The eternal quest to knock-off an engineered and tested product price.

A company goes through the effort of manufacturing multiple designs, dyno testing, doing quality control, and all that cost is carried through the R&D effort. Then the company evaluates potential market, out of a market of very limited production cars like the GT3, a fraction of the market would purchase the product, a small fraction, so the retail price of the part needs to recoup the R&D and leave a profit.

Then someone borrows the part, and builds a knock-off at the local Meineke muffler shop for a fraction of the price. Then someone with a Global market vision sends the same part to a factory in inland China, and builds the knock-off part even cheaper. Eventually the original product designer runs out of business on this part as cannot compete on pricing, and eventually Meineke starts re-stocking with the Chinese parts.

 

I understand the need to recoup R&D money but when a dozen companies are currently producing full exhaust systems for the Mustang 5.0 and many of them provide fantastic power improvements, all for less than $1500, you begin to wonder how much is to recoup R&D cost, and how much is the Porsche tax.

OP: If all you want is an X-pipe just go have one made for less than $300 in SS. These exhaust builders usually know what exhaust design an engine needs but a Porsche is a bit of an unknown entity so copy something that is already been proven to work.

 

There's a difference between selling to a couple hundred GT3 owners versus thousands of Mustang owners. It's very simple. You invest to bring a product to market and a very small market at that , then you need to not only recoup your R&D costs and make a small profit, but also create capital to invest in the next item to go into R&D

Some get that, some don't. Unsubscribing.......

 

There was a perfect example of exactly what was stated above about 2-3 months ago. A well established company that sponsors here knocked off a exact duplicate of the Sharkwerks bypass, and had it on sale here. So blatant that Alex had to mention it on the sales thread.

 

Well, this hasn't really happened w/ every other mass produced exhaust system out there so it certainly isn't going to occur on a limited production GT3. Many good and inexpensive exhaust systems are designed and made here in the States by American companies and there are no Chinese copycats running around.

There are guys that want the official, resaleable, Starbucks bragging capable, real McCoy, and then there are those of us that have bought great exhaust systems for less than $2K for every other car having a hard time swallowing the price of the GT3 exhausts. And probably aren't going to buy one at that price.

From what I've seen there is not that much R&D in these 911 exhaust systems because the gains very greatly from none to huge unexpected numbers that are unusually high. It probably just goes back to the fact that the OEM Porsche exhaust system has serious constraints because of the motor position and noise/ emmisions standards resulting in seriously compromised performance. Basically it's a race engine that has to be corked up to pass emissions laws so it creates a choke point.

I read once some years back that a company went to build headers for some new iteration of the Vette and it took 27 builds and designs before they even equalled the OEM performance. Equalled! That's working your R&D *** off and those products are not exorbint (sp?) in cost to purchase.

However, I do recognize and acknowledge that the sheer number of GT3 exhaust systems produced and sold will be way less than for an American muscle car so costs must be absorbed over much fewer units.

 

A friend of mine is one of original fabricator of the GT3 X-pipe. He made one for my RS and its better quality than any other I have seen and is WAY less than what the big shops charge.

 

A friend of mine is one of original fabricator of the GT3 X-pipe. He made one for my RS and its better quality than any other I have seen and is WAY less than what the big shops charge.

 

Really ???

So please name one a single exhaust system, that has PROVEN gains in power, without headers replacement.
As I can see, you don't know much about Porsches, or what works and not works.
The gains on a exhaust system, not to say on a bypass are inexistent.
You can probably gain a few pounds of torque in the mid range, with a very nice engineered piece, like Akrapovic (but let's not go there, as the price is high, and someone here will have a heart attack) or a M&M or Supersprint system.
Also remember that most of us here use our cars at the track, where the nock off non premium product, and not so perfect, will fail sooner than later.
But the only way to know this is by R&D, testing, engineering, try and error.
For those that don't, you can always buy a Knock off !!!
To each to it's own. Of course who buys the knock off is the smart guy.

 

Lucas Fab?

 

yup

 

Very nice craftsmanship...

 

Welcome to the world of all Pcar aftermarket parts .....

 

Porsche exhaust manufacturers are not non-profit organizations.

 

Right... we all need to make $$$. Keep the economy going.

 

I know, it is my seventh Porsche. This part just seems expensive.