3D-printed stainless steel exhaust manifold for the sleeper Saab 9-5 with G30-660 turbo

Now I'm just confused. You estimated $1-3k to print your own design and $8k to outsource entirely, right? But now you're saying $6k minimum, $3k wouldn't even cover printing costs? I just text my old boss and he said Inconel runs around $50/kg for good shit in bulk. I'm curious, how many hours do you think it would take to model a 4 banger header? Then how many hours to flow sim and tweak the design? I'm just wondering where these number are coming from so I can compare engineering shop hour cost with my personal price/hr would be. One offs are expensive commercially because >Kinda makes it irrelevant to what I said as you need a 3D-scan data Id need you to take your phone out of your pocket and sent me a photogrammetry mesh of where the inlet and outlet lie with relationship to the clearances. I don't need a $250k blue light scan. I don't t need to contract anyone for anything. >Then it comes to the design, packaging and flow Yeah, I thought I mentioned step two was fluid sims and tweaking? >The design must be printable and dimensionally stable for the best result otherwise will require extra machining against mating surfaces. It is most often the case anyways. Yeah, I would never in a million years commission a flanged metal surface without machining it to a spec below 32ra. >$2K for inconel with a healthy profit, that aint happening. Considering that if I check the costs I get on printing this in inconel and remove all corporate taxes and VAT. It starts at ~$6K alone. I responded to your statement that $3k was the cost of manufacturing and $8k would get you a fully engineered product. Out of curiosity, what kind of hours are you expecting or associating the design portion of the project? and then how many hours in sims and R&D portion? I just want to see if your numbers line up with hours much time I'd alot myself if this project came through my office's door. Because what in the use, engineering billing hours are usually around $150/hr for basic work. I'd happily work with a beer on my couch for $75/hr. I am able to charge you half of what my employer would charge. And if you're telling me retail manufacturing of this part is around $3k, I'm quite certain I'd be able to walk at around half. Materials are tops $150/kg or so for Inconel in volume if I machined the flange on a Bridgeport myself with a 3d printed fixture. Butmy intention wasn't to argue with you, dude! This is really cool, and I'm envious that you get to do gearhead engineering level shit every day! My comment was kind of tongue in cheek... But like, yeah I'd love to do this kind of shit in my free time on the couch and bill half of what a commercial engineering firm would bill you for the same work I'd do in the clock. Let me play with the car with y'all and I'd do it for even cheaper 🤣