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Sorry for the delay in update news. Am expecting delivery of the RP's of the liner and rear under enclosure late this week or early next - they should be out of the 3D printer by midweek and then it is a shipping wait. Will post pics of inidividual parts both on and off the car following Form and Fit testing, hopefully mid next week.
I have now received the Rapid Prototypes of the RH versions of the liner and underliner and am "over the moon" on the Form and Fit. Remember, all the design work was done on the LH side of the car on the assumption (after very close insepction) that the RH and LH are mirror images of one another - they are!!!!! The beauty of CAD. Have posted photos in the HS2K.RLS gallery. Production will be in 'sand' finished black HDPE so the match up with the existing fender trim will look great.Thickness of the thermoformed parts will be slightly thinner than the rapid prototype because of the nature of the production process. Now just need to get the interest level up to justify taking the next (expensive) step. Cheers to all.
With the site update a couple of posts that I did in S2000 Talk seem to have gotten missed on this forum. I will post them to here tomorrow, or you can go to Talk and seem them there including photos of the Form &Fit exercise with the prototype which was excellent. See you soon.
These are some of the photos posted to my gallery Feb 24,2011 showing the Form and Fit test results of the RLS rapid prototypes received Wed of this week. I am very happy. How about you?
Follow up and to anticipate questions in this regard - I personally will use a 1/4" x 1/32" piece of double sided tape (available from any good model shop) between the liner and the edge of the bumper to ensure that that interface is tight. Also note in the pictures that the liner is being held in place by the regular bumper mounting screw only - it is that snug to the inside faces that it doesn't require more than that to keep it in place in a static condition. It was my intent that 3 additional screws would affix the liner to the face of the bumper skin (you can see pilot holes for those already in the RP) as well as 3 screws into the sheet metal inside along the small flat faced surface that runs accross the liner (if you look at the picture of the "behind" view you will see the sheet metal face hanging down about 1" from the box above it) so that you would have access to the backside of these screws/bolts if you needed or wanted to. These holes through the sheet metal would be lined to prevent galvanic action (rust), or the screws would be some sort of non conductive material (perhaps ceramic) for the same reason, with larger washers (like the present bumper mounting screw) to spread the load out around the hole and prevent fretting of the hole in the liner. So that is all the mounting "secrets" exposed. Cheers
Many have asked about pricing and in some cases I have written back PM's on this matter. So here's the poop - pricing is not yet fixed because it is a function of the size of the first production run which is, in turn, a function of the number of owners expressing a desire for this product. A minimum production run under the quotes I have received is 100 units. This means I actually have to sell/move 100 kits as I have no ability, physically or financially, to inventory these for any length of time. On a balance of probabilities maybe 10% (and one could argue about this ratio) of those who have said they would be interested may actually step up to the plate ( the "talk is cheap" syndrome), so that means I would have to have expressions of interest from approx. 1000 owners to justify going the next [expensive] step. As of this date we're not even close. As of this date, assuming a 1:1 ratio (which is not realistic on which to base a large capital expenditure), we are getting close. I need your help by talking to your friends who are S2000 owners who may be on other S2000 boards and therefore may not even be aware of this; if you belong to a club tell your fellow members at your next meeting. Tell your local Honda dealer. Initially I could only justify becoming a "vendor" member on one of these Boards for 3 months (ending Mar 15) , and of all, I selected S2KI because it appeared to me to be populated with people truly interested in the S2000, true enthusiasts, and from all over the world. With that exposure I had hoped that word would spread - you know - the "one(1) tells 10" phenomenon.
If it helps, my own personal price threshold (i.e. how much I would personally be prepared to pay) for something like this to protect my very special car would be maybe as high as $400 or $500 - if it was of a quality worthy of the car itself. Maybe I am crazy (my wife certainly thinks so!). But I have had responders say "up to $600 if it is of high quality" or "please don't make it out of CF and charge $1000". So I think I have some sense of the intrinsic value owners might attribute to such a part. My hope was to get the price into the $250 -$350 realm or lower but that is not going to happen on a production run of 100.
Please understand, I am a "one-trick pony", and retired to boot. In many ways this was a labour of love that I thought might have broader interest. I don't have a host of other S2000 products to sell against the revenues of which to off-set my "R&D Costs" on this project. These are the hard cold facts for me…. and for you. I hate to say it, but the ball is now in your (i.e. the collective) court. With the Rapid Prototypes I have proven the concept and am extremely happy (no - ecstatic) with the results. It is as good as I, a perfectionist, imagined it could be. This is exactly what I was looking for when I embarked upon this endeavour. But without a market it can all go for naught. This is a problem that all small businesses face when they start out so one has to proceed carefully from a financial point of view in the early stages.
Hope this helps or at least explains where we are at right now on this front.
the design looks very well thought out and the quality according to the pictures look great. i would be interested in something like this being that it would save me a lot of rocks flying up onto my diffuser. i would have to cut down some of it to accommodate for my wider wheels but i would be hard pressed to believe you are going to be able to drum up enough interest to offset your cost if your price point is 250-350 on a production that would have to be much greater then 100. with the demographic of this board and the price point of the s2000 now its going to have to be closer to $150-200.
for a thought out product!
