Not wanting to step on any toes here but I'll ask anyways. Brian, since rkammer has filled his need for the heads and if you take Gary up on his offer on the stage 2 heads I'd be interested in buying your stage 1 SE heads. Feel free to PM me if you'd like.
Yup, cranks have been an issue... The main guy that does them at crank supply is now semi retired, and that along with the crazy demand this year has them way backed up. That is the bad news.. the good news is that I went out last week and located a new, highly recommend crank grinder. Went out and visited him last week, he was happy to do them, is grinding one now for me.. told me a couple weeks to turn one around.. which is about 10 weeks faster than Ralf's crank, which still is not on the radar at crank supply.. I have a feeling that Ralf's motor will be done and long gone before I see that crank from Crank Supply.. Good guys, love their work, but gotta get product out.. or it kills us. Then there's Briz's billet crank, been there since December, to have the mains resize from 3.25 to 3"... and still not done. Has me pulling my hair out, and I don't have that much to be doing that anymore. Not to be confused with Diamond, at 3 months now on 3 of the six sets of pistons I ordered... and on an on with just about every other vendor.. took me 8 weeks to get 3 sets of rod bearings from King, and they professed to have them on the shelf... but a lack of warehouse labor and a computer system upgrade, that dumped all the orders was the deal there. Seems everyone has some tale of whoa this year. Patience is the key word here this year. The entire industry is upside down. makes it tough on a guy like me to make a living.. Never seen anything close to this in my 22 years in this business. JW
I feel for you Jim! Alot of people are upset things are taking forever but on your side of the coin (which not many think of) is it now takes forever for you to get paid. If the average joe had to spread their weekly pay over 6 months I'm sure they'd see your side a little more clearly. I'm not being literal with that scenario but I think it gets my point across. I run my own business too and I have to pay my guys every week weather money came in that week or not. I hold a payroll float for that very reason. Some weeks I don't even take a paycheck myself but that's how she goes in the self employed world. Keep up the good work JW.
Like I wrote you in my email some weeks ago: I feel sorry for guys like you who need to make a living in this mess. Worst is probably the feeling of being helpless and being at somebody elses mercy. All I can do is to not put gas in the fire by bothering you every week about my build. The wait for my new engine to me is nothing more that an inconvenience. My current engine is still runing, there is no race waiting, for which I would need the new engine. It is a luxury problem, if at all. I hope your other customers see it the same way. Let us hope for the best!
