with them it should be easy to duplicate. We were originally going to work off of a gasket, but doing it from a part is the same. If you want to PM me some basic specs (desired material/thickness and a square dimension, i.e. 2" high by 14" wide) I can run numbers for sourcing some material and see how you like the projected cost compared to what you have already, do a run to see how you feel about the quality and go from there.
how about something as simple as a 3"/5" velocity stack? if the price was right(<Blox $50)im sure you could sell the shit out of them. i for one would sign up. cant cost but a few bucks to make, lots of people could benefit from it
Velocity stack is an interesting part because there’s no way they are making them with CNC from a solid piece. You could probably cast a stack if you really wanted to, but more likely it’s just tubing that is molded over and tapered, though I’m not sure what kind of tooling you would need to reliably create such a part. In short it looks simple but it might not be. In any case thanks for the idea, I’ll see what the shop and the CNC programmer think, maybe they will have some ideas about how to make it as it’s certainly not the materials that are pushing the $50 tag.
Yeah you are correct re: the velocity stack - it’s not something you would do with a CNC. I would only talk to the shop/operators because they do have a lot of tooling machinery and I thought they might know a method for churning out stacks that isn’t cutting it with a CNC
) that would be a great start.
always count on darkstar to turn threads into something else lol