Roe Blowers Got Expensive(r)!

[99 R/T 10]

No it hasn't. The demise of Roe Racing has been greatly exaggerated (cut and pasted from the SRT section):

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I haven’t been on the boards lately. I’ve been working my tail off, but I am coming on to clear up a few things after getting emails about supposed financial troubles, hearing I was closed, etc, etc….

First off, everything here is fine and I’ve worked hard to make the changes needed to keep it that way. We moved from the big shop with the big overhead to match in October. It used to be myself and four employees at that time. Now I’m at myself and two. For the record, the most I had when we were really slammed was eight beyond me. Since November 2nd, the three of us (Mike and I making parts, me handling the tech calls and Anna doing the book keeping), we’ve shipped out 372 separate orders…. not individual parts…. actual unique orders. Scattered in those orders were five Ram Supercharger kits and two Gen1 / Gen2 SC kits. So….. as you can see, I haven’t been on the boards because I’ve been working really hard and fall asleep practically any time I sit down for a few minutes. There is no reason for anyone to say “it sounds like Roe’s future is in question” (Phil). We’re very solid right now. I’ve been self employed since October 1991 and plan to keep it that way. My old business setup just got a little out of my control / wasteful / too high on the overhead and I had to make some big changes to correct it BEFORE it became a big problem. Selling the second Viper that still had $1,050 a month payments was part of that solution. It’s now corrected and I’m finally beginning to have the clarity again to see where Vipers need new modifications to make them better. So, with hopefully everybody clear on that, let talk forced induction….

Dateline 2004…..
I was getting a lot of pressure (from myself and others) to build a Supercharger for the 2003 Vipers. So, I bought a damaged engine and set out to figure out how to do it. It took some time after that before I could actually afford to buy a car to test on (I don’t test on other peoples cars, way too ******* the car). The design we came up with ($5,000 one off reversed blower with side drive shaft) did not work at all well. It fit under the hood just fine, but it wasn’t the right blower for the application. When you run off the second SC lobe, you have to run at 2X speed, so that meant two small pulleys (one front and one back) that produced belt slip. The Gen3 engine use pretty small diameter crank pulleys and all SC’s have to go off a certain drive ratio. Anyway, I figured out some of the downfalls by 2005, but then started having all sorts of “life” things happen to me. Things got pretty unhappy, with close relatives passing away, injuries, divorce, etc. Talk about an “un-motivator”. But, those are my problems to bear, not yours, and everyone wants a Supercharger. I honestly figured that along the way, somebody smarter than me or with deeper pockets would probably build a kit. There certainly wasn’t anything to stop anyone else while I was building parts for and filling orders at a rapid pace between ‘05-‘07.


Dateline January 2008….
I finally have my life going well enough that nothing dramatic has happened to me for two months! So, I start fiddling around with the SRT-10 after hours. I needed to get a bigger blower under the hood and…..

End of part one…. I have to get some more work done and can’t hold up orders to write more. I’ll continue later, bringing everyone up to today. I promise, the sun will rise tomorrow and I do have some forced induction projects going on that are good and timely. If you can’t wait….Paxton has been and still is the only game in town for Gen3. If you get a tuner kit, which should be less money (I’m not a Paxton dealer, have not and do not sell Paxton), I can get you setup with bigger injectors and an SCT tune so you don’t have to run the Split Second box or the supplemental pressure pumps that run up to 120 PSI (the SCT will also allow you to turn off the open loop delay timer, which nobody with a Paxton ever seems to comment about).

Ok, gotta run.

Sean

PS, I’m going into all this detail because I consider you all my friends as well as my customers. I will always treat you this way. Any disappointment you may feel about delays of something or a problem, I assure you, are felt far worse by me.

 

[rt/10stew]

No it hasn't. The demise of Roe Racing has been greatly exaggerated (cut and pasted from the SRT section):

Not the demise but the extra $1000 has made the decision for me

 

[Chipster]

Last quote I got on a paxton was $7250 or thereabouts. That's about where I remember them being at for a while

 

[whitebluevipe]

Not the demise but the extra $1000 has made the decision for me

i have to agree. whats really sad is i love how these things look and really wanted one. i would have to stretched my wallet to buy at the old price.

 

[99 R/T 10]

I bet if you guys get enough people together(8-10), he might do a Group buy. Got to think outside the bun.............. I mean box

 

[plumcrazy]

glad to hear sean is doing better now. ***** going thru all that.

i just wanna know where that smokin hot girl he had in his office went. damn she was CUTE

 

[BOTTLEFED]

Mike, that would be a great idea, except Sean can't even seem to keep up with normal demand, how do you think he is going to make 8-10 kits all of a sudden?

 

[dave6666]

No it hasn't. The demise of Roe Racing has been greatly exaggerated (cut and pasted from the SRT section):

It's always interesting to hear the other side of these stories; Autoform, Alan's, Roe.

In one hand I think we express ourselves well in regards to expectations, and in the other hand, end up like a bunch of blue hairs on Garden Club day.


Steve... Alan... Sean... Good job to all of you

 

[ViperTony]

Maybe it's because I've had too many Summer Ale's tonight but it looks like the Roe S.C. prices have come down since this thread started. $7,225.93 for the unpolished version and $7,499.95 for the polished version as of today. I thought they were up into the $8K range not too long ago? Still can't afford one, but thought I'd share this observation.

 

[RobZilla]

If you are quoting prices on the Gen I and II kits, those are no longer in production. I was at Seans house just a couple of weeks ago. Not to put his business on the street, but even he mentioned he is working nearly exclusively on the SRT blower. He was finishing the last production Gen I kit that he was going to do. He expects to be in his current state for about a year.

Better get a used kit, I did.