Originally Posted by
Roelof
You do not have to buy everything you see, you can also let your brain do some work and come up with an alternitive (as someone in this topic did with his drill press) or even decide if you do not need it. Let me remind you this is a technical hobby/sport afterall and if you can not think technical you have to ask yourself if you have chosen the right hobby/sport.
As your example the pre-heater of $100+, a cheap $7,- Ebay hairdryer will do the same....
Let me remind you the original design is just expensive in parts like a compleet one piece milled bathtub and a high power stepper motor with controler. As mentioned if you think clear and search arround it can be made much cheaper.
I am only wondering... If a US hero like Cyrul or Drake did come with such a tool, would you be that sceptic also?
It has nothing to do with nationality. It has to do with $300 being the new $200 when it comes to engines, with racers basically constantly chasing whatever is NEW NEW NEW, cost be damned - or in this case, common sense. Of course I don't need it, but IMO it drags the whole hobby further in the direction of where it's only for people with a spare Speed in the box(or two..), a spare kit(or two), a box with 12 new sets of tires, etc etc etc... And that is very much the direction racing has been going the last few years.
$650 to break in an engine? That's just ludicrous. Words basically fail to express the stupidity of it. I don't need lecturing either about it being a technical hobby. I heat cycle my engines and it works just fine.. Preheating is overrated too btw... As are bearing and rod changes..(not saying they're never necessary, but surely not as often as people make out..)
I don't mean to insult the guys who came up with it, or anybody who finds it neat. If it's just a fiddle around with new ideas kind of thing, that's cool.. But as a serious idea for real racers, talk of $650 break-in services, along with lexan wings and all the other BS that comes out every few months just makes me roll my eyes. That's all.
Racing afaic was cool when you could buy a Go motorbox with pipe, spare rod and plugs, for 200 bucks, break it in cold, and still have it run for gallons and gallons... Since then it's just more and more for a very select few willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money (and time) on piddly overpriced gimmicky stuff to drive toy cars around in circles on a track. Just sayin'... This is just another thing on the huge pile of things you have to ignore. Again, of course I don't need this or a lot of other things. But the pressure to spend spend spend to keep up eventually becomes impossible to ignore, and is inevitable... It's just something else to roll your eyes at... All I'm saying is racing would be cooler - for a larger number of people - if there were less of that. But that's gotten now quite off topic... Back to boiling your engines for $650...