Ashyukun,I would say 20 spent but NO recoup money allowed.But I AM NOBODY.I can Garuntee I have bought pickup beds full of stuff for 50 bucks and kept and Gave away plenty, I won't try to use Freebe's I gave away as FMV Recoup tho. EVEN though any body standing there could have bought it if they Had the 50 bucks. you wouldn't belive what people would Scrap when Prices were up.
Well, parts not associated with your build never count in the budget, cost or recoup.
So I think its up to your best judgement, but you can probably go with the proportional approach, unless you're dealing with an assembly, or unless the parts were part of the deal on the original car.
Examples. Say I buy two junkyard intercoolers of basically the same part for $80. I pressure test both and use the better one on the challenge car. Challenge budget impact is $40 regardless of what I sell the other for since it is not associated with build.
Say I buy a junkyard stick axle assembly for $80. I only use the pinion and ring gear because I want the steeper axle ratio. I sell the other parts to recoup some or all of my purchase price back.
so you already had an axle and wanted the Gears?... If that is how it is I bought the vette Running for 1000.00 bucks. So NO Cry Babies Allowed.
Ashyukun wrote: So, I thought that I had this figured out, but in talking with eastsidemav we're not totally certain how the official ruling on it will go, so I guess I need to ask for official judgement. The salvage yards here (and elsewhere I imagine) have what they call 'pull-a-thons', where you pay one set blanket price regardless of what you're carrying with the restriction that you have to actually *carry* what you're buying for 20 feet (or so) with little or no assistance (some allow a length of rope, most allow two people to cooperate but both pay the fee. Our debate is how to handle this and subsequent sell-offs. Does the purchase count as a 'batch' where you've paid one price for everything and thus selling any one thing drops the total price for everything? Or is is, as eastsidemav theorized, akin to having a large bulk discount where the effective price of each item is proportional to what you'd normally pay, such that you'd never zero out any one individual item? Since that's a bit confusing, some examples... Batch ruling: I buy 5 spoilers for the $80 flat fee. I sell four of them at $20 each, leaving me with one free (both in budget and in reality) spoiler. Also, any other parts picked up at the same time are also free. Proportional: I buy the same 5 spoilers for the $80 flat fee, and sell four for $20 each. However, using the proportional rule, each one effectively cost $16- so regardless of how much I sell the others for, the remaining spoiler will always cost $16. It obviously gets more complex when you have multiple items- if I'd bought an ECU as well which they charge a lot more for than a spoiler, the individual cost of the spoilers would drop a good bit- but would also never be zero unless you sold that actual spoiler (or whatever other part you're talking about). Thoughts? Official rulings? Obviously the batch approach is far simpler, and has the advantage budget-wise of zeroing out parts that you buy. But it also requires actually SELLING the other parts successfully, whereas the proportional rule knocks down the price of the items regardless of whether you are able to sell the others or not.
I take it as i bought 5 spoilers in one lot, so the $80 is in the budget. The other example would be like going somewhere that sells battery cable at $1 per foot or 50 cents per foot if you buy a 300 foot roll. It wouldn't be fair to buy the 300 foot roll just to put 20 feet into your car at $10 instead of $20 as the other 280' have nothing to do with the build.
The only place i broke things down that far in my budget was i needed 15' of fuel line, so i had to buy a 25' roll. I asked someone on the staff and was told it was ok to divide by 25 to get my per foot price then multiply by amount used as they dont sell it in the length i need exactly. That seems fair.
I'd argue bulk days are just that. You find an aluminum 5.3 and they let you put a strap around it and you carry it through the gate, and happen to toss a bunch of bmw window switches that you know you can ebay on top of the engine and carry them along? Those switches are your recoup as it's one big bulk deal.
I was at a certain former challenge winners compound and you should have seen the truckload he had. I do the same. I've got hundreds or items that cost me $0 just because i keep my ears and eyes open. I have garbage night parts, i have "take that if you want it" parts. Last summer a friend called and said the lady across the street's husband passed away and she said the first person to get there who can use his stuff could have the contents of the garage and shed for free. Guess who was first. Parts, tools, materials, etc. all $0. I've given bits i could not use to other challengers for free out of that lot and others.
Making budget is about using all your senses, not just your checkbook
In reply to patgizz:
I personally agree with your theory, but that is NOT how the staff has ruled in the past.
In the past, the ruling has been if it's not on the car, it's not in the budget. That led to the Sucker Vette team buying at auction a lot of 3 (IIRC) cooling fans from M1 Abrams tanks. Their budget included 1/3 of the cost of the purchase only. NOT the entire purchase, then recoup 2 of the fans.
Some of us older Challengers started affectionately calling that the "Zip tie rule", on the theory that if you buy a bag of 100 zip ties for $3.99 and only use 12 of them, the budget should include $0.48 for 12 zip ties at $0.0399 ea.
My opinion? Budget purchase price of $80, and recoup as much as you can selling 4 spoilers.
Previous rulings? 1 spoiler cost $16.
If you buy a part for $40, decide it won’t work, then resell that part for $50, you may not recoup $10. Leave this unrelated transaction out of your budget sheet entirely. If you buy an engine for $100, use the heads on your Challenge car, then resell the rest of the engine for $80, you may recoup $80, assuming your build has not already hit the recoup limit. If you buy an engine for $100, use the heads on your Challenge car, then resell the rest of the engine for $300, you may recoup $100, assuming your build has not already hit the year’s recoup limit.
These are the rules if you purchase a group of parts and use one of them on your car. Then you can use the group purchase price and can recoup from the rest of the items.
The tank engine reference goes to the zip tie rule. You can't take the bulk buying power of buying 50 of the same item at wholesale prices to resell 49 of them to recoup all of money.
OK, now I'm more confused than I was when this started. 
Ashyukun wrote: OK, now I'm more confused than I was when this started.
Then my work here is done.
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