Yes, we will be shipping soon, I just can't nail down an exact day...yet. As I've said in some of the updates, I will personally be going over with a trailer to the mold shop when the production is underway to pick up parts to start filling orders prior to completion of the run, so that everyone who has been waiting will be first to receive their parts. (That's everyone on the pre-order list). Only after everyone on the list is taken care of will we start filling normal production and retail orders.

Since this is as good a place as any, below is the newsletter from today's visit. Newsletters will be coming out closer together as news speeds up, so I expect another update by Wednesday for everyone, as that is where we are targeting another sample run.




Honeycomb Taillight Panel Update – Issue 14
October 29, 2005

As promised, we were up at the mold shop today for another sample run, this time with the actual material that will be used in production instead of polypropelene used in the original sample (since it is a lot cheaper), a bigger injector, and most of the “finishing” of the mold complete (sandblasting, polishing, etc.) This was supposed to be the final inspection prior to approving the part for full production.

What happened was not expected, but after much discussion about the options, we have a plan to get to the intended goal, a deliverable piece for our customers. Remember that our last sample run made a complete part, but then we marked up all the clean-up work that was needed as well as the “fill-in” of the honeycomb at the ends. This time, with the actual material we will use in manufacturing, the sandblasting and polishing mostly complete, and the density change in plastics, the part was cooling prior to the injection being complete, so it came up “short” at the ends. Additional gates were machined in earlier this week to assist in flow, but the mold makers will be adding heat runners over the next couple of days and re-sampling by Wednesday to get a complete part. For what it is worth, over 50 parts were made today, unfortunately, none of them were ones we would want you to own, so into the plastic shredder they will go.

I personally made it clear to the mold shop that they are behind schedule at this point, and that our customers have been very patient, but that their patience, as well as ours, is going to run out at some point. To that end, they have assured us that no other production will take place on that injection machine until we have product, meaning that they won’t be un-loading the injection press to run other jobs in-between. Loading and unloading the complete mold takes quite a bit of time, as well as changeover of the plastics, injector cleanouts, etc., so we are hopeful that this, along with their commitment to us to deliver in a timely fashion, will have a correct part in our hands maybe by the middle-to end of next week. Our first major show is November 8th, and we have made it absolutely clear that the car is to have an actual part on it, not the prototype, by that time. We have been reassured that this will be the case, and we are not doubting their ability to deliver.

Attached is a picture of one of the incomplete parts, where the surface finishes are starting to become visible. As the material flows out completely this will improve even more, but we are very satisfied with the gloss / flat sections as we are starting to see them. Also, what we could measure of the fit was excellent on our two test trunk lids, and we are confident we will be able to hold these tolerances as well as the arc dimensions on the production parts.

We will have more news as soon as it is available, probably by Wednesday. As always, feel free to contact us in-between with any concerns you may have, as we are here for you.

 

thanks for the roush pic! how cool is that! keep up the good work marcello

here is where i wanna see one... :scratch:

 

time is short...waiting is near an end? we should get a new update this weekend. i feel it coming...life is good!

 

I'll write it here first, and get the news out tonight as well. Here's where we are:

1) There are three shows over the next month we wanted to be at - TMTS in Tampa, the Palm Bay Ford / MCA show (we do this every year), and the PRI show in December. Obviously it would be nice if we could have our own product on our own show / race car for these events.

2) TMTS and the Palm Bay show are both this week / weekend. We don't have the production part on, and the car is still at the decal shop as of tonight, so we won't be at the Palm bay Ford show tomorrow either. We will make the TMTS show, as it starts Tuesday. The PRI show is in three weeks, and we plan to have all of our pre-orders filled by that time as well as having a production piece on our own vehicle. Personally, I'm sick of putting the prototype on just to take it back off because it can't stay outside, and refuse to have it on the car by the time PRI rolls around. I want a part as much as everyone else at this point!

3) Another ton (quite literally 2,000lbs) of plastic has arrived. This is the higher-flow material we were waiting for. It was dried, and tested over a 50 part run. Although the parts are now "complete", the injection press is lacking in shot size to "fill out" the part correctly. So... we will be getting the mold off this press this week, and getting it onto a larger injection press that has a larger shot size, so that more material can be injected at one time to fill it out and pack it correctly. The schedule is to have the mold mounted and ready by Friday, and for me to go back to the mold shop Saturday for what we hope is approval to start production. This may happen sooner, but I don't want to promise that.

4) While all of these "sample" runs have been going on, we've been getting all the bugs out of the piece. Incorrect surface finishes in spots, lack of proper polishing in others, etc. are all being handled so that once I see a correctly "packed" piece, the production will commence on a 24/7 3-shift cycle to catch up. The mold shop has been real good about tending to appearance issues on this piece, understanding that it needs to look as good as it fits.

Speaking of fit... Ford's QC on the center emblem could use some work. We have measured over a .045" difference between test cars, meaning that the gap had to be about .015" larger than ideal to catch all the emblems out there. This is not our fault, rather something that we have to design around to insure proper fit on all vehicles. It seems that the V6 cars are more prone to come in on the small side, but we've measured GT's with small and large emblems as well. This was one of the last "steel-safe" cuts to be made in the mold, but we have decided to leave our original tolerance cut in, rather than shrinking it and then running into issues where it doesn't fit cars with larger emblems. The difference is still not worth mentioning, but as always, I'm trying to let everyone know exactly what's going on.

5) The next issue of Mustang Enthusiast magazine (February issue - due out mid December) will have an article about our part, as well as our first full-color ad. Phone numbers and everything else will be in it, and by that time, we hope to have our website "cleaned-up" a bit from where we are now to a more "shopper friendly" place.

6) We have started talks with the major supplier of carbon / fiberglass components to many of the aftermarket companies. If you've seen Eleanor, or many of the other body component kits available, you've seen their work. They now have a hood from us to plug from, and as well some of the other things customers have asked us about privately are going to become a reality. As with the honeycomb panel, we're not looking to copy what's already out there, but to improve at a minimum or have a completely different design that we will be proud of. This will start to occur over the next few weeks, and since they are separate from the mold shop we are dealing with, this will not impact our delivery or focus on our first part. There will be more news on this as it becomes available and as it can be released. Since the world reads the web, it is important to play cards close to your vest with some of this stuff...

Finally, everyone who's pre-ordered: Please don't think this is an Internet scam or anything like that. It has been one of the biggest undertakings of my life to bring this product to market, and if you knew of half of the behind-the-scenes events that have occurred to bring this to you, you'd be amazed. I am an enthusiast / racer first, and a businessman a distant second. While in retrospect I wish I had padded our original delivery date more, I was reporting delivery dates to the best of my abilities, given the information I am being given by my suppliers. Now that the original dates have come and gone, I understand your frustration, and hope that the piece meets your expectations for fit and finish when it arrives shortly.

As always, anyone can post here, or email me directly with any concerns.

Oh, and pictures of the new graphics will be up tomorrow! The car looks awesome. Colors are deep metallic blue and reflective silver... I'll let your imagination run with that for tonight. Suffice it to say the graphics package on our #93 chassis has a run for the money now.

 

So, are you saying there is going to be a gap that shows the body color around the emblem? If so, how about you include some black out tape to go around the emblem before the installation of the panel. Just an idea. I have to admit I am getting a bit concerned about the delays since I pre-ordered waaaayyy back in August. Let's hope this next run makes the cut.

 

Well, it really depends upon the car, not our part. I can hold a pretty tight tolerance on our piece, but if the factory emblem is all over the map, we have to account and allow for that.

To answer the problem, yes we will be including some black vinyl for cars that require it. We had another solution, but it woud have raised the price of the part, and it doesn't make sense to handle it that way for the number of cars and size we are talking about here. You have to understand that I'm discussing a dimension of .020" per side max, so it's not like a big gap like some of the competition runs with, and most customers will not need it. We're still holding it in as tight as possible, but I wanted to mention it because I know that someone somewhere will get a panel and have an emblem that measures straight up at 6.000", giving them a .025 gap and then saying that the panel has a loose fit, when in reality the majority of emblems fall somewhere in the 6.020-6.035 range, where our 6.050 measurement gives a perfect fit, since it has to have some room to expand and contract due to temperature variations.

FWIW, our car measures at 6.031", while the "jig trunk" we use for testing right off the mold measures 6.012". So the part that fits our own car perfect looks a little loose on the test trunk, but understand that I'm looking at this at a distance of about 1 foot, and straight on flipped vertically instead of mounted to the car from 6 feet away and at an angle from above, like you would in the real world.

Finally, as to the run making the cut... I hope so too. I want to ship them as bad as people want to receive them, but at the same time with this being our first real product not for our own consumption, I can't afford for it to be wrong and ruin our name before it even gets going. We don't have the name recognition right now to survive a bad product launch, so I have to make sure we get this right. Like I said, in retrospect I should have padded the delivery date like I would have if I was making the part myself, but since we outsourced this, I figured the shop we are dealing with was able to more accurately quote delivery than I normally can. I, as you, have seen that they are like the rest of us... optimistic, but unfortunately always behind.

We'll get them out soon though. Stick with us, it's going to be a great ride!

 

Hey Gang, I have so much faith in this project that I just signed on to be an authorised dealer! YEA BABY!

Marcello will take care of all our preorders and then anybody that didn't get in on the pre-sale can buy them from me at www.showlenses.com

see the link to my ebay auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/05-06-Musta...1QQcmdZViewItem

how 'bout them apples!

edited to referr to newly posted link noted below...

 

Attached are pictures of the run made yesterday, which I personally inspected today. While I am very pleased, there are about 6 minor issues I want the mold shop to address, 2 of which will require disassembly of the mold one more time. The mold will then be re-assembled, and re-tested probably Wednesday of next week. If I approve the pieces next week, we will be shipping by Tuesday November 22, as production will start immediately and run through the weekend.

I’m sorry for the delays in getting the parts out to everyone, but if you look at the pictures of where we are at, compared to the photoshop sketch some of you actually decided to purchase from back in June, you will see a lot has been done to achieve what I feel is a part you will be very happy with. The delays in the injection process have not helped over the past few weeks, but everything is now coming together. We are already folding and taping the boxes to have them ready, and will get final directions worked out and printed to have in the boxes for everyone.

There were some questions as to the fit of the center emblem. There is a picture included that is a close-up, taken from about 6-8 inches from the emblem. You should be able to see how close we are fitting. However, since the factory emblems are not identical in diameter, we will be including a piece of filler tape for those cars that require it. We expect that this will be a small number, but will be including it anyway just to make sure everyone’s installation looks as good as possible.

Finally, the pictures you see here that were taken today are of an actual piece, made from the actual material that your pieces will be made from. The interesting part… there is NO TAPE holding this piece on the car. It is being held entirely by the fact that it fits that well to the arcs and to the emblem on the trunk of the car. I will have an update late next week to confirm delivery for everyone once the required clean-up work has been completed and can be inspected.

Thanks again!

 

Lookin' GREAT! Can't wait to get mine!!!

 

Brad (and everyone else),

Thanks. In case you can't tell by the tone of this week's update, I am very happy with what I saw today. Last week, and half of this week I've been really on edge, as there were a lot of issues I was not happy with. Seeing this piece (actually 10 today), and the quality of it, I am actually getting excited again, and not just depressed.

The finishes look good already, and now that I've given final approval to the dimensional characteristics, final polishing and cleanup is what's left. That, and .020 added to the thickness of the part to aid in flow, but that is to insure a complete fill of every part, as a couple of the sample run came up thin at the ends in the centers. All in all, it looks like it's really the part I saw in my head way back when, and now it is finally becoming reality. I told everyone to be prepared to work Thanksgiving week, as it looks like that is when we will be shipping the pre-orders out.

It's a far cry from this poor 'chop:

 

Looks awesome! I will have to add this to my shopping list (Need a new mustang first though)

 

Well, no need to add to my shopping list as I bought it way back when. I had no problem waiting until it was right, the update provided were more than needed. I'm happy to be part of your product launch and I'm thinking that Silver Horse Racing should put us on a preferred list for your next product!! Of course those that were "so" worried about this and thinking they may have been scammed should go on the "No Faith" list.

 

Well thanks. As to faith, I can even understand where people were at, as really there was nothing to look at for a long time except a Photoshop and then a prototype that was allergic to sunlight! Nobody ever even saw the foam / paper prototype I had that my wife about hit me with because she asked "that cost us how much?"!! As a customer, I would have gotten concerned too, but as the mold shop has been saying all along... once this started to work and the adjustments were right, I was going to be impressed, and I am.

Everyone that pre-ordered will be kept on a list and given a heads up on products as we get them going. The only problem with being a startup is having the time and funding to invest in multiple products at one time. It just doesn't exist... so even though I am getting the planning work done and positioning us with suppliers for future parts, I can't "greenlight" them until this one is rolling.

In the meantime, we'll be getting our website capable of accepting credit cards without the customer needing a Paypal account, and then we'll offer products from other vendors we think fit our philosophy of excellence in design or engineering. I'm hoping to play with that this weekend, but as usual, there is a lot to do on other fronts, like preparing for the PRI show, since we just got back from TMTS in Tampa.

Speaking of the TMTS show... we are always set up outside the back of the showroom for people to come out and enjoy the Florida fall weather. Here's a couple shots of that show.

 

Ditto that, Brad. Me too!

Ok, Here it is. For all you watchers out there.

The first place where you can actually buy a Honeycomb Blackout! (post mfg's presale)

The rest of us are gonna get ours real soon. If you want one I'll get ya one, and you'll be first in line behind the original pre-orders.
Come see me here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/05-06-Musta...1QQcmdZViewItem
I am offering an incentive to the first ten buyers to jump onboard!



TMS Rocks! :worship: Thanks Brad, from the rickman

 

Well everybody, I Just sold the first one! Woo hoo! Whos next?

gotta love that finish

 

TMTS show? Where was it? I didn't hear anything about that one

 

TMTS= Tampa Machine Tool Show - It is a semi-annual event put on by our primary race sponsor, Arthur Machinery.

Everyone's always invited, we have food and drinks, as well as being able to see the equipment used to make many of the parts that end up on our Mustangs.

Doesn't everyone need a mill in their garage to make parts with?

Mid-week update: I heard from the mold shop, everything is on-track. Let's hope the schedule holds for the rest of the week, or even gets ahead by a day or so.

 

HA !! That finish is part of what I am having them fix! It looks good in photos, and from 3 feet away, but close up it has some flow / mill marks in it that we are fixing. Not anything that would make it a bad part, just I am looking for OEM level quality here, and am pushing as hard as possible to meet that goal.

BTW - I saw an episode of OverHaulin' tonight about Roush Racing... I thought the mold we were doing was big until I saw the mold they use for the front fascia. 60,000 pounds of aluminum for one bumper !! Here we are commenting on our 1 ton mold...

Their injection machine was big enough to mash ours inside it, and probably never even flinch. And ours is no baby! (6 feet high by ~30 feet long)

 

So, any update news? I am like a kid right before Christmas!

 

You? You don't have 1000 boxes sitting around taped up- all currently opened with nothing in them! Talk about coal in the stocking...

Actually, I'll put out a short update this evening. The mold shop called this morning, and asked to have until Monday, as it took them longer than they thought to sandblast the backside of the mold - technically the sandblasting went quick, it is the disaseembly, cleaning, and re-assembly that takes time. All the ejector pins and all that have to fit perfect, without any grit grinding in them...

Anyway, I'll be over there Monday, they *say* I should be able to approve what they have for production... I hope so, I'm getting tired of driving over there and not coming back with parts to ship to everyone! I actually think we will, as you saw from the above pictures, last week's run was very close.

Of course, that said, since I had some time this afternoon, I went trailer shopping. Once again, logistics of volume is something to behold. One part=28oz (almost 2 lbs..) 1000 parts=2000 pounds, and takes up a bit of space, so they aren't all going to fit in the backseat of the car! (If anyone has a nice 20-24 foot enclosed with beavertail that they are looking to sell, let me know! New trailers are expensive... )

Also, we will be re-designing our website very soon. We just finished the details of being able to accept credit cards directly, so everyone who was not willing / able to use our PayPal setup will now have another option. Once we have it working, we will be adding products we use from other suppliers, as well as more of our own stuff as it becomes available. (Two more production shops jumping onboard here in the coming weeks for some of our other pieces)