Thread: Old vs New: Hotshot Gen 3 header & eBay knock off header

Storm,

I worked w/ the owner of Hot Shot a few years ago down here in socal in an aerospace company. He was our machinist and very cool guy,although a bit wired. He seemed to be moving at 100 mph at all times. He ended up taking another machinist job and now turned into a realtor. From my conversations w/ him, it's like what you already mentioned; eBay competition or people that that has more outsourcing capabilities after they get wind of a successful product. Hot Shot was family owned. His dad and him and i believe another family or friend. There's no way he was going to compete w/ people that has connections.
Getting philosophical, it's unfortunate, but it's like everything else in this world, people find ways to make revenue off of others and buyers often procrastinate and are cheap, including myself(especially, if you start justifying if it's worth it). I mean, look on these forums, 90% potential products gets shut down. Everyone here beats them to death and when the said individual/company finally complies to everyone's input, no one pays for it. It's just how things are. The auto business is tough. I know many people that eventually gave up or moved on from the auto business.
Even now, it's hard for people to front up $500 for a header that makes 5-10 hp MAX. Realistically, popular item auto parts are pretty easy to make, most of it can be made out of steel plates, sheets, and tubes. As for a header, all the flanges can be waterjetted for dirt cheap. Then you just need to bend some tubes and weld it on to the flanges. The hardest part is dyno numbers backing up your scrap metal. Too bad Hot Shot didn't outsource his products himself back then.

Great post. Thank you

I never got a hotshot and I'm kind of glad I didn't. I remember reading the stories of cracked headers from a product that cost a good amount of money. I wouldn't have been happy if I had spent all that money and ended up with a cracked header.

I think the one really good thing of the hotshots was that the EGR bung wasn't a headache. I've read that with the SSAC headers it is a pain to connect the EGR tube.

Its not too bad, the issue with the EGR on the SSAC was air leaking out becuz it didnt seat all the way in. Shigspeed came up with the ready for this was to take the O2 sensor adapter piece in the OEM header, cut off the hex so all you were left with is the threaded area. This threads into the EGR bung perfectly. Then put your EGR tube in and now you have everything seated fully. He made THIS THREAD about it.

I also have a good condition used HS Header hoarded under my bed. I ended up putting on the SSAC tho because the secondary looks bigger and I had also heard they crack. The HS is ceramic coated though. Also if the 2ndary rots out (im in the salt belt) easier access to replacements.