obx FMIC kit

[nazthug]

ok, what happened to this company?

Since when does obx turn around from making rice parts to making LSD's, cams, manifolds, headers and NOW intercoolers, which are btw, EXACT replicas of APEXi????

I mean its almost as if they literally, take a product, CLONE it, and sell it for 1/3 the price

The products look nice, but WTF???

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

how can you possibly do this? At these prices? Legally????

 

[GPTourer]

Not trying to argue, I agree and disagree with your statement, and you have made some very good points.

Hey man, no problem - I'm always up for a good civil discussion. Good points from you as well.

The $75 cost for the header would also include cost for R&D since that cost is amortized out over the life of a product. Costs like R&D could be compared to interest on a 30 yr mortgage. In this example, you pay a majority of the interest in the first say, 5 yrs, then you start paying off more on the Principle, (ie, the $ amount you borrowed).

I can't see comparing cars or car parts to real estate. Its the one of the few things in our economy that sees some form of appreciation that even the common man can take part in. Other investments like stock market can be more risky. And unless you are rich enough to deal in Ferraris, most cars and their parts are a losing investment. A company selling a product for a depreicating vehicle like, lets say a set of headers for a 71 Chevy Chevelle is not necessarily going to assume that thirty years later there will still be a viable market for that product. 350 V8's could suddenly become passe, or Ford Windosr motors could become the hot ticket. So differing their profit out over "the life of the product" is not possible, how would you know what that life is? No, in this capitialistic society people are going to make what they can make while the getting is good. But that doesn't mean they will be able to get way with charging thousands of dollars. There will be competition and we will determine what "market value" is.

The investment a company makes in their tooling, like their mandrel bender, their dyno and such - that stuff could last a while and they past that "cost" to their consumers, but their always going to be maximizing their profits, trying to innovate new products for the latest trends to stay on that leading edge.

I mean, how much does a lowering spring really cost? But how many companies have that big press to make them like Eibach does? Or wheels? You take a bent aluminum wheel down to the scrap yard and you might get a few bucks, but an HRE or Volk is like hundreds. Some one told me once the average car was like $900 bucks worth of steel, glass and plastic. You or I might pay 4 bucks for a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs, but what do you think McDonald's pays?

I agree the Honda market for B-series and our market for Mitsubishi 4G63's is big but it is still a drop in the bucket for the Chevy small block. I'll try to find the article but GM just hit a milestone in its production numbers. It's staggering.

 

[TD05HTalon]

I'm going to add a little editorial comment here. As a disclaimer I'm not taking any side, just presenting things from a neutral standpoint.

I think OBX is definintely a real company but there seems to be several people selling "OBX" branded things - some say OBX, OBX-R, OBX racing, etc. It may be that there are even more generic manufacturers then OBX trying to use the name as a way to sell knockoff parts. 3 years ago I had an "OBX" downpipe - it was decent - ceramic coated or painted to look like it and rusted after a few months when the coating burned off. it did fit though and had no cracking issues. Back then it was $160 when any other downpipe was over $200.

I think all of you need to be careful when bashing a company for making a knockoff product. Every aftermarket company is making a knockoff product in some way: Slowboy makes "knockoff" Mitsu oil pans because one from Mitsu is hundreds of dollars. Is it safe to say that Slowboy is doing the same thing OBX is? I like Slowboy - they're awesome and I've bought a lot of stuff from them. They took something like an oil pan that you can't easily buy for a decent price, copied it and sells it to us for $100. Mitsu put all the R&D into designing it and Slowboy is copying it 15 years later. Their pan even has reinforced parts that failed on the Mitsu ones. Oh and I have a Slowboy pan for my 6 bolt. Who cares - it's all economics. Let's say you make a downpipe or exhaust - technically you're "copying" mitsubishi's design since it follows the same path, same hanger location, etc. You might make it out of a different material or make it a larger diameter but it's still the same.

If you want to earn an economic profit then your product must have something that competitors' ones don't. Apex-i should be continuously improving their intercoolers if they want to stay ahead of the competition. That's also where patents come in. If somebody copies your product take action against them. Remember: competition makes all consumers better off in the long run. Maybe Apex-i and all the other companies will step up the research and make better products for us to compete with the cheap ones.

 

[GPTourer]

I agree competition is fine, but copying a design and improving a design is something that will keep the patent office and our court system busy for years. Like when Apple sued Microsoft over the "look and feel" of Windows. Mitsu isn't interested in competing with an aftermarket company by design. So somebody improves on their oil pan, I dont think they'll care. They know that all their dealers will only buy certified Mitsu brand parts and their warranties only cover said cars with those Mitsu brand parts. Their market is protected some what.

But when some guys in California buy a dyno, a mandrel and use high grade materials - borrow/buy test cars spend hours and hours developing a product and hand make it to exhaustive specifications to produce an intake or exhaust or manifold or whatever and then some "company" makes a knockoff of their product, builds it overseas in some sweatshop full of underage Taiwanese girls working for pennies and markets it for half the price then something is wrong. That isn't innovation, that's theft.

 

[Jehu]

But prices will stay high as long as the MARKET will SUPPORT it! OBX may or may not have the quality in their manufacturing, but that is not hard to obtain and be competitive, with a WORLD market, as someone else also pointed out.

And therein lies the problem. The world market. The entire concept of that is inherently unstable. You have big, rich developed countries with lots of consumers and a high standard of living. You have poor 3rd world countries with very low standards of living. A manufacturing company brings their technology over to the 3rd world country, and starts manufacturing things there. Labour is cheap, raw materials are cheap, why not? The people in the 3rd world country STILL make peanuts. The company isn't going to pay them more than they have to.

The manufacturing companies in the developed countries cannot compete because there is no way they can pay their workers the wages paid to somebody in a 3rd world country and expect them to keep working for them. Jobs are lost in the developed countries and guess what? The jobs are what makes it possible for people in the developed countries to BE consumers. Eventually you end up with people w/o jobs in the developed countries because they can't compete, and people w/o jobs in the 3rd world countries because there's no longer anyone able to buy their product. No one benefits except the manufacturing company, who in the mean time has made huge profits and walks away.

See a problem with that? I know I do.

Designing a better oil pan isn't plagarism. The primary business of Mitsu or any other auto manufacturer is not making oil pans, it's making cars. Besides, there's really not THAT much involved in making an oil pan. As long as it bolts up and clearances are maintained, oil pickup is allowed for etc.

I think it's very clear when something IS plagarism. For YEARS Apexi was the ONLY one that utilized that core design. Suddenly somebody comes up and sells something to looks completely similar, down to the endtank design, routing etc for 1/2 the price...you KNOW what just happened...

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

these are the kinds of products that make manufacturers devlop cheaper and low quality products so that they can keep up with the sales of these products. I would be willing to bet ALOT of money that the APEX Delta Fin core will cool and flow to the radiator (their main selling point) much better than this cheap knock off.

I don't think SBR or any other reputable vendor (The Speed Factor included ofcourse ) should ever be compared to the likes of OBX. When DSM vendors release new products such as intercoolers, oil pans, down pipes or what ever we don't just take another design and have a knock off made. These products are released after dozens or hundreds of hours in R&D and trial and error. We dont just stamp out something shiney and put it out there. I highly doubt that OBX put one of these intercoolers on an DSM and put it on a Dyno, tested flow tempratures or pressure drop.

OBX just takes well made products, sends them to a sweat shop in China, Taiwan or something and pumps out cheap replicas. I think the experiences that people have posted should speak for the quality of the product.

 

[LaserDad91]

I cannot get the "multi quote" techniqe down, so bear with me.......... All of the info between the ***** is from "GPTourer" response to my response.........

**********I can't see comparing cars or car parts to real estate. *************

Neither can I!!

That was not my point at all, and you touched on that in other parts of your response. You are correct as far as cars not being a good investment.

As far as "product investment" We might consider this two ways.

One – if you are a supplier to an OEM that sells to the public you can regain your “investment” two ways.

1. Charge an up front cost for R&D, tooling, engineering etc. or
2. Include the cost for the above in the cost of the product you sell, over the expected life of the product. If you lucky, you get a contract for a specific amount of units and this becomes more “predictable”.
3. Eat the cost, you have so much money, it does not matter, you are just doing this for fun.

Typically, tooling is almost always paid for up front.

If however, you are OEM, and sell directly to the public, you have to choose option two. You can do that by charging a higher price at first, and/or accepting the fact that the initial investment will not be paid for until “X” amount of units are sold.

This is why I compared it to mortgage interest, since that is how your home loan works. The bank applies your initial payments to their “profit” (interest) first, then to the principle. To truly make money on real estate, you sell before the term of the loan expires (at a higher price of course) or you hope the home value appreciates more than the total costs of the loan and interest over the term of the loan, or, at the time you sell the home.

You stated, how do you know the life of the product? Simple……HISTORY. This is part of what the marketing majors do. Look at markets, trends, and predict the products life. This in turn drives how much can be invested, and at what quality level the product should be made.

I would be pretty confident in stating that any product has a “life”. That life is designed in, to fail or to last, depending on what the product is, and what they predict the consumer will “tolerate”. Take the personal CD player. Those darn things are lucky to last a year. It is almost an “automatic” Xmas gift to the kid’s, cause they want one, they need one, and it is cheap!! How many products are DESIGNED to be thrown away, rather than repaired? Many are, and this is not by accident.


********The investment a company makes in their tooling, like their mandrel bender, their dyno and such - that stuff could last a while and they past that "cost" to their consumers.....................********

True and not so true. The actual cost for equipment and capital investment is frequently depreciated over the life of the equipment. Companies can use this depreciation and write off some of the investment on their taxes. They know what the value of that equipment will be when it is worn out.

The cost of tooling is typically included and spread out over the life of the product, and therefore, affects the cost.


*******I agree the Honda market for B-series and our market for Mitsubishi 4G63's is big but it is still a drop in the bucket for the Chevy small block.***************

I agree, but for “our” market, the investment is probably paid for……same applies to parts, based on the balancing act above!

I kind of feel we way off topic here……….but thanks anyway.

 

[blackGSX2g]

The primary business of Mitsu or any other auto manufacturer is not making oil pans, it's making cars.

It may not be their primary business, but makikng parts is a major business. Dealerships basically make squat on selling new cars. Most their profits lie in fixing, repairing, and installing. This is getting worse as the average consumer can go into the dealership knowing exactly what that dealership paid for the car, and will not overpay. If they don't get it at that dealership, you can be sure there is some other dealership desperate enough to accept any offer over invoice. Once you buy the car, they give you a limited warrenty on important things, and an extended warrenty on basic stuff...the catch is you need to use all OEM parts for the warrenty to be valid. Then they charge you $85+/hr labor and ungodly amounts for other parts you need to keep your warrenty. So OEM parts manufacturing is a pretty good business.

 

[pneumo]

I'd like to add an observation on how a company should handle cheap competition.

Fidanza is a good example of a company responding to market forces. I can remember when their aluminum flywheel cost $450. I'm sure a fair ammount of that price went to covering R+D, tooling and SFI certification. What's to stop some outside company from copying Fidanza's work and selling a cheaper flywheel? Nothing. Apparantly Fidanza knew this and did something that other companies haven't; they lowered their prices. Now you can get one for half the original price. It's a smart move since Fidanza had fewer buyers at $450, but now they have broadened their consumer base by making it affordable. They may have sold 100 per year at $450 (or more), but now they'll sell maybe 500 per year at about $250 each (just pulling numbers out of my hat, no real data) and who will come out with a cheap replica now that the real thing is cheap? Fidanza just squashed their competition. ACT is the only flywheel competitor now, and their two flywheels are different enough- not copies of each other.

So why does Apex keep on making FMIC kits at $800 when OBX clearly shows that the same kit (or nearly the same) can be sold profitably at much less? How many more buyers would Apex have if their kit cost a couple hundred less? The market for a cheaper FMIC is there, just look at how popular the eBay FMIC's are. I sure hope Apex didn't plan on amortizing their startup costs for very much longer because they're about to get the rug pulled out from under them.

 

[GPTourer]

I remember when both the Apex'i and GReddy FMIC kits for 2G's were well over a grand. Now RRE won't even bother making a 2G kit because you can get the big GReddy for like 850 or so - so I wouldn't say market forces don't affect them.


History might say it would be wise to invest in making Evo products because of the 4G63 legacy, but with the company's future so cloudy, it might not be. Plus a whole new engine is about to debut in the Evo X. Maybe the SRT-4 engine will be the next big deal - or Subaru's 2.5L. How do we know any of those will have the life of a the B series or 4G63? What history would we look for?

 

[Jehu]

and who will come out with a cheap replica now that the real thing is cheap? Fidanza just squashed their competition. ACT is the only flywheel competitor now, and their two flywheels are different enough- not copies of each other.

So why does Apex keep on making FMIC kits at $800 when OBX clearly shows that the same kit (or nearly the same) can be sold profitably at much less? How many more buyers would Apex have if their kit cost a couple hundred less? The market for a cheaper FMIC is there, just look at how popular the eBay FMIC's are. I sure hope Apex didn't plan on amortizing their startup costs for very much longer because they're about to get the rug pulled out from under them.

I think that's a slightly different thing too. There's more of a liability issue with a flywheel. If one flies apart, somebody's getting sued. If the IC core leaks, it's not killing anybody...

Also, if you read my previous posts, the reason Apexi wouldn't be able to compete is IF it is made in Japan or NA for example, the costs are much more than OBX would make them for in Taiwan. And that's the biggest issue here.

 

[pneumo]

That was part of my point, too. If it cost too much to have a part made in Japan, or wherever, then move prodution somewhere cheaper, or else your competitor will, eventually. 'Made in Japan' used to mean good quality at good prices. Japan's price advantage has withered over the years as it's economy has grown and it's workforce pulled in higher wages. Now Taiwan is the hot spot for mass production of good quality parts at cheap prices. Already China is gearing up to replace Taiwan.

The industry changes, consumers are a moving target. If a company doesn't change along with it they can be left behind. I'm glad OBX is shaking up the established vendors. I can't wait to see their Quaife copy.

 

[herostar]

Keep in mind that the world will come to an end when someone says OBX and Good Quality in the same sentence.

You just did.

 

[pneumo]

! RUN!!!!

It's like members in the earlier parts of this thread were saying, we have to wait and see if the quality of OBX stuff is good.

 

[Jehu]

The industry changes, consumers are a moving target. If a company doesn't change along with it they can be left behind. I'm glad OBX is shaking up the established vendors. I can't wait to see their Quaife copy.

Wow, let me know when the moving target changes enough that people in India can start buying up all the quaife copies that are made. That's the problem with society nowadays. The average consumer only cares about the short term...the cheapest product...

 

[funguy]

anyone have a set of the 2g? seems like its a pretty good deal for 499USD on ebay.

would like to get some feedback on how it does?

thanks
Derek

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

there is a good amount of info in this thread http://dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158296&highlight=OBX hope that helps you out.

 

[CarTrader29]

I've used obx product on many of my cars and I never had a problem. Its pretty decent quality and well worth the money. OBX gets a from me! :laugh:

 

[TurboDSM86]

does anyone have any flow numbers on this core? i emailed them and got nothing in return. im losing hope on it

 

[flinguist]

"Personally I have always thought the cost for equipment on these cars is ridiculous, but that is what the market will bear, so that is what they will charge us." Posted by LASERDAD.

You're absolutely correct, especially from vendors on this site. You can save yourself a lot of money by finding the same products on Ebay, on average I'd say you save %30.
Examples of deals I've found:

1. Used Quafe LSD-$660
2.FMIC kit-$660 ( I paid too much for this, but the piping fits perfectly, and the core is good enough to prevent knock at 20 psig on an EVO III 16G)
3. Slightly used B&M shifter- $110 shipped.
4. CFDF clutch-$205 (new)
5.550cc injectors-$200(new)

Those are just the things I purchased. Other good deals I've seen: HRC sidemount and piping for $375, Fidanza flywheels for <200 bucks.

Even some of the same vendors on this site have the stuff on Ebay for cheaper prices.
This is a great website, and is well supported by the vendors, but I think they're a little greedy.

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

1. Used Quafe LSD-$660
2.FMIC kit-$660 ( I paid too much for this, but the piping fits perfectly, and the core is good enough to prevent knock at 20 psig on an EVO III 16G)
3. Slightly used B&M shifter- $110 shipped.
4. CFDF clutch-$205 (new)
5.550cc injectors-$200(new)

what happens if your LSD, Clutch or injectors fail? you can't return them or get any kind of warranty coverage. Just about all manufacturers out there have very specific rules against convering any product purchased on Ebay. When spending money building a quality performance car most people pay for quality products that are backed by the manufacturer, even if its just for peice of mind.

Few parts fail but i can tell you that when they do, manufacturers do a great job in helping us getting issues resolved very painlessly. I have had customers really take it up the a$$ because they bought something on ebay, saved a couple bucks then when they had a problem had no where to turn to. I think that when you are building a monster car the parts you use speak for the quality of car you built. Now i am not saying that if you don't use big money parts the car won't be as good but peice of mind goes a long way.

Also putting up posts like saying that vendors are greedy is in bad taste when we spend a good amount of money supporting this very site to keep it running and lend ourselves for any time we can help. I know i have gotten MANY MANY calls, e-mails and instant messages from tuners just hoping to ask for a little help and i'm sure we aren't the only ones who do everything we can to support the community. We do have to make a living and contrary to popular beleive we aren't given the product to sell for what ever we feel like selling it. (we can only wish for this)

I mean brotha's gotta eat ......

Hopefully nothing here gets taken the wrong way......

MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS & GALS!​

 

[flinguist]

I know you guys have to make a living. I do also, and to mod my car, and pay the rest of the bills I have to bargain hunt. I'm willing to take a chance on used components that are known to be very reliable (like the quaife and B&M shifter), and as far as the new parts go, they are under a manufacturers warranty. I do still purchase things from vendors on this site when they offer comparable pricing, or have items I don't want to take a chance on. I appreciate your support, as I'm sure you appreciate mine. ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS!

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

I appreciate your support, as I'm sure you appreciate mine. ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS!

 

[Shane916]

Still interested if anyone has purchased the fmic and tested it out yet? When I used to have my GS I bought an OBX header and I couldn't have been more happy with it. Thx.

 

[mitsuclipsegsx]

here is the thread: http://dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159016&highlight=OBX+intercooler

but nobody has it, i guess i will have to be the first person to buy it

 

[CanadianTalon]

600+ RWHP has been made on the generic OBX intercooler off of ebay. For 275 bucks I find it hard to beat.