I thought this might be of interest to those of you who have responded to the two other threads on this subject. I saw an add in the back of the July issue of mustangs and fords from MPG Head Services out of Englewood, CO for their port plates. I've got some "new" heads comming in and figured what the hell perhaps they have the product at this time. So anyway, I called and had a farly lengthy conversation with Scott.
To make a long story short, the highlights of the conversation are:
(please keep in mind I did not read all the other posts on this matter so I may repeat something already stated by another member)
1.The basic R&D work is done but MPG has not and is not planning on moving to the next stage at this time. Scott does not feel there is enough interest in plates for the 3.8 to warrant the tooling expense and other costs. I told Scott that there were two very lenght threads on our site showing lots of interst in this item. I asked Scott how many sets he would have to sell in order to make it worth his time. His response was 40 to 50.
2. Scott claims he has perfomance data showing before and after numbers. I told him I felt that posting of this data would certainly facilitate the development of this market. He agreed somewhat. What he really felt would move the masses was an endorsement by a racing team or racing league that focused on the 3.8 followed up by coverage in trade publications.
3. One part of our conversation focused on the potential market size. Scott does not have a good sense of the SC or the enthusiam shared by those (most anyway) who own and modify their own cars. I told Scott that there were also a lot of 3.8 mustang owners who were into perfomance mods and that this might actually represent a larger target market than the SC crowd. I also stated that I did not know for sure if the plates would be directly interchangeble as there were probably several factors involved not the least of which would be any dimensional variations. Futhermore, just becouse the plates might fit, the performance/flow characteristics between the two setups might require a variation in the design to get the most out of each engine. There are many people on this site much more qualified to answer this than I am.
4. Pricing -- Scott estimated ~$200.00 for the set. The desing is an individual machined casting, one for each exhaust port. This is in contrast to the sheet metal fabrication design they also offer.
5. My estimate of start up costs - I have a lot of experience both designing and selling products with significant amounts of machined castings. We have our own shell mold foundry, pattern shop, tons of CNC, ETC... ETC... 10,000 to 20,000 for the pattern work alone then you have to add the overhead associated with configuration/control of eng. drawings, hard costs associated with machine tools, upfront costs associated with putting inventory on the shelf, several of you on this site know the drill...The thing is, he has already invested a lot of time and money in the prototype development. From my perspective (granted not as broad as others) it seems a shame for this item not to be taken to the next step.
6. In the end, I told Scott there were basically two ways I thought our group could help. First, a group buy of 40 to 50 people all of whom must be willing to put down the $ upfront ... say 50 to 75 ... this will show our seriousness and give him both the confidence and obligation to finish up. Second, one of you who sell product (I can think of three off hand) could work with Scott. In my opinion, this needs to be someone with a clear track record (consistent sales, not fly by night, understands the cars and the marketing, could possibly partner by putting up some $ for the rights of sole distribution).
7. http://www.mpgheads.com/
8. I hope this adds to the momentum. I believe there is a market for this item but it is beyond me to faciliate things beyond this "memo" to those of you interested in this item.
To make a long story short, the highlights of the conversation are:
(please keep in mind I did not read all the other posts on this matter so I may repeat something already stated by another member)
1.The basic R&D work is done but MPG has not and is not planning on moving to the next stage at this time. Scott does not feel there is enough interest in plates for the 3.8 to warrant the tooling expense and other costs. I told Scott that there were two very lenght threads on our site showing lots of interst in this item. I asked Scott how many sets he would have to sell in order to make it worth his time. His response was 40 to 50.
2. Scott claims he has perfomance data showing before and after numbers. I told him I felt that posting of this data would certainly facilitate the development of this market. He agreed somewhat. What he really felt would move the masses was an endorsement by a racing team or racing league that focused on the 3.8 followed up by coverage in trade publications.
3. One part of our conversation focused on the potential market size. Scott does not have a good sense of the SC or the enthusiam shared by those (most anyway) who own and modify their own cars. I told Scott that there were also a lot of 3.8 mustang owners who were into perfomance mods and that this might actually represent a larger target market than the SC crowd. I also stated that I did not know for sure if the plates would be directly interchangeble as there were probably several factors involved not the least of which would be any dimensional variations. Futhermore, just becouse the plates might fit, the performance/flow characteristics between the two setups might require a variation in the design to get the most out of each engine. There are many people on this site much more qualified to answer this than I am.
4. Pricing -- Scott estimated ~$200.00 for the set. The desing is an individual machined casting, one for each exhaust port. This is in contrast to the sheet metal fabrication design they also offer.
5. My estimate of start up costs - I have a lot of experience both designing and selling products with significant amounts of machined castings. We have our own shell mold foundry, pattern shop, tons of CNC, ETC... ETC... 10,000 to 20,000 for the pattern work alone then you have to add the overhead associated with configuration/control of eng. drawings, hard costs associated with machine tools, upfront costs associated with putting inventory on the shelf, several of you on this site know the drill...The thing is, he has already invested a lot of time and money in the prototype development. From my perspective (granted not as broad as others) it seems a shame for this item not to be taken to the next step.
6. In the end, I told Scott there were basically two ways I thought our group could help. First, a group buy of 40 to 50 people all of whom must be willing to put down the $ upfront ... say 50 to 75 ... this will show our seriousness and give him both the confidence and obligation to finish up. Second, one of you who sell product (I can think of three off hand) could work with Scott. In my opinion, this needs to be someone with a clear track record (consistent sales, not fly by night, understands the cars and the marketing, could possibly partner by putting up some $ for the rights of sole distribution).
7. http://www.mpgheads.com/
8. I hope this adds to the momentum. I believe there is a market for this item but it is beyond me to faciliate things beyond this "memo" to those of you interested in this item.
Lets se how many we can get! come on guys!!
