What is going on with Trick Flow??

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Bewy

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Apparently TF is owned by Summit. I have a pair of TF 440 heads ordered with Summit. The estimated shipping date keeps getting postponed. Latest date is now May 25.

One would think that Summit should know what is happening with companies they own....

Is there anybody in the know or in the industry that knows the true situation?
 
Krooser said:
Everything is backed up.... i waited 9 months for pistons
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Correct tried to order some ESPO leaf springs out 2 months was told even some SBC Edelbrock heads are backordered for some time I would definitely think real hard about taking on any project at this time
 
All your parts are sitting off the coast of Cali waiting on containerships. China flu is to blame. trucking companies (the ones left) are over booked so there is no where to put the containers once off loaded. 2nd the crews on these ships are from many many countries with no China flu testing procedures. Some boats have up to 30 different countries crew. So US is not letting them in in fear they could be contagious if they started to walk around. Thus making them sit out of port for 2 weeks or more. 3rd shipping companies like UPS, USPS and FedEx are so over loaded they are adding 12-18 days to package delivery times.
Nobody will admit this in fear of loosing customers- but every company is having this issue.
 
With everything coming on a slow boat is anyone surprised? We like to think certain things are not that way, but most are sadly. Is it the same delay with bare heads? My son wants to get a pair of small block units so this might step up his game a bit.
 
74 360 dart sport said:
You may have to Take a long road trip like we use to do back in the day to pick them up they have a store in Ohio
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I think the issue is the stores are out of stock because the product is not coming from China. A road trip to an empty warehouse won't help. A LOT of custom auto parts manufacturers/suppliers are backed up. People were staying home due to Covid and starting projects. It didn't help that factories were shut down and dealing with reduced work forces..

Yes Trick Flow was a local company that was acquired by Summit. I believe they started out making Ford heads and grew from there.
 
Many of the companies that we partner with have extended lead times at this point. As with many of the companies in the automotive industries this past years sales have been like none before. Our traditional forecasting from the past 2-3 year could be thrown out the window just based on 2020. With consumers being home over this past year we have seen an explosion in sales as people are using this time to work on their cars. So an item that we were selling annually (prior 2020) lets say at a rate of 200 a year we sold 350 causing us or our manufacturers to scramble for additional materials for productions. So with every company completing for materials we know see a shortage on materials. We are seeing this on both state side manufacturing and overseas. Finally with all the CDC guidelines on social distancing this has affect how production formats are done meaning spacing out work station or reducing work staff in a given area in order to keep social distance. In one case we had a backorder of 2 months on our Bilstein as the manufacturer had to shut their factory for a month as the factory as a whole came down with Covid.

So it is a combination of factors that are causing some of these lead-times that all companies are seeing in this and other industries.

Thanks
James From
PST
 
So....trick flows are being affected by the international shipping problem? Oh the horror! There are 30+ ships anchored off Long Beach waiting for something......I though it was Uygher ("weeger") picked Chinese cotton that was boycotted. TF's are supposed to be made in USA (as of a 2012 posting) still but my have some imported parts associated with their completed heads. Youd think there would be MADE IN USA all over the website, but a sizeable price drop and an aquisition from a major retailer (increased demand for volume) seems to point to a reduced cost somewhere...
 
pishta said:
So....trick flows are being affected by the international shipping problem? Oh the horror! There are 30+ ships anchored off Long Beach waiting for something......I though it was Uygher ("weeger") picked Chinese cotton that was boycotted. TF's are supposed to be made in USA (as of a 2012 posting) still but my have some imported parts associated with their completed heads. Youd think there would be MADE IN USA all over the website, but a sizeable price drop and an aquisition from a major retailer (increased demand for volume) seems to point to a reduced cost somewhere...
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Lots of things will say "Assembled in the USA".. but they have components made elsewhere. Air compressors are such a thing. The tanks are all largely made here, but the pumps elsewhere. I'm told the "good" ones are the Italian made ones. Can't be sure though. Words are important in marketing.
 
been awhile since I checked on that shifter I ordered.....shows you how slow my project has been going. hung up on wiring for now...
 
Another thing to take in consideration on not just car parts, but a lot of items in general, is that a lot of container ships traveling from overseas have lost a lot of containers of imported goods due to overloading and rough seas.
This includes car parts, toys, clothes, shoes, and many other things.........
 
Made in USA goods are just as affected as imported goods right now. Tooling, some raw materials, equipment all have some or all of their parts being sourced from various places in the world. Made-in-USA still uses plenty of Indonesian, Japanese, Indian materials/parts. Just look at the automotive sector: Korean chip-makers can't keep up with demand, and ECU's can't be made fast enough causing a shortage of new cars.
Not only all that, but lots of folks were forced to stay home from work for 2+ months last year, and plenty of labor left the market because their stimulus checks got them just as drunk or high as their paychecks would. Then there were ongoing issues of reduced labor capacity (forced capacity reductions in many regions), loss of employees due to fear or life changes, people changing industries or simply leaving their state for a multitude of reasons. Many of those folks would be the ones casting, machining, assembling your made in USA goods. Meanwhile, as PST said: demand is ever higher, because plenty of people were able to keep a paycheck.

Short story is we've had limited materials, limited labor, and a huge spike in demand for going on 12 months now. It's no surprise that lots of things are hard to get right now.

It's likely to get worse over the next 4-8 months, and it will be a VERY slow re-alignment back toward normal that will likely take a couple years. IMO it's a perfect opportunity for smart companies to decouple from regimes hostile to our existence.
 
:wtf:Then you get some nimrod Captain goin sideways in the Panama Canal holding up the works (possibly for 10 weeks):realcrazy::BangHead:
 
There's "all that" up there ^^^^, PLUS, people playin around with cars ain't zackly the most important thing goin on in the world right now either.
 
RustyRatRod said:
There's "all that" up there ^^^^, PLUS, people playin around with cars ain't zackly the most important thing goin on in the world right now either.
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Maybe not, but literally every industry is affected.
All polymer material production is being hammered right now, raw materials like bauxite are scarce, prices are unstable for almost any materials which makes it tough to run a business. I've literally seen some aluminums change by 500% in a day. If you're not on the phone with a distributor the exact minute something is on offer for a reasonable price, you're going to be waiting another 20-26 weeks for material.
Every time material runs thin, spindles shut down and people get sent home early. Mistakes start to pile up when they get restarted too. It's a **** show in the manufacturing world right now - which is a real kick in the nuts since demand is great.
Our company had ~8 months worth of inventory on the shelf last March. By June it was depleted - and that was while still producing at 75% capacity in the meantime. Then for the first time in 12 years there was no OT available because we had nothing to build.
 
Phreakish said:
Maybe not, but literally every industry is affected.
All polymer material production is being hammered right now, raw materials like bauxite are scarce, prices are unstable for almost any materials which makes it tough to run a business. I've literally seen some aluminums change by 500% in a day. If you're not on the phone with a distributor the exact minute something is on offer for a reasonable price, you're going to be waiting another 20-26 weeks for material.
Every time material runs thin, spindles shut down and people get sent home early. Mistakes start to pile up when they get restarted too. It's a **** show in the manufacturing world right now - which is a real kick in the nuts since demand is great.
Our company had ~8 months worth of inventory on the shelf last March. By June it was depleted - and that was while still producing at 75% capacity in the meantime. Then for the first time in 12 years there was no OT available because we had nothing to build.
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EVERY industry. That's a fact! We even had to order one of Kitty's prescriptions yesterday. Very common, but they didn't have it. Hopefully it will be there today.
 
RammerJammer75 said:
"Each of the cylinder heads are proudly Made in the USA and must pass a strict durability test prior to being put on the market. Trick Flow helps racers save money and have proven performance for their vehicle that is dyno-tested and proven."

From this article: International Hot Rod Association - Trick Flow’s New Cylinder Heads Provides “Ultimate Bolt-on Performance”

They say made in the USA, not just assembled. That tells me it's cast in the states, but who knows.
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Yup, like compressors, the tanks are manufactured here in the states, the rest? a crap shoot.
 
74 360 dart sport said:
You may have to Take a long road trip like we use to do back in the day to pick them up they have a store in Ohio
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A road trip from Australia is a long road trip.

I believe they are cast in china like everything else and machined here.
 
I got some trick flow BB heads about a month ago. I had to wait a few months to get them. Their reasoning at the time was that they couldn't get the valves to build the heads.
Btw, it was worth the wait. The ports on these are amazing.
 
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