what happened to the good ol days?

seriously...
cams for the gt..................$1200.00
longtube headers ...............$1150.00
supercharger......................$6500.00
forged internals..................$3500.00
ported and polished heads....$2400.00
body kits...................3200-12000.00

gonna really mod your stang? get out the KY and bend over.....


end ***** session.

just had to get that off my chest.

last time I bought headers i spent $350 and they were hooker long tubes for a 351 cleveland.

the can i think cost me $95 bucks

none of the technology to manufacture this stuff has changed much....I guess i am now officially an old fart.

 

More like:
headers 900-1500(including mid-pipe)
supercharger 4200-6500
cams 900-1000(complete with valve springs and retainers)
forged internals 1900-2500
p&p heads 1600-2700
bodykits 1500-5000

 

yea, I remember my cam for my old camaro cost me less than $90, came with lifters and pushrods as well i believe. Intake manifold was $350, carb was $300, rockers and springs weren't to much either.

*sigh* I can't wait to get an old car again, I love them so much more! Hard to beat the reliability of these new cars though, and drivability!

 

dont get me wrong i love this car....but the prices....they are just laughing all the way to the bank man....

look at the dealers and the gt500....
double the msrp or worse....

they couldnt pull that off back in the 60's, or 70's people would have laughed at them.

you can't tell me there is 1100 dollars in a set of long tubes for an ordinary mustang. these are not ferraris they are a working mans car. i think the prices are rediculous thats all.

I ordered a set of headers for my buddies honda the other day....stainless mind you and they were $50 shipped. no wonder the ricers are all over the place.

oh and the halibrand body kit was 12000.00 when it was first brought to our attention....the cervinis was 16000.00....but i think it came with some exhaust mods too....lol

 

Thats the cost of more refined and techologically advanced vehicles. Modding old cars costs less bec there are less things around to mess with, less computer controls, less wires, less garbage that detracts from the basic carness of the car.

Thats why I love carbs

 

Amen to the highway robbery. And I dunno about you Faber but what makes me feel really old is remembering what gasoline prices were back in the 60's!

 

i am talking non technologically advanced parts man! cams! headers! porting heads! forging pistons.... this stuff has been done since the twenties.

seriously are you gonna tell me grinding a three valve cam and grinding a two valve cam are different? if you are i will send you to a machine shop where you can see it is all the same. bending pipes for a 69 mustang is different than bending pipes for an 05? c'mon man! these guys are ripping us all off.

it is too bad people stand for it. I for one will not pay a grand for a set of cams. i will be slow and 1000 bucks richer than 25 horses faster and lighter in the wallet.

people are paying $180 for a piece of plastic that they stick onto the rear quarter window with TAPE! it is PLASTIC! and it costs $180? my kids mcdonalds toys are molded from more complicated molds. but they put it out there and we pay it. I understand recouping development costs, or niche market sales, but ****.

go out there and look at what a cam, and long tubes run for say a 1999 mustang. i bet you are surprised that they are dirt cheap.
old technology? nope. just a bunch of thieves.

 

If you think the prices for Mustangs are bad, try modding a BMW!

 

I this particular case, yes.

Modular motors are very different than the good old pushrod.

But the prices are rediculous, I agree. Thing is, we are buying them and they are in high demand. They can get away with it. I also believe there is a lot mor testing when it comes to these newer parts, and they are truley trying to retrieve the best performance per part.

 

i understand rolling in cost of develpment onmaybe a computer tuner, or something along those lines. I just see the market gettin more and more rediculous.... and we don't do anything but pay through the nose. I mean seriously a ducktail spoiler made of plastice costs about $5 bucks if that to make, yet we buy it for $399.00

I just wanted to start a thread about the rediculous prices that we pay so that it can be discussed by all of us consumers, and maybe some of the manufacturers on here might read it, and realize that alot of us don't appreciate being taken advantage of.

any of you parts dealers listening?

 

Just out of curiousity, do you have any facts to back that up, or were you exaggerating? For some reason, I highly doubt that my either my chin spoiler or my GT500 spoiler (wasn't sure which one you were talking about) cost $5 dollars to manufacture.

But I also agree that there are certian parts way over priced, IMO.

 

the machines to make these parts are expensive, but relativly are cheap to operate, and use very little material. heads and headers have more work to engineer and manufature them.

 

Not trying to be an @$$ but I'd just like to point out a few things.

cams for the gt..................$1200.00
That old Camaro someone mentioned had only one cam, two valves per cylinder. Less material and less machining.
That Camaro probably had a small block Chevy. That engine's cam design remained unchanged for some 35 years. When you can mass produce something exactly the same for that long the parts become dirt cheap due to the huge numbers produced.
The cams for our 3v engines have only existed since 2005. The aftermarket companies that are making them are still recovering thier R&D costs.

longtube headers ...............$1150.00 - Similar situation, the long tube headers you bought for a 1960's Camaro also fit quite a few other applications. Again, mass produced in MUCH greater quantities than LTH's that ONLY fit the GT version of the S197.
Also I remember the quality of those old style headers. They often didn't fit right, it was a PITA to get them to seal up and they rusted out quickly.
Most LTHs' for the S197 cars are made of stainless steel, are cermamic coated and have thicker, better made flanges. You just can't compare here.

supercharger......................$6500.00 - I remember people who ended up paying similar amounts of money to put GMC blowers on the old school cars back in the 60's and 70's and that was with people earning on average a LOT less money than they do now. Sure you could get the blower itself for a lot less than $6500 but you had to fabricate everything and nobody ever heard of an intercooler in those days.
Again, not comparable to today where you get an all inclusive kit that is just bolt on and go.

forged internals..................$3500.00 - You can get forged internals for a small block Chevy for less than this but again, small block Chevys went unchanged for some 35 years. Mass production reduces costs. A small block Chevy by comparison to our Ford 3v engines is VERY primitive, Yes the parts were and still are cheap but by today's standards it's a very inefficient engine. There are good reasons the parts are cheap.

Also, it's possible to get 380 hp at the crank n/a from our 3v 4.6 engines using bolt ons. You gotta get into some pretty fancy hardware to get that from a small block Chevy and keep it streetable with low emissions.

ported and polished heads....$2400.00 - Ported and polished heads for a small block Chevy could easily cost you that and no amount of porting and polishing will get flow numbers from those old 2v heads as you get from 3v heads. Again not really a fair comparison.

I'd also like to point out that I've been messing with cars since the late 70's and these days I earn 4 times what I did then.
It's all relative.
I just bought a set of ARH long tube headers for my S197. Looking at what I earn now and what I earned back when I bought my first set of long tube headers back in 1979 the headers I just got for my S197 cost about the same.

I'm not trying to be a jerk by questioning all or most of the original poster's points though. I am just trying to point out that the pricing situation isn't nearly as bad as it first appears and for what differences that really do exist are explainable by numbers produced, quality, ect, not price gouging as the original poster implies.

 

yeah keep in mind in those 60s and 70s muscle cars were around 4 grand for a shelby or mach 1. Now 30-45 grand msrp for those. Times have changed. Therefore back then the parts where also keep.

 

...and many of those cars also had drum brakes, no overdrives so if you had any sort of performance gearing you couldn't sustain freeway speeds, breaker point ignition -high maintanence, carburators - difficult if not impossible to get accurate A/F ratios under most conditions, ect.
A friend of mine has a 1970 Monte Carlo with a roller cammed 454 putting out 500 hp and 568 ft lbs and it's a whole 3/10 quicker than my S197 and I use half the fuel he does. I see him fighting with his carburator all the time.
Now he's fooling around with springs and weights trying to get his advance curve right.
All I do is plug in my Predator and tell the computer what I want and it's done in 5 minutes from the driver's seat and I have EXACTLY the ignition curve or A/F ratios I want. I don't have to settle for some sort of comprimise because I don't have the right jets or can't get the spring tension right or whatever.
Yeah today's stuff is a lot more expensive but it's worth every penny for the increased adjustability and ease of use.

 

Yeah... and in 1969... $4k was a pretty big chunk of change but todays prices are still not commencerate (sp?) of inflation and advances in tech.

Check this calculator

What cost $4000 in 1969 would cost $22393.76 in 2006.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2006 and 1969,
they would cost you $4000 and $714.48 respectively.

 

I never once mentioned a small block chevy motor in my original post, and anyway are you trying to tell me the 05-07 mustang is some kind of boutique item? no einstein it is mass produced...by the company that INVENTED MASS PRODUCTION.

the amount of material for a machinist to remove on a 3v cam (or 2) vs a single 2v cam does not justify the insane markup. and what about 300 bucks for springs and retainers? yeah....bs.

oh and justify the $180 bucks they want for 5 ounces of poly. and some double stick tape....(window scoops, or louvers) or the fact that the price is the same painted or not....whatever man.

I wasnt talking about the 60's either man, i built a 70 torino up in the early 90's. the headers fit great, they were hookers and they cost me less than 400 bucks. the forged internals i bought for that motor cost me $900 for the whole kit. cam was dirt cheap. and i had a guy build me 2 4-2-1 collectors and a custom h pipe for $300 bucks. try to do that now with an 05 and you better grab your ankles and pray the parts counter has lube on hand.....

if you think the prices are fine that is great for you. i think they suck thats all. go look at equivelent parts for a 99 gt and compare prices and you will see what i mean. do it.... then come back and post some more "not trying to be a jerk challenges to my statements"

me bitter? naaaa....

 

The machines are expensive but if you have bought one in the last few years you can write off almost the entire machine in tha tax year as opposed to depreciating it over 7 years. It can be a huge thing. We have taken advantage of it. IMO, tmaterials have gone up alot BUT they have just raised pricing to make their money. You used to be able to save $$ and do it yourself and now they have just closed the gap. Its the same with home improvement. And dealer ADM's. better stock up on KY before they raise the prices out of reach on that and you have to take it dry

 

I wonder if the profit margins are THAT large. George at MGW sold his initial run of 3650 shifters at a loss. He now charges $305 for his shifter and says there is very little profit involved.

Food for thought?