Tony D Posted August 5, 2010 Share Posted August 5, 2010 (edited) Edited August 5, 2010 by Tony D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two80z4me Posted August 6, 2010 Share Posted August 6, 2010 ahhhh 1:33 gave me a boner! the only thing I can compare this to, is the cobra. Alot of men will buy a Replica AC Cobra, just to have the thing that looks like it, feels like it, and sometimes performs like it. But only a couple men will buy the real thing, they will wait, they will pay massive amounts of money, not for the performance, but for the legacy that the real Cobra has standing behind it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Babalouie Posted August 8, 2010 Share Posted August 8, 2010 http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/2009/11/05/sema-2009-os-giken-tc24-b1-twin-cam-l-series-head/ OS Giken displayed a TC-24 head at SEMA last yr, and the word from OS Giken USA is: "If anyone is serious about acquiring one of the proposed new units, OS Japan is willing to manufacture them if enough people are ready to put down a deposit. The manufacturing chief mentioned that they need about 25 people lined up to get the ball rolling, and there are already several people ready to pull the trigger on it! At approximately $30-35K it’s definitely not for the meek. Regarding the original production numbers, only 9 of the TC-24′s were produced, including the one displayed at SEMA. There were over 20 of the TC-16 heads made, though." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted August 8, 2010 Share Posted August 8, 2010 I have to be impressed, I have driven one of nine, and probably have seen at least three other distinct and different cars on the mainland with that head on them. Almost half the known worldwide production? Somehow I feel that hard to believe. I have seen, personally, half the world's supply of TC24B-1's? There has to be more. I simply can't believe that low of a number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Babalouie Posted August 9, 2010 Share Posted August 9, 2010 Maybe you're just a lucky guy, Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Clean Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 What if the heads were reproduced by an American manufacturer at a much lower cost, and in higher volumes? Does anyone think the demand would be great enough if they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500-3000 a pop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galderdi Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 What if the heads were reproduced by an American manufacturer at a much lower cost, and in higher volumes? Does anyone think the demand would be great enough if they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500-3000 a pop? If they flowed well I think you would generate international interest. It can cost that ball park to get a head professionally flowed...... count me in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PMC raceengines Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 If they flowed well I think you would generate international interest. It can cost that ball park to get a head professionally flowed...... count me in. HEHEH i think they would not be so cool if every one had one . and you can get a single cam with more hp cheep in the US , ask Tony for the shops name . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 What if the heads were reproduced by an American manufacturer at a much lower cost, and in higher volumes? Does anyone think the demand would be great enough if they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500-3000 a pop? Go for it. Make a production run of 10,000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texis30O Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 This is such a tease, playing what ifs....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 BTW... earlier this month I got an update from OSG regarding the new TC24: The new-design TC24 parts are going through some final testing now; I will post up some cool pics on FB when I get a chance! ...[OSG] wants to complete testing and sell a few units here in Japan before looking to the US. Most likely we will be displaying the new-design version at SEMA and/or PRI this year (maybe even at JCCS).... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texis30O Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Again at what cost? These things are so far out of reach of the typical buyer. How much more can these heads flow to warrant the price? Using a crossflow type head can you really extract that much more hp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Again at what cost? These things are so far out of reach of the typical buyer. How much more can these heads flow to warrant the price? Using a crossflow type head can you really extract that much more hp? If I recall correctly, $40k for a head, and $90k for a complete 400hp motor. What I don't understand, is why so many other motors have aftermarket cylinder heads available, some of which have far less numbers produced than the L engine. For example, why on earth is there a fairly affordable aftermarket head for the ford pinto motor? Yes I understand it's a popular head in circle track, but you can't tell me there's that many more of those motors lying around. You also can't convince me there's more market for those in street cars as there would be for L motors, as there's plenty of serious Z enthusiasts. I don't see many people hopping up their 4 cylinder mustangs or rangers. Is this simply an issue of someone actually with the money not seeing the interest? Or is this a case of just not enough people WITH interest banning together to make it happen? Seems to me like Trick Flow or similar would eagerly take this bait if they saw the market and how many people pay big bucks to have their heads ported... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfer.tech Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 BTW... earlier this month I got an update from OSG regarding the new TC24: the pictures of the new TC24 on their FB page is sweet. They are creating a twin tipped muffler as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 (edited) I'm gonna be charitable here, but "The Ford Pinto Motor" is probably one of the worlds winningest engines out there. They were produced in the millions! It's raced competitively all around the world... I'd like to have "Typical Buyer" defined! Perhaps "Typical American Buyer"... It's there where a Z is a bottom level car that is cheap and doesn't cost any appreciable money to operate compared with the rest of the world. Elsewhere, Z's were VERY expensive cars to purchase and operate. In Japan plates for a 2liter would run $2,000 minimum, and a 2.4 more than twice that! The Z32's were well over €100K as a new car in Europe. Those costs above, by adding a zero to them represent ACTUAL REPLICATION COSTS! Yep, $35,000 to replicate an LY Head Casting. Then you have all the little bits left to make it a complete head. Oh, and the caster needs a head to cut up in sections to build the tooling. So right there you are looking at $100K before you even have a working head, all you have is a new casting to replace the one you just cut up!!! Yeah, someone is looking into that. But how many guys do you know will spend that coin for a HEAD? Not many in the USA, but when you have ¥18,711,000 into your Z (€150,000... what $243,000?) into your Z what's a little thing like a $35,000 new head casting. Those aren't crazy examples. Those are actual numbers from guys I've met and the money they put into their cars. They REALLY love their Z's!!! A "Typical Buyer" is like the "Best" Way To... These parts can be made, but as John C stated, you gotta buy 10,000 at a pop. To make a part that not one single racer can use... Otherwise those numbers are unrealistic pie-in-the-sky dreams. You have to come to grips with the realities of limited-production parts that are intricately complex. You aren't going to get them cheap, you won't get them for a bargain-basement price. And facts of the matter are American enthusiasts won't pay that kind of money for a whole CAR much less a single COMPONENT! Hell, I don't think all my Z's would sell for that much! Edited January 27, 2012 by Tony D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 I'm gonna be charitable here, but "The Ford Pinto Motor" is probably one of the worlds winningest engines out there. They were produced in the millions! It's raced competitively all around the world... I'd like to have "Typical Buyer" defined! Perhaps "Typical American Buyer"... It's there where a Z is a bottom level car that is cheap and doesn't cost any appreciable money to operate compared with the rest of the world. Elsewhere, Z's were VERY expensive cars to purchase and operate. In Japan plates for a 2liter would run $2,000 minimum, and a 2.4 more than twice that! The Z32's were well over €100K as a new car in Europe. Those costs above, by adding a zero to them represent ACTUAL REPLICATION COSTS! Yep, $35,000 to replicate an LY Head Casting. Then you have all the little bits left to make it a complete head. Oh, and the caster needs a head to cut up in sections to build the tooling. So right there you are looking at $100K before you even have a working head, all you have is a new casting to replace the one you just cut up!!! Yeah, someone is looking into that. But how many guys do you know will spend that coin for a HEAD? Not many in the USA, but when you have ¥18,711,000 into your Z (€150,000... what $243,000?) into your Z what's a little thing like a $35,000 new head casting. Those aren't crazy examples. Those are actual numbers from guys I've met and the money they put into their cars. They REALLY love their Z's!!! A "Typical Buyer" is like the "Best" Way To... These parts can be made, but as John C stated, you gotta buy 10,000 at a pop. To make a part that not one single racer can use... Otherwise those numbers are unrealistic pie-in-the-sky dreams. You have to come to grips with the realities of limited-production parts that are intricately complex. You aren't going to get them cheap, you won't get them for a bargain-basement price. And facts of the matter are American enthusiasts won't pay that kind of money for a whole CAR much less a single COMPONENT! Hell, I don't think all my Z's would sell for that much! I understand all that tony, and I understand that prices would only come down with VOLUME, but that's what I think people don't think is possible that I believe is possible to an extent. Being in the bay area, I just have to go to any big Z gathering to see that at least half of the "z enthusiasts" (read: purists) have had their engines built by robello, and half of those being stroker builds. Those people dropped some serious coin on their cars (by american standards), and many of them were only half involved in the process, which means they paid shops big bucks to do all the hard work for them. I think if the price was down to $3k there would be people lined up around the block to buy one, even though it's not legal in any race class. Are any of these guys with a robello engine going racing in a historic race class? I seriously doubt it. I think the real problem, is how do you make a head for $20k+ and then expect to lower the price as people buy? If that person WERE to sell 100 of them and then drop the price a bit, how's that supposed to make all the current owners feel? If they were then to see 1,000 and drop the price dramatically again, I'd imagine you'd have one pissed off customer base. It's almost seems like in order for the prices to really get down to the every man (here in america at least) that the investor doing the initial run would have to be prepared to make a LOT of them to get the prices down. And that's quite a gamble, especially if you're in a country where just owning one costs a lot of money.... Nobody makes aftermarket heads for Ferraris, but everyone makes heads for the SBC. I'm not so sure that people overseas understand how that relates to the L motor... I'm sure they treat the L motor like a Ferrari, but here in america it's like the SBC. Is there a more plentiful AND modified japanese motor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Is there a more plentiful AND modified japanese motor? Honda B series, Toyota 4AG, Mazda Rotary, Mazda B series, Toyota 22R, ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Honda B series, Toyota 4AG, Mazda Rotary, Mazda B series, Toyota 22R, ... There were roughly 40k S30's sold per year on average between '70 and '78. And that's US only. I could see there being more B series out there, but only by principle of worldwide sales. A vtech B series isn't all that common in the USA, which is why most guys doing swaps get imported motors. Civic Si production numbers were rarely much over 30k a year, and integra GSR numbers are extremely low. B16 del sols make the others seem plentiful. Honda motors as a whole are much more popular and modified, but their engines have changes constantly, resulting in a market that looks much bigger than it is I think. What I can really appreciate about honda motors though, is that through the popularity of the brand there's some stuff available for them that will never be available for nissan engines, like Dart engine blocks. I know there's definitely more 4AG's out there, but I don't see them being as commonly modified on street cars in the long run. They've seen a recent renaissance of sorts, but who knows how long that will last. Yes it's a great engine that's seen wonderful racing success. So did the L-gata though, and I'd argue at a much more grassroots level than the 4AG. Mazda's only popular rotary in the states was the RX series. There's less than 40k FD's total, and between all the years is around 150k, much less than Z car totals that had L motors. And I honestly don't see that many people on the street with modified rotary motors, yet they seem to have a much larger bin of parts made for them. And who's modifying Mazda B motors other than miata guys? That said there were a buttload of miatas sold, and they're an extremely popular car to modify. So there's a good point there. The 22R is common yes. Modified? I wouldn't know honestly as I'm not sure how many 4x4 guys there really are in the world. I plead complete ignorance. But I go to car shows, I go to junkyards, I keep my eyes open and I see L motors all over the place, and I see many people that pour lots of money into them. I think there IS a viable market there. Maybe instead of arguing a meaningless point on the internet, I should be taking polls and finding hard data to take to a manufacture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 LOL... I thought this was HybridZ.... The whole point of this site is swapping motors into Z cars because the L series is too wimpy and expensive to build to relatively wimpy power levels. The OSG head is a waste of aluminum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 LOL... I thought this was HybridZ.... The whole point of this site is swapping motors into Z cars because the L series is too wimpy and expensive to build to relatively wimpy power levels. The OSG head is a waste of aluminum. On principle I agree with you, but I think where we got started swapping in SBC motors was because it was cheap, effective, easy to do, and most importantly, many more americans know how to work on them. They're "easy", no extra learning required for the average gear head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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