Is it ok to copy a W5 head and make it better or are we just mad at Speedmaster

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The Speedmaster heads aren't a bad piece. @pittsburghracer has done a few. Were they bare castings? The castings are good, the parts not bad as well as the machining. It sounds like they are pretty close to the Edelbrock's. If you are reproducing W2's all you want are castings anyway. Most racers building a W2 small block will want their own valves, springs and components anyway.
 
pittsburghracer said:
A few months ago a well known small block head porter asked if anyone had a W5 head he could play with. Plan are to copy the W5 head and make some improvements. One of our members loaned him one and the project has began. Since I’m sure “Mother Mopar” had a patient on this what are our thoughts on this??? Everyone I’ve heard from has been excited about this deal but listening to so of our members over the last week have me scratching my head. Is it ok for one and not the other???
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We all get it. You have some fear that if china doesn’t make it we won’t have it.

If you knew the losses every year from stolen technology by the Chinese and other rogue entities you’d be singing a different tune.

The costs of policing your business to at least slow down the theft is staggering.

It’s not just automotive things either. It’s virtually every single thing manufactured here, including tooling, fixtures, processes and who knows what else.

I know the Chinese were stealing technology to produce something as mundane as rebar. A company had developed some new process or something and they could produce rebar cheaper, better and faster.

They put a huge dent in Chinese imports of rebar but it was something crazy like 6 months after they had it all sorted out the Chinese had most of it figured out.

They traced the leak back to a truck driver. He was taking pictures and somehow he was getting his hands on the bars at different phases of testing. They said that allowed them to copy the metallurgy.

So any time you went on the property you had to check your cellphone and they would pat you down to make sure there was no monkey business going on.

That’s just one example of what happens every day on every level.

Defending Chinese theft because we don’t make **** here is cutting off your own nose to spits your face.
 
toolmanmike said:
I think W2's would be a hot ticket. What makes a W2 a W2 though? What do they say, you have to change 5 things to reapply for a patent?
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The fact that it's the only large oval-port head for SBM's, with the Indycar project maybe the only exception, but also had more than one incarnation.
There may be 5 things one could change that are beneficial, but Mopar abandoned it for the successive W designs for a reason, an Al-U-minimum version with closed chambers would rock tho'.
 
-Boosted- said:
I don't think Speedmaster is going anywhere. This was just a setback that they should be able to recover from.
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Hmmm, X,000's of heads @$X00/pair - X# bowls of rice - plenty of fresh coal-fired electricity = .....You are 100% correct.
 
EdsWelding said:
I recently saw a new casting from "Steven Sun" on Speier's site and he really gave it a very good review as he is using them for his Chevy program thru Chris Cobb. I have heard that Steven Sun is one of the best China castings and maybe the only one to use.
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Im pretty sure this guy IS the Speedmaster head and intake manufacturer in CN.
IMG_9618.png
 
B3422w5 said:
Well aware of the Ritter blocks. Which is why I said I wish there were MORE options.
To my knowledge, that is the only option currently.
There are tons of head options, basically one block option.
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I salivate over that Ritter block. Really nice piece but what’s wrong with it that it needs competition in what is probably a really tiny market place for high HP capable SBM blocks? The cost?
 
I'm thinking ya just go to the Chinese E bay(Ali Baba or TEMU) and order em up, who needs Summit or Jegs...?
 
subcom said:
I salivate over that Ritter block. Really nice piece but what’s wrong with it that it needs competition in what is probably a really tiny market place for high HP capable SBM blocks? The cost?
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Actually I think a lot of guys at the 600 ish horsepower level would be players for a cheaper aftermarket block, something like the X block type offering was.
Now such guys are making do with factory blocks.
 
AMC Diplomat said:
My opinion is a Chinese product should only be bought as a last resort. So if you can source a part or tool domestically, new, used, NOS, NORS or even refurbished, you should do so before buying Chinese. Hell buy Mexican or Peruvian before Chinese.

I think too many people give the Chinese products a free pass because they're cheap.
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Uh huh...everyone is broke but going racing... :lol:
 
The fact is, a large majority of products made in China are made for American or Western-allied companies. China has the cheapest "skilled" labor in the world and is able to produce/provide material at lower costs. American companies design their products here and then have them produced there to keep costs down. Even with all the shipping back and forth and the cost of importing whatever it is back here, apparently it is still cheaper than doing everything here in the US.

That's the unfortunate truth. Until that equation gets turned around to where it no longer makes sense for American manufacturing businesses to follow that model we're going to be stuck with the majority of things we buy being made in China. I hate it and we all do but its the way of the world right now.

In fact, I own an awesome set of heads that are based on the same raw Chinese castings that Speedmaster uses. They also happen to be the same basic casting that Edelbrock uses. The company that made my heads designed the ports and chambers in Michigan. They receive the raw castings and machine them here with their program. The valve gear is all high-quality stuff like PAC, Ferrea, etc. The only thing 'inherently Chinese' about them is the raw casting and probably the pallets they come on.

But because of that, these heads were relatively cheap compared to some of the other options out there. If they were cast here they would have easily been double the cost which would have put them out of my reach. Not enough buyers of small block Mopar parts of any flavor out there to justify the cost of having everying "Made in the USA".

The problem with the valve body copy in question is that Speedmaster didn't even try to cover up the fact that they took this guys design and sold it under their name. Summit and Jegs put their logo on things that are exact copies of other manufacturers designs and sell them for less, They're not manufacturers themselves, they're only retailers. Both companies have been doing that since day one and it's a well-known and accepted fact. That idea has also been going on in most every business since the dawn of commerce - it's alll about the money.

The problem was Speedmaster basically took some of this particular manufaturer's existing stock of parts, crossed his name off it and put theirs on it. It's one thing to take a bare, generic casting that's available to anyone and put your own name on it but using existing inventory produced by someone else with their name already on it, crossing it out and slapping your own name on it to sell for your profit is the issue. That raises all sorts of questions about Speedmaster's busines practices and what they're willing to do to make a buck. That's not an honest mistake either, that's blatant misrepresentation or even theft. It's a bad deal and unfortunate for everyone.
 
B3422w5 said:
Actually I think a lot of guys at the 600 ish horsepower level would be players for a cheaper aftermarket block, something like the X block type offering was.
Now such guys are making do with factory blocks.
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“cheaper aftermarket block” - And we know how that is achieved.
 
subcom said:
“cheaper aftermarket block” - And we know how that is achieved.
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Volume is the solution to price issues. Expensive parts are usually expensive because the batch runs are smaller numbers which is often set based on cash flows and credit limits of the seller.

Why this applies less to china built parts is for a different forum. Even if the quality was identical to any place else at half the price, china is still too risky IMO.

Establishing volume can be a challenge though since it's a vicious cycle. You can't establish a demand without a product, but the demand is heavily based on price. Best bet for well priced aftermarket parts like blocks and heads are large builders like Blueprint who have enough volume to make it make financial sense, but the Mopar market is smaller than the others and so it still may not make sense.
 
Patents are not forever. Generic drugs are copies of name brand drugs. I have no problem with somebody coming up with a revised and improved W5 head. The guy's transbrake that Speedmaster copied. Was it patented? If so they broke the law and should suffer whatever is the appropriate punishment for that. As far as the Chinese stealing technology I wish that we could stop that and find a way to hold them accountable. But not only the Chinese anyone stealing technology. Companies or people spending time and energy to develop products should be able to make their R&D money without fear of someone stealing it.
 
New W5 heads havent been sold by mopar since the early 90's, so not really copying anything thats on the market. Also there is plenty to improve upon there, so I dont really see a problem. Now if they ripped off the the small block Victor head, and sold it with edelbrocks name on it, or even their own, thats definitely a problem.
 
bigfoot said:
New W5 heads havent been sold by mopar since the early 90's, so not really copying anything thats on the market. Also there is plenty to improve upon there, so I dont really see a problem. Now if they ripped off the the small block Victor head, and sold it with edelbrocks name on it, or even their own, thats definitely a problem.
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Steven Sun said he’s making a small block Victor copy.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Steven Sun said he’s making a small block Victor copy.
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Unless he drastically changes the Victor, like makes it 18 degree, changes the exhaust bolt pattern, etc thats a problem, Im all for more options, but I dont think its ok to rip off a companies work and call it yours.
 
I'm not mad at speedmaster. Anybody that doesn't realize that EVERYTHING they sell is a chinese ripoff/copy of sumbody else's stuff is an idiot.
I have bought stuff from speedmaster, at their black friday sale, because the price savings is SOOO good, i cant resist.... because if i had to buy from a u.s. manufacturer, i would pass on the puchase, cause the price would be three to five times as much money.
Do I know it's a copy... sure.
Do I expect first quality stuff....no.
Do I have parts i wouldn't otherwise have?...... you betcha!
 
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