OK. Shoodaben is more than an 8. Considering that my wife is jealous of the smile behind my helmet when I'm riding, it's obvious Shoodaben is an 11 in my mind.
See there Ed, don't you feel better now

Here's the truth in how I feel about this. I have been a judge in a couple COG bike shows, but I would be the same in any bike show, car show, etc. I like to see the work the
owner has done. Not what he's bought, or what he's paid someone to do, I like to see his own talent at work. At this years National, I voted for Rev Rider's turbo bike to be the best engineered c-10. The level of mechanical prowess captured in that bike CLEARLY demonstrated it's superiority over any other c-10. Shoodaben was right next to it, and even if I still owned Shoodaben, so that it was a comparison of what 2 owner/builders could do, I STILL would have voted for Rev's turbo bike. It clearly took more mechanical knowledge and work to achieve that level, and it must be recognized for the artwork that it is. With that in mind, you can understand why I wouldn't recognize a bike with purchased bolt ons as competitive against workmanship by the bike's owner.
I was confronted head on with this at the 2014 National. The 2 top bikes in best engineered were Jim Snyder's bike and Ken McClurg's bike. Now Ken's bike was "more built" in fact, I built and installed the 1052cc engine in the bike. Yet I voted for Jim's bike. Why? Because there was a decent number of nicely done modifications that Jim did on his own. His workmanship was clean, uncluttered and well thought out. IMO, it demonstrated a superior mechanical approach by the owner. That bike was the unanimous winner with all the judges (who, BTW told me my vote didn't matter BEFORE I even voted) and it was the correct choice.
So with the aforementioned in mind, as of now, and probably forever, REV RIDER'S turbo bike will be the "10" and all others will be judged downward, accordingly. I'm thinking Shoodaben and Dan Bergmen's original ZGRX would be 9's. I base this on the level of owner modification and the professionalism displayed in the builds. In my mind, either bike displays enough original modifications that they are effectively tied when subjectively compared. I think a CLEAN turbo / efi build on a stock engine would be in this comparative area too. So all others are scaled downward from there.
Yeah... over the years I have given this stuff some serious consideration. You may or may not agree... but you better have a top level bike that exhibits very clean, unique and functional engineering
you did if you want your call your bike an "8" or better. JMO, Steve