Finally get to pretend I am one of the cool kids - Holley kit swap
Looks Great! I see that you have points to help with jigging up. Would it help to widen the pressed plate and add interlocking tabs to the front and rear plate? And maybe where the trans mount tab connects to the crossmember, just for consistent locating. Just curious. I understand this is just the prototype in works.
I went into the project with the idea that I would tab everything so it would just kind of clip together. Then I realized that I would have to weld the inside of the parts or do butt welds. So I changed directions to just some triangles and an easy fillet weld in all locations. I did tab the upper part that has to be bent by hand so it starts in the right location since I am planning to start in the middle and work both ways. But other than that, I feel like triangles is the better solution in this case. And I have to say the parts pretty close to just fell together. The lower crossmember only needs one clamp to hold it all, even though I will probably add more before tacking it together.
I didn't locate the mount on the lower crossmember for 2 reasons. For one, I didn't want to be locked into a location in case I got it wrong and secondly, I plan to offer this to people and expect that my location could be just a bit different than theirs. I could see adding some piercings to use as alignment checks or even just welding the thing together but it feels like it should be loose. Maybe I am overthinking it though since there could be issues with the lower crossmember not clearing if someone were to have their transmission in a fairly different location than mine. I will have to think on that. In the end, mine will get bolted to the transmission mount and snugged up to the crossmember and tacked together before finish welding it on the bench.
If it's ok to ask.. what did that order cost?
Just checked the cost and if I were to order it today it would be $288 for everything. I think this is up a little from 10 days ago as it seems like it was more like $282 then. I paid about $240 for mine though as I used a discount code from a YouTuber and no idea if that would work a second time.
I thought I would offer the kit for $350 shipped to someone's door. Not a bunch of profit in it for me, but a little. Maybe what I should do is set a dollar amount and then just add that to whatever SendCutSend is charging when I order it. I plan to reach out to them and talk to them about doing this as a business and see if it changes things too. Either way, as material costs fluctuate, it might be safer to not set a total until someone wants to order.
The other idea might be to offer the upper crossmember only. That kit is $130 for materials so maybe $170 total? If this one worked for a standard motor location, someone could at least have an upper crossmember and only need to build their own lower one.
Maybe I am being too transparent. But if this happens I am under no illusions that I am going to sell many of these nor am I ever going to get rich doing it.
Nice thing about having this all in a computer model is there are a bunch of things I could do with it. For example, SendCutSend does fiberboard and ABS so mockup parts could be sent to someone before ordering steel. A chipboard sample of the side profile would be less than $5, unfortunately shipping would kill that at $31. I could even send it in 0.187" ABS matching the actual part for about the same total. Or a pdf could be emailed and printed out so it could be cut out of cardboard much like I did my initial mockups. So, in theory, it would be kind of easy to work with someone on design changes if they had a different configuration.
Also.. you need add some kinda logo or design into it to make it recognizable and give it some flare. Maybe cut it into the side angle flats. When I did Hooptys mount, we just cut some patterns into it.. but if you have a logo, that would be awesome.
I wish you had mentioned that earlier, that is a great idea. I would have loved to have added a logo to this one but didn't think about it. I do have a company name if I started one, but it isn't set in stone and I haven't put much thought into a logo. Not that I haven't thought about one, only that I haven't put much effort into it.