New Motor news

[izitbrokeyet?]

Most folks know that quality Italian motors have become very expensive recently. These prices may come down a tad with the new motors that will be available this winter. Michael Salven is taking the Mega name from Novarossi to Picco to start the Mega line of motors (not NovaMega). Alberto Picco will cease to develop it’s SPEED line of motors which have been picked up by a German Engine Manufacturer.

One of the goals of Mega is to offer motors at realistic price points which should help bring pricing-reductions to other high-end motor manufacturers.

Stay tuned

 

[Joe_Knesek]

Most folks know that quality Italian motors have become very expensive in recently. These prices may come down a tad with the new motors that will be available this winter. Michael Salven is taking the Mega name from Novarossi to Picco to start the Mega line of motors (not NovaMega). Albergo Picco will cease to develop it’s SPEED line of motors which have been picked up by a German Engine Manufacturer.
One of the goals of Mega is to offer motors at realistic price points which should help bring pricing-reductions to other high-end motor manufacturers.

Stay tuned

It's only going to have an impact if the motor can run with the more expensive ones. K&B has offered cheap motors for years but that has not impacted the sales of the higher performing, more expensive motors.

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

That's pretty much the whole point.....

as you know K&B hasnt had any impact on the price because K&B isn't in the same category....nothing bad intended for K&B since they offer a great entry-level motor at an entry-level price.

 

[Preston_Hall]

I wish I could afford to buy a lot of these Novarossi variations to compare them. I expect there are few differences if any between them. I have seen the RB against the NR and to me it isn't worth paying for the RB.

But, GREAT! More motors! Less Money!

 

[AndyBrown]

Italian engines of equal quality will not come down in price until the Euro/Dollar rate comes down.

Euros cost 30% more than they did 3 1/2 years ago. We were selling MAC 21 for $295 back then. Now for $320, but our cost went up more so we are making less and you are paying more.

There is nothing the Manufacture can do to bring the price down outside of producing a larger number of engines or lower quality engines. Lower quality doesn't work well for boaters because most of them are racers. Just look at K&B.

That means we need more boaters. Lots more.

A designer like Salven works the same way as I do. He designs, pays for new tooling and invests in a large quantity of engines. This requires money. That money must come from the sale of engines to the end user. You!

Picco, or Novarossi could produce engines cheaper if they just keep building the same thing for many, many years. But racers don't want that. They want the newest edge.

Weather the factory invests in the new designs or outside designers such as Me, Rody Roam (RB Concept) or Michael Salven do the work and make the invest ment there will always be costs for new engines.

With that understanding I can tell you that we will soon have a new MAC 21 marine engine. It is based off the MAC Off- Road engine with crankshaft induction like Novarossi.

Because of the bigger production runs that are associated with the car engine some parts will cost less, so we will be able to sell the engine at a lower price than the current MAC 21 Drum vavle engine.

Good Boating,

Andy

 

[AWaddle322]

Kevin,

Why would car engines bring down the price of marine engines?speed engines are the lower line of picco car racing engines. XP are the high end car engine. Picco has already learned that they are not interested in the marine business or they would be making engines. we ase boaters are the minority. We can not compete with the car market, we simple dont have enough numbers among other reasons.

Allen

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

Why would car engines bring down the price of marine engines?speed engines are the lower line of picco car racing engines. XP are the high end car engine

Allen,

I can’t see how the Speed/XP line of engines is point of contention. The speed line was the Low price point product that Picco was focusing on, and are no longer being produced. The Production capacity that was devoted to making the speed line of motors is now being devoted to Mega motor line (a completely new motor). Assuming that the quality of motor, or the design of a motor is somehow related to the machines it's made on is a bit of a stretch?

Maybe you could clarify the point you are trying to make with that info about the XP vs. the Speed from Picco post, because I didn’t get it at all.

As an answer to your question:

The gist of why the price comes down is because of open-market competition in the performance motor market. Pretty simple supply/ demand stuff

As a case in point:

can you imagine what you'ld pay for a boat motor if XYZ inc/gmbh, didnt make car engines?

Andy,

I agree that the exchange rate is a key issue; but the pricing I'm speaking of is also high in Europe. I speak to European racers on a pretty regular basis and the racers/ hobby folks there are feeling the pressure of high equipment prices as well. The exchange rate appears to be making things worse for us here in the US.

as you know; the market for these motors is bearing a pretty high price tag at the moment…… but the thought is that some fresh competition may help bring some of those prices back down. I suppose the real question is if Mike can get a motor on the street that is competitive…….. with the lower price tag that is being talked about.

 

[AWaddle322]

Picco will still be producing its top of the line car engine. Mega used to be made by NR, now they are going to made for picco. They didn't make Marine engines when they were with NR, why would they make them with picco. If picco wanted to make marine engines they still would be. its real simple, they can sell all the car engines they can build, why would they want to go thru the expense of setting up to build a line of marine engines when they cant keep up with the supply or car engines. Anyone that nows anything about machining will tell you that set up of the machinary is very time consuming. If you can sell all you can produce, why try to get into a totally diffent market place (marine). I understand supply and demand better than most all the above is supply and demand at its finest.

The only way price of marine motors are going to go down is if there is a big enough market for there to be competition and there really is none right now.

With peolple getting out of making marine engines (picco,o.s., thunder tiger) all we have to look forward to is prices going up.

You can go to a hobby store right now and buy a real nice car engine or airplane engine for under $200.00. They make air plane engines in similar sizes to marine engines and the $200.00 still holds true. do you think that it just much harder to make that water jacket for the head or that eloborate air cooled head for that car engine. the machining or our bigger engine is by far easier than that of these small car motors. Material just dont cost that much in relation to the cost of the engine.

It is a supply and demand thing. Mr CMB is a business man and has a real good theory in life and it is why work long and hard when I can build these marine motors and make a much larger profit margin because there is no competition. If I was him I promise you I would do the same thing.

You ever noticed NR doesnt build anything but under 21 marine engines. They can cater to two different markets and there just aint much different in the parts in there motor for a car and there marine engines. They are basically the same. would it be a big deal to make a couple of water jackets or a crank with a little different timing numbers?

Until there is a demand for marine engines they will contine to go up in price. the exchange rate has nothing to do with supply and demand. Exchanges rates very daily, they are just to our (USA) disadvantage for us. My point about the xp engine is that they are doing away with one line of car motors and picking up another. they have not gained any capacity. I have not read or believe that there will be any picco based marine engines and it is my understanding that there castings for blocks were or are being destroyed.

The marine engine manufactures can pretty well name there price because to be competitive we have to have top quality engines. In my opinion look for prices to go up.

Just my thoughts,

Allen

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

Until there is a demand for marine engines they will contine to go up in price

.......we must have taken a different econ class. the one I took teaches that when demand goes up price goes up and if demand is down, price pressures are down
Alright mr. Greenspan.....I'm not arguing but I should point out that you wrote:

You ever noticed NR doesnt build anything but under 21 marine engines. They can cater to two different markets and there just aint much different in the parts in there motor for a car and there marine engines. They are basically the same. would it be a big deal to make a couple of water jackets or a crank with a little different timing numbers?

You ever check the similiarity in price between the RX21rr1n race on road car motor and the marine variant RX21MR2/N?

The published difference on the Novarossi website is 1 euro in the MSRP and the Marine variant is the lesser of the two.pricelist link here in downloads section

The two motors are timed EXACTLY the same.

not much difference between them and neither one are available for $200 unless you're shopping at a store that sells them way less than wholesale.

Have fun at the internats

 

[AWaddle322]

The published difference on the Novarossi website is 1 euro in the MSRP and the Marine variant is the lesser of the two.

So marine and car engines cost with in a couple of pennies of each other to make but

You will not buy many marine engines for under full retail and you can by any car engine considerably less than retail. Either the manufacture charges more (i believe) or the importer is making a fortune.

I am not trying to pick a fight here and the last thing I want to see happen is marine engines get more expensive bit I belive that is were we are headed. they only way marine engine can get cheaper is if the engine manufactures need something to do (car engine sales drop off) and I dont know about in your area but In Nashville, Tn you can race some kind of rc car about every day of the week year round at a differnt location.

I was meaning to imply that you could buy a NR car Engine for that much less than the marine engine a competitive race engine (o.s. for example) all day long for under 200. Is labor or material that much cheaper in Japan and I am just using this whole paragraph as an example.

They simply charge more for marine engines because there is not enough demand for there to be the compition.

Allen

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

Well Mr. Waddle....we may be saying the same thing just differently, or I'm just not understanding the way you're saying it, but we're definitely not arguing

My only real point is that the boat motor prices are related to the car motor prices. Maybe not directly, but definitely related in High performance motors like CMB, Novarossi, RB, Rossi and also CMD (not in any particular order). And that high end motor purchasers are about to have another choice. Of course there are many many other market pressures that will affect the ultimate price.

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

One last thing I noticed…. "Rody Roem" is how it’s spelled “Roam” is how it’s pronounced

With a last name like “Bulifant” you could see that I might be sensitive to the spelling of someone’s name

I got the feeling I just "poked the dragon"

 

[GTR]

Hi Guys

Very interesting points of view being expressed here. OK Michael Salven - one of the chief designers and factory car driver for Serpent out of the Netherlands. Has had a hand in engine design for a long time - the Mega line of engines (Serpent own the branding) were originally manufactured by Picco (P5 & EXR variants) for whatever reason Serpent moved the manufacturing to Nova Rossi (probably had a lot to do with Collari moving to Serpent and he has (had) close ties with the NR factory. Serpent Mega branded engines have always been cheaper than manufacturers own branded engines - so I'm pretty sure there is profiteering going on here.

The real problem with marine engines from a simplistic perspective is not tha ability to amortise the development/production costs it is simply that we are prepared to pay more for our performance engines than other facets of the RC hobby. As pointed out the difference in cost between asport engine and a full race one is marginal at best - however where the factory can make the consumer pay for the cost of development, and support factory teams - they will. It's funny to see different people say that this brand or that doesn't make marine engines - did you ever think it could be as simple as the importers no longer supporting marine engines because of the need to sustain spares support.

There is one other point that everybody overlooks - boat classes used to be marine equivalents of air or land classes so production of marine versions was not a big stretch. Now all marine engines are of funny sizes compared to other aspects of RC (other than 21s). I give as examples 45s, 65s, 67s, 80s, 84s. In other aspects of the hobby, especially the big end, planes there are standard competition sizes 15, 21, 40, 60. Could it be we are making it harder for the manufacturers to match the bigger is better, faster approach.

All I have to say if anyone can produce and market competitive quality engines for a lower price - MORE POWER TOO THEM.

 

[izitbrokeyet?]

MORE POWER TOO THEM.

no pun intended?

Prego!

 

[Marc Pagé]

I agree with GTR, i think that there is too much choices and not enough standard or rule to keep the price low in our hobby.

We are to much hungry for SPEED! Don't we realize that the real fun in our hobby is to be a lot more guys running at the same lake with almost the same power! So, we can compete together for the win and not for the SPEED!

All last front pages of boats magazines talk about SPEED! Do we want to make drag or real race together?

In comparison, i'm a big fan of stock car racing, ten years ago the drivers realized that stock car was to much expensive, it was about 100,000$ for a RTR car (pro-stock) , they couldn't aforth that price for a long time. So they decide to lower the price by lowering the cost of these cars. They create less expensive car (about 30,000$, Late model sportsman) and they save the sport. They are running at 10 miles/hour slower than before but they are now 20 to 40 on the field! At the beginning there was frustration for a minority, but now the whole people agree that it SAVE the sport!

I think that we should learn something from that and reacting before we get lost in a sea of choices to go FAST...

 

[Preston_Hall]

i think that there is too much choices and not enough standard

I think there are too little choices. What do we have know? Novarossi (only .21's), MAC, CMB, and maybe OPS.

We are to much hungry for SPEED!

It is racing after all. And yes, many times it comes down to a drag race in this sport. This is greatly different fromt the car industry. This also feeds into why there are so many choices for cars. When racing a car you on on a track where you many never see full throttle. You diffinetly won't see much of it. The guys with the most expensive engines (most power) might be spinning their wheels half the time. It is much easier to go race a car with a lesser motor but when it comes to boating if you are off the pace you are generally in the back.

Just look at what has happened with the gas classes. It used to be "affordable" and now it is the same drag race of the wallet.

 

[Marc Pagé]

Preston, i was not talking about the choices of brand name but the choices of engines size.

 

[Preston_Hall]

Oh.

My bad.

Makes more sense that way.

 

[crrcboatz]

Speed costs money, plain and simple, always has and always will. However, in this sport there seems to be FAR fewer sport boaters now in comparision to the 80's and early 90's. I believe one reason for that is the fact that few sport boaters have anyone to associate with in many clubs. The majority of clubs are headed by those in racing. This site for instance, you find VERY FEW daily followers that are NOT into racing. Reason, most of the comments and subjects are re. racing.

It would be nice for old guys like me that still enjoy the sport as as sport and no longer race, find more of those who feel the same and possibly make a sport division of one or all the national organizations that get together to play and not race on a regular basis regionally and nationally. Sharing our sport boats, helping others and put a radio in the hands of young people to let them see what fun the sport can be without being expected to race.

The 80's and early 90's were a great racing era for many of us but many left the sport after getting tired of the travel, cost and time away from family. It would indeed be nice to get some of those back into this wonderful sport as a sport again and this time with their grandchildren!!

Regards Curt