Sniv Speed Shop - Custom Parts and Design

Ya, they shouldn't be allowed to post links or pictures!

 

There also seemed to be a fair bit of miscommunication on this, which is ironic considering I'm constantly texting pictures and calling the customer so they're getting real time information about what's happening. Like dude had asked about a transmission cooler and if it's needed, and I'm like well I wouldn't say it's mandatory, but it'd be good to do. But it's going to cost a grand between parts and labor. And he's like yea I'm on a budget and just want it to run good and not go crazy, would you install one? And I said yea I would, but I'll tune it to try and keep the transmission cool, and you can do a LOT of transmission flushes for $1000, plus it can be done at any time, you're not saving money by doing it now since it's not part of the supercharger system. And he's like okay sounds good. Well apparently he thought that meant I should do it, where as I interpreted it as him NOT giving consent to spend an extra $1000. The vibe the whole time was get the best ROI on the mods, and do the bare minimum that's safe. So smaller pulley? If it can handle it and it's cheap, sure. Cheap catch can? Sure. Big fuel pump? Well it's $189 that won't gain anything right now so skip on that.

But then it's ironic, since I'm trying to go fast and save him money and yet he's then questioning me why I didn't spend another 30% to install a transmission cooler. If I charged him what he should've been charged, plus the trans cooler, it would've end up nearly double what he ended up paying


Oh well, live and learn. Next time I'll give the customer a call when I'm approaching the quoted amount, and get a positive "yes you can spend another $800 for the next set of modifications" and then log that. Another thing that threw me for a loop was the instant I get done with the suspension dude is like "so what do I owe you", how the fuck do I know that? I need a spreadsheet to calculate everything, I don't even know how many hours I've worked today and you want a quote right now? That's when I was like fuck it, let's just do the original quote. I should've said give me 10 minutes to calculate it, then come back and say okay it was $3600 for everything and can then give him some discounts to be nice but at least I'll know how much I'm losing and able to control it.

 

I think this is why you should acquire a business/ops manager and leave the wrench turning to you, good buddy.

 

I think that's one of the seemingly infinite reasons that shop techs can be such frustrated and crabby personalities. They may be good at what they do, it's the interpersonal facet that requires time, patience, and trial and error. You're pretty personable and detail oriented, you'll get it sorted in no time flat.

 

Maybe someday, but there's a lot of time and decisions before that will happen

 

Another nice write up! Now would be a good time to add up those extra freebies into the price. But we all know deep down you like to do it right.

 

Just need to find someone who's SC'ed and will work for your service time

 

You should, by now, know how long it takes to do an install on both platforms and that would be the starting base price period. Then from there you tell them an estimate for whatever add on they want.

 

You can have standard base pricing for tune, shock install, SC install etc...then if issues arise you can go from there. I like going by the job vs hourly but have a contingency if you run into trouble that takes extra time.

 

Sounds like the way dealerships do

 

There's something to that. I'm just used to charging hourly which is what I do for normal work. And I like that because then I don't get screwed if it takes longer, and the customer doesn't get screwed if I go faster.

I also only have data for the four trucks I've worked on and almost all were different tasks, so that makes it difficult to come up with estimates too. At least with these last two trucks I have a pretty good baseline and timesheets showing how long common supercharger modifications take, but still difficult when you add in custom options which is really the bread and butter. I like making cool custom parts, just bolting some shit on is boring hahaha

 

I got a new 450 pump here I bought to save as a spare if needed lemme know lol

 

It's frustrating when people make a fuss or don't want to pay what quality and custom work is worth. I too fall victim to losing a few bucks for being too nice and refusing to not complete jobs to the best of my abilities.

That's disappointing to hear about the magnuson kit, I was leaning slightly to that one. Seems to be a better bang for your buck in that it actually comes with injectors and air box lid for the same price as a harrop which doesn't. I wonder which one has a bigger intercooler brick? Has anyone measured or calculated the volume on the Maggie 2650 brick?

 

While not 100% favorable I don’t think any of Sniv’s comments on the magnuson would be a deal breaker. As far as value vs the Harrop, I think the value is only there if you install the magnuson kit and never do anything more with it which most of us don’t do (even if we claim we won’t.) Sure they give you a proper airbox, but the fuel pump and injectors are insufficient for any upgrades. With the Harrop, you get no injectors, but you do get a fuel pump that can handle upgrades plus a higher pressure FPR. Basically, if you buy a magnuson you’ll also be buying a fuel pump, tune package and injectors later. If you buy a Harrop you’ll be buying an airbox, tune package and injectors later.

 

I agree. I do definitely plan to upgrade things after a while, once the truck mod fund can be replenished. The magnuson kit just seems like better value until that point. I also feel it's a bit safer on the fueling side, especially if upgrading pump right off the hop. Read a couple guys here running out of fuel up top and trucks pulling alot of timing with the harrop stage 1... but I do mostly prefer the harrop design overall and that breakout IAT setup is the ticket IMO. I'm torn lol

 

Or you can go Whipple and snub the other two with more hp than either offers

 

Every dyno I have seen suggests otherwise. That paired with every person I’ve seen buy one and post about it on Facebook has came back within 15k miles saying their coupler is shot and Whipple wants them to pay to have it removed, shipped back to Whipple, and reinstalled on the truck after repairs. They may cover the shipping in that scenario. You can get the kit cheaper than the others though, I’ll give them that. Not trying to be critical, just sharing observations I’ve made over the years.

 

100% agree.
i also did my heavy researching before my purchase. with whats offered and the price (which i found a dealer that does affirm) i ultimately went with the maggie 2650. later i slapped on a sniv pulley and an overland tailor tune. once more things get paid down and im able to do more next will be a pump and then injectors. but as she sits and even being in high elevation she actually big boost.

 

maybe in between if feasible, make a custom exhaust. bump up out of the 2.5"

 

Write up and photos on building an intake tube.

Someone reached out to me (I think he's on the forum?) about wanting an intake tube for his supercharged LX570 a few months ago, after some back and forth we settled on a 4" stainless tube. This was mostly an aesthetic choice for the customer, they wanted to maximize the blower sound, get their filter setup to sit right (I guess it's slightly different than the Tundra), and wanted a cool visual with some cool colors which meant aluminum wasn't going to work. I told the customer I have limited experience with stainless, so I'll try my best, and worst case we can always sand blast it and paint it. The customer sent me photos with measurements of their engine bay and where they wanted the filter along with what provisions the intake needed (nipples, bungs, location, etc). I ordered 4" .060" wall 304 stainless from Summit in a 4ft length and some pre-cut 15deg pie cuts, which I bought since I thought they would speed up the process and weren't particularly expensive. The last intake tube I did for Rey I did the pie cuts myself which worked great, but it's that much more labor on my end and I wanted as good a fitment as possible since I would have to back purge the tube with argon. I took the customer's measurements and did a 3D sketch in Solidworks to be able to convert it to a 2D layout and pull the angles and lengths I would need.



I then sketched in 2D the exact pizza cuts to make sure everything would do what I wanted. And since I was limited to 15deg on each cut, that had to be accounted for also.



Pretty simple, four pizza cuts, two 1.5" and one 5" straight section. And off to cutting and tacking!



You'll notice the finish is different on the straight sections, that's because the Summit straight section was a polished finish. I talked to the customer and said I could either leave it alternating finishes or scotch brite the polish to make it uniform which is what they chose.



Sealing everything up and you can see the argon back purge hose on the left. It's very rare I back purge anything, this is actually only the third time I've done it (headers on my buggy being the other time). While it doesn't hurt on other materials, it's not mandatory so I usually don't do it. There's a lot of extra setup and gas used and time waiting for it to purge. But with stainless if you don't back purge the inside of the weld will instantly crystallize. It looks horrible, it's a weaker weld, and in the case of the intake is shit to fuck up airflow but mainly is shit that could always fall into the engine. Some places don't back purge (I know of huge exhaust companies that don't back purge anything) but high end stuff is always purged.

This is a test piece that I didn't care about so didn't purge, and you can see what the inside of the weld looks like.



I had some Kapton tape somewhere but couldn't find it, so ended up just using painters tape to seal everything which actually worked great.

For the welding I was at 55A and it welded beautifully. I did not bevel the edges since it's not a structural piece and was fairly thin. Depending on the spot I would use the 1/16" 309L filler I had, but other spots I would just fusion weld. The fitment was nearly perfect everywhere which made the welding really nice. I would weld a few inches, rotate the tube 180 or 90deg, weld a few inches, and repeat around each seam. I would do one seam completely, then let it cool down to room temperature. If I wanted to really get fancy with welding it I would let it cool more often (since I'm not very good). The colors in the weld are bad, the blue and purples and reds are the weld getting too hot. For stainless the welds should have no color, or a light straw color. But ironically since the customer wanted the welds to stand out and have some color, that's why I would do a full seam in one go to actually keep the metal somewhat hot to get colors out of it.



All the seams welded awesome. I then put down painters tape on the table so I could drill out the accessory locations and avoid scuffing the tube up too much. For the MAF I drilled two 5/8" holes and then cut out the span between them with the cut off wheel and then used a file to try and knock the edges down.



Everything I tacked was before purging the tube, which you can see later as small blotches on the inside of the tubing. The accessory mounts were a good case for that since I wasn't sure how to purge the tube before getting the bungs tacked on since you'd have a huge gapping hole in the tube.



On Rey's tube I mistakenly ordered a stainless MAF adapter, which luckily I was able to use here!



I did all this over a couple hours on Sunday, but I was missing the stainless barb for the crankcase vent. That took a few days to show up.



I turned the barb down on the lathe since it was originally threaded. I even cut down one of the barbed sections to match the length that Magnuson uses, kind of a stupid detail but the triple serration just looked really long.



It sucked not having a barb on hand, and one of the few times my plumbing box doesn't have the right stuff randomly laying around, but stainless barbs aren't very common. I had to repurge the whole tube just to do a couple seconds of welding, but I didn't want the inside of the tube to get gross. I purge the tube at 15CFH for ~5 minutes, and then turn it down to 5-10CFH once I'm welding. This was also using a FUPA 12 cup at 20CFH, so lots of gas flow on both sides. But it paid off, it looks absolutely gorgeous I think! One of the nicest parts I've made, and one of the few times I've messed with stainless and getting to use the purging equipment. My biggest complaint is my welds are a bit inconsistent, but I don't think there's a way to fix that without more practice.











And then the big question is did I purge it long enough, was it sealed up enough to keep the argon in? So after all of that got to unravel it and the inside looks perfect! Compare that to the photo of the inside weld from the test article and it's night and day difference purging it.



After this I sprayed some clear coat over it at the customer's request and got it shipped off this morning! Fun little project.

 

Kudos on the fab work, looks like an excellent piece.

I never did understand peoples want for heat tint, in my world we don't want any, and what little is left is buffed off with 3M ceramic wheels.

But what matters is your client is happy.

 

great job!
wish i had better machines to work with than my shitty harbor freight mig lol

 

All of this is on a $700 machine from Amazon called the AlphaTIG. It was the cheapest AC/DC (AC so you can weld aluminum) machine I could find, and it's been absolutely flawless. Looking now there's actually some cheaper AC/DC capable machines with good reviews too. Not the cheapest thing, but this is a far cry from the expensive name brand welders and I would put this up against them any day.

 

@snivilous looks great! Will have to inquire about going from my 4.5 to a 5 inch intake. Aluminum of course...awesome work!

 

yeah i always look on local listings for a tig but always want to much.
ive got 4 welding certs and my fav is tig unless im using a real good machine for mig its tied

 

i want to open up my intake and exhaust but need the fueling upgrade first lol

 

This won’t work for intakes, as it leaves residue that can flake, but it’s great for exhaust. Solarflux Type B. Quick to mix and apply, no need to use up the argon in the tank.

 

Oh man, you’re preaching to choir here! No matter which way you try to estimate and bill customers, some of them are going to be a total PITA. And custom work is THE WORST to try and estimate for a customer, especially when they don’t know exactly what they are wanting or change their mind.

FWIW, I bid everything with the hours in which I’m confident I can accomplish a job at a normal pace. Anything changes once they say Go and give a deposit, I create an addendum to the original bid and tell them it will be additional cost that is shown in the addendum. Too many people throw a fit about changes to an estimate even though it clearly states that it is an estimate only and costs may change through the project. I’m confident enough in my ability to complete things in the allotted time that a customer rarely gets charged more than the estimate, but I tell them that it may change by 10% or so. The problem for me is customer changes - like your customer adding a trans cooler.

For custom work, I always tell the customer it may require more time and ask if they are willing to up the budge if needed. If they say no, I tell them no changes once I start work.

Irregardless (here’s to you Keven James) people crap bricks when the bill is more than the estimate, even if they change literally EVERYTHING after hitting the go button.

Just saying, we got u bro…

That intake looks sweet!

 

Will also work with a cleanup "backgrind" ie. feather with a flap wheel to get the Solar flux cleaned up and root exposed.

 

Huh I'll have to try that. I'll be doing the Hilux exhaust soon so that'd be perfect.