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Are all the P400 motors gone?

From what I have heard, finding a P400 is like finding a needle in a hey stack! someone correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think there made anymore.
 
SnowDrift said:
Are they being made in the same factory the Optimizer GEP motors are made?
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Where is this factory?

Why would they make something they can sell and ignore a market?

Are there EPA rules in play?

Mitsubishi told me several years ago that they couldn't sell the L3E I have, due to EPA strangulation. The newer L3Es weren't quite as good
 
jrsavoie said:
You just posted to make everyone else drool just a little.
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Perhaps. Indeed it was in poor form. I apologize. What I'll say about the P400's is that... you never know. The may go back into production someday.

The thing about the P400's is - from what I understand, Uncle Sam didn't feel the need to pony up more for the P400's for the Humvees. They don't care about added power or reliability - I think a motor pool can swap out a 6.5 in a Humvee in an hour if I had to guess. GEP/AM General wishes that their civilian market would disappear, go away, never come back. All they want is to care about making sales to governments, and not us Joes.

However, anyone with two eyes and reads defense news can see that the Humvee platform is in its swan song. Sure it'll be around until 2050 or so, but companies have to be forward thinking. The less humvees they're selling means that they need to make up revenue anywhere they can - or come up with new products that the market finds compelling. The P400 is compelling to a lot of people. Compelling enough though?

Side Note: When my first H1 was totaled (see, It was cursed) I was a big dumb dumb and had it towed to the wrecker yard, then the insurance company picked it up right away. I didn't get a chance to pull my P400 out. So I went to the auction yard to see it (because I wanted to buy it back) and I slipped a note in the glovebox that said "Whatever you do, do not junk this engine. It is rare and unobtainable" and also left my email address. Nothing came of it, and the carfax indicates the truck was shipped off to the Netherlands - probably made its way to the Middle East where they cannibalized it for parts sadly.
 
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The consumer base is a pain, I'm sure. Citizenry is something they probably don't want to deal with because people have gotten so "lawyered up" that everything is a bigger deal than it has to be for various reasons. Uncle Sam comes along with endless amounts of money and puts a guaranteed income out there for a manufacturing facility for a fixed amount of time and that makes a very good deal for them. No dealers, no individuals, just one contact probably handling all the details making it a clean relationship.
 
I just don't understand why they would stop selling to the public if they are still in production. What advantage is there to reducing your available market? I'm sure P400s weren't flying off the shelf or anything, but did it really cost any more money to have them available through any GEP dealer/ distributor? You can still get P400 heads, crank, pistons, just not the block it seems.
 
They are used to doing military orders. Almost no questions, then a large order and everything paid in one shot. Damaged freight and missing orders easier dealt with.
Business to business type sales are more profitable
 
DieselAmateur said:
I just don't understand why they would stop selling to the public if they are still in production. What advantage is there to reducing your available market? I'm sure P400s weren't flying off the shelf or anything, but did it really cost any more money to have them available through any GEP dealer/ distributor? You can still get P400 heads, crank, pistons, just not the block it seems.
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While I don't like it in any way, I do understand it in terms of what I typed and what Will typed. It doesn't make it suck any less. I have a guess that if someone would offer to pony up the cash for a "minimum order" of a specific quantity, then they might entertain the idea, if they could work it in and still maintain their current production rate and meet their other commitments. The issue is that there are not a lot of people willing or able to take that risk and sit on that amount of inventory.

I think others have taken notice of certain "demands" for products, believing buyers would be standing in line once available, but then when the development was complete and the product ready to produce, the buyers had dispersed, except a few here and there, for one reason or another.

Hmmm....

Now that my wheels are turning, I wonder what that key number of engines would be to get them to discuss. I wonder if an order for 20 units, 50 units, etc. would get someone's attention.
 
Nothing is going to change their mind, from what my past and present supplier tells me it's a contract thing along with GEP doesn't have interest in dealing with the public even through a dealer concerning the p400. Now GEP will sell a bare block, not p400, ... @ a minimum of 10 quantity.
 
Twisted Steel Performance said:
Nothing is going to change their mind, from what my past and present supplier tells me it's a contract thing along with GEP doesn't have interest in dealing with the public even through a dealer concerning the p400. Now GEP will sell a bare block, not p400, ... @ a minimum of 10 quantity.
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I can't say that this surprises me. I don't know how many they produce in a day, but they'll eventually be making their way to the gov't surplus market.
 
So, if someone goes after one of these engines, they're banking on longevity, solely? It seems that if something goes bad, it could become another "throw-away" motor again, but just with a heftier loss if parts are not available. The likelihood of this more robust engine having a problem with said parts is low enough to take the gamble, if I can read between the lines.
 
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