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Date:         Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:44:44 -0400
Reply-To:     Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject:      Re: How To Choose YOUR Engine Conversion
Comments: To: Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <022501cd96ce$0fe2bec0$2fa83c40$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

I'm currently writing up new content for the new Bostig site, and this topic is part of it. I agree with Neil about the " read, learn, read some more, then decide" the reality is that even this approach will still leave you underinformed for one basic reason: we are humans.

That means a couple things. Most importantly it means we're subject to cognitive bias of various flavors. People notice that the conversion stuff can be religious in pattern, that is because the same patterns of cognitive biases are at work in both cases.

If you already like or dislike a brand of automobile consciously or subconsciously, you're going to read, learn, read some more, then likely decide you've been able to confirm your preconceptions. You may not realize you've done it. Not only is it irrational to form a like or dislike about specific components based on automotive brand in 2012, but confirmation bias is going to help ensure you reinforce what you already believe on the subject, even if it's invalid or incorrect. That's one reason why the scientific method works to prove things you suppose to be false, not the other way around.

If you hear someone offer an opinion about how reliable X brand is, and therefore an engine swap using that brand's engine will be great, you're likely witnessing a strong confirmation bias. Logically there is no connection between the outcome of an engine swap and an opinion about the reliability of an automaker's brand. There is a relationship, but it is neither simple nor direct. But this is small potatoes compared to the larger problem. The bigger problem is one that directly affects availability of the thing you need most, accurate information.

Egocentric bias, Survivorship bias, and the Positivity effect of your sources (when they are human) will all help ensure that while you may think you're doing a good job at research, you aren't actually going to get the info you really need. It can be simplified to the reality that people don't like to brag about failure or mistakes in public. As a result, few people post about failures and mistakes that they accept responsibility for, and if they do, they often distort their own accounts (which you can witness through the magic of searching archives). For conversions that are complete or done by somebody else, the owners typically accept little responsibility for the nitty gritty since while they made the decision as to what to do, the specifics are the responsibility of the conversion installer. Typically those interactions and problems will go straight back to the installers, as they should. But it means they often don't get published online either.

DIYers on the other hand, especially when there isn't a complete solution and you have to buy components and make decisions about configuration, accept lot's of responsibility. While there are quite a few folks who have shared, especially out of need if they are trying to recover a problem that's beating them, there are plenty more that don't post and have their projects fail outright or make incorrect decisions that cost them dearly. You won't have access to much of that info, and worse may never know it exists at all.

This is why in market segments where the product is less consistent or complete, and consumers accept more responsibility, the market will be imperfect. This lowers the value to customers in that market segment, as the imperfection will be an advantage to the vendors in that segment not the consumers. If you run a company that sells a puzzle, if someone puts the puzzle together and is unhappy with the result in fit/finish they will likely blame you, and they may be vocal about it. If you run a company and you primarily sell only certain pieces of a puzzle, the same will not be true. If someone is unhappy with the results of the puzzle they put together from pieces from a bunch of different vendors, there is nobody to get upset at but oneself... and that is where the bias comes in. Not only will they be less likely to be vocal about a problem in public, they may not even admit there is a problem, or that it really bothers them... and they may do so without even knowing it. And once again, you won't have the information you really need.

I have been in a different position from being a consumer for the last 10 years, and have gotten to see and hear lot's of information that is not available anywhere online about customer experiences and failures. I've also learned lots from friends that are also into cars or friends that have shops. Through personally supporting 330+ conversion customers I've learned even more about possible modes of failure, stuff I couldn't dream up if I tried. Contrary to how scientific I try to be, I've learned that Car-ma (car project associated Karma/Luck cycles) does exist. It just rains sh*t on some people in this regard, and no amount of decent explanation exists in many cases. Another thing folks may never have thought of is the process of working on a car until it's totalled. Not only does it happen, but happens to way more people than I'd ever conceived of. You of course don't typically read those kinds of stories online, as at the end of lot's of money and time into something, having *absolutely nothing* of value in the end isn't exactly an outcome people are proud of. Feature creep is the leading cause of this type of failure BTW so watch out (manifest itself in the form, "hey I'm already in there doing this... I should do this while I'm at it.." and repeat).

Experience with as many forms of failure in car projects as possible and good project management skills are the things that are most preventative to large failures. Few vendors build these things into their products, or offer assistance with them which is a shame because it's entirely possible to do so and saves huge amounts of wasted resources. Again though, if it's out of scope and the vendor can get away not doing it, the value to the vendor is that much higher so they will tend not to do so. Conversely the value to the customer is lower. Unfortunately if the customer hasn't thought of it in advance, it will only be revealed once something has started going wrong.

When puzzles go together right and you get the experience/picture you wanted, it doesn't matter how it came together, who it came from, etc. It's more when things go wrong that it really matters. Then who it came from (which affects everything), and who accepts responsibility has a strong effect on if someone will share their information, and it also has a strong effect on how the issue will be resolved and the sharing of that subsequent information.

The short version of all this is to really try to understand the differing nature of information gaps based on market segment and the business models of those in them, and in effect have an idea of how much you won't be able to know based on the biases of the information sources in those segments. It is this area that the most differentiation exists between options, but most people don't even consider it at all.

Jim Akiba

PS. Stuart, I prefer the term bootstrap to shoestring, shoestring implies we don't have resources which isn't true, we just put them all back into dev. And in fairness if we're shoestring then everybody else is flip flops :)


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