Tony D Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Again, the point of having 10,000 is a matter of a factor of 100 more than 100! Getting a head for 20K for '100' heads, means that you need 10,000 to get it to 2,000. Those numbers don't exist. "Every Car" built by Robello wouldn't come close to justifying the money spend on the head. And again, Rebello is popular because of a winning reputation in racing. Here we are talking about a STREET ONLY (and not CA STREET LEGAL) modification. In other words, probably the LARGEST market for the modification would be knocked out due to CA legislation. The reason people aren't getting new things made for the Z in America is the terrribly low cost and pricing point tolerance we have here. Nobody wants to spend any money on them. Financially (regardless of what you 'think') there just isn't the demand. Ask ANYBODY who has ever produced a car part for the Z-Crowd: there is ALWAYS interest...come time for actually putting money down in earnest, suddenly those 100 people who 'had lots of interest if the price was reasonable' now dwindles to 10, 20 at the most. You may don't want to believe it, but that is the way it is. And is the reason it's not in production. That, and the fact that the casting mills that make SBC heads are here in America, and they don't have to do much to make improvements. GM bore the cost of their production runs, and making changes to EXISTING castings is FAR cheaper than starting from scratch. Which is what will have to happen with the L-Engine. And which will incur the costs I mentioned above. It can be done. But the SETUP is $35,000. And a current head. And then you have to decide what modifications you want to do to it to make more power. Enough more power to justify the cost of the modification. And my costs were for the part. Anybody in business will tell you that you will never stay in business only charging cost+10% for your parts. That $35,000 head casting would have to sell for $70K to make it profitable. Even if you could run 10,000 off, that $3500 head (think of how many people will spend $2400 on a proper head buildup with porting and who beg-off figuring 'they will do it themselves' and you begin to see the problem with the idea, grand as it may be!) will cost $7000 to sell retail. And that's BARE. Set it up to mimic an SR20 valve train, run all existing Nissan Stock Parts. Now you got parts someone else paid to develop. But you still have parts to pay for to add to that bare head. Anyway you look at it, you can't do pie in the sky dreams. You have to look at the facts regarding real-world production - to do it, that is how you have to look at things. You can put your $35,000 into it and see if you make it fly. But for a $10,000 investment in that completed part, what will I get over a $2400 properly prepared non-crossflow head? OSG had a 'botique' part marketed to extremely well off individuals which is the ONLY market it could EVER go to with the production numbers. Yes, there ARE manufacturers that make stuff for Ferraris. Porsches too. And you PAY. Why? Because of the EXACT market forces I'm talking about here. There is no magic bullet. You make 1, 10, even 100 of something its going to be costly. You want another example, and someone else to confirm this: Call JCR and get some production and sales figures for their supercharger kit. Or, if someone can reach someone within the old HKS marketing group, total production figures for their Surge Box. In 1985, the box by itself, the CASTING was 100,000 yen. $373 (or $862 6 months later...) The entire turbo kit bolt on to raise HP from 180 to 230 was more on the lines of 325,000 as memory serves... Entire engines were considerably more. So compare the massive sales of the relatively cheap HKS Turbo kit, with the more rarefied OSG Head. Were OSG to price it that cheap, they could have sold like HKS Boxes. Problem is, that market wasn't there for the minimal gain, and the investment for that many heads just wasn't going to ever be realized. Millions of SBC's are out there. Little tooling investment is required to make the castings better than what GM wants. Easy formula to sell 'better heads' which may be allowable in racing (most trick heads for SBC's result from racing bodies allowing them...like NASCAR...etc) Not such an easy formula for the L-Gata. How many Japanese companies do you see making SBC heads for the Japan Market? How many European companies do you see making SBC heads for the Euro-Market? That explains why we don't have but one domestic head caster that made a head for the L-Engine, along with complete blueprints. But nobody can pin down who made it. When it was made. Or where it was cast. Bought in a swap meet in SanDiego almost 20 years ago, the disposition of that particular head (and the construction blueprints and machining tooling that came with it) are lost to antiquity... It was the next best chance to cast a head today... through maybe rapid prototyping. But the work involved? For the market available? HA! Good luck with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PMC raceengines Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Again, the point of having 10,000 is a matter of a factor of 100 more than 100! Getting a head for 20K for '100' heads, means that you need 10,000 to get it to 2,000. Those numbers don't exist. "Every Car" built by Robello wouldn't come close to justifying the money spend on the head. And again, Rebello is popular because of a winning reputation in racing. Here we are talking about a STREET ONLY (and not CA STREET LEGAL) modification. In other words, probably the LARGEST market for the modification would be knocked out due to CA legislation. The reason people aren't getting new things made for the Z in America is the terrribly low cost and pricing point tolerance we have here. Nobody wants to spend any money on them. Financially (regardless of what you 'think') there just isn't the demand. Ask ANYBODY who has ever produced a car part for the Z-Crowd: there is ALWAYS interest...come time for actually putting money down in earnest, suddenly those 100 people who 'had lots of interest if the price was reasonable' now dwindles to 10, 20 at the most. You may don't want to believe it, but that is the way it is. And is the reason it's not in production. That, and the fact that the casting mills that make SBC heads are here in America, and they don't have to do much to make improvements. GM bore the cost of their production runs, and making changes to EXISTING castings is FAR cheaper than starting from scratch. Which is what will have to happen with the L-Engine. And which will incur the costs I mentioned above. It can be done. But the SETUP is $35,000. And a current head. And then you have to decide what modifications you want to do to it to make more power. Enough more power to justify the cost of the modification. And my costs were for the part. Anybody in business will tell you that you will never stay in business only charging cost+10% for your parts. That $35,000 head casting would have to sell for $70K to make it profitable. Even if you could run 10,000 off, that $3500 head (think of how many people will spend $2400 on a proper head buildup with porting and who beg-off figuring 'they will do it themselves' and you begin to see the problem with the idea, grand as it may be!) will cost $7000 to sell retail. And that's BARE. Set it up to mimic an SR20 valve train, run all existing Nissan Stock Parts. Now you got parts someone else paid to develop. But you still have parts to pay for to add to that bare head. Anyway you look at it, you can't do pie in the sky dreams. You have to look at the facts regarding real-world production - to do it, that is how you have to look at things. You can put your $35,000 into it and see if you make it fly. But for a $10,000 investment in that completed part, what will I get over a $2400 properly prepared non-crossflow head? OSG had a 'botique' part marketed to extremely well off individuals which is the ONLY market it could EVER go to with the production numbers. Yes, there ARE manufacturers that make stuff for Ferraris. Porsches too. And you PAY. Why? Because of the EXACT market forces I'm talking about here. There is no magic bullet. You make 1, 10, even 100 of something its going to be costly. You want another example, and someone else to confirm this: Call JCR and get some production and sales figures for their supercharger kit. Or, if someone can reach someone within the old HKS marketing group, total production figures for their Surge Box. In 1985, the box by itself, the CASTING was 100,000 yen. $373 (or $862 6 months later...) The entire turbo kit bolt on to raise HP from 180 to 230 was more on the lines of 325,000 as memory serves... Entire engines were considerably more. So compare the massive sales of the relatively cheap HKS Turbo kit, with the more rarefied OSG Head. Were OSG to price it that cheap, they could have sold like HKS Boxes. Problem is, that market wasn't there for the minimal gain, and the investment for that many heads just wasn't going to ever be realized. Millions of SBC's are out there. Little tooling investment is required to make the castings better than what GM wants. Easy formula to sell 'better heads' which may be allowable in racing (most trick heads for SBC's result from racing bodies allowing them...like NASCAR...etc) Not such an easy formula for the L-Gata. How many Japanese companies do you see making SBC heads for the Japan Market? How many European companies do you see making SBC heads for the Euro-Market? That explains why we don't have but one domestic head caster that made a head for the L-Engine, along with complete blueprints. But nobody can pin down who made it. When it was made. Or where it was cast. Bought in a swap meet in SanDiego almost 20 years ago, the disposition of that particular head (and the construction blueprints and machining tooling that came with it) are lost to antiquity... It was the next best chance to cast a head today... through maybe rapid prototyping. But the work involved? For the market available? HA! Good luck with it! Like you said Tony thats a bear head ,theres 2 cams and springs and retaners and valves ,2 cam gears 2 rocker covers and timing chane new timing cover 6 new pistons to make it work with the new valve angle . and all the engine parts to make it live at 8500rpm .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Well it isnt heresay they posted on there FB the pics of all the molds and products. The heads are going for 30-40k pending your order. Think I might head down by Osaka to check out the production. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 I'm currently working with these guys: http://www.facebook.com/gofxmd?sk=wall on a 280Z build for the Street GT class in Global Time Attack. We've had some preliminary discussions with OSG regarding the new TC24 but two things kept it from going any further - project schedules and OSG's reluctance (for now) to run the new TC24 in a turbo application. I've done a lot of searching and the normally aspirated TC24 in a S30 will be in essentially unlimited classes with NASA, SCCA, and GTA, which requires a turbo to be remotely competitive - at least here in the USA. The TC24 is not eligible for any vintage racing class, it would have to run in an exhibition class which gets no points, no championship, no trophy. And Tony is correct regarding street use in CA. Its not smog legal in any S30 chassis. If someone is paying that kind of money for a car it would be kinda silly to risk it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Well since we're talking castings, patterns and production I feel qualified to weigh in on this one. I usually agree with Tony on stuff as he seems to have a firm handle on this kind of thing. This time he has a death grip. bringing a head like this into production is incredibly costly. The last head pattern I bid on was hitting $25,000.00 and they had all the 3D modeling done. Ask ANYBODY who has ever produced a car part for the Z-Crowd: there is ALWAYS interest...come time for actually putting money down in earnest, suddenly those 100 people who 'had lots of interest if the price was reasonable' now dwindles to 10, 20 at the most. Anything over $200.00 and your market dies right off with most Z owners. At least in the kind of numbers you need to get to justify bringing an item into production. The only thing I've made that has paid off the development costs are the speaker panels I sell. That's why I have to want what ever it is I'm developing. I seriously have well over $25,000.00 in R&D and production on my manifold. When I finally came up with a price on them ( I think it was around $3500.00) I didn't get a single nibble. Which is ok because I did it to get the attention of future pattern customers. And it has more than paid off for that. Now having said that I'm working with a product that is going to change everything. Seriously. I've been too lazy to post about this but this is probably a good time. There is a company in Texas that has equipment that 3D prints bonded foundry sand right from a 3D model. I'm currently working on a few projects with it and it's AMAZING. No patterns. Although this will make me irrelevant in some jobs I'm learning and using the technology so I don't get run over by it. Here is a link to the web site. printed sand It's expensive and you only get one shot with the sand but it's still way cheaper than doing patterns.And you're not tied to a design. I'll be putting together a separate post in a few days with my thoughts on this stuff and a few pics and how I think it's going to change everything. OK I admit it I'm a fan boi but it's just so freaking cool. I never would have done patterns for my manifold I just would have printed the sand and poured it. Derek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidnightRider Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 If you wanted to have twin cams for your L28 it would probably cost less to just to take three Ka24de heads and weld them together... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 That printed sand is cool. Once they had developed printing on polymers it was only a matter of time time until they could do the same with other materials. Just waiting for printed Aluminum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctc Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 They have DLSM in aluminum. Problem is part size. Current about 1 cubic foot is the largest. We call it grown metal. Even have stainless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Tony ~ thanks for the input. I understand I'm in the minority that think what they do about the Z-car market and I understand why. I've watched people make products that people said would sell like hotcakes, just to see sales be mediocre. I think your points are solid, and I won't try to disagree. Where I think I differ is that I think the climate of Z owners is changing and might not look the same in 10 years, but at that point who knows what will be what. Regarding the smog legal issue, I totally understand, but that said I know plenty of people will illegal heads on their daily driven muscle cars... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RB240zDET Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 If I had the money this would just be the most amazing part to have related to the S30's (at least I think). I just wonder though which select people will be buying this head. This has to be one of the rarest Datsun/Nissan aftermarket item I have ever read/heard about. Before there were only 20 known heads produced and who knows how many of those are still around or how many actually are being used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 "Where I think I differ is that I think the climate of Z owners is changing and might not look the same in 10 years, but at that point who knows what will be what." Tony, why don't you sell your parts? "Because I'm waiting for a time when the only people who own Z-Cars actually care about them AS Z-Cars and not 'cheap cars'..." THAT is the PRIMARY difference between America and the rest of the world when it comes to these parts. If you would see what people spend on Datsuns in Europe, where they are appreciated on a different level than here in the USA you would understand it. In 10 years, maybe. Probably more like 20... Everything I see happening in the Z Car world happened in the Corvair world, except the prices never went up to stratospheric despite being a bona-fide Muscle Car (1966 Corvair Corsa Turbo, over 1HP/CuIn and listed in the American Muscle Car Registry...and yeah, I own one!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZeder Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 might be a little off topic, if a new head was to be cast why has no body mensioned a re cast of the LY heads or the also very rare FIA L6 heads, as both of these type of heads were used in period by Nissan and this would allow them to be used in classic/historical racing classes. Ok there a few sticking points, first you have get hold of one of these rare items then after selling all you internal organs for it then you have to cut it up so you can model it. Now you have to sell your limbs so you can get it recast.....so this is why it has not happened Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 You didn't read the post, the quotation of €35,000 was to produce an LY Crossflow Casting, but the owner doesn't really want to cut up a new-in-box never run LY head to make it happen (after I told him what bare heads sell for in Japan!) Both the LY and FIA heads would be interesting "period correct" pieces! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 BTW, there are people on this board who posesses both heads now being discussed (LY & FIA L-6)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texis30O Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 http://community.ratsun.net/topic/29318-l6-crossflow-cylinder-head/ came across this..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s30zgt Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 http://community.ratsun.net/topic/29318-l6-crossflow-cylinder-head/ came across this..... heres a link to their blog http://sato1511.blog40.fc2.com/ and a clip of that engine. I also agree that the Z car culture is changing and these cars are getting more respect and value from the greater car community here in America. I hope to see more manufactures getting interested in developing parts for this car as interest in Japanese classics rises. I know i could use a place to get some new aluminum brake drums (Brembo are NLA and ebay ones need relining) and as one who love their Z car im willing to pay for quality (though it slows down the resto process, saving my money and trying to do it right the first time) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 New drums in Japan, around 700 each... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I know i could use a place to get some new aluminum brake drums (Brembo are NLA and ebay ones need relining) and as one who love their Z car im willing to pay for quality (though it slows down the resto process, saving my money and trying to do it right the first time) The relined ones are like brand new. Contact these folks: http://www.jgrelining.com/. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s30zgt Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Haha thanks Tony D, maybe i should have specified i was hoping to source them from a local manufacture. Is that the price people in japan pay for drums locally? Also thanks johnc, they were my backup plan if I couldnt snag a deal on some new old stock somewhere. Back on topic though, why would OSG be hesitant to run a turbo on that head? From that old youtube clip Tony D posted they were running twin turbo setups back in the eighties so i am sure its not something they haven't worked with before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 OSG wants some testing miles on the new engine before pushing it with a turbo setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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