Miata Mailing List: June 1997, Message #100
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From: 	Peter Brusa <pBrusa@sftp.com>

Subject: Re: CAI is a farce....

Date: 	Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:47:57 -0500



Bill, your point is "unfounded."  I am the guy who made the BOLD

statement that seemed to tick off a lot of people.  What you may not know

is that JR has been doing automods for several years now...and not just

Miatas.  Their biggest "clients" are Honda owners, hence, most of their

mods are for Hondas (and even Fords I believe).  I am NOT saying that

the Mazdas are Hondas, but that they have CAI for Hondas as well.

I believe that development for such an OVERPRICED mod (like the CAI) is

no where in the $50K range, since most of their development has been

in-house for years and pretty much standard.  Since you paid $500,000 in

plastic production costs does not mean that they did as well, especially

an established company as JR.  They are making a killing off the CAI

because they are Jackson "overpriced" Racing.  



I will say it again: Jackson Racing is OVERPRICED and I'm cuious as to

where they got a 10-15HP gain off their CAI (1.6). I want to see an official

test w/o Jackson's presence.  I am also interested in the home-made kits

that some people have been doing.  It would be interesting to see

someone make a home-made kit and matching-if not beating-Jackson's

proclaimed numbers.



To you people who bought it:  I'll use my $490 on new tires.



Oh yes, and the WARRANTY VOIDS that everyone seemed to get alittle

defensive over, well the warranty is VOIDED (according to dealerships

here in Atlanta) if you make ANY major modifications to the air flow

sensors via the engine line or engine area.  Maybe the people who

disagreed with my statement didn't state the modification during the time

of a warranty repair or the dealerships just didn't care one way or

another.

 

Flame Suit On - Peter / 1991 Red



This has been my humble opinoin.

------------------------------

I respect your opinion as to whether the JR CAI is worth spending your

money.  I happen to have one on order, but that's incidental.



What I would take issue with is the assumed cost of production.  I know

from long experience that tooling for a new product is VERY expensive,

as is labor after fringe and governmental regulations are taken into

account.  I have spent up to one-half million dollars for a single

production plastic mold.  I realize the mold for the plastic JR intake

housing is probably only a single-cavity tool, and didn't cost that

much, but it could easily have cost $50k.  And how many units will JR

have to amortize this tool over?



We need to look at a product carefully, considering the whole cost of

getting into the business, not just the cost of turning the crank to

produce one more unit.



JMHO.



-- 

Bill Gusky and Petunia

Red '91, license "MOMENTS"

http://www.totcon.com/users/moments

DeLand, Florida

"Too soon oldt, und too late schmart!"