Kimmo vs TCE Throttle Body Pictures

[SappySE107]

Would you say these are nearly the same, or very different?

[geldartb]

i'd say almost an identical clone minus the piece of plastic bolted to the front of the other one and the iac hole location.

it's like they took the lazy way out and just went with flat stock and bolted the plastic to it.

[SappySE107]

Kimmo is the original, for the record.

[robertisaar]

Kimmo is the original, for the record.

the plot thickens.

http://members.fortunecity.com/bszopi/Performance/Throttle_Body.htm

found a page brad made a long time ago....

[ForcedFirebird]

the plot thickens.

http://members.fortunecity.com/bszopi/Performance/Throttle_Body.htm

found a page brad made a long time ago....

Yes it's getting thick. There's an internal battle of who's taken who's ideas and tuned them into profit.

[CNCguy]

This will be my only post here regarding this subject but I am not so sure it won't be deleted.

I am sorry that it has come to this but there seems to be some confusion on who is the owner of the TBs that TCE makes.

Did Ben ask me if I was interested in making throttle bodies since the others were no longer being made? yes

Did Ben send me a sample throttle body made by someone else? yes

From there, I bought the material, designed the new TBs for improved looks and functions, spent the time programming, built the fixtures, bought the tooling and manufactured the parts. Over the years, I have invested my time and money improving the products and adding new ones. From the very first one until now, all of our parts have been designed, paid for by us and have been engraved with TCE Motorsports. All the while, I have given Ben special pricing and let him sell all of my my parts on consignment with no investment on his part. I would like to know how many other companies would do that.

Because someone says "hey can you make these?" or even offers a sample doesn't mean that they own the product. If Holley had made the throttle bodies would they not own them? Sure, you can go to Holley and have them build you a custom product but it will cost you up front. I remember a thread from not long ago about someone trying to get roller rockers made by Harland Sharp. Had they started making them do you really think they would say "sure... you own the product and we won't sell it to anyone else"? Hell... if that were the case maybe I should contact GM and have them build a car that I am thinking about. They could send the cars to me on consignment and I could pay them whenever I sold a car. Sounds great to me.

Just as some of you would never buy from one of Ben's competitors such as MMS, there are just as many who won't buy from Ben out of allegiance to their favorite supplier. In an effort to increase sales and lower manufacturing costs, I have added vendors over the years which has brought us to this point.

The reality is, a throttle body can only be made a few ways so it will still bolt up to the engine and the brackets and cables still work.

When the billet GA engine mount that I designed was copied and sold on the WOT-Tech site, did you hear me complain? Not a peep because that's business. Unless something is patented, it is fair game for others to copy or improve on. There's nothing wrong with that as it leads to product improvement and competition.

I wish everyone here the best of luck. Should you wish to contact me, you can do it through the killerbv6 website.

[SappySE107]

This will be my only post here regarding this subject but I am not so sure it won't be deleted.

I am sorry that it has come to this but there seems to be some confusion on who is the owner of the TBs that TCE makes.

Did Ben ask me if I was interested in making throttle bodies since the others were no longer being made? yes

Did Ben send me a sample throttle body made by someone else? yes

From there, I bought the material, designed the new TBs for improved looks and functions, spent the time programming, built the fixtures, bought the tooling and manufactured the parts. Over the years, I have invested my time and money improving the products and adding new ones. From the very first one until now, all of our parts have been designed, paid for by us and have been engraved with TCE Motorsports. All the while, I have given Ben special pricing and let him sell all of my my parts on consignment with no investment on his part. I would like to know how many other companies would do that.

Because someone says "hey can you make these?" or even offers a sample doesn't mean that they own the product. If Holley had made the throttle bodies would they not own them? Sure, you can go to Holley and have them build you a custom product but it will cost you up front. I remember a thread from not long ago about someone trying to get roller rockers made by Harland Sharp. Had they started making them do you really think they would say "sure... you own the product and we won't sell it to anyone else"? Hell... if that were the case maybe I should contact GM and have them build a car that I am thinking about. They could send the cars to me on consignment and I could pay them whenever I sold a car. Sounds great to me.

Just as some of you would never buy from one of Ben's competitors such as MMS, there are just as many who won't buy from Ben out of allegiance to their favorite supplier. In an effort to increase sales and lower manufacturing costs, I have added vendors over the years which has brought us to this point.

The reality is, a throttle body can only be made a few ways so it will still bolt up to the engine and the brackets and cables still work.

When the billet GA engine mount that I designed was copied and sold on the WOT-Tech site, did you hear me complain? Not a peep because that's business. Unless something is patented, it is fair game for others to copy or improve on. There's nothing wrong with that as it leads to product improvement and competition.

I wish everyone here the best of luck. Should you wish to contact me, you can do it through the killerbv6 website.

Kimmo gave me the CNC code, which I gave you. Perhaps I should have Kimmo post up to confirm? You make it sound like you did all of the coding, when that is certainly not the case. On the other hand, the engine mounts that I sold were designed and built from scratch, all of which had nothing to do with me. They were not given any code to start with. Big difference.

You have acknowledged that you modified the code and that made it yours to do with as you please. Why does MMS sell EGR adapters? I gave you the code for those, for which you modified for your own reasons. That made them yours as well, to sell to whoever you wanted to.

[3400-95-Modified]

Scratch my post, I see the problem here. I'm going to stay out of this.

[CNCguy]

Ben.... since you insist on bringing this out in public, let's go. No burning bridges here... nuke that damn thing.

I could be wrong but I am 99.999% positive that you never sent any CNC programs (code as you call it). However, if you did send any programs, anyone who works with CNCs will tell you that the programs would be worthless to me unless I was making an identical part on the same type machine that the program was written for. What you did send was a sample TB and a drawing of the EGR adapter that I didn't use.

You say that you had the CNC programs and seem to think they're all that's needed to make parts. If you ever felt that I was taking advantage of you at any time, you could have had another machine shop make parts for you. You chose not to because I was helping to finance your business. You are only making a scene now because your business has shrunk to almost nothing and, for whatever reason, you think Milzy is controlling what I do. That assumption is dead fucking wrong. The marketplace decides what I make or don't make and I have told you that numerous times.

The implication is that I stole your ideas and made all the money. First off, I would like to know what proprietary design that you came up with? If it was so unique and valuable, why didn't you patent it? Secondly, you made a higher percentage of profit than I did on almost everything I have sold you. Considering your complete investment of zero dollars, I think you did extremely well. Some parts, I even lost money on in an effort to try to get the market started. Now that you have dropped my products, you can get rich making your own parts. Ummm yeah good luck with that.

To sum it up you can whine and cry but you used me. I took all the risks, made product improvements along the way, funded new products, funded all of the manufacturing and inventory costs, gave you preferred pricing and made very little money overall. Again, you could have easily had another shop make your parts if you were being wronged but you didn't because you were using me. Fuck... as far as our relationship is concerned, I should have broken it off with you long ago BITCH.

If you want to bring up the "why are you selling EGR adapters to Milzy" shit, I covered that in my emails on 12/11/07 and 12/21/07. If you want, I can post them here for everyone to read. It's done and we're done so get over it and send my parts back. Of course, please feel free to add me to the list of people like MMS, MP Racing, Sinister and others that you like to bash and talk shit about.


Jon,
I know this is all about Milzy but have no idea why this is going on now. I started selling to Milzy years ago. Oh well it's over now.

[SappySE107]

Kimmo is not involved, as he gave up the code so that I could get them made here in the states.

When I gave Marc the code, he was not selling 60V6 products to any other company, or direct to the public. His reasoning is that there are people that won't buy from WOT-Tech, so he started selling to other companies.

Ben.... since you insist on bringing this out in public, let's go. No burning bridges here... nuke that damn thing.

I could be wrong but I am 99.999% positive that you never sent any CNC programs (code as you call it). However, if you did send any programs, anyone who works with CNCs will tell you that the programs would be worthless to me unless I was making an identical part on the same type machine that the program was written for. What you did send was a sample TB and a drawing of the EGR adapter that I didn't use.

You say that you had the CNC programs and seem to think they're all that's needed to make parts. If you ever felt that I was taking advantage of you at any time, you could have had another machine shop make parts for you. You chose not to because I was helping to finance your business. You are only making a scene now because your business has shrunk to almost nothing and, for whatever reason, you think Milzy is controlling what I do. That assumption is dead fucking wrong. The marketplace decides what I make or don't make and I have told you that numerous times.

The implication is that I stole your ideas and made all the money. First off, I would like to know what proprietary design that you came up with? If it was so unique and valuable, why didn't you patent it? Secondly, you made a higher percentage of profit than I did on almost everything I have sold you. Considering your complete investment of zero dollars, I think you did extremely well. Some parts, I even lost money on in an effort to try to get the market started. Now that you have dropped my products, you can get rich making your own parts. Ummm yeah good luck with that.

To sum it up you can whine and cry but you used me. I took all the risks, made product improvements along the way, funded new products, funded all of the manufacturing and inventory costs, gave you preferred pricing and made very little money overall. Again, you could have easily had another shop make your parts if you were being wronged but you didn't because you were using me. Fuck... as far as our relationship is concerned, I should have broken it off with you long ago BITCH.

If you want to bring up the "why are you selling EGR adapters to Milzy" shit, I covered that in my emails on 12/11/07 and 12/21/07. If you want, I can post them here for everyone to read. It's done and we're done so get over it and send my parts back. Of course, please feel free to add me to the list of people like MMS, MP Racing, Sinister and others that you like to bash and talk shit about.


Jon,
I know this is all about Milzy but have no idea why this is going on now. I started selling to Milzy years ago. Oh well it's over now.

Most of what you have said is purely speculation, which is unfortunate. Its all about you Marc, no one else. This is not a legal issue to me, its a moral issue. You may have forgotten that you were given the code, but you have no problem writing that off as being useless anyway. Who can trust a machinist that will sell their work to someone else?

[3400-95-Modified]

Unfortunately it sounds like Marc is simply more than "just" a machinist and guess thats where the conflict of interest comes in to play. I'm out!

[CNCguy]

Damn, I should never have gotten drawn into this online argument. I'm being called a liar, thief and untrustworthy and must now defend my reputation.

Ben,
I suggest you refer to the email you sent on 12/20/07 titled "Interested in redeeming myself" where in the last paragraph even you acknowledge that they are my parts.

"The store is changing. I am moving it to its own domain and there will be no banner ad on 60V6. I will do my own advertising and work on my store. I need to know what your position is on selling me your parts. I have customers asking for a time frame on parts and I haven't recieved a response to my message on 60degreev6.com. I need to setup the products on the new store so let me know where we stand."

Since you claim the CNC code is the main issue here, I continue to review all of our previous correspondence. The more I think about it and go through things, the more confident I am that you never supplied any CNC programs. If you refer to your email on 4/5/05 titled "Re: Oil caps" you discuss the sample TB and there is never any mention of sending or even having any programs. Perhaps you could point out to me when or how you sent this program? Or even post a copy here to prove it's existence.

I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt and you felt betrayed but there was never any agreement that I would only sell to you. You asked for parts, I provided them and I was always more than fair with you. I told you long ago that I wanted to be a supplier of aftermarket parts. If you had wanted to be the owner of a product, all you had to do was pay for everything on your own like any other customer. I have helped you out quite a bit over the years and resent the shit you are saying.

My assumption is that you feel that I should have spent my money helping your business grow and been stuck holding the bag for parts that you didn't sell when your business dropped off. I guess I really am an asshole for not doing that.

I am done with this conversation. People will think what they want regardless of whatever is said.

[SappySE107]

You are the one bringing all of this out in public Marc, not me. If you can't tell, I am not the list bit concerned about it. As I told you in my last email, I hope you do well. That hasn't changed. You have done a great service to this community, and for that I thank you. As far as business goes, I am done working with you.