[cluxford]

It's interesting that in most consumer purchases there is rarely a contract agreed by the parties before a sale. Mostly as the item being bought is readily available (well not always) but the buyer is mostly buying something that is produced in reasonable numbers.

In business to business transactions there is always a contract. Mostly as what is being bought is custom or in volume and a long term contract.

I've built a pretty high end car here in Oz that took over 3 years, I understand the waiting
I'm alos a CEO of a $200M company and sign / review contracts every single day f the week

To me I can see bot sides of the argument of contract vs no contract.

It comes down to what you are comfortable with. $40K is a lot of money. A contract would better serve in this case more for quality of product rather than timelines, although obviously timelines can be built into it with acceptable leeway for both parties. But a contract is to protect your investment and get what you paid for.

I think having a contract in place is a good thing. If you were a business buying a number of engines custom built you would have a contract, so what's the difference for 1 engine ?

As said i can see both sides, ie trust and communication overcome need for contract, and I agree. But in my experience a contract is ONLY ever needed when it all turns to sh#%t, if it goes o plan the contract will gather dust in the bottom drawer. so any builder that refuses a contract is therefore somewhat expecting it to go bad....

Of course assumption here being that you will allow reasonable timelines under the expectation of delays due to the uniqueness of your engine...within reason of course