I'm trying to get some good info on how much it should cost to put splines into some vanilla torsion bar arms. (1 1/8" splines). All I really wanted for the arms was metal bar stock blanks with the splined holes put in them. I purchased some today, but now feel I may have been snow-balled under the "It's expensive because it's custom" tag. If it costs what it does because that's a fair price I don't mind paying it, but if it costs a lot because I'm unfamiliar with this type of equipment I have a problem. Paid $100 per arm for steel tosion arms with a hole drilled in the end to accept a rod end. Thanks
I just ordered them today, they have yet to be built. At the time I was thinking the exact same thing, that machine shops charge based on time. I may have been too excited at the prospect of finally ordering the parts. I have the money, I just don't want to get screwed.
One of the machinists here will chime in. THey use a brach to cut em......thats as much as I know! May be a tad high? What does Speedway get for em?
Custom= $$$ Race shops do em in batches in the hundreds and I haven't seen a steel arm offered in many years.
This actually makes me feel a lot better, since the guy on the phone told me the exact same thing. He said they make a bunch CNC style and mine would be done manually. I hate to bitch about the cost of things because putting money out there always hurts some. I just don't want to find out I should have paid $35.00 dollars for them. Thanks
Depends on the tools/equipment the guy has. If he has a broch of the correct size may be a bit pricey. If he has to cut each spline one at a time that may be cheap. Most machine shops aren't to interested in small jobs like that ,set up and tooling costs kill any profit. You might be further ahead to find something that is available off the shelf that can be made to work or your set-up modified to use such. I had 3 hours the other day making up a air cleaner top out of 1/2 aluminum for a guy. No way did I feel I could charge my $40 per hour shop rate ,did it for $60 . But it still took me the 3 hours. I work out of my home shop and am retired so I can cut some slack to help out someone. But even so need to get some income out of using my 40K worth of equipment I got setting here.
I've worked in a production welding/machine shop for 24 yr. and setup is everything. Once you have your set up and the more you can run, the cheaper it is (to a point). Onesy twosy stuff is always gonna be pricey.
Go to Walmart and ask them if they can have it done in China. In a few years there won't be anyone able to do this type of work. Feel fotunate enough there are craftsmen still able to do this type of work. Once all of the small manufacturing has closed down you won't be able to get any of this stuf done. Sorry for the rant, lost another customer to China today.
It's okay. China pisses me off also, but I shop at Wal-mart so I probably shouldn't throw stones. Quality costs money, I only wanted to make sure I wasn't overpaying for quality. That can happen as well.
Pretty much a custom set-up. I would think $100 each for a 2 piece job is a bargain. Figure the Machine Operator's pay plus benefits plus machine time (I would think $100 / hour would be a good figure) plus elctricity plus taxes plus, plus, plus. And all of that for a PITA job. Remember, the Operator could be sitting at a CNC machine pumping out dozens of these, instead of spending set-up time and checking size, etc, for two pieces. Sounds like a good vendor to me.
Ya I know what you mean. If someone would have walked in today and asked me to do something I could do and didn't want to do I would have doubled my price. Don't ask me pricing when I'm mad.
There is an outfit in Rockford IL that does all of my spline work and so far I have been really impressed with their receptiveness to one-off parts as well as their pricing. The website is www.rcvperformance.com
That is a reasonable price for custom work. Or you can buy the steel ends from Speedway,and make tubular arms. Steel torsion arms is late '70s technology. Way back when Sprint cars weighed over 1900lbs.
Just got back to this thread, if you figure $30 for the off the shelf part, 3 times that is not too bad for one made to your specs. Plus, if this was the first time you used this guy you probably did not get the same pricing you will get a couple years down the raod after you FREQUENT his shop! hint,hint....It pays to have a place that can do stuff like this and send ALL your business as well as refferalls to him.
Now that I think about it, if you had 1" bars, Stock Car Products has 1"x48 spl. steel arms for sway bars for about $40-50.
I feel better about the entire deal now. It helps to hear some reasoning form people who know this field of business. I'll let you know how nice the bars are when they come. That'll go a long way towards making me feel like I got a great deal or taken for a ride.
Ended up paying DMI about $450.00 (including shipping) for stops, arms, bars, and bushings. I haven't gotten them yet, but DMI was good to work with. The orginal quote was over $600.00 for custom stuff. However, they noticed several of my custom parts specs could be found outsourced and already made, and they helped me save some money. It took a long time, but they are busy because they are a good product so I didn't mind. I just wanted to give them some praise for being good to me. If the stuff comes and looks like shit, I'll get back onto the thread and flame them.
450 aint bad at all, don't think DMI was around back in my day, but they are a big name sprint car racing today. Lots of the big shot, cost is no object, racers use their stuff today, so I would think they make a high quality product. BTW- you may know this, but torsion bar bushings often need reaming after fabrication (much like Ford spindles) most any open wheel race shop (should be plenty in OK) should have the reamer if needed.
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