It doesn't matter what is "hacking" it. Tools don't have any bearing on the correct grade of material for a specific application. 6061 will work fine, but it's going to flex a lot more than 7075, which is not what you want in a rearset bracket. I have seen a cheaper rearset compared to a Graves unit, and the difference in flex was significant. It's all aluminum... it cuts like butter compared to steel. If OP can't handle cutting on 7075, then this is a job for someone else all together.
^^^^ here’s your answer. Find a hobbyist, gunsmith, or custom car guy that has the tools and talent. i obviously can’t speak for every shop in the country, but I wouldn’t even think about turning on one of my CNC’s if I wasn’t going to get at least $1000 for the deal. You have to cover programming and set up time all wrapped up into just 2 parts…. And you’re not getting anything else done while you monkey around with that stuff. It’s a very bad business choice to do favors for people with your $100-200k tools that should be generating at least $100/hr for you.
Thanks for the input, guys. In terms of ideas: 1) Have been emailing with Eric for a few days now, and can't say enough about him and his responsiveness in dealing with the situation. Huge fan of him and the guys at STG. I doubt there's going to be a way to get Woodcraft to make the adapter (currently trying to size the market/opportunity), but TBD. 2) Have had little success with local guys - most are too busy to even take a look at the project. Have some feelers out to a couple of friends who are car guys who may have some recommendations. 3) Really appreciate the offer of @Evad101 and might take him up on it, but would want to be 1,000% sure that all I needed was the adapter. There's also the issue of being without my OEM rearsets while he's measuring, so trying to brainstorm ways around that. At this point I'm concurrently trying to source a set of the BMW M rearsets from Europe (they're not available anywhere in the states) while I continue to explore this money pit of an idea. Sorry for my ignorance, but would it really be ~10 hours of work to get this done?
it depends on the type of equipment and competence of the people running it. Some Cnc machines have quite nice ‘conversational’ controls where you can punch out a contoured part with a couple bolt holes pretty quickly … if there’s somebody there that knows how to do that. I own haas machines that (the older ones at least) have some pretty easy looking conversational functions, however I’ve never used them. I program everything with Mastercam, as that’s what I know and I’m typically running things on a repetitive basis, so it’s worth the time to sit down and make a good program that will be saved and backed up on the server. So for me it would require 1. Programming, 2. Someone to gather necessary tooling, 3. Somebody to set up the machine and then run the part. It eats up a day real quick and can cause a large interruption in the work flow real quick. It really is a lot of effort to make one piece of something. I’ve been paid a kings ransom to prototype parts that I later made in batches of 100 for $25-30 each. It just because when you only make one all the cost of everything is right there v being able to amortize it across multiple parts.
yeah if it’s something that’s not too complicated, a guy that’s good with a knee mill can often be half way done before your programmer even kicks out some code
Bullshit. All you have to do is open the doors, toss a couple chunks of metal in there, and hit the green button on the front of that box.
I made a set for my Bandit by hand out of a piece of 3/8 alum. plate. Cardboard pattern, cut freehand with a plasma, drilled all the holes with a hand drill. They weren't perfect but they never broke and they crashed well.
I left in the offset to clear the gp linkage and wasted a shit ton of material/time. I didn't even notice until a year later.
I bet Shervin's available. $1200 for rearsets better come with a hooker mounted and a hidey spot full of blow.
To the OP: what sort of tools do you have? A bandsaw or jigsaw cuts aluminum just fine for one off stuff. A small drill press is all you would need for the holes.