Spool Rb34

[zebra]

Rob, not trying to be a smartarse but even if these caps look similar to your ones can you stop someone else producing a 'similar' product ?

Or are your caps and design patented ?

You have a point....look at every H-beam conrod for RB's they are nearly all identical and made from 4340

[Marko R1]

Where is the ethic???

[R.I.P.S NZ]

Rob, not trying to be a smartarse but even if these caps look similar to your ones can you stop someone else producing a 'similar' product ?

Or are your caps and design patented ?

Its a moral issue as much as anything, the caps look identicle to me and everyone knows I desiged this system years ago.

We'll see what Spools attitude is to the situation and go from there,

Rob

[R.I.P.S NZ]

Where is the ethic???

God knows mate, it seems the search for the almighty $$ takes a persons morals from them pretty quick in some cases.

[bigmikespec]

Some one better get up Nitto for making a 75.7mm crank when JUN "designed the system".

[dazmo]

WOW, you have balls posting pictures of something you have clearly just copied from me!!

Maybe its OK in China to copy anything and have no shame or morals about it but I sure didn't expect it from you.

Stop any production or use of those mains caps immediately and I hope you have a good lawyer and best you get him to get in touch with me smartly.

Rob

Hey RIPS just wondering if your design is patented. Seems as though there is not exactly a 100 different ways to produce a cap/girdle set up and just seems a bit rich to suggest that because you produced one first no one else can produce one.

As looking at both set ups it is pretty much a no brainer that both would be the most straight forward and logical way to manufacture the product. And not to take anything away from either of you guys for the efforts you put in but mate it is not exactly rocket science for any compatent machinest to produce one of these girdles. Just seems like the response from you is a bit of an overreaction on your part. But then again if you have gone to the trouble of registering your design with an international patent then that could be a different story but even if that is the case it would seem that a 10% veriation on the desighn would not be to difficult for spool to achieve if it is not already 10% different is quite difficult to tell from the pics posted. This is in no way meant to be having a dig at you just my personal take on what I have read.

[STATUS]

Its a moral issue as much as anything, the caps look identicle to me and everyone knows I desiged this system years ago.

We'll see what Spools attitude is to the situation and go from there,

Rob

i don't want this to come across rude and im definately not taing sides but if it isn't patented you have a hard road ahead... funny thing is it may actually help you sell more in the long run.. spools version will sell to the same market as the rest of their gear. It is generally accepted as off the shelf china sourced product and they have priced it accordingly, yours on the other hand will still be the premium product and there are always customers after the branded premium item. The more widely known the concept is, generally the more sales be it low end or high end, the key is pricing yours as the easy upsell.

Sure it may be conceived as morally wrong but unfortunately that is business regardless of product type or industry. If the original manufacturer does not keep their pricing structure relevant then it opens up a market gap that is easily filled and SPOOL, NITTO etc are doing that with their whole range, who can blame them? they didn't open the gap... they only filled it before someone else.

[DAN00H]

agreed, with the above. lots of people think of similar ways around a problem, so it is products are going to look similar from time to time. Did RIPS sell one of their kits to Spool?

assumption is the mother of all f*ckups. no disrespect to either of Rob or Brad - both create great products, but even if it is the same as your Rob, what do you have to ensure only RIPS produces this kind of work?

Edited May 12, 2010 by DAN00H

[R.I.P.S NZ]

Hey RIPS just wondering if your design is patented. Seems as though there is not exactly a 100 different ways to produce a cap/girdle set up and just seems a bit rich to suggest that because you produced one first no one else can produce one.

As looking at both set ups it is pretty much a no brainer that both would be the most straight forward and logical way to manufacture the product. And not to take anything away from either of you guys for the efforts you put in but mate it is not exactly rocket science for any compatent machinest to produce one of these girdles. Just seems like the response from you is a bit of an overreaction on your part. But then again if you have gone to the trouble of registering your design with an international patent then that could be a different story but even if that is the case it would seem that a 10% veriation on the desighn would not be to difficult for spool to achieve if it is not already 10% different is quite difficult to tell from the pics posted. This is in no way meant to be having a dig at you just my personal take on what I have read.

Well its not actually a no brainer to come up with the way I've done it and there's more than 1 other guy who'd designed and made caps a totally different way as it appeared to them that their idea would be best, it wasn't untill he'd had trouble with it that there was a discussion on here.

Once someone see's a finished product that has had a lot of time and money invested in it, its very easy to sit there and say, "Oh thats simple as, anyone could have come up with that and any compatent machinist could make those" that doesn't make it right to just blatently copy what someone else has spent alot of time working on.

Like I say, maybe it is more of a moral issue and we'll see what Spool has to say about it, if he doesn't give a flying f&*k and he's happy to just copy anyone's products and not give it a second thought, then we'll all know where we stand and go from there.

Rob

[DAN00H]

what about the proposed kit mentioned by Paul (Red R racing). what if that has a similar setup?

[Alf]

Are the RIPS products patented? Simple.

[666DAN]

if he doesn't give a flying f&*k and he's happy to just copy anyone's products

It could be worse, you could have an established product that someone not only has copied (and I mean 100% visual clone) but passes them off as *your* kits (doing damage by offering a substandard and faulty product) and costs you so far $120K in lost earnings over the past 2 years....but hey that's my story

It's times like this you need to adapt and roll with it. I do agree 1000% with Trent on this, it's all to do with market share and how it's divided, how often do we see this with Chinese turbos flooding the market. Garrett don't give a rats.

[cactus]

It could be worse, you could have an established product that someone not only has copied (and I mean 100% visual clone) but passes them off as *your* kits (doing damage by offering a substandard and faulty product) and costs you so far $120K in lost earnings over the past 2 years....but hey that's my story

It's times like this you need to adapt and roll with it. I do agree 1000% with Trent on this, it's all to do with market share and how it's divided, how often do we see this with Chinese turbos flooding the market. Garrett don't give a rats.

Actually, I will stay out of this. Rob is probably very upset as he put a lot of effort/money into his desgin.

I still think Spool isnt in the wrong.

Edited May 12, 2010 by cactus

[DAN00H]

beat everyone else to it and take your idea to China to implement

really - at the end of the day, its called competition. And remember, immitation is the sincerest form of flatery...

hang on... does RIPS actually do a 95mm stroker 3.4??? remember this girdle was created to accomodate said stroker, could just be lucky coincidence that it LOOKS like Robs...

[zebra]

Im curious now steve?

I think if Spool's Mains setup is a blatent copy (100%) than I can see why RIPS would want to persue legal action, but if it is slighty different than there is no point....A bit of competition in the market is a good thing for us as it helps stop way over inflated pricing.

I think the reason the china copy industry boomed is because people dont want to pay $20,000 bucks for a step 3 HKS stroker kit when it wouldnt cost half that to manufature.

So having more and more options especially quality gear from the likes of RIPS is going to be a good thing.

[DAN00H]

A bit of competition in the market is a good thing for us as it helps stop way over inflated pricing.

Here, here. ultimately this is what consumers want - choice and price competitiveness. this can be said for ANY industry the world over.

[STATUS]

i think you will find the exclusivity clause on the some of above products from the ROC factory that was producing the kits for the original company is now over, i can tell you now the kits i was going to bring in come from the same factory as a huge US based stroker company just unbranded. Many factories wil subsidise the developement stage by offering a set exclusivity period after which the product become free to market just without the branding. Another scenario is qty, if the company fails to move sufficient quantity or a pre agreed qty then they are able to sell to anyone. If you paid the full tooling and development cost then yes it is wholly and solely exclusive.

As for your product it would be plain stupid not to produce it overseas for a fraction of the cost... higher margin for you, lower cost to consumer but more importantly it gives you room to keep the sell price relevant after the product plateaus. If your worried about quality then its moot as the factories i have seen have newer equipment and harder working staff than most local outfits.... sad truth.

Again this isnt aimed @ Spool or Rips as i dont know either of them its just my personal experience in these kind of matters.

[cactus]

2JZ; bore 86mm stroke 86mm

RB30;bore 86mm stroke 86mm

as for one company having no gain in copying another companies kit (regardless of who either of them are), the one who copies simply copies the final product. No r and d. No money and time spent on kits that didn't work or failed. If you've developed something yourself, you would know this

... I am not talking about companies copying designs for the same component, I am talking about your comparison between Spool's NISSAN RB30 stroker and the HKS TOYOTA 2JZ stroker. He cannot copy this design. It has nothing to do with developing something myself and understanding R+D.

[N1GTR]

... I am not talking about companies copying designs for the same component, I am talking about your comparison between Spool's NISSAN RB30 stroker and the HKS TOYOTA 2JZ stroker. He cannot copy this design. It has nothing to do with developing something myself and understanding R+D.

I won't go into big details here, but think of it as changing blocks. Then using rb journals instead of 2J.

Anyway I'm staying out of this thread now, this is between rips and spool

[Beer Baron]

I know of another design about to come to market that incorporates the adapter with re-designed main caps and a stronger girdle. of course it looks similar to the designs posted already but is different in a few key areas and I know for a fact the guy making it has designed it himself. it's not un-usual for people to come to a similar conclusion to the same problem.

I also recently saw the one out of one of the first ever RB26/30's made. this RB26/30 was made at least 10 years ago (memory a bit hazy). it belonged to joe at SSS here in sydney and would be close to one of the first 26/30s made in the world especially in a 4WD application. it was hand made (not machined billet) and a fair bit different to the above designs but you can see where it was going.

anyway, I have no idea whether spool copied rips design or whether they did their own R+D and just came to the same solution. regardless of that without some patents in force it will be hard to legally stop them.