new mcr exhaust (sickkkkkk!)
03-13-2009, 01:30 PM
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I think the people complaining about the cost aren't aware that titanium has to be welded in an inert gas chamber, and that having one large enough to do an exhaust in is pretty damn expensive. I work for a small/medium sized aerospace manufacturer, and we're NADCAP certed for Stainless, Aluminum, Titanium and Inconel welding.
Let's go through the build process, so that people can get a better understanding. First of all, titanium in that size, is moronically expensive. We don't build anything that big in titanium EVER, and we do Aerospace, where money is generally not an object. When you want something that large, you get it in 321 Stainless or 6061 Aluminum.
In order to get nice bends like that, you'll have to anneal the material prior to bending. You're charged not by pieces, but by oven size. You'll most likely need the largest oven, so you're looking at at least $1000 a run, and I'd say you can fit maybe.. 3-4 exhausts in there. So you just dropped 250-300 JUST on annealing.
Then you have to bend it. I'm going to assume that you have the right kind of machinery to do this. Cleaning and etching titanium is also a very expensive process, that requires some pretty nasty chemicals. We have to outsource all our titanium cleaning, as we refuse to have that kind of stuff in our plant. It's seriously nasty stuff.
You've cleaned your titanium, and now it's ready to weld. Now you have to use that giant inert gas chamber to weld it in, and have a qualified welder to do it. Don't let people fool you, robotic welding is for chumps that are satisfied with **** poor quality work. I know of no Aerospace grade weld house that automates their welding, it is always done by expert welders with years upon years of experience. Those guys cost a lot of money too.
So all in all, this exhaust is expensive because it's a pain to make. I know that we charge something like $600 for a tube that's maybe 15" long, and only 0.5" OD x 0.035" wall thickness. If you asked us to fab up an exhaust like this, as a one off, we'd charge more than what your whole car is worth. We'd have to make a couple of hundred at least to drop the pricing down a bit, and I doubt it would ever get as low as 6K a piece. Mind you, we only use certified material, and have full X-Ray and LPI reports for all our welds, and you'd get a huge stack of paperwork with it certifying the thing from where the melt source, and it's signed off by every person in our facility to touch it. MCR doesn't have to do all that, so they can afford to sell for 6K. Trust me, it's a steal at that price.
Let's go through the build process, so that people can get a better understanding. First of all, titanium in that size, is moronically expensive. We don't build anything that big in titanium EVER, and we do Aerospace, where money is generally not an object. When you want something that large, you get it in 321 Stainless or 6061 Aluminum.
In order to get nice bends like that, you'll have to anneal the material prior to bending. You're charged not by pieces, but by oven size. You'll most likely need the largest oven, so you're looking at at least $1000 a run, and I'd say you can fit maybe.. 3-4 exhausts in there. So you just dropped 250-300 JUST on annealing.
Then you have to bend it. I'm going to assume that you have the right kind of machinery to do this. Cleaning and etching titanium is also a very expensive process, that requires some pretty nasty chemicals. We have to outsource all our titanium cleaning, as we refuse to have that kind of stuff in our plant. It's seriously nasty stuff.
You've cleaned your titanium, and now it's ready to weld. Now you have to use that giant inert gas chamber to weld it in, and have a qualified welder to do it. Don't let people fool you, robotic welding is for chumps that are satisfied with **** poor quality work. I know of no Aerospace grade weld house that automates their welding, it is always done by expert welders with years upon years of experience. Those guys cost a lot of money too.
So all in all, this exhaust is expensive because it's a pain to make. I know that we charge something like $600 for a tube that's maybe 15" long, and only 0.5" OD x 0.035" wall thickness. If you asked us to fab up an exhaust like this, as a one off, we'd charge more than what your whole car is worth. We'd have to make a couple of hundred at least to drop the pricing down a bit, and I doubt it would ever get as low as 6K a piece. Mind you, we only use certified material, and have full X-Ray and LPI reports for all our welds, and you'd get a huge stack of paperwork with it certifying the thing from where the melt source, and it's signed off by every person in our facility to touch it. MCR doesn't have to do all that, so they can afford to sell for 6K. Trust me, it's a steal at that price.
03-14-2009, 02:21 PM
#67
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You should go to the MCR (Matchless Crowd Racing) website and see what price they have listed for the full titanium version of this exhaust (as pictured) and then go to the powerhouse amuse website and see the price for their somewhat similar true dual titanium exhaust. Then do a yen to dollar conversion and see if your statements hold any water.
Just to clarify I'm not saying this exhaust isn't expensive. I just want to kill this thought that people have that they can get the same exhaust or an exhaust comparable (full titanium, true dual) for 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 or whatever fraction of the price.
Just to clarify I'm not saying this exhaust isn't expensive. I just want to kill this thought that people have that they can get the same exhaust or an exhaust comparable (full titanium, true dual) for 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 or whatever fraction of the price.
yep, compare apples to apples, including the shipping costs to bring one to your doorstep, and I bet you'll find the difference to be way smaller than you think
expensive any way you slice it...but everything titanium always is
05-05-2009, 03:12 PM
#69
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haha I laugh that people just think of normal people as buying this exhaust. If you look closley at that car you will see on the upwards of $25,000 in after market parts... this car and anyother car was made with one thing in mind. Track use. And there are no expenses spared on an actual race car, not a street car. This is not a street car... That little "intercooler" as someone "wisely" put it(aka diff. cooler) is a $3500 piece. not to mention the aftermarket rearend. then There is the suspension, also upgraded. This car has the $13000 endless monoblock calipers as well. So a $6000 exhaust aint shiat when looked at a whole... with those wheels and tires around $6000 as well, added to a car that is base at $60,000 you're approaching a $100k pretty quickly... and you havent even touched the motor yet... or the nismo tranny that runs $10k... bride seats... roll cage... engine management... the works goes into these type of cars. There are people out there that build cars like this. just so happens that most of us are not those kinda people... But for the rest of us MCR does make this same exact exhaust in good ole stainless... for half the price... and for all of us, 30lbs doesnt really matter as our stereo's weigh more than that!
05-06-2009, 03:26 PM
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I think the people complaining about the cost aren't aware that titanium has to be welded in an inert gas chamber, and that having one large enough to do an exhaust in is pretty damn expensive. I work for a small/medium sized aerospace manufacturer, and we're NADCAP certed for Stainless, Aluminum, Titanium and Inconel welding.
Let's go through the build process, so that people can get a better understanding. First of all, titanium in that size, is moronically expensive. We don't build anything that big in titanium EVER, and we do Aerospace, where money is generally not an object. When you want something that large, you get it in 321 Stainless or 6061 Aluminum.
In order to get nice bends like that, you'll have to anneal the material prior to bending. You're charged not by pieces, but by oven size. You'll most likely need the largest oven, so you're looking at at least $1000 a run, and I'd say you can fit maybe.. 3-4 exhausts in there. So you just dropped 250-300 JUST on annealing.
Then you have to bend it. I'm going to assume that you have the right kind of machinery to do this. Cleaning and etching titanium is also a very expensive process, that requires some pretty nasty chemicals. We have to outsource all our titanium cleaning, as we refuse to have that kind of stuff in our plant. It's seriously nasty stuff.
You've cleaned your titanium, and now it's ready to weld. Now you have to use that giant inert gas chamber to weld it in, and have a qualified welder to do it. Don't let people fool you, robotic welding is for chumps that are satisfied with **** poor quality work. I know of no Aerospace grade weld house that automates their welding, it is always done by expert welders with years upon years of experience. Those guys cost a lot of money too.
So all in all, this exhaust is expensive because it's a pain to make. I know that we charge something like $600 for a tube that's maybe 15" long, and only 0.5" OD x 0.035" wall thickness. If you asked us to fab up an exhaust like this, as a one off, we'd charge more than what your whole car is worth. We'd have to make a couple of hundred at least to drop the pricing down a bit, and I doubt it would ever get as low as 6K a piece. Mind you, we only use certified material, and have full X-Ray and LPI reports for all our welds, and you'd get a huge stack of paperwork with it certifying the thing from where the melt source, and it's signed off by every person in our facility to touch it. MCR doesn't have to do all that, so they can afford to sell for 6K. Trust me, it's a steal at that price.
Let's go through the build process, so that people can get a better understanding. First of all, titanium in that size, is moronically expensive. We don't build anything that big in titanium EVER, and we do Aerospace, where money is generally not an object. When you want something that large, you get it in 321 Stainless or 6061 Aluminum.
In order to get nice bends like that, you'll have to anneal the material prior to bending. You're charged not by pieces, but by oven size. You'll most likely need the largest oven, so you're looking at at least $1000 a run, and I'd say you can fit maybe.. 3-4 exhausts in there. So you just dropped 250-300 JUST on annealing.
Then you have to bend it. I'm going to assume that you have the right kind of machinery to do this. Cleaning and etching titanium is also a very expensive process, that requires some pretty nasty chemicals. We have to outsource all our titanium cleaning, as we refuse to have that kind of stuff in our plant. It's seriously nasty stuff.
You've cleaned your titanium, and now it's ready to weld. Now you have to use that giant inert gas chamber to weld it in, and have a qualified welder to do it. Don't let people fool you, robotic welding is for chumps that are satisfied with **** poor quality work. I know of no Aerospace grade weld house that automates their welding, it is always done by expert welders with years upon years of experience. Those guys cost a lot of money too.
So all in all, this exhaust is expensive because it's a pain to make. I know that we charge something like $600 for a tube that's maybe 15" long, and only 0.5" OD x 0.035" wall thickness. If you asked us to fab up an exhaust like this, as a one off, we'd charge more than what your whole car is worth. We'd have to make a couple of hundred at least to drop the pricing down a bit, and I doubt it would ever get as low as 6K a piece. Mind you, we only use certified material, and have full X-Ray and LPI reports for all our welds, and you'd get a huge stack of paperwork with it certifying the thing from where the melt source, and it's signed off by every person in our facility to touch it. MCR doesn't have to do all that, so they can afford to sell for 6K. Trust me, it's a steal at that price.
http://www.thefabricator.com/Images/...olor-chart.gif
You may want to point out that quality Titanium welds (made by human or machine) are actually hard to come by in exhaust systems. Since people tend to "like the blue contrast", it generally was an accepted measure, especially on the old ARC and Amuse exhaust systems. But I have seen now that they are producing exhaust systems much better and with less discoloration of the welds after many of the earlier versions were cracking.
In short, its a misnomer that a proper titanium bead has a brilliant blue/green/gold tint after welding, as this is a common sign of inferior quality of the weld.
In regards to Titanium pricing, I suggest some of you check on Titaniumjoe.com. They have a vast array of sizes and such of either seam welded or seamless titanium tubing, at very affordable/competitive prices.
Titanium can be welded "in your own back yard". However, acquiring the skill to do so (Tig) is the task that so many lack, mainly patience. Prepping the material and using the proper ratio and flow of gas is quite easy however.
At any rate, that MCR exhaust is fabulous to look at!
Last edited by Simann; 05-06-2009 at 03:28 PM.
05-07-2009, 08:04 PM
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Watches have a vast array of micro appendages, gears, levers, and dials. Well that is for a "high end watch". Furthermore, the detail of making such pieces is quite extraordinary, pieces are so small and fragile. Digital watches need not apply here.
On the other hand (no pun intended), exhaust systems are quite the opposite. Tubing, bends, and glass-fiber packing and a fancy name plate. Titanium, although expensive to work with, is not very expensive on its own compared to other alloys. The size of an exhaust system makes it even easier to create. Your not dealing with micro sized apertures or screws.
Supply and demand. I agree that given the amount of these they probably sell, it must be priced very expensive to break even. The time it takes to develop to the finished product really is the expensive part. Paying people by the hour, ruining countless pieces to only get one "perfect" unit. I can see the cost reasoning.
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