well...this is so ridiculous it doesnt really dignify a response.....but i guess i can make a few comments since i was involved with the EM project.

the first thing that comes to my mind is that im never a fan when i hear someone sounding the trumpet so loudly about someone elses shortcomings.
rather than putting the focus on yourself, and your attributes, you try and shift the focus on someone elses faults.
this doesnt do much in my mind to gain the respect of whatever that side of the argument might be. whether its a political debate/campaign, or an advertising strategy, etc.
i want to hear what you have to offer...not everything thats wrong with all of your competitiors.

with the same amount of effort as it took to right that little commentary, he could have put the whole thing in a positive light. how even an "amature" group of individuals got together and fielded a competitive EM entry using one of his cams.
instead, he chose to take the low road.

lets make a few things clear....to the best of my knowledge Daves contribution to our effort was 4 cams at 1/2 price....about $95 each(instead of $179.00ea).
figure he buys them for around $90-100 a piece.....that means he donated about $40-50 worth of product, tops.
as had been pointed out, and could easily be checked by reading through the EM thread...in the end, his cams were cleared of being thought to be the root cause of the problems the motor was having with chopping cams on the dyno.

Quote:

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Some of the unwarranted fallout from this deal is that cams that we have been successfully used by our customers for 10 over years got a bad rap thru no fault of their own.

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from what i understand, the cams we used had the "new", "better" profiles than what he has been selling for the past 10 years. so either there isnt a 10 year history of success with these "new" cams, or they are in fact 10 year old designs.
they cant be both new and better, and 10 years old.

as far as being amatures....well....i can only speak for myself, but ive been making my living in this business since 1989, and i would be willing to bet the shop i work out of is equipped at least as well as his shop is.

and how many amatures can rough in their head porting on a CNC machine, and have the heads tested on no less than 4 different flow benches?
the pictures i saw from when Dan was working on the motor in his shop showed the equipment to be the same stuff you'd see in any quality engine shop. not too many amatures have a CK-10 and a line hone in their garage, or a crank grinder, crank balancer, resurfacing machine, etc.
or bother to rent shop space to house all that equipment to support their "hobby".

its unfortunate that the lifter bore problem was undetected until the motor had already eaten a cam, but even the best race engine shops in the world run into a time crunch at one point or another, and when that happens, sometimes the best decisions arent always made.

sh!t happens in the racing engine industry......thats just part of the business.
when you watch a Winston Cup race on TV, and a big name team loses an engine...its not because they werent "professionals", or that they dont know what they're doing, or that they didnt do everything they could to ensure those things dont happen.
nonetheless.....sometimes parts fail, sometimes potential problems slip through the cracks.

i dont know how much of an impact his commentary will have on his business in the long term. many people who werent directly involved wont be personally offended at what he's said, and people in general can sometimes have a pretty short memory.
however im sure there will be some lost revenue in the short term from what he's said...and plenty of ill will towards him on the part of the people who were involved with the EM project.
from where i sit, that just doesnt seem like a smart business move....unless perhaps you have more work than you can handle and are trying to alienate a few new potential customers.

for myself....ive never bought anything from Hughes Engines...so what he says really has no impact on me.
ive had the general feeling he was a jackass based on comments ive heard from many board members here....and this little editorial from him just confirms that in my mind.
ive never bought from he before...and certainly wont ever in the future.

one last thing i want to point out to everyone here.... those soon to be released Bulldog heads are also available from Scott Brown

so.....if that last comment causes Mr.Hughes to lose a couple of sales of those new heads....i'll feel this post was well worth the effort

BTW....i wonder how many more Hughes cams Jesse will be buying in the future?