Price of Jake's 2270cc, With all bells & whilses Options

[Rog914]

Flat labor rate $4,000
New parts $7,500
Crating charge $ 150
Core charge
Total estimated cost $11,650

Inclusive Opions:
Dyno tuning, (In lieu of warranty) $350
Cryogenic enhancement (partial) $262
Standard blueprinting service $550
Severe duty valve train $450
Extensive Dyno Testing $500
Composite lifters (if available) $600
Mallory Unilite Distributor $329

Optional items, (not included in "Total estimated cost") above:
$400 Crygenic treatment upgrade (full engine treatment)
$275 Ion Nitrided crankshaft
$125 Lightened flywheel
$2,800 Upgrade to programmable EFI
$810 Performance engine coatings package (thermal barrier, friction reduction & heat dispersants)
$2,000 LN Engineering Nickies cylinders (if available)
$1,250 914 DTM upgrade
$145 Full flow oiling system upgrades
$92 6 puck performance cluch disc

Total Option price: $7,897

Total price of engine & all options: $19,547 (not including exhaust & shipping)

This would have been heck of a 2270cc engine with everything. I wish I could of afforded it.

Yes, I'm the last to have backed out of a Raby engine.
I'm not here to bash Jake, just tell "the other side of the story"

Started in 1-5-05 with a phone call from Jake to talk what I wanted in an engine. Told him I wanted a 2270cc and what would cost to have one with all the bells & whilses. With Nickies, all performance coatings. He gives me a "rough" estimate of $11,000. 1-6-05 I sent my $200 deposit for an engine build. He calls every now & then, and chat for awhile. Calls 2 month ago, tells me looked over the engine and everything looked good except for the heads cracked but should be salvageable and will cost a little more to repair them.
Nothing more was said about money until he calls to say my spot is getting ready and E-mailed the proposal.
The whole time I'm thinking about $11,000. When I see my all "bells & whisles" engine to be $19,547. Sorry but that's way off even for a "rough" estimate. I just can't afford that at this time.

Jake builds super engines and has done alot for the 914 community.

I just wish he would be more truthful with his estimates. Even on this board he stated "Anywhere from 7K clear to 14.5K could be end the end result." When $19,547 is the end result as his propsal states above. As far as I'm concerned I should of had the propsal in January when I put my deposit down, not at the last minute when to find out the estimate nearly doubled.

Now that's the rest of the story.

Ralph

[Jake Raby]

OK..
Now this side of the story.

First off this was a PROPOSAL, it was not a tally at the END of a build like so many builders will take advantage of. At this point of my process the customer gets a feel for what I am including in the engine package to make it "up to speed". I do this because I know what the base engine was equipped with and I also know what the engine will need to meet the customer's desires (at minimum).

I do this proposal at the point I do because I want to ensure that the customer knows exactly what things are going to cost and when I will be finished. Unlike other establishments you get no suprises at the end of the project as this document states the exact cost to the dollar except shipping. when a customer and I first make contact it can be as much as a solid year before we get to the proposal process. in ROG 914's case it was about 10 months if my memory serves me correctly. A whole lot can happen in 10 months time and due to that an estimated cost is something that I can't even think about giving accurately that far in advance. In the last 10 months gas prices went up almost 2 dollars a gallon in some places and some of my parts are now 100 bucks more than they were then. The price of Len's cylinder head work has also increased, these are just a couple of things that increase the difficulty of my projects and customer relations when customers remain on the wait list for so long.

Keep in mind that its TOTALLY normal for me to hear horror stories from other establishments that have no proposal process. It is typical for these shops to upcharge the customer 30-50% at the end of the build, after the job is done and I have heard as much as 70% from one Porsche shop in Florida. Remember that all I had from ROG914 money wise was 200.00, not 2K and not 5K+.

When ROG 914 and myself spoke I was right smack dab in the mdlle of testing EFI systems (and I told him that) I had no idea which system I was going to use and I had no what throttle bodies, fuel pump and etc was going to work the best, nor did i know how much extra time I was going to have to expend to tune the EFI system on the dyno. This WAS more than I had anticipated when he and I spoke, and we discussed that fact.

I then break down some of the most important parts of the things I have chosen as part of the baseline prices, these are known as "Inclusive options". Basically they are things that would be an option and *COULD* be taken away if the cost of the base engine is out of the persons budget. If you do the math there you will see that 2,191.00 of the cost of the base engine could have been discounted. This would have lowered the "New parts" tally to 5,706.00 which is only slightly more than the cost of a 2270 engine kit. (kit cost about 4,700.00 and that difference would have been with his cylinder head work.

Now we get to the options portion of the proposal... This is 100% CUSTOMER CHOSEN and NONE of it is a must for the engine to perform to the likeness of it's "base engine" derivative. Doing thisngs this way lets the customer trick the engine out as much as they want, but still remain within their own budget, since they are picking the options. Lets go over them real quick

$400 Crygenic treatment upgrade (full engine treatment)
>>>>I already cryo a huge chunk of the engine. This upgrade is less than the cost of even doing 1/4 of the engine if you do it off the street, but it gets everything that benefits from cryo processed. Is this a must- Nope...

$275 Ion Nitrided crankshaft
>>>> This is mostly for race engines, but I give this option to those who are interested in Nickies because that means thay are already concerned with longevity and this process is all about longevity. Is it a must- Nope.

$125 Lightened flywheel
>>>> This is an option because some 914 customers don't wish to have their lightened. Is it a must- Nope.

$2,800 Upgrade to programmable EFI
>>>> This is the cost to upgrade to a 100% complete EFI arrangement and have it installed on the engine and TUNED. The tuning of this arrangement can effectively double the amount of time that the engine is on the dyno and it requires myself AND Brent to do it, instead of ONLY my time. The kit is complete from the fuel pump to the pressure regulator and the customer's parts are used for tuning. This allows the customer to install the engine and only have to set deceleration values. Ask Mueller how much of a benefit this is! Is this a necessity- Nope because carbs were included in the base engine.


$810 Performance engine coatings package (thermal barrier, friction reduction & heat dispersants)
>>> This is for the POFESSIONAL application of coatings to the entire engine. This includes shiping incurred to get these components to THREE different coaters across the country as not one of them has the best proceses for all the components. This is NOT marked up a penny on this proposal, it just adds to the life and temperatures of my engine. Is it a necessity- Nope.

$2,000 LN Engineering Nickies cylinders (if available)
>>>>Self explanatory and they are 350 bucks LESS than LN charges for them.

$1,250 914 DTM upgrade
>>>The customer ASKED for this to be included specifically and it is 100% complete with all of it's hardware and sealing tin and 99% of it is installed. Is it a necessity- Nope.

$145 Full flow oiling system upgrades
>>>>This one is an option for teeners because it requires more work to install into the car if the DTM is not used and some people do not want to spring for it and the hasseles involved. Its 15 bucks more than the full flow kit on my site. necessity- Nope.

$92 6 puck performance cluch disk
>>>> Same price it cost on my site.. It does not have to be used but it has much better longevity with serious power than anything else..

So as you can see that entire engine with more things added to it than it needs definately adds up to a big price tag. If you will not ALL the options that took the price form 11K clear to 19K were only parts additions, most of which were not marked up over retail and most that were BELOW retail. Yet again this was a proposal and the customer had 100% control of the reins and what he wanted to spend for the project. This is the reason why I do a proposal and stick to it during the entire build process, it helps keep things clear that have so many variables- the engine has over 400 parts that comprise it top to bottom so as you can guess this can get amazingly diffiult to keep track of without the proposal.

Now for 19K what would the customer have gotten?? Well first off if he chose all those items I would have went ahea and upgraded him to a 2563cc / 200HP engine for the same cost, because all those exotic components cost the same for a 2270 or a 2563. The head work would have been more but more than likely I would have eat that myself. Since the engine has all the components of a Super Hero the labor to build it would be the same as the much larger and more powerful Super Hero engine. This would certainly help make the cost more justifible to the customer and woulod have yielded an engine with the same life span, same maintenance and same MPG- just more power. Have I done this before?? You damn right, probably 5 times in the past two years.

Now lets get to the heart of this particular story:
When the customer received this proposal he mentioned that the $$ was a concern. I then told him that he could step back down to the base engine (nothing wrong with that) as it would serve his purpose just fine and make a solid 155HP and live an 80+K life span. He then seemed like he didn't know what to do so I told him to sleep on it for a couple of days and let me know what he wanted to do. At this point I expressed my dis-taste for builds that do not go through and since he is a member here he surely already knew this. Upon contact the 3rd time he said that he did not wish to go forward and at that point I told him that we could settle for a less expensive base engine to keep prices down if that was a problem. He then stated that the money he had set aside for the project had fizzled away and he did not want to go forward... Now with that last sentence stated, why does the cost matter? I had already made more than one attempt to keep the customer happy and kept him from falling out of line, in fact I told him I would do whatever he needed (within reason) to keep that from occuring. Now the base engine was about 600 bucks more than he thought it was going to be for 10 months and it would not have EFI or coating or Nickies but it would still generate about the same HP, so why didn't he make a compromise???? did he lack even the 11K that the build was "estimated" to cost?? Only he knows that.

This customer and myself have talked multiple tmes since January and we always got along. Hell, he even sent me a vintage valve grinding machine before we were even discussing an engine build! Even though he has diclosed information here that may be detrimental to my business if the individual does not read my side of the story- I don't care. I have never been "mad" at him, I was disappointed that this happened again and it happened with another 914 customer- maybe that was just a coincidence, but 13 out of 14 seems pretty consistent to me and it certainly deserved some head scratching.

So.. What does this boil down to?? The customer was told a rough estimate for an engine that was going to include two components that were not even developed yet and still under going test work. One was the EFI and the other was the 914 DTM, both of which are expensive units and the 914 DTM is still not 100% ready to retail even as we speak.

Yes, perhaps I was wrong with the quote, but this just further teaches me not to give any quotes until the proposal is ready and we are within a few WEEKS of beginning the process.

I want to go a little further with this post and say the following: This last little problem has convinced me that my system needs improvement if we will having wait times that are approaching past the 5 month mark. None of these things were as bad when I had a 4-7 month wait as they are now that I have a 7+ month wait. I will continue working off the backlogs and I will not take on any more engine build jobs (no spots held) until I have the wait list down below 6 months so it is managable.

I have also decided that 914 engines will not be custom any longer and only a couple of options will be available. I will only off the 2270, 2316 and 2563cc combinations and the only Nickies engine available will be the 2563. Coatings are no longer an option, neither are the things that can make engine builds get out of control parts wise. This will hopefully make things easier for me and more stream lined.

As I had said before, I had no hard feelings for ROG914. At least we were able to get this situation taken care of before the job was underay and more than just 200.00 was in question. The proposal did its job and spelled things out clearly and allowed the custiomer to employ as much of my development as he wanted. The proposal is there with NO FINE PRINT up front- it doesn't get any better than that and if i could do a proposal 8 months in advance, I would. I try my hardest to make enough updates that in 8 months the engine thats proposaed would be able to benefit from more advancements. The thing thats worse than anything is modifying an existing proposal to incorporate new advancements 1/2 way through the job- I don't do it because every time that I have I lost my ass! Heck in 8 months i hope to have roller lifters as an option for every engine I build- but since I have no idea what that cost will be in the end how can I propose it now??? Thats just an example of why I wait till I am 8 weeks out before doing a proposal.

If you guys here are upset with me, or the way i have handled this- I'm sorry. All I can say is that this business is VERY hard to run due to the fact that I do not wish to be a "job shop" and just turn engines out as mass produced units. The point of being fair to myself and the customer is VERY hard to dictate and I try the best I can to do so. I feel quite sure that the long wait times and the complexity of my engines are the root of these issues and thats why I can see that changes are necessary that I previously had not considered.(the biggest being going back to more standardized builds)

I know there are a few club members that are taking this rare opportunity of a displeased customer to bash me, or kick me in the gut. All I can say to that is that, well they don't get the chance very often and they better take those shots while they can.

BTW- as far as not being of much technical assistance lately- well you can think (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/stromberg.gif) for that.. I got tired of making posts that eneded up on someone else's website. It appears that he may be gone now (at least he is off the samba) so I might be able to share information more often without being worried about it getting copied.