Straight Axle Vitara

[grimbo]

Here is a link to Pirate with some pics of the prototype SAS kit from Calmini. You can bet it will work but be a bit pricey. Don't worry Suzuki Viagra I'm sure you can build it yourself for a whole lot cheaper than they will sell it, maybe use some toyota and Isuzu bits

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161472

[Damo]

Front axle loox very spidertrax

Are they D44 outers?

Prolly using kick gears in a sierra carrier (cast alloy = weak)

Arms on the front look a little on the short side?

Loox like a double cardan shaft on the back

[cj]

You will find a few guys discussing it on the Zukiworld forum http://www.zukiworld.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB. ... 1058763502

[Beastmavster]

Here is a link to Pirate with some pics of the prototype SAS kit from Calmini. You can bet it will work but be a bit pricey. Don't worry Suzuki Viagra I'm sure you can build it yourself for a whole lot cheaper than they will sell it, maybe use some toyota and Isuzu bits

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161472

Try this site for some Vitaras with solid axle swaps and 35"s....


http://www.k9rdj.co.uk/

[Beastmavster]

Here is a link to Pirate with some pics of the prototype SAS kit from Calmini. You can bet it will work but be a bit pricey. Don't worry Suzuki Viagra I'm sure you can build it yourself for a whole lot cheaper than they will sell it, maybe use some toyota and Isuzu bits

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161472

Try this site for some Vitaras with solid axle swaps and 35"s....


http://www.k9rdj.co.uk/

SAS Swaps from Widetrack sierra's are cheaper still - although some Dana's from an Isuzu would be nice......

[Damo]

Here is a link to Pirate with some pics of the prototype SAS kit from Calmini. You can bet it will work but be a bit pricey. Don't worry Suzuki Viagra I'm sure you can build it yourself for a whole lot cheaper than they will sell it, maybe use some toyota and Isuzu bits

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161472

Try this site for some Vitaras with solid axle swaps and 35"s....


http://www.k9rdj.co.uk/

SAS Swaps from Widetrack sierra's are cheaper still - although some Dana's from an Isuzu would be nice......

Putting sierra junk under there would be a step backward IMO. If you are doing a swap u might as well put something decent in there

Why not swap front & rear out for hilux axles?

[Guy]

Now why will that have to cost about 1 MILLION DOLLARS !! (In my best doctor evil voice) .. there simply is not all that much to it .. for a shop the size of calmini with their engieering expertise .. it should not be all that difficult ... I can understand high costs fot "fiddly very labour intensice parts" like the anvil plate steel diff housing .. but the arms are hardly rocket science ... Hmmm I am in the process of designing my own coil system the rear looks very similar to the calmini one ... took me about 2 hours on autocad inventor to get to that point .. (perhaps after I start to build mine from steel instaed of on the screen I will change my tune .. )

[cj]

More pics
http://www.zukiworld.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB. ... 1058842621

[Beastmavster]

More pics
http://www.zukiworld.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB. ... 1058842621

Looks very juicy I have to admit.

[antt]

i'm sure you'd be able to get an engineering mob over here to make one up for a quarter of the price that calmini would sting ya for.

[grimbo]

here we go again with the whole "Geez they're expensive I bet I could get cheaper crap"

Yeah you probably could, but would it have all the proven R&D and would it pay for the setup costs of running a new product and patents and employee costs and warehouse costs etc. They are a business trying to make a living not a bloody charity.

I like saving money just as much as the next guy, but when you people realise these companies aren't making products for such a small specialised market and then pricing themselves completly out of control we won't have these arguments..

[Guy]

Graham .. I agree with you to a point here .. Given the nature of some products, like the vitara rockhopper .. where is does take very specilised hardware and very expensive software to make you have a massive capitol outlay just to build a product, then you have to find someone that can actually drive it so more $$$

To build a 4 link setup like that a large complany like CALMINI would already have all the R&D in house along with the basic CAD software to design and build at least on the screen .. (where if you have the correct software you should be able to calculate fatuige cycles etc)..

I simply DO NOT SEE all that much in it .. Labour costs ?? trhe bracketry etc would be made in bulk (realitive term's apply here) the arms are strait etc again I ould think that you would order these pre cut from your supplier for this purpose .. etc etc ...

For sometrhink like their super travel IFS kit that is very labour intensive I can understand the $$$$ ..

This all all crap I guess as well until we see the actual price .. I purely speculating ..

Anyone wanna have a stab at what they reckon the price will be ??

I will say between $1600 and $2000 US ..

[grimbo]

there is a lot of capital that has to go into a new product besides general tooling/manufacturing costs. They are in America so I'm sure there is a hell of a lot of legal charges and the like. They will need to advertise it, there's more money to cover.

We also have to remember they are a US company and surprisingly they charge in US$ which doesn't translate so well here. I think $1600 for a bolt on sas swap that can be done in a couple of days is probably a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than doing it yourself or getting someone to do it for you. I'm sure Besty (or Moose) could let us know how his SAS went was it a cheap and easy process? Completed in a couple of days with a factory warranty? Spare parts available if you break something? I'm not knocking the quality of the work done on his, I've never seen it up close just be curious to compare.

[Guy]

Well in Bestys case .. yes there is plenty of readily avaliable spares ... as are they are all toyota components readily had from virtually anywhere ... (have a quick peak in the tradingpost .. Hilux diffs and springs all over the place, His is not a good example but I know what ya mean .. )

One day if I ever get outa work for more than 5 minutes at a time ... and make a start on a coil swap for mine .. as I said in my origional post .. I am at the electron stage at the moment, I amy well change my tune when I get to actually building it for myself ...

But I still firmaly belive that the cost will be somewhat exhorbitant ... (around 3500 aussie dollars before it is landed in Aus ... that will not include the anvil front end plus labour charges to have it installed).

[antt]

thats about what i was thinkin love_mud

[Beastmavster]

But I still firmaly belive that the cost will be somewhat exhorbitant ... (around 3500 aussie dollars before it is landed in Aus ... that will not include the anvil front end plus labour charges to have it installed).

Considering the issues people have had busting axles using the Calmini super articulation front end, it's gotta be priced as a premium above that, reagrless the true manufacturing cost.

I honestly think that an SAS swap on a Vitara would have to be cheaper and easier when you look at what's in the Calmini Super Articulation kit - the whole front end is virtually replaced anyway, but the IFS is far more complex than the Solid and has far more moving parts.


I dunno about you guys buy I think love_mud is gonna be close to price. I'm guessing we're looking at closer to $3000 aus than $3500 though.

The damn thing better be painted fluro orange so everyone can see it a mile off.....

[grimbo]

i suppose i have a bee in my bonnet due to the fact I am sick of hearing clients saying "$$$$ for that, my brother has a computer and he could do the brochure for free" or "my next door neighbour has a good camera, he can take those shots for a quarter of the price". Yes they could but what they are paying for is the experetise and knowledge of a graphic designer.

this is the same with these companies. They are providing (in most cases) a product developed from experience, knowledge and expertise.

[Liam]

They are in America so I'm sure there is a hell of a lot of legal charges and the like.

You might be surprised to know that public liability insurance ( as well as general business insurance) is actually MORE expensive in Aus than the US. Aussie insurers not only charge more, but you get less- they'll only cover claims from Australia, unlike the overseas companies who cover the world. Theres also more litigation per head in Australia than the US and a higher rate of actual payout (those massive US awards are rarelypaid out- they almost universely reduced to more realistic amounts/apealed untill you settle for SFA)

[skippy]

i suppose i have a bee in my bonnet due to the fact I am sick of hearing clients saying "$$$$ for that, my brother has a computer and he could do the brochure for free" or "my next door neighbour has a good camera, he can take those shots for a quarter of the price". Yes they could but what they are paying for is the experetise and knowledge of a graphic designer.

this is the same with these companies. They are providing (in most cases) a product developed from experience, knowledge and expertise.

<begin rant>

I agree Graham, I'm tired of getting a reply from a client after putting forward a detailed specification and quote only to hear: "there's a lady here at work who's hairdresser's babysitters mother in-laws dog walker who's cousin is just finishing yr 10 has offered to do the design job for a few hundred dollars". Which is a smack in the face when you've been doing it professionally since '95.

sure zook drivers are renowned for their penny pinching but I think when it comes to specialised stuff like this people should stop bitching about the advertised price and contact the vendor and talk business. see if you can't strike up a deal.

I know just how much work goes into a new product. I've been working on something now for 3yrs and have ONLY JUST got it to a stage where it can be patented. So not counting the amount of man hours gone into R&D and the costs of prototypes I'm look at another $10k aussie over the next 2yrs for the patent alone.

Then there's production costs, staffing the project, office/workshop space and all the other bits and pieces required. regardless of whatever materials, software and resources they had available to begin with, there's always ongoing costs that need to be covered in order for a business to be a profitable one.

ooops I said the "b" word, business, not charity. something to think about.

Now with a product like that I can't forsee it being a high turnover product. So what happens with any low turn over product? The price is lifted enough to make it financially viable for at least 85% of potential customers in order to regain the original outlay for the product. Then, and only if they make it that far, they will begin to make a profit.

The general public also has to allow for "percieved value". The value a customer places on a particular product. If they beleive they are going to be getting a final product that is value for money, they will buy it. Alternatively they will bitch and moan about the price, looks elsewhere, spend less and in a few months wish they had actually spent the extra $$$$ on something, that in the back of their minds they knew all along, that would have been a lot easier to go with.

At the end of the day, if you can make a product (regardless of industry) that is similar, without infringing upon anyone's patent or trademark then don't complain about the vendors price. go out, do it and prove to everyone that it's possible.


</end rant>

[Liam]

Skippy,
I've just done the whole patent thing a couple of times ( still can't sit down) , so if you want to know anything I might be able to help,.

Skippy/ Grimbo, I've got these two ideas for software items that aren't currently produced, They're both possible, but I need some refinement by somone with programing skills. One is a outlook plug in - interested?

[Beastmavster]

The general public also has to allow for "percieved value". The value a customer places on a particular product. If they beleive they are going to be getting a final product that is value for money, they will buy it.

Yeah I agree that Suzuki drivers are "cheaper" than other 4wd's, but that is pretty sensible with the cost price of mods versus the value of their rigs - we'd probably still have a high percentage of the value of our rigs in mods.

I also think there is also far more of the attitude that they are more likely to have a go at it themselves even if they don't end up with the "high quality product" and stickers that come with it.


I think the 4wd accessory industry is a very difficult one because most of the knowledge and experience come from 2 places - USA and Australia. If the stuff is manufactured here, most of the manufacturers are not geared up for mass production on the american scale and don't have the necessary capital to do that, and would struggle to borrow it from one of the major banks.

It's unfortunate because we all know that if the scale of production was higher, costs would be cheaper and more people would buy the stuff you are manufacturing.

The point that a few of us have made here in this thread is that the perception to potential customers is that the cost will not be necessarily in line with manufacturing cost, as in theory the SAS should be cheaper than one of the current calmini kits - less parts to manufacture.
I'd say that isn't necessarily true, but it is the perception, and that means a lot when you're forking out your dough.

Economy of manufacturing means that the new one has to be more expensive to justify the development that went into it, at least for the shorter term, regardless the manufacture cost. I think most of us recognise this as much as we recognise that 4wd parts manufacturers aren't running a charity..... There are normal expectations of what proportion of that is to be recovered on each unit, and what we "perceive" the manufacturing cost to be (based on what parts we can see cheap in the trading post or where-ever else).


Another thing that's part of the whole auto industry is that in recent times we have become very accustomed to buying cheaper stuff manufactured in Taiwan and Korea and the like. WE expect our products cheaper because the automotive industry has been forced to become trimmer than it was 10 years ago.

When you add that on to the Aussie expectation of "mates rates" that does make it a hard sell to get the same prices as a US manufacturer, where there is going to be potentially cheaper manufacturing costs due to economy of scale.


All in all, I think it's great that they're being manufactured, but I doubt we're gonna see too many of them gracing Vitaras in Aus in the next few years except maybe in the competition circuit.

[planb]

we just imported a 3' lift for an amigo (isuzu mu) from calmini

new a arms, crossmember etc

4wd usa (in perth) import the lot, ive got a calmini catalogue somewhere here if your interested.