My buddy just bought a Cobra-style intake for his dad's '92 5.0 Mustang, brand new from Summit Racing, for about $379 US. Not a bad deal, really...they used to be over $400 US.
Then he got it home and noticed the big MADE IN CHINA letters stamped on the underside of the intake.
I don't know why or how things got to this point, but it's pretty sad when major 5.0 parts like that are starting to be produced in China. And worse, taking away North American jobs in the process.
I've been a strong proponent of North American-made parts for many years. If you care a little more about integrity than saving a few bucks, please find out where your parts are manufactured before you buy. It may mean the jobs of fellow countrymen.
That is all.
So the Ford Racing Cobra intake is made in China now? that sucks. Looks like I'll look for a used GT-40 instead......
I've known for a while about the chinease Intakes. I've heard that the cast finish is actually really poor too.
Sadly, this country is being owned by cheaper foreign labor more and more every day. Ford's employee buyout, and the lack of sales from the (former) big three is a scary trend that's been happening for a few years now. Cars become more foreign=parts become more foreign. Which means the big three will sacrifice parts before cars when it comes to foreign markets. Besides, when's the last time you seen an American made tv?
Sucks, doesn't it?
Slowly but surely I am seeing the corresponding technical professional jobs that used to support the products designed here leaving for Asia as well. If their standard of living over there doesn't rise (higher pay) fast enough, we may start to experience a considerable loss of middle class comfort in this country. It's really starting to worry me - the trends have not been good for years - eventually the effects will be felt and it will be too late.
This thread reminds me that I need a Secret Clearance.
Clearance = Not Outsourced
i have a cleance,, Secret cleance with full scope poly. Jobs in iraq call about weekly for me to go back. Meanwhile back here in the states it seems i still cant find work that makes ends meet. I really dont think im asking for too much to seek and secure a job for 18 or so bux an hour here in my lil ol cabin in west by god.
Ive been offered a few jobs recently and all have wanted me to relocate.
my favorite example is General Dynamics Robotics division a week ago. They wanted fly me up to NeedHam Mass for an interview and pretty much said i have the job if i come up. I declined because it was going to force me to move to that area for 49k/year and travel CONUS and OCONUS 90% of the time. I cant help but think that they think im a dummy or something. Foreclosures up there are up 104% in the past 18 months and they want me to do what for how many cookies????
BTW,, big buisness is paying think tanks to observe the "smarts" of our college grads these days and they are pretty happy to supply numbers to the wallstreet journal and CNN that show how stupid these new students are. Furthermore this negative information only reinforces thier ****AGENDA**** to continue on outsourcing. I call that hog wash but thats my opinion. This will never stop and the only temp fix is to insert a new econimic trend into the job market like what was done a couple decades ago and became called the "TELECOM / DOT com boom.
Its pretty sad when my options are the same as a they were when i got out of highschool.
I also had some idiot recruiter with Orion Internation down in Va Beach call me about about a few really cool jubs in Mass as well. He was pertty bright as well, said my zipcode 24941 and Wooster Mass were only 7% difference in cost of living.
Sometimes i wonder what my two boys will do here in just a very short time when it comes to work. They see thier dad having trouble due to layoffs and downsized situations and i know they are thinking why bother with college.
i have a Secret clearance with full scope poly. Jobs in iraq call about weekly for me to go back. Meanwhile back here in the states it seems i still cant find work that makes ends meet. I really dont think im asking for too much to seek and secure a job for 18 or so bux an hour here in my lil ol cabin in west by god.
Ive been offered a few jobs recently and all have wanted me to relocate.
my favorite example is General Dynamics Robotics division a week ago. They wanted fly me up to NeedHam Mass for an interview and pretty much said i have the job if i come up. I declined because it was going to force me to move to that area for 49k/year and travel CONUS and OCONUS 90% of the time. I cant help but think that they think im a dummy or something. Foreclosures up there are up 104% in the past 18 months and they want me to do what for how many cookies????
BTW,, big buisness is paying think tanks to observe the "smarts" of our college grads these days and they are pretty happy to supply numbers to the wallstreet journal and CNN that show how stupid these new students are. Furthermore this negative information only reinforces thier ****AGENDA**** to continue on outsourcing. I call that hog wash but thats my opinion. This will never stop and the only temp fix is to insert a new econimic trend into the job market like what was done a couple decades ago and became called the "TELECOM / DOT com boom.
Its pretty sad when my options are the same as a they were when i got out of highschool.
I also had some idiot recruiter with Orion Internation down in Va Beach call me about about a few really cool jubs in Mass as well. He was pertty bright as well, said my zipcode 24941 and Wooster Mass were only 7% difference in cost of living.
Meanwhile,,, think tanks across the nation (employed by outsourced entities LOL) are spinning off ideas about "Lean Manufacturing Concepts" , Six Sigma , Risk Managment/assesment and bla bla in order to achieve "Cheaper labor to produce
a marginal product with the highest profit to the stake holders only. It makes sense that i see all these jobs up on job boards for ever and a day only to know in my mind that is a apart of the EEO practice and the majority of them are going to be outsourced anyway. "Risk" is becoming the drug of all durgs when selecting your partners because it usually means that someone is going to get paid 15-30 cents to one US dollar and produce the same product that prevously supported the NYSE.
BTW,, Did you guys know that Ford is set up and running in Syria and Iraq?
Sometimes i wonder what my two boys will do here in just a very short time when it comes to work. They see thier dad having trouble due to layoffs and downsized situations and i know they are thinking why bother with college.
Mine actually looks quite good. Far, far better than the Chinese Typhoons that I've seen and on par with the American stuff.
The issues I had were with the bolt kit. The TB bolts were too long (made to use with an EGR spacer which the Cobra intake doesn't require). Also the vacuum tee that came with it was hard brittle plastic... I broke it and had to go buy some vacuum tee's. The EGR bolt holes were tapped wrong and I had to make a couple of new studs... no biggie really except it was an extra trip to the hardware store.
Overall fit and finish looked great though. All the ports and bolt holes lined up nicely. It sucks that it was made by communist slaves but it was a bargain at $350. I hindsight had I known I probably would have bought an Edelbrock made in USA since with the $140 port work I have $500 in mine anyway.
I'm in my 4th year of college now and I must say, not everyone there is smart. I haven't had experience with college say 20 years ago, but it seems to me that it is just an extention of high school. The only classes where I am actually learning are the ones I'm taking for my major. I have a certain number of gen eds to fulfill in Math, Science, History, etc. Well, math I completed with a base entry course doing stuff I did in middle school. Science was a little more interesting since I took astronomy but still the information was trivial. History I took a class on the history of the U.S., pre 20th century which was a direct repeat of my high school history course. Mind you that only 1 class of each is required.
Now that said what you learn is different of course for each major. I'm a graphic design major and they actually make us work to earn a grade. We don't have tests but assignments where we are graded on how well we execute each one. My friend on the other hand is a criminal justice major. In reality, it's a joke. All he has are tests. In other words, they don't care how much you understand or absorb the information, it's all based on memorization and commom sense. The tests he has are multiple choice and are pretty simple and doesn't know all that much more than he did when he started. So in that respect, I can say that yes, college students are stupid at least compared to what they used to be. You want a solid and better job, go to graduate school is what they tell me:(
nothing personal,, and i mean this from the bottom of my heart man,
whats even more scary than your "starting" to worry is the fact that you are just now starting to worry. I cant understand what you mean by "slowly" either. This trend took off like turpintine on a cats a@@ and has been in full swing since 1998 imho. All this started with minimal effect dealing with mexico during the 70's but had minimal effect until 1991 when it became policy. Where have you been or been doing the past 16 years that all this stuff has illuded your everyday life.
If the majority out there is just now starting to "notice" or is "slowly" coming to terms with whats going on then ill just have to figure out a way to deal with it.
About three years ago i arrived at walmart with intention of buying myself a pair of winter boots. I was armed with post-it notes and on each i had written "made in China". As i went down the shoes, i would put up a post-it note on the shelf if it were made in china.
The Shoe dept chick came along and said a few words i never forgot,,,she said "ya know, i didnt think things were that bad". I had like 30 post it notes on each shelf.
Well, i found my boots and they are still used today and made in CANADA. Steel toe full rubber boot up to the knee with insulation and a rip cord along the top for a good seal so no snow gets in.
I always hear that 5.0 explorer intakes are about the same flow wise as a cobra or gt-40 setup, so why doesn't more of us look into them?
I know they don't look as good, But once you all see what I've done with my explorer upper and lower porting wise you'll definately see the potential...they seem to have more material to hog out, and the upper can look quite stunning if the casting joints are removed.
I spent about $180 on the upper, lower and T/B...$50 on carbide bits for porting, and I'm almost considering spending the money to have them extrude honed, which is about $350 for a EFI 5.0 intake setup (don't qoute me on that..not a 100% sure)
And of course the topic of this thread is about American made goodness, and I have no idea if an explorer intake is made in america:dunno:
Scott nailed it:
It's all about the profit. Nothing else matters. And this is why:
As long as the vast majority of us don't care where it was made as long as it is cheap, then things are just gonna continue down the current path. I believe the U.S. is eating itself from the inside out. That will eventually leave a big hole for someone else to come in and fill.
Look at these factors and tell me if they look familiar:
Decline in Morals and Values
Political Corruption
Urban decay
Military Spending
Those were all contributing factors in the fall of the Roman empire. They forgot what it meant to be Roman. They were conquered before the Germanic tribes ever even got there. And they did it to themselves.
If we as North Americans continue to put things like saving a few bucks on that flat screen TV above supporting North America, then the demise of our society is imminent. Once we forget or just don't care what it means to be an American or Canadian; that's when it starts.
Everything comes down to money.
There, I just summed up the whole thread :dunce:
To be more specific, everything comes down to the
love of money, for that is the root of all evil.
The best things in life are free, but you can keep 'em for the birds and bees. Now give me money! That's what I want!
Old song but still true today. Kinda sad too.
Nuh-UH! It's
women that are the root of all evil...
:D
(and if you want to see a couple of nerds elaborate on this mathematical equation, click here (http://"http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forum/forum_comments/3311/"))
Those nerds have too much time on their hands. Time that could be spent getting dates with evil women :banana: :ies:
It's a very difficult problem (the "made in China" thing, not the women thing). On one hand we have the majority of the (rapidly shrinking) middle class trying to stretch their meagre pennies as far as they can, and this means that if they see a product cheaper than a similar product they will usually buy the cheap one.
Then the (rapidly shrinking) middle class also wants to live more comfortably, so they demand higher wages. This, of course, drives up the cost of manufacturing.
Large manufacturing concerns have all gone "public" and exist for no other reason to make money for shareholders, and the shareholders want their money at any social cost, so the manufacturers either cut R&D and build poor quality merchandise in North America (see Ford/GM) or move manufacturing overseas, and the jobs with it.
Major retailers are the same as manufacturers - they care about nothing other than profit and keeping the shareholders happy. To keep profits up they buy merchandise from the cheapest source, which is usually a foreign manufacturer. If one does this all have to in order to remain competitive, so fewer and fewer items are manufactured over here. The consumer flocks to the cheap prices, which keeps the whole thing going.
Politicians, caring only about votes and having utter disdain for actual voters, score points by removing barriers to cheap foreign goods. "We'll save you money" seems more important than "We'll save your jobs".
I personally believe that the "make shareholders as rich as possible, as quick as possible" mentality is nearly 100% to blame. Shareholders do not care about the long term health of the company, the workers, or the long-term effects on the economy, they only care about getting rich right now, and at the first sign of trouble they pull their money out and put it in greener pastures. This starts a snowball effect in which people panic and a company can be reduced to ruin (or made very rich) in moments.
People cannot be blamed for wanting to save money, and I am the first to admit that if I see two essentially identical intake manifolds, one for 1/2 the price of the other, I will buy the cheap one. It's the wrong thing to do, but I'm human and I can't afford to throw money away for the sake of a "Made in USA/Canada" sticker.
Politicians share the blame with the please-the-shareholder-at-all-costs nitwits too, by allowing the mantality to flourish. They allow this mentality to flourish by tearing down the barriers to this type of thinking. Free trade, for example. Free trade between to countries with similar standards of living (such as Canada/USA) is a good thing because the two countries have similar wage levels, so there's no reason to move the jobs. When you add another country that pays it workers considerably less (like Mexico - sorry, Mexcougar) you give manufacturers every reason to move production to where the monthly wages are equal to our hourly wages.
Tarriffs and duty were intended to keep this from happening - if you tax imports from a low-wage country to the point that they have to price it at the same level as made-at-home products, most products will remain "made at home". You will notice that countries that do levy large import duties (puppiesan, China, Korea, etc) have thriving manufacturing industries. Countries that welcome imports without leveling the playing fields are slowly eroding.
Sadly, no politician in his right mind would ever say "We're gonna tax imports to save your jobs" because that would only translate into "Things are gonna cost more"/
In other words, the entire industrialized world is headed for self-inflicted ruin.
I wonder if its possible for America to undercut its self into ruins.