Cat Scratch Fever!!

Good morning Michigan

As I was driving down the 94 listening to one of Detroit's 87 rock stations, I got to thinking about Michigan and what an interesting place it is, Detroit especially. It's full of those little pink houses (for you and me) that John Cougar Mellencamp likes to sing about, except that they are all empty now. Years of mismanagement and corruption have left much of Detroit about as appealing as Kazakhstan during a mud storm. Detroit Mayors often have their terms in office cut short because they are promoted to inmate status. Yet somehow Michigan has this odd love affair with Detroit. I guess I have it too. Ever since my second year of college, I've gone back to Michigan at least once a year. I even lived there while I did an internship, and now I go there about 3 or 4 times a year for work.

Ypsilanti has problems with crime, or so they tell me

 I'm not sure what the allure of Detroit is, I guess it's just exciting to go to slow's BBQ and wonder if you are going to come out to a car with broken windows, or if you'll be shot on your way to a Tigers game. Maybe it's the thought that at any given moment, Uncle Ted Nugent could pop up from behind a rock and pick off any nearby large game or commies. Perhaps its the eternal hope that the Lions will have a winning season... I'm rambling now, but the point is that I went to Detroit this past week. I went to the North American International Auto Show. Toyota sends me there every year to see what the competitors have cooked up and if we should be worried about it. Because my main function is fuel economy testing and development, the plethora of sports cars was nothing to worry about but it sure did keep me entertained.

Good morning Detroit!

Ferd Fteenthousand reveal

A word about the Lexus RC-F you see below. I've ridden in a prototype of this car. It is phenomenal. If you are ludicrously wealthy, do yourself a favor and buy this car.

Not your grandpa's Lexus (not yours either unless you've got $70K)

475 HP

The only car at the show that was sporting duct tape. It's also got a diesel and manual transmission.

Mazda always brings the good stuff.

This is a 2015 F-150 prototype with a 2014 body, but made of aluminum.
Ford ran the Baja 1000 with this truck to test their new 2.7L Turbo engine.

Great Scott!

Nissan IDx, or modern Datsun 510

This thing made my ears bleed with joy as they drove it into the convention hall.

Porsche 918 Spyder - $854000 Hybrid Supercar

Toyota FT-1, possible future Supra

I officially like the new Mustang

Some dude named henry has been creepin' round my Grace calling her "junk". Tell ya what Henry, come say that to my face and I'll locate your nose around on the side of yer head!

To be fair, I have been on the road 4 of the past 5 weeks, so Grace has been feeling neglected again. I finished up painting the underbody behind the axle and around the fuel tank.

Pre-paint

You'd be surprised how quickly rust can form on bare metal. It wasn't more than a week or two after I had installed my front suspension that surface rust was on the crossmember. Today I disassembled the front suspension and painted the A-arms. The crossmember is up next, so maybe I'll celebrate my civil rights by prepping an painting a piece of steel. Or maybe I'll go to work, I guess you'll just have to wonder.

Prepping for paint with phosphoric acid.

Workin' for the man every night and day.

I've never been to Australia, but I hear it is quite the experience. A kid I knew in high school just moved there, and he posted a picture of a koala in a eucalyptus tree. I thought that was pretty neat, it doesn't get more Australian than that. The wildlife there is crazy, you are never know just what you are going to find in the outback. Both my boss and Ray from www.turboford.org independently sent me the this picture of a nesting Falcon down under.

For some reason it makes me think of Rescuers Down Under

A couple weeks ago I found a good deal on a Borg Warner EFR 6258 turbo and stainless steel header. I'm definitely not at a stage where I need this turbo, in fact I don't NEED a turbo at all as the engine going in this car currently has a Holset HE351 turbo with a header I built. I knew however, that I would be wanting this exact turbo at some point down the road, so I scooped it up. The turbo itself was pretty excited as it was going to be escaping the Great White North and moving to SoCal in the middle of the winter. The EFR turbos have ball bearings and a lightweight turbine so they are very responsive, and this turbo maxes out right around 450 hp, just above my target power. It came as a package deal with a stainless steel header made by Marc Bean. Marc has a Mustang SVO with a 600-ish HP 2.3 liter engine, so I figured his header would probably be OK.

On saturday, my goal was to leak test my fuel tank and finish the brake lines. It wasn't anything huge, but I was pretty happy to get both done.

To test the tank, I plugged the tank outlets and filled it with water. I found two leaks in my fuel tank welds, so I ran new beads all around the sump. It sealed the leaks and improved the looks significantly. While I was at it, I modified the original style fuel pickup. Since I built the sump. the original pickup was no longer needed. I cut the fuel pickup tube and welded it shut, as can be seen in the last picture. It was all pretty simple, and went about as expected.

That's all for this week, folks. I didn't get any interesting pictures of the new brake lines so until next time, to quote Joe Dirt, keep on keepin' on!

Sweet Land of Liberty

This week I made zero progress on the Falcon. But that's OK. I got to go home to Utah for an extended Thanksgiving weekend. I love going t Utah and I love seeing my family. I come from a nerdy family. Not only am I a Mechanical Engineer, so are all three of my brothers and my brother in law, so when we all get together the topic inevitably turns to some sort of heated discussion about thermodynamic principles. This time it centered around an assembly of ABS pipes.

Thanksgiving arts and crafts!

Ready for glue.

The potato cannon was a big hit. I think my pops enjoyed shooting it more than he's willing to admit, and my brother in law, Joe, couldn't think about much else all weekend long besides the design and analysis of potato cannons. He's already getting psyched up for Christmas break because he wants to hook some pressure sensors up to the chamber to log data and experiment with fuels.

On Sunday I went for a walk to a place I call Death Row. It's a line of cars out behind my dad's cabinet shop that no longer run. Most are FoMoCo products because gramps was a Ford salesman back in the day. I walked along and took pictures of some of the cars there and had a major ah-hah moment. At some point I realized that I have another child that I'd completely forgotten about. I am actually the owner of a 1959 Ford F100.

When I was in High School my buddy Jonnykat had a 1958 F100 that we were trying to fix. We didn't know much of anything in those days, but he knew a guy with a F100 he was willing to give away. We went and hauled the truck back to Jonny's place. When Jonnykat abandoned the project, he gave this parts truck to me. I hadn't thought about this truck being mine since I was about 16. I'd never realized how pretty it's patina is. Maybe I'll see if I can get it to fire up next time I'm in Utah.

My borhter's '49 Chev.

1964 (I think) Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe

This is Pa's High School truck. It's a 1960 F100 Custom cab with wraparound rear window.

Here's the car that started it all, my inspiration for buying Grace.

Fuel tank for no reason at all.

There are many other cars on Death Row, I only featured the ones that caught my eye this time.

Enough of my ramblings. The next post will be about Grace.

It had a sound that mowed the lawn

Coming to you from the Iron Hydroxide blogging office, it's your sorta-weekly installment arriving a day early!

This week was a crazy week at work. I attend three auto shows a year to write a report about the the new fuel economy technology released by the competition. It's interesting to be on the inside of the industry and see how it works and eat free food. I try to have a draft of the report sent to Japan as soon as possible, so that makes for some really long days.

Because I care about you, dear reader, I will now share some of the highlights of the show.

Chevy returns to the mid-size truck market with the Colorado.
Available with diesel in 2015.

BACON! LFA!

BMW i8 plug in hybrid sports car with inline 3 turbo engine.
Strange times we are living in... I like it though.

Subary Legacy Concept 

Mercedes design concept, released in Gran Turismo 6.

The Porsche Macan was a lot cooler than I expected.

340 HP in the base model, 400 HP in the "Turbo" model

Maserati display. Someone got creative with a batch of bad pistons.

Why would you want a parachute on the front of a front wheel drive
dragster? Oh wait...

"Maximum" Bob Lutz with some goofy looking dude.

I had to tell them I coudn't let them give me their phone numbers, it's not professional.

Yep, I met Bob Lutz. For those of you who don't know who he is, do youself a favor and read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lutz_(businessman) Bob was very gracious and asked me about my job and talked with me for a bit. He would have talked longer, I'm sure, but I did the Napoleon Dynamite style duck and run because I'm awkward like that.

Today I decided to finish the axle assembly and install. This involved torquing the mains, and filling the axle with fluid. I asked the internet and it said an Explorer 8.8 should hold about 3 quarts. Luckily, I had purchased 3 quarts.

Few things are as delicious as fresh gear oil early in the morning.

Limited slip differentials require a special additive.

Ready for installation

At this point I installed the axle assembly by hooking the suspension links up and bolting the coilover shocks on. After that I bolted the brake rotors and calipers on.

Today Grace finally stood on her own legs again. It's been a few months. It's pretty exciting, seeing this today pumped up my motivation.

I need to take the car a to collision repair shop to get the unibody pulled back into alignment. Grace appears to have been in an accident earlier in life that leaves the passenger side front corner sitting higher than the  driver side. Luckily I know a bearded man that may be able to help me. Maybe I'll make motor mounts in the meantime.