You're out of your mind. "Improve operational efficiency"? Get the **** out of here with that. You think Mike is running a huge manufacturing plant, like FI, where that's even feasible?

Chinese ripoffs do NOTHING to push the envelope. What they do really well is to take cheap materials and push hordes of essentially slave labor at something, and drive people out of business. Full stop.

 

Well I have no idea the scope of their businesses, but yes, that is one of Mike's only options. Once someone can mimic your product for cheaper, with slightly worse results, the only options are: go the legal route, improve the current efficiency, or come up with a new product.

People invent. They make money off it for a while. Then someone comes along and copies your idea, and either makes it slightly better or cheaper, and now directly competes against the original. This is progress.

 

Eh. Your idea of "progress" is different than mine. Progress was the design, the idea, the decision to build it in the first instance. I will always stand on the side of the entrepreneur and innovator, not those who take the sleazy route and copy an idea then send it to the communists to churn it out of their slave factories so they can make a few bucks. No thanks.

 

Yes sir, I guess our definitions are slightly different. To me, progress is anything that pushes us forward. Having some "commies with slave factories" on your *** encourages competition and continuous innovation.

 

You've acknowledged part of what I was getting at; enforceability. If MBH get's a US judgment, how useful is that judgment going to be if the company it is against has no significant presence in the US?

I brought up Apple v. Samsung because it shows how difficult trade dress/industrial design really is. Here, it isn't clear to me at least that MBH has a claim that their product is designed in a specific way for aesthetic reasons to make the headers distinguishable as MBH headers, rather than it simply being the result of necessity - there are only so many ways you can build a header for a given chassis.

The fact they are only going after FI is a problem for them because it undercuts their claim that they care about the design they have apparently protected. Many other manufacturers have headers that look very similar to FI/MBH. Why is MBH only pursuing FI?

This goes back to enforcement, good luck getting a Chinese company to pay you.

 

Its not FI, its Auto Talent that will find out the name of the law firm.

 

So it is illegal to sell a product that has been ACCUSED of copy right infringement ? Without a judgement against FI your going to have a hard time doing anything with Auto Talent.

 

What does finding out the name of a lawyer mean? Is that meant to be intimidating? With something like this, is this like having your mommy go to the playground because someone pushed you? Can't fight your own battles so money and daddy is going to represent you? I would understand if this is something proprietary. It's a header!! It might mean a lot to you but the judicial system may not feel the same way. If you are going to sue then do it, telling the world or at least the internet world is not going to win the case unless you are a huge public figure. What happens if you lose the suit? Then more people will know your position.

FI is not a new company, they have been around for about 3-4 years. AutoTalent sells competing brands (of other products) that probably offer the same design but those manufactures don't go on a public forum talking **** and causing unnecessary drama. For example, AutoTalent sells IPE which also offers headers for the W204 C63.

[img] http://www.ipe-f1.com/media/k2/galle...63-Headers.jpg [/img]

If people want pretty welding and willing to pay what MBH is asking then go for it. MBH, not everyone is willing to buy your product. For example, I will not pay $150 for Nike's but will pay $100. My point is, most people have a price point which is why there is such a variety of products available.

To save a few thousand dollars on a product made in Asia from a company that has been around for a few years that stands behind their products is great. It's not like FI is a company without a website or any contact information that is sold exclusively through ebay. Not to say there is anything wrong with that either.

The computer that I'm typing on is from Asia, the screen I'm looking at is made in Asia, the phone I talk on is from Asia and probably 1/3 of the stuff in my house is from Asia. What's wrong with Asia? My wife is Chinese , Taiwanese beef noodle soup is delicious, many high quality things are made in Taiwan and Asia and FI is made in Taiwan. My point is things made in Asia are not the same as it used to be, FI seems to be a reputable company and AutoTalent is a reputable company. AutoTalent started in 2007 and works on a lot of nice cars. It doesn't seem they are selling an inferior product based on the type of work and other products they offer.

 

It's not AutoTalent's responsibility as a re-seller to investigate if a manufacture is infringing on another. That's the infringing manufactures problem, not the re-sellers.

They just re-selll what someone else makes. End of story.

If it's a sh¡t look alike of MBH with sh¡tty welds that may or may not fail in a short period of time. Who TF cares. That's how this industry works. You pay for the good sh¡t or you don't and take a risk on the knock off.

Everything in life is just a gamble, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I was gonna drop the coin for sh¡ts but didn't. Looks like I won LOL...

Someone close this fkn thread already.

 

Agree and let companies sell products to members without another company bashing them.

 

Let the free market rein !!

 

I'll add one thing...

The quality of product you get when it comes from Asia can vary wildly. You can get incredible quality on items from Asia but you can also get total garbage.

If you buy a children's toy made in China 60 times out of 100 it'll be top quality, 35 times out of 100 it'll be total garbage, and 5 times out of 100 it'll be filled with lead.

If you buy a children's toy made in America 90 times out of 100 it'll be top quality, 10 times out of 100 it'll be total garbage.

Point being that not all products from Asia are bad, not even close. But there is more of a risk that they may be.

And if I knew you personally I'm sure there is a joke about your phone, your wife, beef noodle soup, and all the other things you mentioned. I have a f'd up sense of humor...but since I don't know you no jokes will be made :-)

 

Just got my set!

 

Hey OP, how much is a set shipped to Ontario? Can you please PM me with price?

 

I ordered these hi flow cats 72 each shipped!




Thunderbolt 300 cell metallic

 

^ So I dont know **** about welds but they look fairly clean to me. Anybody with experience care to comment?

 

I'm no expert welder, but the penetration around the flanges looks shallow to me. Looks like the weld is just laying on the surface with virtually no penetration into the metal itself. But what do I know, it's only a snapshot of one bit of the headers. You can't see the underside etc.

 

I'm working all day and can take a few pictures tonight.its welded through and the inside is sanded clean

 

I have a little welding experience and the best way to tell if you got penetration is to look on the inside of the tube you should be able to see a clean complete ring on the inside of the tube.. even if its sanded you should see evidence of it there.

 

If I were you I would install it catless and not make cuts at the new headers/midpipe and keep the resonator at first. If you don't like it, then I would say install the cats. It's decently quiet when you drive but loud at WOT with resonator.

 

Yea I thought about it but I need a sticker in 3 months and don't want to deal with it.

I'm going to have the shop make it that I can remove them easily so I can full catless after sticker

 

About to order these, if everything goes smooth. Did anyone install these recently? Kriston from here told me that these headers will not fit to our cars right away, and some welding needs to be done to create a collector?

Any posters here have any reviews for this?

Edit: Should be no fitment issues, but ships with straight pipes, as reported by skratch77

 

When did i tell you that these will not fit?

 

I'm having them installed soon but doing ceramic coating first and I'm getting married the 27th so I have like a million things going on.

I literally snuck out last week just to hit the track up lol

Trying to hide getting them also(could of spent 2k more on flowers)

 

Sorry, I may be mistaken. I had a convo with someone who messaged me off a facebook group. Told me there was "no midpipes from merge collectors". This just means it doesnt include any piping to connect to secondary cats, and wont ship with an X or H pipe, correct?