At the end of the day, most of the problems America faces are tied back to respect and pride.
Pre 1960: try buying a foreign product and see how you are treated. If you father spared your life, your neighbors would probably not. We all had pride and respect.
Try stealing something: once again, if your father spared your life, you were at minimum shunned from the community.
Try back talking to the teacher: ditto
Not respecting your elders: ditto
Not showing up for work: (all that would get you is showing up the next day with battle scars from your old man after he incentivized you to be on time)

Today, it's accepted to buy foreign, stealing is just one of those things, talking back to any kind of authority figure, well everybody does it so it can't be that bad. Elders, what's an elder?
Not showing up for work on time...if I can get my employer to fire me unjustly, then maybe I can sue him or at minimum get unemployment. In addition I can make more at home drawing a check than bother with work.

PRIDE AND RESPECT folks, and until we teach our youth PRIDE AND RESPECT, things are not going to get any better.
Our 12 year old son knows, when his parents or elders ask something, it is to be done. He was taught PRIDE AND RESPECT from day one. Amazingly he is a straight A student and has had perfect attendance many of his school years. He also knows that whether he is 12 or 50, his father will always be his father and will not hesitate to jerk him aside if he disrespects the family name. As a father it is my JOB to make sure the family name is respected and personally I don't care how old my child is, it doesn't give him the right to disrespect the family name.
Hey, if I do this right, maybe he will hold his children to the same standard (like my father and I did)
My .02. Sorry for ranting, but it had to be said.

Jeff, I started out typing a long winded response to this but I could have written a book so I stopped...twice. I have been in the trades for 27 years working my way from carpenter to superintendent to owner and then continuing to building and construction inspector and have seen alot on the construction end. In short I want to say we need to put an end to this but has the sno-ball gotten too large and gained too much momentum? Seems that way. This is where ImpalaMans response holds true. PRIDE AND RESPECT. Teaching our children at a young age. This is something that cannot be said enough times. PRIDE AND RESPECT!! Look at the young punks on the street today wearing their pants down to their knees. That is blaintant disrespect to every one around us. Too many variables are the cause but once again it boils down to teaching PRIDE AND RESPECT.

Question,

If we patent a USA made product can it still be replicated in China or can the inventor sue the balls off of them?

Happens all the time John. Typically no enforcement or punishment either. The entertainment industry estimates annual copyright losses in the billions.

never apologize for speaking your mind. I agree, pride and respect are a rare trait and is overtaken by greed and success.

Like they say, run your race and watch for the other guy.

its a bunch of craaap. I have a patent on a product and it only protects you if you are willing to pursue. The second product I brought into market, I used the money that would have gone to my lawyers and put that towards stock amount of the product. I then saturated the market before the imitators could catch up. Consumers already know it's my product.
I also set a price point so I could still make a profit if I dropped the price 40% if it was copied. That would kill the profit margin of my competition. It worked, right after my price drop the competition backed off.

Its a huge lawyer game. Your on your own if the copies come from over seas.

Vince,
What do you make over there?

a little bit of everything. Main market was firearm accesories/parts but car builds have taken the spot light since getting into the bigger shop. Just don't have the time or man power for both right now.

A shame you stopped, I'm certain it was a good read even if it just helped you vent. You'll notice I didn't even mention money in my post. It was never about the labor cost with us. We only wanted a professional job done on time. Tradesmen like you are few and far between nowadays.

Jeff-

Thanks Jeff. I understand what your saying and there is alot of truth to what you say. Trust me I know....as a superintendent I was extremely aggressive and if you didn't work as hard as I did you never got my respect and on many occasions got sent down the road. Things didn't change as an owner.....and as an inspector.....God help us!! I dread what the future brings from our future tradesman/buiders. Truth is the good ones will most likely be from south of the border. As long as they're legal I can live with that.

Wow just saw this
 

hey Guys, These were brought to my attention a couple of years ago when one of my good customers sent one to me and said "you gotta see this" It was even still packaged in Chinese newspaper. The worst part about it is nobody in China saw my part and decided to rip it off, it was an American that purchased it and sent it over there to be duplicated. The part was rough to put it nicely.

I can get pissed about this all I want it's not going to do me any good. Therefore I chose to keep smiling and keep improving my products. Sorry if Iv'e been MIA for a while, the last couple of years have been super busy. Recently we have added a CNC machining center in house to help with lead times as well as have more control of our product. I assure you nobody in China or anywhere else is going to keep me from feeding my family.

Here are a few pictures of what we have been working on. Thanks to all my loyal customers and thanks for looking.
Jeff Davis

Your work is incredible Jeff. I had countless inquiries about my intake, everyone loved it. :thumbsup:

^ And that right there in that response is the whole reason I raised a stink about that bull..

keep in mind if you buy one of those chinese knockoffs you hurt THAT man above.. the one dude who makes the part you like is the one you hurt cause your too cheap to support his business..

shame on you..
http://www.workingkansans.com/wp-con...ng_finger.jpeg


BTW..

I love my PMC manifold.. it absolutely MAKES my enginebay.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/...03fdc4be_b.jpg

People who buy a re-bodied Fiero are not taking business away from Lamborghini, trust me.


Jeff-

Thanks for the support guys. I just noticed he even ripped off my website almost word for word. NICE

Features:
-Billet mounting flanges with O-Ring grooves for the perfect seal
-1 piece tapered runners with integrated velocity stacks
-96MM Throttle Body Compatible.
-3 inches taller than GM plastic Unit, 9" overall height

One of the few things that always eases the pain is......You know you're doing something right when you are the one being copied. I know it stinks to loose business to knock off companies, but it's not going to stop.

Oh man. Those black anodized intakes are the shiznit. You make those for a big block Chevy? Hmmm aluminum block or badazz intake...

We've got one of your intakes on our twin turbo LS3 were building and the quality is some of the best I've seen, inside and out Keep up the good work Jeff!

fiero
 

:lmao:

stuff in china is made because ...here...
to own a business the goverment wants to ride you till your wheels fall off

like a million permits and fees ...seriously?????

and now paper bags ? brightest idea ever!!! lol

tree huggers are the problem!!!

the worst thing is that I am now making pennies and can no longer by Made in USA parts ....I dont even look at my car no more ,its way in the back like an old sock!

thanks Greedy people LOL

Ok, stupid question... what exactly is better about the quality? Are the flanges not flat? Holes in the welds? Poor quality aluminum?

I know most Chinese stuff is junk, for typically those type reasons...

This:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/IMG_6026.jpg

versus this:
http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/o...A/DSC_0937.jpg

......and that gentlemen, makes all the difference in the world. (as they say)

Don't mean to hammer my own part and there is certainly nothing wrong with it (night and day better than the China part). But in case people are not aware the newer ones look like this on the inside. They have been this way for about 3 years.
Jeff

i guess after looking at that picture you could say ...every girl looks good with her pants on!!! lol

Jeff in the future im goin to buy a intake from you,just curious if u offer a 102 mm tb opening i want to use a nick willson 102 mm tb for my lsx tt build .i dont want to port the opening its like reworking a picaso lol:D

Yes 102mm throtle flange is available, all you have to do is ask.
Thanks, Jeff

So do the flanges or welds leak? What does each dyno out to? Sometimes there are guys out there that can't afford an intake that costs $2,000 more just on assumptions. There is nobody speaking with a first hand comparison (testing) yet. I have considerable experience with the manufacture of high end race components..... If you guys think that your high end "made in USA" race valves weren't machined off blanks that came from China, or the roller wheels on your roller lifters, the list goes on and on.....

I made intake tubes, throttle bodies, custom roller cams etc, for a different application. You can't patent everything you build and Hogan's might have a suit against American companies if we did. The key is having your next product in the design stages before someone copies the current version. Staying a step ahead is key. One thing I can tell you for sure: It doesn't matter if you are the only person making a particular product, knocking people over the head with your prices will catch up with you sooner or later..... I personally know lots of companies that have fallen prey to this.

So back to the OP, how does this intake perform?

i asked for dyno charts as they said it had already been done. i have yet to get any info from them. with the short runners i would think the hp would be higher than the american made unit and tq to be a little less. i was told by the seller they would sell one for $650 if i wanted to try one. im no where close to having my car running so im really not interested currently.

i agree with you 100% on the above statements. i have watched this happen in motorcycle parts for years. over charge enough people and there will be someone ready to jump in with the same part for half the price.

Throwing out accusations of someone "stealing" a design is kind of ludicrous as well. We have Hogan, Wilson, Precision.... Who was first? Who was the first to do the bell mouth runner extensions that Jim Feuling was running 30 years ago, and many ran before him? This is all about looks, and they all look awesome.

You won't be able to predict the performance with just runner length. If two intakes are tuned to the same rpm, but one uses first wave (shorter runner), and the other uses second wave(longer), you will normally see the shorter runner making more power at the extreme ends of the rpm range, and the longer runner will be more concentrated toward the midrange. Same goes with taper. A 3° taper will have more at the extreme ends, where a 0 taper will be more concentrated around the tuning point. You can also factor in plenum volume, more volume usually = more bottom end. That would be deceptive when comparing these intakes because the volume of the port extending into the plenum will need to be subtracted from the volume.

We had a local guy that was running an end all sheetmetal intake on a mountain motor (before he went top fuel funny car) and he was just mopping the floor with his competition......everyone bitched and whined about that magic intake. He finally got so pissed off that he replaced the intake with an unported holley pro dominator tunnel ram at the track and went faster! Everyone was just dumbfounded, including him. You just don't know until you run it.

Call it what you want, but that manifold is pretty much identical from the outside to the PMC unit. I've had a couple Hogan manifolds, along with Wilson. They're all sheetmetal intakes, but they don't look the same.

They copied PMC's design in my opinion.

I agree, and it sucks, but it is what it is. Everyone in this business has to deal with this problem. The best defense that I found was to constantly move forward, use manufacturing techniques that kept expenses to the end user as reasonable as possible and of course, customer service. Look, there is a reason someone can build a similar intake for less than 1/3 the price and still have enough room to knock $150 off the retail price. This is not purely a function of being made offshore.

The more desirable your product is, the more others are tempted to copy it.....Personally, I would make the recommendation that if you can't/won't pony up the bucks for the PMC unit, go with the Holley Hi-Ram or Edelbrock unit. Let's put this where it is, it's about the looks and having something others can't afford. There is no inherent performance advantage to having an off the shelf sheetmetal intake that isn't custom designed on the dyno for your particular application.

I am not willing to buy a Rolex as it doesn't make sense at my income level. I am not interested in a knock-off that is just offensive IMO. Yet I still like to know what time it is, and you would be mistaken to assume that me and my Timex don't know what time it is