gyrfalcon

Much appreciated!

LexVan

He is also is a yuge Porsche fan, with over 50 rare cars in his collection.

gyrfalcon

I think you're absolutely right. I doubt very much that they'll give the stands shelf space at $99 for only a pair. One of the things I've been concerned about is the possibility that the stands ending up being just a boutique product and priced out of the grasp a lot of DIYers that could benefit from them if they were more affordable. To have them built in the US and priced that low, while maintaining a decent margin, they would probably have to be mass produced in some serious quantities, and at this early in the game I'm not sure if that's going to be feasible.

gyrfalcon

Oh, very nice!!! I've had the good fortune of meeting a few collectors over the years, and they've always been among the nicest people, willing to talk about their cars with just about anyone. Well hopefully I make a good impression too

LexVan

You could always sell 45 sets of 4 to Rennlister Opo, and just retire wealthy.

gyrfalcon

Lol, now there's an idea! I'll even color match them to each of his cars

x50type

Looks like a great idea. Count me in.

I use Esco's at the moment - about $62 per pair. At the higher end OTC/pair are $184.

I think a pair of these would be fairly priced around $135/pair. $199/pair would be a bit too high IMO.

Stay clear of Griot's - they would charge $299/pair no problem.

I used them a lot until I wised-up [OK, a few items are reasonably priced].

Some one is/was making a robust looking aluminum 4 legged stool kind of stand but I think it was in the $300+ range.

phoneyman

I've always not understood the reasoning behind a product like this for older cars, where the jack stand is placed at the exact same location as the jack. On older cars, there is so much room to have both a jack and a stand at each corner. For newer cars, I know some have body paneling that requires the jack and stand to be in a very localized spot, but Ive never run into issues with the 993.

Can you give me a quick sales pitch about why I should want your option instead of my method, which is a solid jack and my awesome ESCO moonlander stands? Thanks.

That aside, I really do like your method. Its a lot easier and more modular than those other combos where you put the disc on the jack, and then slide the non-modular stand under the disc. They look like they are made of Chinese pot metal and should be sold at Harbor Freight for 30 bucks.

gyrfalcon

Great input, thank you! I especially appreciate your thoughts on the pricepoint! I'll have to research the stool type stand you mentioned. It sounds interesting. Esco's are great by the way. I was actually using them before I had my first prototype. Best regards!

phoneyman

I think he means these, which is what I was talking about too.

https://rennlist.com/forums/993-foru...ackstands.html

NC TRACKRAT

IMHO, you have a winning design. Just be sure you do all you can to keep the Harbor Freights of this world from copying them. To me, the features and benefits of this design are well worth $100-$125/pair. With the advent of vehicles that cannot be jacked or supported anywhere but the four designated points, you solve a real problem for the "DIY'er" and trackside mechanics. Incidentally, have you load-tested yet?

gyrfalcon

That's a great question, and I can answer mainly from my point of view having my own 993. I know there are two schools of thought on whether its ok to jack from under the crankcase, and I respect both views. I've always felt uncomfortable jacking the engine out of concern I might damage the crankcase, engine mounts, and other components that may or may not be able to handle the stresses particularly over time. My car passed the 20 year mark this year. But whichever side of the fence you're on, there are definitely other benefits to using my stands as well.

One of the things I love about using them is that the stand, jack and vehicle move up and down in unison. So once you line up the jack under the jacking point, there's no need to realign anything like you would when lowering the car onto a conventional jackstand. You just lift, pop in the legs, and lower. Simply reverse to remove them. There's also less having to potentially bend over to reposition stands, which is great for guys with back issues like me.

Also, with the adapter for the 993, the stands have an especially steady connection to our cars, though I tend to prefer the universal adapters on mine which are lower profile and have yet to show any tendency of slipping.

Another great thing about them is that they're really light. A pair of my aluminum stands, which can be rated to 2 tons per pair based on industry standards, weighs around 23lbs. That's 23lbs per pair! Whether the production model weighs the same remains to be seen, but it should be very close to that figure. They're a bit easier to toss around the garage than the Escos which I've owned.

They're also much easier to store, and a pair breaks down into dimensions of roughly 12x12x5. So they're lightweight, and compact. Especially nice if you ever have limited storage area or ever want to travel with them.

I've also found that space under the stands to be useful on occasion when positioning a small oil pan or for just placing your tool case out of the way when under your car so you'll know exactly where to reach for it when you need it. These two aren't major benefits, but I've found I've come to appreciate them.

Now I'm not an expert on other makes (not even an expert on Porsche lol) but I've been spoken with owners of other brands, both older and newer models included, that would like to have the stands for their vehicles mainly for the primary benefit of being able to jack and support their cars at a single point, so I'm hoping they'll continue to appeal to a broad range if DIYers.

But with regards to our cars, it really comes down to a matter of opinion whether the first benefit I mentioned is important to you.

Again, I really appreciate the question, and the compliment on the method! I've never been good at sales, so I apologize if I failed to pitch it properly, but I hope you do come to see the merits of the design, and by all means please continue to share your input! I value it greatly!

gyrfalcon

Oh ok, thanks! I'm familiar with Jackpoints. Brilliant design and inventor!

gyrfalcon

Thank you very much!!!! Yeah I've definitely been concerned about those companies copying the design, and I've been relentless in continuing to improve the design and filing applications. Before my first patent issued, I was losing a lot of sleep.

I've been reserving the formal physical load testing for the production model, if there ever is one, which could be slightly different in design from the prototypes, so I've been holding off on that until we determine the ultimate geometry. The prototypes are really expensive, and were just meant for demoing, so I'm hesitant to break them just yet However, we ran numerous computer simulations at Embry Riddle based on the geometry and the materials of the prototypes before building them, and each time a single stand was able to safely sustain 6500lbs. That was just for the aluminum version. The steel and steel aluminum hybrid was much stronger. Even under gross misuse, ie torsional testing, you'd be surprised how well they hold up.

Practically speaking, I've been testing the above prototypes under different vehicles, and at one point a mechanic accidentally dropped the front end of an f350 on top of one, and it held without any visible structural damage.

Ultimately, they will definitely be load tested before being made available to the public. In fact, my intention is to test until breakage just to see how far they can go.

Thanks again!

phoneyman

The sales pitch is very good and well thought out. And you had some points in there I hadn't thought about before. I think youre really onto something, especially with all the positive feedback so quickly on this forum.

If you decide to go forward with your idea, which I will assume you are, I would recommend a couple things from the business side. If you want to garner some interest outside of forums, you should really think about a website, even a really simple one through wordpress or other generators. Its amazing how well having a very simple website helps, especially because if I were to show some car friends who arent Porsche guys, I'd have to link this thread which is too much reading. Also, when you have a domain, you can then have a business email instead of a yahoo address, which just looks good. You can use Gmail to host your domain and create an email address with your domain, e.g. XXXX@rennstand.com or similar. I'm sure youve thought about these things before, but a website sooner than later would be helpful in my mind.

Also, I'm a structural engineer specializing in durability, i.e. destroying metal things in different ways. If you dont have a test plan yet and would like to bounce ideas off of someone for free, feel free to PM me.

Good luck, i love new product ideas especially when its a 1-man show and has some passion behind it.