Quote:
Originally Posted by pont3
Yes, it all looks awesome, but from a business standpoint, I'd say, say, DON'T do it. As enticing as it apears, the market just doesn't support the investment. Just being honest here. I live in St Charles, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis, and the ads are filled with people wanting the dump the traditional Pontiac engines for more modern LS engines that produce similar or more power for a fraction of the cost of building a Pontiac that produces similar power. Then there is the reliability aspect when you consider the quality of the aftermarket PONTIAC parts vs the wide variety of available LS parts.
I've been throwing loyalty, money, parts after Pontiac for over 35 years, and to this day, I still cannot keep them from dripping oil on my driveway, or expecting them to start and be reliable with today's aftermarket parts.
Additonally, I would ask, why would you spend so much money to impress at a car show? Horsepower matters in races so if you don't plan on races it amounts to wastes.
Seriously, I applaud the efforts to what seems like a very nice addition to the Pontiac faithful, but this does not address the inherent major deficiencies of the original Pontiac engine.
I have been on this site for over 23 years and the issues have been nonstop. Everything from overheating to valve lifters to whatever, you name it. Is a 12 thousand dollar supercharger going to solve all these issues, or exacerbate them. Especially when you realize that 4.8 or 5.3 with 200k miles that cost 750 dollars just handed you your ass.
Now, I realize that this thread is not where I should be announcing my viewpoint, but I feel obligated to inform the "less informed" that this extra power will come at a cost, exacerbating the problems that you are already experiencing with cooling, and while there may be solutions out there, add them to your total costs. And even those "solutions" are questionable, and can you trust them to say, drive your car cross country?
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(Properly) building an LS motor is most certainly not cheaper than building a Pontiac engine. As for comparing a $750 junkyard LS near the end of its service life against a brand new properly assembled motor of any type- this is just foolish.
Don’t get me wrong- I love LS motors and have built my fair share. And I don’t begrudge anyone who does an LS swap- that’s hot rodding.
What I set out to do is design, build and produce a modern Pontiac supercharger kit that uses an OEM quality screw blower. The Eaton blower head unit used in my kit is production approved for several GM platforms , and meets all of GM’s reliability , durability, and warranty standards as well as NVH. It is most certainly capable of “starting and acting reliably” when assembled properly.
I set out to provide a highly engineered and thoroughly tested kit that people can buy with confidence that the R&D was done, using made in the USA parts and suppliers, and yes this costs money.
It is the very best that I can do, and other than the foundry work, it is all produced in-house with no outsourcing. There is easily 6 figures in the engineering and tooling for this project- that is the cost of doing business and no single individual will determine the “market” for this, folks that want something done right will have interest, those shopping for a “good deal” at the expense of quality will not.
I did not do this to make money. I have this strange belief that there is a market, however small, that does appreciate products that are not created and marketed by middlemen and hucksters, built to the lowest common denominator, but rather do things to the very best of their ability and cater to those that appreciate this.
It is not intended for a person who is cross shopping a junkyard LS motor and adding $400 Chinese turbos “sloppy mechanic” style.