Gem reed blocks?

[wolfmanonapenton]

I have four nos gem blocks one for a 175,three for 250s and 400s older aluminun style where carb slides on on two of them two have a place where you mount a rubber spigot mikuni manifold with the rubber manfolds?Would someone like to reproduce these? for RACERS?let me know?I really hate to get rid of them,would rather let someone reproduce?wolfman!I think they slowed my bike down,made nice in the woods though!:D

[farmer58za]

Hi Wolfman
I'd really like to get hold of some Gem kits for reproduction pattern purposes. I have a 250 and a 400 '75. I am at present doing a Mikuni conversion on the 400. I have been doing my own manifold fabrication.
Please call me offline and maybe we could work something out.
Regards
David

Regards

David
'75 KTM GS175
'75 KTM GS250
'75 KTM GS400

[terry]

Wolfman. You sure have lots of great PENTON stuff. You are a true vintage bike collector. Also thanks for the quick payment on the parts and the HI-POINT sign. Let me get those GEM reed blocks reproduced please. I will pay you to borrow one. I hope to meet you someday. I am in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Home of the famous Mathias Raceway. You can call me anytime if you want. The big suprise is coming someday.

Thanks
PENTON Motorcycles
Terry Everett/Ohio
//www.pentonmotorcycles.com
330-364-2050
330-364-5073

[Big Mac]

Two years ago I took a GEM reed assembly to a local manufacturer to get a proposal on making molds for parts/provide machining to duplicate these. I know the owner and their primary business is mfg small runs of custom light fixtures, etc out of alloy.

Their suggestion was to anticipate manufacturing a reasonably large initial run, to spread the cost of tooling down. Once molds/tooling is done, production cost goes way down and machining is primary expense thereafter.

Price for 100 units? $2525 for tooling, plus $38 per unit for machining. That's $250 each + $38 each, before gaskets, fasteners or even the reed petals themselves. You'd have to sell 100 units at your cost of $290 each, if that was even possible, before you could actually produce some at a low enough cost to provide units to a retailer at a price allowing them any upside to sell and make any profit whatsoever. Seemed like a dead end, since I would guess it would take a few years minimum to sell 100 units, even if that price was paid.

The only other option that seemed worth considering was to have parts machined from billet aluminum in small quantities without the tooling cost. Still, would expect cost would be prohibitive unless a much larger demand existed. Mac

[lksseven]

Hey Big Mac,

the numbers don't add up.  $2,525 / 100 units = $25.25, not $252.50 each.   Which amount is the typo?  

Regards,

Larry Seale
I choose to ride

[Big Mac]

Larry,
Oops, yes my bad math. But it will take the same 2500.00 tooling to produce 1 or 100. The cost to produce 100 before reed petals was 6400.00.

The big question is whether enough demand exists to sell a few dozen or more of the same unit to convince someone to invest the money to put a large quantity on the shelf.

Reeds for CZ 250/400s used to be in the same boat...everyone searching around for old DH units. Charlie at CR HighPerformance finally came up with a wider-application substitute (think it's off a Honda?) Sell for about 250.00.

It may be most practical to get a unit such as that and see what it would take just to modify just the part that mates to the cylinder. If it can be done more simply, it would keep costs way down. Between CZ's, Elsinores and Pentons, demand should support making units available.    

[farmer58za]

Wolfman, did you get my email message? I sent one to you.

Regards

David
'75 KTM GS250
'75 KTM GS400