I have often thought about it and to me the high prices make sense.
1. Look at what it costs to repair the duramax with stock parts.
2. The duramax has only been out since 01. The SBC has been out forever.
3. Diesel is a small market. People just simply don't own them. and most people don't buy them to.build a performance vehicle. They see them as big heavy working trucks.
4. Technology and sophistication over the SBC. The SBC has a Carb, spark plugs and bang power. Nobody is scared to build a.SBC motor and if they are, every tom dick and harry knows how to build one. The testing has all been done and its basically pick your parts. Anybody can build one. Most people look under the hood of our trucks and wouldn't know whwrre to start and don't care to.
5. Diesels are slow lol. Not really, but that's what a lot of people think. Most never even thought of modifying a diesel.
6. The parts themselves simply cost way more to make than SBC parts. Our hard parts have to hold up to much higher stresses than gas engines. Injection systems are running water jet like pressures.
7.computers. SBC has none. You don't see many people outside of diesel guys like us and the import tuner guys playing with computers. SBC people tune with hard parts, we tune with computers.
8. R&D. Companies building parts for us duramax owners know how anal we are and how much we will push everything to the limit. They also know hoe tight knit of a community we are and that if their product doesn't work, they will get flamed and their image will be ruined. We have one of the closest knit groups on the.web and know what parts work. Most people can feel pretty safe buying stuff and knowjng it will work. SBC parts are in every catalog that every person gets, it would take forever to get word out that a product was bad. Not only that, the R&D for building those older engines is done for the most part.
9. Just because. I am sure there is a little factor in the just because department. Generally if you can afford the $20,000 truck to begin with, you've got more money than the guy who bought a car with a SBC for a couple grand. Is this a form of greed? I don't think so. Most companies are immediately reinvesting their extra coin into new products.
You really do have to pay to play. Trust me. These parts are cheap compared to tractor pulling parts. Places like precision Turbo who change a little bit every year to get another 10hp so all the guys will come.buy a new $5,000-$20,000 Turbo. Or a $4,000 intercooler. The costs to build a pro stock tractor ground up new that would actually stand a chance is well over $250,000. Boyd's were selling their used rolling chassis(no motor) for $150,000.
We have often seriously contemplated buying our own CNC mill and selling pulling parts. We are thinking about starting doing it with a buddies cnc plasma he bought. All we would have to do is keep one pf each on the shelf and answer the phone, then ship the stuff when we say we will. These pulling part places are all so slow about everything and a PITA to.get a hold of.