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Chapter 47 - Playing Catch
week10 - 2011
disclaimer :
the following story depicts actions that occured between July 6 and july 12 2011
information is recalled purely from memory, give me a chance
so that week started with a trip to a Nissan dealership to get an alignment done, I have a Nissan so i thought the Nissan dealership would be the best place to get this done, i was wrong
if you have a modified car, bring it to a place where they know how to deal with one,
before i left for the dealership, i had to fix the extreme caster on my front wheels because of my previous alignments,
i had the passenger side wheel rubbing on the back of the inner fender and the beginning of the side skirt, while the driver side wheel was rubbing in the front of the inner fender
so all i did was reajuste the tension rods, but i hadn't checked the repercussion of this wrong doing, my camber and toe got all fawked up, but the dealer was only about 12 minutes away, normally
but with my alignment soooo much out of wack, i couldn't safely drive faster then 40km/h, so it took 25 minutes to get there, with my dad following me with his car
so i left it there when my appointment was the next day;
before leaving the car in their hands, i had actually printed pictures of my parts with written notes on them explaining how to adjust them and lock them in place, i've lost those exact sheets but the one pictures i now i gave them was this one;
i even wrote in bold letters, ''if you have any questions, immediatly call this number ####''
obviously, they called me but 2 hours into the job, WTF
cuz they so smart
so the next day i came by, to pick up the car, didn't really look at it properly since the service counter was closing,
i got really pissed since they charged me 3 hours, i didn't have to argue so i paid and left
eventually when i got home i found out that the caster was really badly adjusted, still rubbing the inner fenders
see how the front the side skirt is bent outward
then i was pissed even more
but my dad, friendly as he is, told me would take the car to a suspension place where he gets his 26' truck serviced and get the car correctly aligned there, 2 days later
- i get a first call from him while hes there, simply asking the chassis code for the alignment specs in the system
- then i got anothe call a bit later, telling me that one of my tension was jammed, so jammed him and the mecanic were scared to breaking it
after a bit more info, i found it was only jammed on one side of the turn buckle, so now the only way to adjust it was to do full turns with one end, limiting the precision of the adjustment by a big margin
anyway, it took them about 90 minutes to correct Nissan's error and get the alignment right
so at that point, a simple alignment had cost me 4.5 hours
that very afternoon i went back to Nissan, with proof, the "before' and "after" spec sheets from the second place, i asked for the service manager and asked him why it would have taken them 3 freaking hours to do a 90 minutes job, and still mess it up
he told me my car was "special" and what not
i also asked him why they waited so long to call me when they didn't know what to do
he had no answer, even was i told him they broke a part, which they "weren't responsible" since the part wasn't OEM
anyway, he asked me what he could do for me, he wanted to redo the job, to which i replied that it had already been fixed, he was like; "well, why didn't you bring it back here so we could fix it"
to which i replied; "are you serious?! you ****** it up once, i'm not letting your stupid mecanics touch my car again, its like if i were in a restaurant i wouldn't send my plate back to the kitchen, like they're not gonna spit in it... right"
so i told him i wanted to get my money back for the 2 hours more than it should have taken.... no cookie
in the end he agreed to split the apple in half and reimburse 1.5 hours of work (which only matched the cost of the second place's work), and i agreed to never have any work done there, ever
/end rant
back to the project
the year before, i had issues with my catch can system, since it was only using 3/8" hoses, but the adapter were even smaller than 1/4", so it was recirculating very badly, and filling up the catch can way to quickly
but it also created positive pressure in the Cusco can, which made it leak from the gauge hose on the side
at one point i had made a CAD design of a can that would fit perfectly in the space i had for it, where the battery usually goes on R32s;
but after getting quoted 400$ and a 3 week wait, i decided to keep my Cusco can and modify it
the original 3/8" ports;
new 3/4" ports drilled out;
i grabbed a 3/4" NPT tap from where i was working then, and using my press drill to keep it straight, managed to tap both holes pretty good;
and these were the new fittings i was going to use, which i got from a Motion Canada supplier that was next door to where i worked;
but the way those fittings are designed, they don't actually need any hose clamp at pressures below 50 psi (which a catch can setup should always be below), so hoses are really difficult to push on, and almost impossible to get off
so i started grinding down the fittings till i got a good fitment with the hose;
and finally got this after a bit of hand-sanding;
i threaded the fittings onto the can with teflon tape, using o-ring to visually fill in the gap, since NPT thread is tappered the fittings will eventually jam by themselves, but i didn't want to re-tap the can any further since aluminum is so easy to mess up
and this is how i originally ran the hoses;
but that would eventually change
after all, the 3/4" hose has a section area 4 times larger than the 3/8" for much better flow
while i was working around that spot, i noticed power steering fluid leaking onto the ground, and quickly traced the cluprit back to my open braided hoses connecting in and out of my P/S cooler, it was freakin dirty;
the eventual fix would be to change those lines to normal rubber ones, since a hose clamp, even a fuel line t-bolt clamp can't create enough clamping force to seal a SS braided hose on a nipple, but the quick fix was to try and tighten the clamps anyway, using a cool new tool, a crank ratchet, it was the only way to reach the clamps without taking everything apart;
on a side note, i also tried fitting my sheet metal, 20$ brake cooling deflectors;
i cut/bent them to better channel the air;
and did a simple test fit, using the tension rods as mounting points;
but since those deflectors are made for SPL tension rods which have the bracket to mount the deflectors, i had to get creative with hose clamps on my Cusco rods, which will be covered in a later update
on another side note, i also tried painted the letters on 1 of my tires with an industrial paint marker, it didn't look half bad, but quickly wore out;
so this is it, for my first update in 9 months, still 17 months late, yeahhh ouch
but on the plus side, i'm done with school, i've finished all my classes and only have my final project to do, will be finally getting my degree in April, and i'll be a true engineer
since my last update, i've started working at a small compagny called TWM performance, as their R&D engineer
they specialize in short shifters and shift knobs, but also getting into other domains, which is now my job to design good, quality and functionnal products
check out their site for info on products;
http://www.twmperformance.com/
all the products are designed in house and fabricated in North America, mostly in Quebec, no chinese copies crap
don't worry, there will soon be products for skylines, the days of ordering short shifters only from japan will soon be over
if you are serious about a product for you daily car, PM me and i'll give you a good discount
also "like" their facebook page to see glimps of projects i'm working on
see you next week for another update
Franki out !
week10 - 2011
disclaimer :
the following story depicts actions that occured between July 6 and july 12 2011
information is recalled purely from memory, give me a chance
so that week started with a trip to a Nissan dealership to get an alignment done, I have a Nissan so i thought the Nissan dealership would be the best place to get this done, i was wrong
if you have a modified car, bring it to a place where they know how to deal with one,
before i left for the dealership, i had to fix the extreme caster on my front wheels because of my previous alignments,
i had the passenger side wheel rubbing on the back of the inner fender and the beginning of the side skirt, while the driver side wheel was rubbing in the front of the inner fender
so all i did was reajuste the tension rods, but i hadn't checked the repercussion of this wrong doing, my camber and toe got all fawked up, but the dealer was only about 12 minutes away, normally
but with my alignment soooo much out of wack, i couldn't safely drive faster then 40km/h, so it took 25 minutes to get there, with my dad following me with his car
so i left it there when my appointment was the next day;
before leaving the car in their hands, i had actually printed pictures of my parts with written notes on them explaining how to adjust them and lock them in place, i've lost those exact sheets but the one pictures i now i gave them was this one;
i even wrote in bold letters, ''if you have any questions, immediatly call this number ####''
obviously, they called me but 2 hours into the job, WTF
cuz they so smart
so the next day i came by, to pick up the car, didn't really look at it properly since the service counter was closing,
i got really pissed since they charged me 3 hours, i didn't have to argue so i paid and left
eventually when i got home i found out that the caster was really badly adjusted, still rubbing the inner fenders
see how the front the side skirt is bent outward
then i was pissed even more
but my dad, friendly as he is, told me would take the car to a suspension place where he gets his 26' truck serviced and get the car correctly aligned there, 2 days later
- i get a first call from him while hes there, simply asking the chassis code for the alignment specs in the system
- then i got anothe call a bit later, telling me that one of my tension was jammed, so jammed him and the mecanic were scared to breaking it
after a bit more info, i found it was only jammed on one side of the turn buckle, so now the only way to adjust it was to do full turns with one end, limiting the precision of the adjustment by a big margin
anyway, it took them about 90 minutes to correct Nissan's error and get the alignment right
so at that point, a simple alignment had cost me 4.5 hours
that very afternoon i went back to Nissan, with proof, the "before' and "after" spec sheets from the second place, i asked for the service manager and asked him why it would have taken them 3 freaking hours to do a 90 minutes job, and still mess it up
he told me my car was "special" and what not
i also asked him why they waited so long to call me when they didn't know what to do
he had no answer, even was i told him they broke a part, which they "weren't responsible" since the part wasn't OEM
anyway, he asked me what he could do for me, he wanted to redo the job, to which i replied that it had already been fixed, he was like; "well, why didn't you bring it back here so we could fix it"
to which i replied; "are you serious?! you ****** it up once, i'm not letting your stupid mecanics touch my car again, its like if i were in a restaurant i wouldn't send my plate back to the kitchen, like they're not gonna spit in it... right"
so i told him i wanted to get my money back for the 2 hours more than it should have taken.... no cookie
in the end he agreed to split the apple in half and reimburse 1.5 hours of work (which only matched the cost of the second place's work), and i agreed to never have any work done there, ever
/end rant
back to the project
the year before, i had issues with my catch can system, since it was only using 3/8" hoses, but the adapter were even smaller than 1/4", so it was recirculating very badly, and filling up the catch can way to quickly
but it also created positive pressure in the Cusco can, which made it leak from the gauge hose on the side
at one point i had made a CAD design of a can that would fit perfectly in the space i had for it, where the battery usually goes on R32s;
but after getting quoted 400$ and a 3 week wait, i decided to keep my Cusco can and modify it
the original 3/8" ports;
new 3/4" ports drilled out;
i grabbed a 3/4" NPT tap from where i was working then, and using my press drill to keep it straight, managed to tap both holes pretty good;
and these were the new fittings i was going to use, which i got from a Motion Canada supplier that was next door to where i worked;
but the way those fittings are designed, they don't actually need any hose clamp at pressures below 50 psi (which a catch can setup should always be below), so hoses are really difficult to push on, and almost impossible to get off
so i started grinding down the fittings till i got a good fitment with the hose;
and finally got this after a bit of hand-sanding;
i threaded the fittings onto the can with teflon tape, using o-ring to visually fill in the gap, since NPT thread is tappered the fittings will eventually jam by themselves, but i didn't want to re-tap the can any further since aluminum is so easy to mess up
and this is how i originally ran the hoses;
but that would eventually change
after all, the 3/4" hose has a section area 4 times larger than the 3/8" for much better flow
while i was working around that spot, i noticed power steering fluid leaking onto the ground, and quickly traced the cluprit back to my open braided hoses connecting in and out of my P/S cooler, it was freakin dirty;
the eventual fix would be to change those lines to normal rubber ones, since a hose clamp, even a fuel line t-bolt clamp can't create enough clamping force to seal a SS braided hose on a nipple, but the quick fix was to try and tighten the clamps anyway, using a cool new tool, a crank ratchet, it was the only way to reach the clamps without taking everything apart;
on a side note, i also tried fitting my sheet metal, 20$ brake cooling deflectors;
i cut/bent them to better channel the air;
and did a simple test fit, using the tension rods as mounting points;
but since those deflectors are made for SPL tension rods which have the bracket to mount the deflectors, i had to get creative with hose clamps on my Cusco rods, which will be covered in a later update
on another side note, i also tried painted the letters on 1 of my tires with an industrial paint marker, it didn't look half bad, but quickly wore out;
so this is it, for my first update in 9 months, still 17 months late, yeahhh ouch
but on the plus side, i'm done with school, i've finished all my classes and only have my final project to do, will be finally getting my degree in April, and i'll be a true engineer
since my last update, i've started working at a small compagny called TWM performance, as their R&D engineer
they specialize in short shifters and shift knobs, but also getting into other domains, which is now my job to design good, quality and functionnal products
check out their site for info on products;
http://www.twmperformance.com/
all the products are designed in house and fabricated in North America, mostly in Quebec, no chinese copies crap
don't worry, there will soon be products for skylines, the days of ordering short shifters only from japan will soon be over
if you are serious about a product for you daily car, PM me and i'll give you a good discount
also "like" their facebook page to see glimps of projects i'm working on
see you next week for another update
Franki out !
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