Over the years, I had many discussions with John Brodbeck. On one such occasion, I told John that if K&B would just come out with a high quality engine, almost every boater in North America would run it instead of Italian and Japanese produced engines.
John told me that 80% of the engines K&B produced were never started. They were gifts to fathers, sons, brothers and friends. Then, these engines ended up in a closet somewhere and were never used. The reason that he sold so many engines is that he kept the prices as low as possible which meant he had to keep his costs as low as possible.
He said it was no problem to replace broken parts for the 20% of the engines that were actually run, because he kept his costs so low to sell the other 80%.
I do think that it is a natural decision for any manufacturer to save on any and all production costs, wherever possible. The only model engine manufacturer that I think did not follow this pattern was Gennadi Kalistratov and while he made great engines, they never became as popular as the lower priced engines.
So, if a manufacturer can save 5 cents on a part, his inclination is to make the savings.
I really appreciate Jim's suggestions as to what materials to use for the various parts. And the aditional costs involved for a run of 100 to 200 engines surely would not make that big a cost increase. But getting a manufacturer to just make a seperate run, using the better materials would be a noticealbe expense.
Al Hobbs
