Re: DMC engine upgrades

[srubano@xxxx]

There's that "competition" word again. There are very few (five major 
ones I believe) Delorean vendors out there and they get most of the 
major parts from Houston. Whether Houston sells to a customer or 
another D vendor they make money....period (as James Espey says). If 
they were to "branch out" and sell/offer the engine upgrades to other 
D vendors I think they would sell alot more. Not allot of people have 
the time to drive their car down to Houston, spend a week down there, 
afford to have their car shipped there, cost of flying down 
there...ect. If the opprotunity was there that they could go to the 
nearest Delorean vendor and have the mods performed...then I think 
more people would do it....in return Houston makes more money. 

Now getting back to the Buissness 101 you mentioned, if Houston on 
the other hand says no, and other vendors get requests to do 
something like this then that vendor would probably have no other 
choice but to go off on their own and design their own upgrades....in 
return Houston dosen't make a dime on it. Now you have competition 
and people are going to hesitate in having anything done until they 
see results of the different mods that are being offered. I know I 
would before I put that much money down. Now Houston isn't going to 
make their money back as fast as they would have hoped to. You never 
know, someone could come up with a better mod for less money and 
allot more powerfull....which one would you go for? So here's the 
run down...sell/offer the parts to D vendors ONLY to perform the mods 
for people who don't want to make that big trip.etc..ect...and MAKE 
money or don't sell/offer the mods to a D vendor ONLY and have the 
other D vendors come up with their own solution and make NO money 
from that sale. Hmmmmmm....all that green that they invested could be 
made back in no time. BTW, all that money in labor....someone has to 
pay the mechanic Hourly to do it...and I am sure they aren't paying 
him minimum wage either to do it.

Basic engine modifications aren't big "Trade Secret" especially when 
it comes down to just Porting and polishing the heads, replacing the 
cams, reworking the exhaust system and other engine tuning, just 
common knowledge. Any compitent engine builder can come up with that 
to squeeze the extra 70HP from an already air starving/exhaust 
constricted engine. What you are refering to as "trade secrets" in 
engine building is building an engine from the ground up, starting 
from scratch with raw materials with your own formulas and 
calculations not basic modifications.

It's not always true that you have to pay a large sum of money to go 
fast...it has been proven.

Never assume that because a firm does work for F1's that the headers 
are Mandrel bent. 

With all that said, I am not posting in anyway to "bash" Houston or 
put them down in anyway, they are a good company. I am sure the 
engine delivers some really good results for the Delorean. I have not 
driven a Delorean that has had the mods and have only heard by "word 
of mouth" from people who have actually sat in it and drove the car 
themselves. From what I understand (someone please correct me if I 
wrong) someone told me that the mods were worth doing on a Manual 
tranny and are not worth doing on an automatic. I was told that the 
automatic felt like it had the same power as a regular stock engine, 
manual transmission Delorean? 

--- In dmcnews@xxxx, fjk143@xxxx wrote:
<SNIP> The actual mods have been designed by a UK firm that also does 
F1 work so I am certain that the headers are mandrel bent, polished, 
etc. as per good hot rodding technique as described by Jim. <SNIP>
> 
> As far as giving his proprietary information to his competitors I 
think he'd be a fool to do so and I'm certain he won't. He has spent 
alot of green getting Stage 1 first-time engineering and I'm sure 
alot of his recovery is in labor to perform the mods. To give it 
away to competitor is against Business 101.
> 
> Bottom line is: If you want to go fast, you have to pay, period. 
That has been the rule since day one.
> 
> Oh yeah, when I get my car back eventually Steve provides it with a 
6 month, 6,000 mile warranty and actually prefers me to fly to 
Houston, stay a week, drive the car, hang around, and have minor 
corrections made per my liking as we are also lowering and balancing 
the car. <SNIP>
> Fred
> 6894