Why is the SBD kit so well priced?

[NyC Zn6]

Originally Posted by DustinS

Trust owns Greddy.

Thanks for the clarification

[carczar87]

Originally Posted by Nickosport

Ever had a car with port fuel injection? Guess you should sell it, its all a knock off of Stuart Hilborn's designs. You should support the developer. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hilborn

Does you car have tires other than Goodyear? Yes? Better sell them. Goodyear developed vulcanized rubber. All others are imitators - period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization

Is everyone pissed at Fuel Safe for copying ATL's fuel cell designs? No. Should we be pissed at Winters for producing knock offs of Franklin quick changes? How about Aluminum engine blocks? The first one was cast for McLaren by Reynolds Aluminum. Don't buy a car with an aluminum engine block, or you are a hypocrite.

Should I keep going? There's examples of this in almost every component of every vehicle.

This argument is stupid. If you have ever been involved in any form of the auto industry you know that it is all monkey see monkey do. Everyone copies eachother. Especially if someone is winning.

edit: words

That's quite simply a ridiculous argument. First of all, you're ignoring the fact that the patents on all of your cited examples have long since expired.

If Greddy had invented the concept of a turbo kit and SBD simply came up with their own take on the idea, then your analogies would sort of apply. But they didn't. SBD/Zage literally copied the exact layout that Greddy designed for this engine. Nobody is suggesting that Greddy or anyone else should have the exclusive right to design turbo kits, but rather that copycats (Zage/SBD) drive designers (Greddy/Trust) out of the market because they can afford to charge a lower price, not having any R&D to cover.

[PandaSPUR]

Originally Posted by carczar87

That's quite simply a ridiculous argument. First of all, you're ignoring the fact that the patents on all of your cited examples have long since expired.

If Greddy had invented the concept of a turbo kit and SBD simply came up with their own take on the idea, then your analogies would sort of apply. But they didn't. SBD/Zage literally copied the exact layout that Greddy designed for this engine. Nobody is suggesting that Greddy or anyone else should have the exclusive right to design turbo kits, but rather that copycats (Zage/SBD) drive designers (Greddy/Trust) out of the market because they can afford to charge a lower price, not having any R&D to cover.

+1

SBD didn't use Greddy's design as "inspiration" to build their own design on. They simply took Greddy's design.

Use smartphones as an analogy. Consider the iPhone. There are a lot of 1:1 copycat phones out there from China that even try to imitate how the UI looks. Then theres other smartphones, some of which are debate-ably too similar to the iPhone (Samsung phones). In that analogy, SBD would be making the Chinese ripoff iPhones.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Nickosport

Ever had a car with port fuel injection? Guess you should sell it, its all a knock off of Stuart Hilborn's designs. You should support the developer. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hilborn

Does you car have tires other than Goodyear? Yes? Better sell them. Goodyear developed vulcanized rubber. All others are imitators - period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization

Is everyone pissed at Fuel Safe for copying ATL's fuel cell designs? No. Should we be pissed at Winters for producing knock offs of Franklin quick changes? How about Aluminum engine blocks? The first one was cast for McLaren by Reynolds Aluminum. Don't buy a car with an aluminum engine block, or you are a hypocrite.

Should I keep going? There's examples of this in almost every component of every vehicle.

This argument is stupid. If you have ever been involved in any form of the auto industry you know that it is all monkey see monkey do. Everyone copies eachother. Especially if someone is winning.

edit: words

There's a difference between making a competing product using a newly discovered technique, and making a replica/counterfeit/knockoff.

[nickmerronesucks]

This whole thing can be compared easily with wheel designs. Yet thousands of people will still buy the cheaper one because it does the same job for a lower cost. And about half of this forum is guilty of having wheels that are replicas(if not direct copys) of other wheels.

[Scott@HKSUSA]

Well, since this conversation is going that direction - in 1973 Hasegawa (HKS) introduced the first bolt-on turbo kit ever manufactured for a passenger car.

So everyone else - followers.

[nickmerronesucks]

Originally Posted by Scott@HKSUSA

Well, since this conversation is going that direction - in 1973 Hasegawa (HKS) introduced the first bolt-on turbo kit ever manufactured for a passenger car.

So everyone else - followers.

But he got the idea from cars that came turbo from the factory?

lol

[Nickosport]

So the guys at Kinsler clearly didn't knockoff Hilborn less than 10 years later? Like I said, it happens all the time. There's nothing special about the Greddy kit, the piping layout is only a piping layout. All it does is funnel air from one place to another. If they had used the same locations to get through the radiator support on the SBD kit and just a different intercooler, would it still be a copy? Its all the same basic parts on all of the turbo kits. And you guys are hung on piping layout and giving this guy hell.

Since were talking about R&D costs, how much was it? $10,000? $100,000? How much of each kit is comprised of R&D costs, and how many needed to be sold to make the investment worth while? Did Greddy consider that? You don't think the very smart people that run Greddy accounted for that? You guys act like it cost piles of money to do this stuff. It doesnt. Its all off the shelf parts combined to form a kit. The most difficult part is the header, and I can build a nicer one in my garage. For christ sake most of the parts are contracted and built in either Taiwan or China. You can buy the same stuff from the same factory, just without Greddy's name on it. They didn't redesign the wheel to do this. You could fab and test a similar kit in your garage, and possibly get better results. Does it make you a bad person if you use the same piping set up? No.

You can keep going round and round on this, or you can accept that people learn from what they see and replicate it. Why start from nothing? Take some eleses design and build on it and make it better or cheaper. Why couldn't Greddy patent the design? BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT IT TO PATENT.

[sosick]

Originally Posted by NyC Zn6

But isn't Trust affiliated with Greddy. http://www.trust-power.com/ ..Greddy is all over their site. Unless Trust is doing the R&D and branding it as Greddy to sell products. http://www.trust-power.com/86_brz/index.html?cate=turbo .

Trust owns greddy but are we sure that greddy is the one doing all the work? Wat if trust does all the work but brands it as greddy since greddy already has a good name in the industry.

[PandaSPUR]

Originally Posted by Nickosport

You can keep going round and round on this, or you can accept that people learn from what they see and replicate it. Why start from nothing? Take some eleses design and build on it and make it better or cheaper. Why couldn't Greddy patent the design? BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT IT TO PATENT.

How exactly did SBD build on the Greddy design?

To me they just stole the EXACT same design, down to the freaking dome air filter, and sold it for cheaper than Greddy.

Then slap a charismatic sales guy on top of all of this, and we have a ton of people believing SBD are saints who make "barely" any profit per kit.

SBD kit is cheap because it is a direct 1:1 ripoff of the Greddy kit

[iJeff]

Originally Posted by PandaSPUR

How exactly did SBD build on the Greddy design?

To me they just stole the EXACT same design, down to the freaking dome air filter, and sold it for cheaper than Greddy.

Then slap a charismatic sales guy on top of all of this, and we have a ton of people believing SBD are saints who make "barely" any profit per kit.

SBD kit is cheap because it is a direct 1:1 ripoff of the Greddy kit

They do use a different turbo and include a BOV. The rest is the same though AFAIK.

[Flat_4_Life]

If your reason for not liking a SBD is because it looks like greddy you got issues. If greddy had patents and was so worried that SBD stole there design a lawsuit would have happened. If you would pay more money just to stick behind a big brand name you're a tool.

[Nickosport]

Originally Posted by PandaSPUR

How exactly did SBD build on the Greddy design?

To me they just stole the EXACT same design, down to the freaking dome air filter, and sold it for cheaper than Greddy.

Then slap a charismatic sales guy on top of all of this, and we have a ton of people believing SBD are saints who make "barely" any profit per kit.

SBD kit is cheap because it is a direct 1:1 ripoff of the Greddy kit

My point is "what exaclty is so special about Greddy's design?"

The whole reason we are having this conversation is because everyone thinks Greddy gets the bad end of the stick because they have to spend gobs of money developing these. The fact is that it doesn't take gobs of money to develop turbo kits. These kits are not rocket science. Headers are not crazy expensive to develop, and moreover there's noting special about the one they supply. The engineering for the turbo is already done. Its all standard stuff. There's nothing cutting edge about turbo kits for an entry level sport car for a primarily street car market. Its a turbo manufactured by a third party. A hundred bucks worth of charge piping, an intercooler and a header, and maybe a blowoff valve. Every last piece of the greddy kit is contracted out, and they buy in bulk to get a good price. Zage is a smaller company, buying in less volume from the same manufacturers, for a smaller market(not wordwide). Why are they so much cheaper? Greddy's discount from buying in bulk alone should make up the difference. You are paying for a name, not engineering(in this particular case). Manufacturing engineering 101.

[nickmerronesucks]

Originally Posted by Nickosport

My point is "what exaclty is so special about Greddy's design?"

The whole reason we are having this conversation is because everyone thinks Greddy gets the bad end of the stick because they have to spend gobs of money developing these. The fact is that it doesn't take gobs of money to develop turbo kits. These kits are not rocket science. Headers are not crazy expensive to develop, and moreover there's noting special about the one they supply. The engineering for the turbo is already done. Its all standard stuff. There's nothing cutting edge about turbo kits for an entry level sport car for a primarily street car market. Its a turbo manufactured by a third party. A hundred bucks worth of charge piping, an intercooler and a header, and maybe a blowoff valve. Every last piece of the greddy kit is contracted out, and they buy in bulk to get a good price. Zage is a smaller company, buying in less volume from the same manufacturers, for a smaller market(not wordwide). Why are they so much cheaper? Greddy's discount from buying in bulk alone should make up the difference. You are paying for a name, not engineering(in this particular case). Manufacturing engineering 101.

/END THREAD