What's your ultimate vision for your ZR-1?

Originally Posted by Patton

I am!! Who the hell prices this shyt? They have such unreasonably high prices because there isn’t much demand for them so they have to make a killing with every sale, AND they know the majority of ZR-1 owners aren't counting pennies... being in the minority freakin sucks.

I wonder how precise you have to be when porting,... I know anybody can polish their own stuff, just get a dremmel and a nice accessory kit with bendable arms and such. But I wonder if porting is feasible for your average gear head.

And don’t get me started on the headers,... a couple of SS pipes welded together for $1000? Give me a goddamn break, highway robbery is what it is... If someone competed with these guys, he could make a killing. The problem is to compete like that and sell less expensive solutions you have to sell a crap load of them to come out on top and there arent enough ZR-1s to support that... sooo we end up exactly where we are. At least we dont have to pull the engine and spend 10k to change the belts! Poor ferrari owners...

Francisco, a polish job does nothing for air flow, it would be a waste of time and money. And a dremel isn't going to cut it. You just can't remove the material. I'm offering porting and powder on the top end for 1K for the package. Nobody else can touch that cost period.

Headers, picture spending hours upon hours of cutting, welding, mounting/unmounting, cutting, welding... and so on, then you start to see the R&D time on making these things. It's not like working on a open frame hot rod where you don't have to be precise, you are working on a closed vehicle with fiberglass floorboards and wiring harnesses. You make a mistake and you either melt a car or destroy a harness. 1,000 for headers is justifiable.

With 6,939 (minus the ones that have died) cars sitting on the ground then subtract all the cars in collectors hands that will never ever be driven, or modified and you're left with a handful of cars to work on. That market is slowly drying up. LPE I think has done maybe 2-3 ZR-1's in the pst 2 years. SGC has slowed down on LT5's, Vette Dr.s who knows and DRM is unkown.

[Patton]

Jesus Jeff, looks like a touched a sore spot!

If you read my post carefully I was griping about paying the huge price but explained why they are so high at the end because of supply and demand and there can be no mass production items because there is no mass to produce for!
That bieng said I didnt think about the crap it takes to design headers, Its not like GM is going to happily hand over their R&D work to help you any, very good points.

I'm offering porting and powder on the top end for 1K for the package. Nobody else can touch that cost period.

SAY WHAT? You do top end work?? Jesus, I didnt even know, so top end porting nd powder coat for 1k? Now see, thats what I am talking about! Competition is beautiful. I would send my stuff to you WAY before anbody ealse. I think your closest competitor is 2k! Thats kick ***, way to offer us Z guys another solution. Hopefully, within a year I'll be asking you to have mine done.

That market is slowly drying up. LPE I think has done maybe 2-3 ZR-1's in the pst 2 years. SGC has slowed down on LT5's, Vette Dr.s who knows and DRM is unkown.

I know, Im not even in the buisness and I can feel it happening. I just hope I can get my stuff done or know enough people before the well is all dried up. LPE used to sell different performance parts for the Z like headers and what not,... I checked about a month ago and they dont have ANYthing except their insanely priced packages.

How much does it cost to ship the top end?

Thanks for the info Jeff.

[Kevin]

Jeff will be getting my top end as soon as I can afford to fly him out.

[Patton]

Bobbyhi, Aurora40, Cuisinartvette...

Ahhh hell I know why they cost so much, Im just bitching and moaning cause I dont have the money!!

Factoring in the R&D and the fact that its a rare car makes the 1k for headers understandable. But the port/polish/powder type stuff for about 2-3k is just too much. Now all of that for 1k sounds very reasonable! I would take Jeff up on that in a heartbeat, and I will the moment I have the money to play with!

[Locobob]

Originally Posted by Patton

SAY WHAT? You do top end work?? Jesus, I didnt even know, so top end porting nd powder coat for 1k? Now see, thats what I am talking about! Competition is beautiful. I would send my stuff to you WAY before anbody ealse. I think your closest competitor is 2k! Thats kick ***, way to offer us Z guys another solution. Hopefully, within a year I'll be asking you to have mine done.

Jeff does the powder and I do the porting, you can see some of our work on the Corvette Forum. Just finished one a few weeks ago, maybe I'll put up some pics here if people are interested in seeing it.

[Z Factor]

Originally Posted by Locobob

Jeff does the powder and I do the porting, you can see some of our work on the Corvette Forum. Just finished one a few weeks ago, maybe I'll put up some pics here if people are interested in seeing it.

I believe many people would, myself included, so please do.

[tomtom72]

Okay now it's my turn to own up to being Jeff & Bob do top end work! That is choice!! Looks like I have to save some more nickles. Oh, damn this is starting to get baaaaad. There goes my original premise for buying this car...mod proof...ugh! Oh well I gotta keep up with the C5's I hang with on cruises.

Okay, Aurora I know you had another C4 so you are more familiar with the car than I. I should go do some research & eye up my car to see what's up with headers. Good luck with the T/B & P & P work. I don't get that idle thing at all. I guess I was lucky it did not happen to me. I would like to know anything that Marc says about what caused that to go wrong. If you would not mind sharing, that is. I would also be curious what the results of a P & P job would be on a car w/o headers? You are doing the headers at the same time as the P & P job or waiting to recover a bit?? I apologize for being nosey. I'm just thankful for whatever info you may want to share!


Tom

[Patton]

Originally Posted by Locobob

Jeff does the powder and I do the porting, you can see some of our work on the Corvette Forum. Just finished one a few weeks ago, maybe I'll put up some pics here if people are interested in seeing it.

I had no idea. You guys gotta put the word out, Im sure people would jump at that price!

Pictures Please!!

[cuisinartvette]

Jeff will definitely be getting my powdercoat work, maybe I won't polish the motor after all...The silver looks awesome.

[Aurora40]

Originally Posted by tomtom72

Okay, Aurora I know you had another C4 so you are more familiar with the car than I. I should go do some research & eye up my car to see what's up with headers. Good luck with the T/B & P & P work. I don't get that idle thing at all. I guess I was lucky it did not happen to me. I would like to know anything that Marc says about what caused that to go wrong. If you would not mind sharing, that is. I would also be curious what the results of a P & P job would be on a car w/o headers? You are doing the headers at the same time as the P & P job or waiting to recover a bit?? I apologize for being nosey. I'm just thankful for whatever info you may want to share!


Tom

Hey Tom, I had an '87 but I never put headers on it. I don't know what prices are good or bad, just that ~$1k for headers doesn't seem so out there? They are stainless, fit well, etc. Toss on some cats and you are talking $1500-1700. Cats are expensive due to the materials in them. I realize it's steep, but no steeper than putting 18" wheels on a Civic or something. But there's a lot more bang for the buck.

Marc thinks the secondaries are hanging up, which seems reasonable. I just can't see where they are hanging up. They close fine when removed, but of course there is no vacuum then working against them. I've tried letting them back slowly and such, still they close fine. You can't see light through them except on the sides a little where the shaft is, which I imagine is quite normal. There's actually even some trace of the dag still left around the blades. I don't want to randomly sand away at stuff trying to fix the hangup, I can't noodle what's wrong, and the TB is too dang expensive. So punching it out to 63mm should remove whatever the problem was.

I won't be doing headers now, probably not for a year or more. With the plenum P&P and new injectors, that's a fair bit of change... Also, my buying experience was a fair bit like yours. The car ran great, seemed well cared for, the guy had held the price for a long time and wasn't budging. I liked the car, it's local, etc... Probably overpaid by a few, but oh well. Still a great car and I'm sure I'll get many years of fun out of it. In the long run it won't matter so much.

Marc includes a chip, so with new mapping, more flow, and non-leaky injectors, it will hopefully be fast and smooth! It will be sort of a sleeper what with the stock exhaust and rather tame note.