The Price of Rice

[Cable Stretcher]

There is alot of talk about how "expensive" MX is today because of the "4 stroke technology".  I was wondering if any of you know roughly how much it costs to build a 4t to race spec.  I have read that Jermy McGraths 06 cr250 was $100,000 (i can post the link) but it also claimed that his foot pegs were $3,800.  I do not understand how this can be.  I am curently building a 02 cr250 and am doing (almost) everything under the sun to it and it is only going to cost me <3k for the motor, <1k for suspension, and mabey 1k more in different acessories.  I have found showa A kit forks for <5k, I belive they are 10 new.  So at worst I am seing mabey 20k for a new 2t built to the hilt. 

[JohnN]

Your question is an interesting one. But there is no real answer to it because so much of this stuff is a closly guarded secret.

But comparing your bike built on a budget compared to a factory bike is not quite right. You see a god part of that extra "cost" that is claimed (Like MC's $3,800 footpegs) are probably computed because of the amount of labor required to build them in addition to the materials. Although there is a chance that they are including some of the R&D costs into these numbers.

The cost of racing the four-strokes is very real... numbers on engine cost alone run between $25,000. and $50,000. and they are used for only one race (well unless they have to replace one after practice!) After one race they remove the engine (the factory teams) and send it back to the shop to be rebuilt.

There was a video of the JGRMX team truck and in that video you can see the investment made in all the spares. When Jeremy showed all the engines ready to go in the attic it became very clear, you need very big bucks to compete under the four-stroke regime.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that you could spend that much money on a current two-stroke to build it up for competitive Pro Racing...

I mean just for the cost of titanium bolts is amazing. The problem is that the heavier four-strokes are tougher on everything. There really is very little positive that has come from the four-stroke de-evolution.

[Recovered]

I would love to see the link on costs.

Please do

[Cable Stretcher]

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.supercrossking.com/images/xgames/2005SummerX/large/DSC00008.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.supercrossking.com/xgames/2005/summer/summerXGamesXI.aspx%3FLargeImage%3D92&usg=__EwqJhT0fkMVa9YbqhfeAclUX0s8=&h=640&w=480&sz=95&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=n-HFMn-PQsBmnM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djeremy%2BMcGrath%2Bcr250%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

[Cable Stretcher]

That is the one for total price and the one for his pegs alone are on his personal website (nacnac.com)


I don't understand how it could cost that much, when I can build the same bike (or very close to) for about 20k, and thats if I paid 7k for the bike to start with.  The only thing I can say is unless someone is exagerating the numbers (wich I suspect) then someone is making some crazy money for machine work.

[Cable Stretcher]

A buddy of mine used to race for Kawasaki in the mid 90's and I know their plastics were lighter and they didn't even ride on factory frames back then but still the 100k number sounds unreal.  I have heard that their frames were almost 1/2 the weight of the production frame.  As for 3,800 for a set of foot pegs, for 3,800 I would mine the metal, smelt it down, hammer it out and weld it together.


http://nacnac.loopd.com/members/therealmc/Photos.aspx?resourceId=d9e8f4da-4674-4144-a0cb-0a39d7d7d81c

[Out of Order]

To me those factory bikes are priceless. They get the price from R&D, Materials, and then Labor. The killer price is mostly from the R&D, which is pretty much labor. And I'm sure they made what, less than 10 sets. A lot of people don't know what's involved in R&D too. They use Cad/Cam to lay out and help build the part, then they can use another program to see how strong or weak that part is. If the part isn't strong enough for the needs, they need to go back to the drawing boards and start from square 1.

Now they make 10 sets of foot pegs and there not going to sell these babies to no one. What happens then is they cant recoup the $$ to over come the $$ to manufacture the part. But this doesn't matter to them any way, because they get $$$$$$ from wining on Sunday, then selling on Monday. Plus there prize money too.    

[JETZcorp]

Maybe I'm being knit-picky here, but they don't actually need to use separate programs to model and test the part.  I've been working with this sort of thing in school, and our program can take you from nothing, all the way up to a complete, moving engine with stress and heat analysis.  You can see what's going to break, where it's going to break, and how much it'll take before breaking.  With that in hand, you can go into that individual part, change some things surprisingly fast, and try it again.  We haven't actually gone that deep in-class yet, but I've seen it done in the program.

For what it's worth, just yesterday I was working on a Maico-style clutch.  Before that, I was making a Roots Supercharger.  It's a really fun program to work with!

[/offtopic]