after a 15 min conversation with brian today about getting a 3 inch catback from him for a 5th gen, he said that if we could get a minimum of 7-8 people interested in it he would be willing to get them made. pricing on the units would not be more than 100 dollars over the price of the 2.5 inch from him already, the benefits for a turbo/ supercharges car would be enormous and for the n/a's it would be a quieter exhaust and from what ive heard from a couple people a slight power gain, so please if you have the slightest interest in it post your name below.

1. Panda_1
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

please, please, if your interested chime in.

 

when i prototyped the 3" catback for brian, i had lots of people saying that they were interested.... of course when it came time to actually pay money, no one showed...

hopefully you have better luck...

 

I'd go for the 3" ID version of it if I could get JUST the b-pipe.

 

X2

 

id have to bring that up to him, but he did tell me that due to the larger diameter of the pipe a single sleeve would be in used in conjunction with the over i-beam flange, this being due to the fact that with out it, we wouldnt be able to get it to fit. i will call him now and find out if he would be willing to do the b-pipe alone.

 

Why oh why are you doing this! I've had my brand new 2.5 inch Cattman Catback in my garage for over a year and was going to put it on next week because my Greddy was rusting. You're causing a dilemna for me.

 

pics???

 

let me know if their might be any word on 4th gen possibly.

thanks

 

pics are not possible at this time due to the fact that these do not eist, there wasnt enough interest for brian to create a batch, the R&D is done all the measurements are there just need a gd to buy them, besides the exhaust will look identical to the 2.5 inch exhaust they have and that many of us have bought and enjoy on a day to day basis except for the sleeve fitting being added. as far as the 4th gen i dont know, i am waiting for brian to chime in on this.

 

Same here--but I'd want it for my 4th gen.

 

im still waiting on Brian to chime in with more info on this.

 

We had a pretty good list going for the 4th gen setup, but it never happened.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....2225&highlight

My offer still stands to help prototype it Brian!

 

Very sorry to lag like this, I was just going through my junk mail folder and found the link to this thread from Panda 1.

I'll answer the questions that have come up... doesn't exactly look like a tidal wave of interest, but there was another thread that came up when honda etr sold the original 3" prototype to another enthusiast and he installed it. That thread is here: thread about gen5 3" catback.

First, I'll just confirm the information that Panda 1 started this out with, its about all that can be said at this point and he accurately conveyed our discussion about this.

Yes, we'd be glad to sell mufflers and b-pipes seperately. We have to use a clamped slip joint where the rear section goes over the axle (our 2.5" exhaust doesn't require this) but that doesn't affect how the muffler and b-pipe go together.

I'll also remind that there's a big difference between going into production with a part's that already designed (as this one is) and starting from scratch (as we were asked to for the 3" 95-99 catback). If we can identify 7-8 buyers, we'll do a batch of 12-15 units.

Brian C Catts
Cattman Performance

 

so how much is the total package?

 

count me in for a bpipe ONLY...brian you have pm btw

 

any update?

 

i got 2 people over here ready with $$$ in hand

 

Keep us updated i will be willing to do this if the price is right

 

yeah i'm looking into getting an exhaust i would be willing to do this as long as i can afford it is there any estimate on the price?

 

So, has the 3" version for the 4th gen been officially canned Brian? I thought we had a fair amount of interest......

IMO, the 4th gen interest thread belongs here in this forum, not just in the FI section. Maybe ask a mod to kindly move it and we can pick up where we left off?

Thoughts?

 

any update?

 

Bump. Any input to my posts #12 and #20 Brian. Still interested.

 

I would like to see this deal go down. has there been any updates to it?

 

I think Cattmann should give us a group deal, I mean come on, We do deserve it when he charges almost double the price then most other good brands and all we do is recommend his stuff to every maxima owner...Yea its decent quality but the prices need to not break the wallet so much imo...

 

Pretty sure there's a reason that cattman pieces are more...

 

i agree there should be just a group deal offered. but this is a new manufacture so cattman would be coming out of pocket with r/d to make sure of the lenghts, bends and all the other good stuff are propely tuned to our engine. So at the same time it makes sense that he wants to get a list of willing participants first. Maybe we could work something out in the way of a preproduction purchase for fewer members; it's performance is a theory and some of us, like myself, would need it shipped and installed at a local shop which means more out of pocket. To assist in the process we could have a pre and post installation dyno and state inspection, confirming performance gains and state inspection passing, which we'd provide to cattman for his manufacturuing needs. I'd be willing to try it, if he'd be willing to provide us with the actual production piece at no additional cost, if our piece happens to be a weaker element. If he's confident in the performance of this 3" piece sign me up and let's get this show on the road.

 

I agree with what your saying in R&D costs but I noticed some of R&D is already been made (like the y-pipe, I think Budget was the first to make that) and he just either copies it or adds a few extra things to that product to make it a little better or changes the martieal of it.

So I do in a way believe is is making more or close to 100% profit, If I were him, I would throw up GDs one and a while and just sell stuff above my cost. Like the ypipe, I would so make that like $250-ish not 350. Everynow and then, because the metal don't cost them anymore then like $20-50 or so bucks and that Technology was already created by someone else.

And $200 for red clears? Come on, There like $50 on Ebay, Sure they are suckier possibly, but there just taillights, Worst that can happen is a bad seal.

Just my 2-cents.

 

I hope I don't end up kicking myself in the butt for responding this way. My point isn't to make Coremanx mad, and I doubt it was his intent to make me mad, but sometimes its necessary to just lay out the facts...

My friend, if you want cheaply-made and poorly designed parts from Chinese or elsewhere, feel free to buy them, but don't accuse us of screwing people because we choose to make a higher quality part in the United States. You might better appreciate the difference between our parts and the others after you've experienced it yourself. One of our best sources of customers is Maxima owners that regret the great deal they got on a cheap exhaust part. Set any Cattman exhaust part side-by-side with a part half its price (or any other price); you don't have to be an expert to see the obvious differences in materials, workmanship and/or design sophistication.

I don't mean to seem rude about it, but I'm always baffled when someone who knows little (or nothing) about manufacturing, or running a small business, or the performance parts industry, or business microeconomics in general, feels free to accuse us - with righteous certainty - of charging excessive prices and profiteering (100% profit in this case). How can someone toss around accusations like that without any knowledge to back them up?

I find that many are not familiar with what profit actually is, so I'll explain it this way. If I were earning 100% profit on a $600 part, it means that I could make the part (including the fabricator's business expenses and profit), add in a portion of total business overhead, interest on debt, wages for selling and packaging the part, and buy an installation kit and boxes (plus numerous expenses not mentioned) for $300 total. The remaining $300 would be considered profit.

You could not possibly be more wrong. The unfortunate reality in our small company is that after all those costs are paid, the profit ranges from 0-10%, not 100%. In a free market economy like our own, profit is not a crime, it is the only tangible reward for the enormous risk (and 24-hour worry) of entrepreneurship. If there's no profit, it makes more sense to find a wage-paying job and let the owner of that business worry about the risks of entrepreneurship.

Just to make a point, you claim that the metal components in a y-pipe only cost $20-50... Since you don't have the slightest clue about those costs, why pretend otherwise? I pay almost $30 just for the high quality US-made flex section we use (everyone else uses $8 Chinese flexes). The laser-cut and CNC-machined 3/8" thick, nickle-plated carbon plate flange set for one y-pipe can cost more than $50. Do you know anything about the cost of 304 or 400-series stainless tubing and the 100+% price increases we've seen over the last two years? How about mandrel bending costs? What do you figure a TIG welder makes per hour in Southern California and what would you pay for welding supplies per production unit? What do you suppose we pay annually for marketing, insurance, rent, office supplies, etc.? These are just a fraction of the routine and project-specific cost elements of this business that have to be factored into the price of everything we sell. Since you're not even aware of the categories of expenses, much less the actual costs of inputs, how can you claim to know what we should be charging?

Maybe you'd be surprised to know that most of the parts you buy from most of the larger performance parts companies ARE marked up at least 100% over the acquisition cost, this is pretty typical. But in our micro-company world of limited production, high quality, no-compromise parts, our mark-up over simple production cost is typically 25-35%; all of the costs of doing business come have to be paid from that. I don't consider a part that can be marked up 100% typical, I call it a miracle.

To clean up a few details, another company's parts never represent R&D for us because there's nothing out there we'd want to copy. We make parts the Cattman way, which means starting from scratch. Statements like "he just either copies it or adds a few extra things to that product to make it a little better or changes the martieal of it" or that we use "technology (that) was already created by someone else" are absolute crap.

BTW, I've got nothing bad to say about Budget, I've heard they're nice folks, but don't suggest that we'd copy their parts. Cattman Performance was the first company (anywhere) to develop and sell a y-pipe for a Maxima. We did it 11 years ago in 1997, almost a year before Stillen released theirs. It was our first product, and we've developed a boat-load of "first-to-market" Maxima products since then.

[We don't sell lighting products at this time, so that's a moot point. Back when we did, $200 for that part was the going rate (we paid over $150). Sure its on the website, but everybody knows our website sucks.]

Consider the wisdom that you've shared in this thread, and the kind of incentive it gives us to develop a new part that has a very limited and uncertain level of demand, particularly given all the exhaust projects we still have on the board for the late-model Maximas and Altimas.

Brian C Catts
Cattman Performance

 

^ yah, I wasn't trying to offend you in anyway Brian, Sorry if it came off that way, I hear nothing but great things from you and you're product. It just... I get a little bummed out when I can't afford the0 product that everyone loves that you make. lol

O and yes, I forgot to add that thing about the cheaply made crap from china, ur very right on that, but on to that point, That is why it is $50 bucks for tails, and If I need new ones, $50 there. I would have to buy them 4 times to equal the price of Cattman tails, and I know you will not go though 4 tails unless u get rear ended too much.

O and I didn't mean it to come off as your just paying 20-50 bucks for the whole Y-pipe, I know your paying way more then that for all the stuff you mentioned, but I was saying just the metal tube it self is around that price I was assuming. I know mandrel machines are wicked expensive. hell, I can't find a single shop around here that was willing to Mandrel bend my B-pipe and I was pissed and I live in an blue collor town with a bunch of redneck mechanics all over the place... O and FYI, the flex pipes on the budget pipes have been upgraded but they sound like wind tunnels under my car :-(

 

Earth to Brian. Come in Brian.

 

I'm sending you an encouraging PM...

B

 

still number one for my maxima brian, keep up the great work you do for us