G_Money

So... you're gonna dip in to your savings? I don't get it lol.

I mean that's a terrific sentiment but in my limited experience R&D is the most expensive part of any project!

sventastic82

Not for VRP they just copy stuff.

G_Money

Shots fired

hachiroku

what he means is...if it costs him 200 hours to develop a product of which he has a program for or a JIG for which allows for repeatability within a fraction of the time...he will not charge you the customer for the 200 hours of development.

same goes with my tunes. 5-7 days a week 1.5 years of development for my M156/M159 custom tune package, and still developing it further and adding new functionality every day. do i charge my customers for that 1.5 years worth of development in time, labor, fuel, and wear and tear...no

with the cost of MBH headers, they are right there and I wouldn't consider them over priced, but i believe with these points we are talking generalities with certain parts of the auto industry.

G_Money

Well you're also hopefully able to distribute that R&D cost over more than one customer 🤣

The Machinist

GREAT SLOGAN!!!!111oneone

You should apply to be a sub contractor for the government. We love over engineered garbage for the sake of billing and promotion potential. Put it on your resume. I did.

I’ll be sure to keep you in mind when I need the welds on my jet engine checked out.

I would like to point out that Nowhere did I mention cheap average or good.

Sufficient perhaps.

Savings? What savings... I’m blue collar, with a healthy resentment towards engineers who slink out from under the fluorescent lights, down to my machine shop after their 4th and 5th failures to ask me how to fix their problems, after pounding their chests screaming about how ****ing awesome they are in their polo shirts and pocket protectors.

I work my *** off, and blow giant chunks of cash on ancient machines because I WANT to.

R&D is only expensive if you are designing something new, from scratch with a 100% failure rate at a total loss per instance until the first success. Ask Elon Musk. #starship Ask a pharmaceutical company...

Not one thing discussed in this thread is a new technology with a 100% burn rate. Perhaps a few revisions to a prototype to solve minor problems, but no scrapping and starting over because we painted it the wrong color, or crashed in a great ball of fire.

R&D I guess comes super easy to me? I have no idea why some people spend “hundreds of thousands” on it to make old technology work on a different application. Sounds like they need some better engineers.

I learn from everything I do, and I look at manufacturing problems pulling from that experience. I know what will or won’t work long before I turn the first machine on.


Maybe I do this because I enjoy it. I don’t care if I make a bazillion dollars. My machine shop at the house doesn’t have to generate revenue. I have a day job with a fair amount of satisfaction and good health insurance that pays my bills, and finances all of this super expensive R&D.

roadtalontsi

Got to love the VRP ad in the middle, and then the ALIBABA drop!!! This is turning into one hell of a good thread! We even got an exhaust builder to come and share wisdom. Great stuff guys! Machinist some of your ignorance of how business and the american dream work. Cheap labor, cheap materials = big profits. Do as little as possible to make as much as possible. Profit is why they are in business. Not everyone does this stuff for the love and pure passion. Sadly most people absolutely despise their job and day to day routine. I'm with you, I'd rather see reasonable costs and pay for someone who does it with love and passion and give up perfection or all the bs marketing gimmicks.

Im surprised MBH hasn't come in here to say a piece. I'd love to hear some of their wisdom having been in our industry for so long.

MBH motorsports

I've said some things

The Machinist

Oof. Ignorance is a harsh word. I know precisely how capitalism works. That’s why I hate how it is exploited.

Look at the last
post in my Machine shop update thread. The electrical cabinet in that norton grinder is a work of art. The electrician didn’t get paid any extra for making it look pretty. He did it because he had pride in his work. Norton is still a great company.

MBH motorsports

This my wisdom and its quote from Ben Franklin "The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten"

Jasonoff

I will be pulling my engine out over the next off season. I want to give it a good once over, fix that annoying upper pan leak, remove the rear coolant outlet for the heater core etc.

Will be a good time to replace all the manifold studs and hardware while it's fully accessible on a stand. Not entirely convinced headers are worth it though. I wish there were some decent comparisons between headers and catless straight pipes like what Armytrix offers. If I'm only going to gain 25WHP I'm not entirely convinced it's worth the cost it in a dedicated track car. It already has enough power and the marginal gains will barely affect lap times.

hachiroku

a good set of headers and a proper custom tune will net more than just 25whp. but one of my tunes will benefit you most on a track car with it's 1 to 1 throttle mapping. but like you said, if you don't need the extra power you don't need it. but if you are looking for faster lap times a tune with or without headers will help your lap times.

Jasonoff

That's a combination of the two though. A custom tune with OEM logs and straight pipes vs custom tune with headers probably not much more no?

I'm talking all else being equal.

hachiroku

none of my customers with stock headers has thrown their car on the dyno, but with my 1 to 1 throttle mapping you'll feel like you were driving a Toyota Prius this entire time. I'm not exaggerating either. power gains are there regardless of headers or not. retunes are included at no additional cost if you ever do plan on a header install in the future as well.

headers will add power on top of all of that, that's for sure.

deadlyvt

Yeah he’s wondering what the difference in the factory manifolds with no cats vs headers is. Like he says I can’t see it being more than 25 whp. If I wasn’t so busy at the moment I would get my cats off and do a run quick then get my headers installed and we could find out for sure

G_Money

Maybe 25-30 with just headers, but you should open it up on both ends!! Throttle bodies too! Just had 82mm tbs and MBH headers put on and it feels so muchore free revving, it's wild. Sometimes I wonder if my tac is keeping up.

Jasonoff

Exactly. I keep myself to a yearly upgrade budget on the track car since it's just a hobby and it's too easy to go overboard. I have a feeling headers should be lower on the priority list.

eschow

I dynoed with shortie headers w/ custom tune, and china LTH w/ custom tune. First few runs with the LTH no tune, netted a 8-10whp gain. Once tuned, difference was about 19whp (both tuned by same guy, on same dyno). I'd imagine a better quality header would be just a hair more.

VictoryRoadPerformance

Same ones Shardul sells from alibaba yea.

deadlyvt

interesting, so I’m guessing 25whp would be what jasonoff would expect from stock manifold catless to lth

shardul

iTrader: (1)

Rather pay the same price and buy from me them VRP with horrible reviews and customer service

https://mbworld.org/forums/c63-c63s-...rformance.html

Noahh

bumping this reply because VRP is such a **** company and it should be known on this site that the owners are ********s

E63007

Here’s a question, with the exception of ARH, nearly every LTH Vendor out there merely follows the path around the transmission but seem to ignore the need to include the OEM brackets on each side of the tranny for stability. Moreover, most simply let you come to the realization you must ditch the Cross Bar in the mid section rather than bending the pipes accordingly to clear it in order for the system to hang correctly. Then the brackets that connect to the rear subframe R&L don’t seem to be present on any offerings nor is there a spacer bracket located behind the Diff, which may not be as important but surely helps keep the weight of the pipes from shifting one way or the other. So that leaves just the attachment to the heads and the rear most brackets suspending the hole exhaust? Yikes! At least ARH has that bend midway above the cross bar so one can keep the rear end of the exhaust from falling in the event one needs to disconnect the front to do any service, like replace engine mounts for example.

Which brings up another question especially important for those of us who tend to work on our own cars. Which of the LTH’s enable you to replace the engine mounts without requiring you to have to completely disconnect the headers from the Engine Block to do so? For those of you that have replaced their own engine mounts, usually it’s as simple as disconnecting the mid section, then loosening the engine mount bolts above and below and then using a bottle Jack and some wood for support to raise each side of the engine from the floor just enough for the engine mounts and their heat shields to clear. This requires lifting about 3” on each side which causes one to “tilt” the engine. My concern is some LTH’s may not have even that much clearance? Since LTH’s obviously take up more space than the OEM “logs” and/ or shorty’s, I can imagine after installing the headers, that even attempting “tilt” the engine as previously mentioned to replace the engine mounts may be impossible for some but maybe not for others? The E Class, aka my E63, has more room on each side than the C63, so some LTH’s may allow for such work to occur in the E63’s vs the C63’s, but it would be cool to have some people “in the know” be able to comment on what LTH’s are “Service Friendly” as well as sounding bad _ _ _!!!

lekoza

I was able to replace my mounts without removing my LTHs. Mine are copies of MBH headers that I found from a post on here a while ago. I think his name was Shardal or something.

djr48312

Those $599 "ebay" headers are likely the OBX header brand and they while not perfect are very good for the price. I'm sure they will perform within 10rwhp of the best header. The welds are actually good and the header flange is thick.