If I had the money for a DMG Mori CTX Id be knocking out billet flat plane crankshafts for the M156 and special cams to match.

Can you imagine a billet titanium flat plane crank with chrome plated journals, billet titanium rods, etc.... I can’t even imagine the cost of the raw material.

Although a Haas VF with a 4th and 5th axis can be had in the 50ish k range.

The Mori can turn things like a billet piston blank and mill the valve reliefs and ring grooves direct from a bar feeder in one operation. Mori even has grinding capabilities as an option in the same machine. Call it a dream of mine.

 

Just out of interest, what does a machine like that cost? Couple hundred K? A few Mill?

 

That depends entirely on the options you get with it, and what you want to do with it.

A bare bones machine with no live tooling could probably be had for a few hundred. Kitted out with a 5axis live tool head as well as with grinding capabilities well over a million.

Haas machines are much less
expensive, but they also aren’t nearly as rigid, or as accurate. If you’re a good machinist, you can be accurate with any machine tool, it just comes down to how much time it takes you to do it. See, the less accurate the machine is, the more careful you have to be when taking finish cuts.

Haas makes great machines as long as your expectations are in line with reality. They are rugged, and can take some abuse. Haas has some practices that I don’t like, for example they ship the machine with all of the software that it could possibly ever need, but only unlock the options that you pay for. Those options are expensive. And the only thing you get when you pay for the option you want to use is a password.

Two of these options that I think are useful to their machines and should be standard are their intuitive interface and their custom macro capabilities. These are standard on most new machine tools, but not Haas.

Some of the most expensive machines I’ve ever run were grinders. One of the machines I run is a simple universal Kellenberger Kel-Varia. It will swing a 14” part, and hold about 39” between centers. Unfortunately Kellenberger does not make the Kel-Varia like they used to. They still sell a machine called a Varia, but it is not top echelon like they used to be. The top of the line modern Kellenberger grinder outfitted like the old school Kel-Varia I have at work runs $1.4 million. Mine was $400k new, but that was back before the dollar was worthless. Others are jig grinders made by a company called Hauser. Very accurate and overbuilt. 1.6 million for a new one. Used ones don’t come up often because they are all still in service making parts.

Then there are machines that are custom engineered for a specific job. Companies like Danobat make machines like this. They are extremely expensive, but also very accurate and of a high quality.

 

Yeah, well dkjenis actually designs/builds real spaceships for a living, so I think he has access to pretty much any top-tier machinery he ever needs. Must be nice.

 

If I lived on the west coast or in Texas, I’d be working for SpaceX too. Unfortunately I don’t. I have access to some pretty bad *** machines, but the entity that I work for is somewhat persnickety about “government” jobs. It’s why it took me 3 months to finish my adjuster prototype.

 

You know that an manifold WITHOUT crap in the runners flow even more freely?
SLS intake is the ****!

You only need ITB´s when having very lumpy camshafts(smoothens the idle) and when you need that extra response from your engine(non automatic gearbox), lastly when you need to alter the length to suit them lumpy camshafts.

 

Don't quote me on this, but. Don't you need specialist tuning/cams to get the sls intake to operate properly and actually produce any gains?

I was under the impression that without the cams, the sls intake is pretty much usless. And that very few people can actually tune the car to benefit from the sls intake

 

Be calm,, i won´t

SLS intake is compared to oem 156 intake much more freeflowing, our heads can flow up against 750hp+ without any portjob, our oem intake can flow just about 650hp(restrictive).
Ofcourse i´m talking about when having aggressive camshafts installed, not oem m159 camshafts,
As you don´t need the ITB´s either with oem camshafts.

Rgds