Local Motors at SEMA 2009

Local Motors is a new car company started in Massachusetts.  Basically they have a forum full of wanna-be designers who submit designs and the forum votes on what they like.  Then the winner is what gets built.  They eventually want to have micro production facilities in every region building a design for that region.  Currently they have the one in Mass. and they are opening one in Phoenix some time next year.

The first design to make it to production is what they call Rally Fighter.  The designer supposedly got inspiration from the P-51 Mustang airplanes of WWII.  I love the plane, and I love the Rally Fighter.  But I really see no resemblance between the two.

Rally fighter weighs in around 3100 lbs.  It has a BMW diesel engine (same one as the BMW 25 of Thunderhill cars I worked on) with 265 HP, and 425 lb-ft of torque.  It has 18″ of travel all around and the engine sits very far back in the tube frame chassis.  It looks like it could be an amazing car that would be a ton of fun off road.  And it gets 30-36 mpg.

Local Motors Rally Fighter

Local Motors Rally Fighter front suspension

Local Motors Rally Fighter Watts link rear suspension

Local Motors Rally Fighter interior

Front side

Pfadt Race Engineering at SEMA 2009

Let me start this series of SEMA posts by saying I HATE MY CAMERA!  But budget does not permit me to upgrade to DSLR just yet.  But man, all the pictures I took at SEMA look like I had smudges on the lens and like a dog crapped on my sensor.

Well, this year SEMA was pretty lame.  Not many new products.  Not much effort put into the cars for the show.  Of course there were exceptions.  But overall, SEMA 2009 was lame.  I will be making a few posts covering some of the stuff at SEMA.  But of course, even being lame, SEMA was absolutely HUGE.  I even hit the APEX show this year.  It’s basically the budget version of SEMA that your SEMA pass gets you into.

For SEMA 2009 post #1, I will cover Pfadt Race Engineering.  They are a local company, and everyone over there I have ever dealt with was great to talk to.  Aaron Pfadt is the owner.  IIRC, he used to be an engineer at GM a while ago.  That explains his focus on GM vehicles.  He started by making Corvette parts.  Now they are making some Camaro parts as well.

I actually had them OEM a part for me at COBB Tuning.  That is how I first heard of them.  Turns out one of the guys that was just starting to get into local autocrossing when I was just getting out of it is designing parts for them.  And I am sure Aaron still plays a part in design as well.

Well, here is what they had at SEMA:

Carbon fiber suspension arms for the 2010 Camaro by Pfadt

Spherical bearing replacements for suspension bushings. Very clean and classy.

Pfadt camber plates for the 2010 Camaro. Nothing too special, but I am sure a much needed item.

Pfadt filament wound carbon fiber driveshaft. They have had this a while. I believe it is for the C6 Corvette.

Anti roll bars for the Camaro and Corvettes. Again, an old item, but a nice one still.

Pfadt billet engine mounts for the 2010 Camaro. Billet transmission mounts for the C5 and C6 Vettes

Those suspension arms I think were my favorite.  While some adjustment would be nice, I understand on a piece of that size you would save almost no weight by the time you added an adjustment mechanism.  And of course you would also sacrifice strength.  The Pfadt arms were VERY light.  They didn’t have test data available yet for compression, tensile, and bending moment.  But I am sure that data is not far off.

Now they just need some nice endlinks for their bars like I made for COBB that have still not been released.  But trust me, they are SEXY

HKS carbon fiber time attack Altezza (Lexus IS)

Here are some pictures I took at the 2000 SEMA show. On a side note, I will be hitting up SEMA again this year so I should have some pictures for you from that event. The subject of these pictures: The infamous HKS Altezza time attack car with full carbon fiber wide body on it.  Info on this car is a little tough to come by.  Superstreet did an article about it.  As with most of their articles, they have some pretty good studio photo shots and just enough data to whet the whistle, but not enough to full inform people about the subject.  You can read the article here

Carbon fiber HKS Altezza Time Attack car at SEMA 2008

Here is a rundown of the important facts covered by the article:

1. Code Name: Track Attack
2. Tires: Advan (no idea what model or size)
3. Time driven: 1 in which it broke the Tsukuba record by 2 seconds, but the article does not list a time.
4. Build cost: $300,000 (actually less than I would have expected)
5. Chassis: full tube frame (although in my pictures and theirs I swear I see some unibody elements)
6. Weight distribution: 50/50 achieved by moving the engine rearward (much easier in an FR car than an AWD car)
7. Engine: 3S-GE with full internal beef-up and HKS GT3037S turbo (3S-GE is high on my list of all time great engines)
8. Boost: 24.22 psi
9. power: 600 HP @ 8,000 RPM, 450 lb-ft @ 6,500 RPM
10. Suspension: push-rod with custom internally mounted shocks
11. Seats: Bride
12. Transmission: XTrac 6-speed sequential, 4.375 final drive
13. Weight: “around 2,000 lbs” (I sure would like a real number here)

I have tried to find track times for this monster.  I found one source that claimed it’s record setting time was a 55.8 on Tsukuba.  In 2008, the Top Fuel S2000 set the FR record at 55.3. The overall record right now is 53.589 set by HKS in their EVO.  So even if the Altezza hadn’t been disqualified for having too little/no unibody, it’s record has still fallen.  But if it truly was only driven one time, I am sure they could have dialed a couple seconds out of it’s time.  And if that were the case, it may still be the overall record holder.  But we will likely never know the full potential of this machine.  Either way, it’s a beautiful piece of engineering and a prime example of hairy chested machismo.

Carbon Altezza and Matt blocking my shot

Front suspension

Rear suspension (Sorry for the glare)

As promised. Here are some pictures.

As promised, here are some pictures I took of the propane turbo snowmobile in development.  This is the Arctic Cat that I believe he developed it on before going to the Yamaha.  I honestly have no details on this kit.  If people want details I can call him up and ask.  But I don’t think they even went to production with this version.  As far as I know they only produced the Yamaha version.  Again, I think these are being sold as Simmons Propane turbo kits.  Not sure what happened to the HP^3 concept.

Propane tank for the tubo kit

Expansion chamber and pressure pipe going into propane mixer. You can also see the propane coverter here.

The turbo

Seat and tank cover on. Tough to tell it has propane tanks.

So as you can see.  This one is a propane turbo kit for a 2-stroke engine.  The 4-stroke version of course is basically the same.  You just don’t have the expansion chamber.  And tuning is probably a bit less finicky on the 4-stroke.  Although my dad never complained about tuning on the 2-stroke.  But he wouldn’t.  He would just get it done and make it look easy.  He’s pretty damn good at that kind of thing.

BTW, here is some more shots of him out on the snow.  I am pretty sure I stole these off his computer.  No idea where they were taken or by whom.  Also, these look like they are the Yamaha Apex, not the Arctic Cat.

Dad warming up with propane power.

Could have been a cool shot if the flash was toned down.

Just post a comment if you want more information or better pictures.  I could probably figure something out.

Had to post this video

So I was cruising around on youtube and who should be yapping at me?  My dad. hehehe

This is a video of the Simmons propane turbo kit.  My dad is the one that developed this kit.  IIRC, my dad (Steve Benson), Val Simmons, and Brad Story got together an formed a company called HP^3.  Dad was the idea guy,Val was the distributor, and Brad was the publicity guy.  Now keep in mind I of course was not involved at all and may have it a little wrong.  Plus it was a couple years ago.

So dad made the turbo and propane kits.  I believe Brad had someone he knows make the propane tanks that fit under a custom seat.  I’m not sure what Val did on these.  Maybe he made the clutch weights or ported the engines or something.  The turbos my dad used on these are a Tommy Makinen edition Mitsubishi Evolution turbo.  I will see if I can dig up some old pictures I took of this kit when it was first being developed.

Well here is the video.  Hopefully I can find some pictures for you also:

Video #2

Next up is some really cool super slow motion impacts shots of a bunch of different kinds of projectiles, even pellets.  The watermark gets annoying at times.  But still a cool video.

A couple cool videos, video #1

This is a funny ad for home defense done right.

Milestone

Well today this little blog reached 10,000 hits.  I know 10,000 isn’t much, but it’s a lot more than I ever expected to see.  Thank you to everyone that frequents my little corner of the web.

New trigger for the Gamo

One of the biggest complaints everyone has with their Gamo air rifles is the trigger.  It’s stiff, sloppy on the first stage, and the second stage seems inconsistent.  I noticed I would pull a lot of shot because the trigger throw was so long and stiff.

Well Charlie Da Tuna has a solution.  It’s the GRT-III trigger.  It fits pretty much every Gamo and many other air guns.

Stock trigger compared to the GRT-III Charliedatuna trigger

I ordered it online and paid with paypal Thursday morning.  It was in my mailbox Saturday afternoon.  And I believe it came from SC.  That’s about as far from here as you can get.  I was impressed with our postal system that day.

The trigger came with a small piece of paper with a web address on it to go get the instructions.  I printed out all 5 pages of instructions.  I read through it and the task at first seemed a bit more involved than I was expecting. Well, once I turned the first screw, it took me about 5 minutes to finish the job.  Turns out many of the warnings, and advisory notices in the instructions didn’t apply on my Gamo Whisper VH.

Trigger Installed

The trigger eliminates the factory adjustment screw and replaces it with 2 of it’s own adjustment screws.  One for the trigger play, and one for adjusting creep.  I haven’t played with the creep adjustment yet.  But I was easily able to dial out any play with the first screw.  Trigger pull weight seems greatly reduced.  Most likely because you throw out the factory secondary spring and only use the spring on the main lever in the action.  The transition from stage 1 to stage 2 is a bit tougher to distinguish.  But the travel is more consistent.  And even though it still has a lot of travel (still not adjusted like I said) the pull is so soft and consistent, I don’t end up pulling any shots.  For $32 shipped, it was not a bad deal.  If pulling out your trigger seems a bit scary, don’t worry.  The hardest part was just pushing a C-clip off of a pin.  If you can do that, you can install this trigger.

Lee Breechlock Challenger Press Kit Review

Lee Breechlock reloading kit

So I finally got fed up with ammo prices and ran out of the ammo I reloaded at my cousin’s house.  So I decided to pick up a kit.  I wanted a kit since they come with almost all the equipment you need and you usually get a bit of a discount for it.  Also, they don’t really come with much equipment you don’t need.  So you don’t feel your money is wasted.

I was considering the RCBS Rock Chucker supreme master kit as well as the Lee Breechlock Challenger kit.  The lee kit came in at just barely over $100.  The RCBS was just a little over $300.  I have used RCBS stuff in the past, but never Lee.  So I hit the web and found a bunch of reviews of the Lee.  They all had nothing bad to say.  So why write a review for something I know there is an abundance of reviews for out there already?  Basically because there is a few issues I have with this kit.  They are minor and to be expected for the price.  However, they are big enough that I think if I knew about them before hand I would have ponied up and bought the RCBS kit.

Breechlock Challenger kit box contents

This is the sight that greets you when you open the box containing the kit.  A little assembly required.  No big deal.  Everything was packaged fine and arrived without any sort of drama at all.  I ordered a Lee 3-piece die set and a RCBS Case Loading block at the same time.  Also ordered at the same time but picked up later was the Hodgden Varget powder, Hornady V-Max 40gr moly coated bullets, and primers.  I went with Remington primers this time since that’s all they had in stock for Large Rifle primers.

RCBS Loading block and Lee 3-piece die set

Now as I mentioned before, the issues I have with this kit are pretty minor.  And I expected some issues to come with the price tag.  But I was planning on loading maybe 300-500 rounds per year is all.  Not 500 a month like many people.  So I figured even if it wasn’t great quality it would survive the job I would put it through.  Let’s run down the parts list, which for the price is pretty extensive:

1. Lee Breechlock Challenger Press: Not as smooth as the RCBS Rock Chucker.  But looks and feels pretty sturdy.  Uses Lee’s quick change bushing which are a great idea and so far work great.  You just set your die into one of the 3 included bushing, and pop it down into the interrupted thread on the press and turn it about 60 degree and it locks in place.  No need to reset dies in the bushing, just change out the bushing and die set as a whole.  The amount of drag on the main shaft is a bit worrisome.  I even lubed it with teflon and still after resizing 150 rounds and putting bullets into 30 there is scrape marks down the shaft.  It also has some primer install tools for putting primer in on the press instead of the hand primer.  They seem to work smoothly.  But they are a bit pointless without the auto feeder for the primers.  My only complaint about that is that the used primer catch only works if you have the primer tool in, but with the primer tool in, you can’t lower the shaft all the way down or the shell is stuck in the holder.
   

   Lee Breechlock Challenger Press

2. Lee Perfect Powder Measure: Typical rotary powder measure.  You adjust the cylinder on one side of the rotary housing and rotate it up to fill with powder.  Rotate it down to dump the powder.  It has graduation marks to make it easier to adjust.  Works fairly well.  But when brand new is a bit stiff.  But it didn’t take long to loosen up.  This actually worries me because it is just a plastic cylinder inside a plastic housing so if it get any more loose than it is now, it will be too sloppy and possibly to the point of falling apart.  This hasn’t happened yet, but it would not chock me if it does.  Also included is a funnel for the powder.  It is a nice hard smooth plastic and works great.
   

   Lee Perfect Powder Measure

3. Lee Safety Scale: Another mostly plastic construction part.  The base is cast aluminum and feels plenty sturdy.  The zero indicator if a bit strange being cut on an arc though.  It’s supposedly magnetically dampened.  I don’t see it.  The arm with the weight adjustment on it is all plastic with a steel ball on it that rolls into different pockets for the weight differences.  It seems much less precise than other sliding balance systems I have seen.  Also the way you adjust for increments less than 10 grains is stupid.  It has a plastic slider with 3 white indicators that you try to line up the middle line with the 1/10 grain increment you want.  Problem is, it is very hard to move it a small amount and the 1/10 indicators don’t work well at zero.  Also the pivot for the arm is a pointed plastic “V” that may become dull over time reducing accuracy.
   

   Lee Safety Scale

4. Lee Auto Prime System: This is their hand primer.  It comes with feeding trays for both large and small primers.  The trays are plastic and the handle is cast aluminum.  The handle position kind of sucks for leverage, but it is no worse than any others I have used.  And it makes sense for manufacturing.  The only thing I would like to see changed is maybe just a little stiffer return spring in it.  It comes with a full set of shell holders that cover pretty much anything out there that this kit would work with anyway.
   

   Lee Auto-Prime

5. Case Trimmer, Chamfer Tool, Primer pocket cleaning tool: The trimmer I did not use since all my cases measured just fine.  It is a very simple piece, but since I didn’t use it, I will not comment further.  Chamfer tool is a hand chamfering tool.  The I.D. side works fin, but the O.D. side didn’t seem to work well.  Again, it’s just a very simple piece that I really didn’t need anyway.  Primer pocket tool is a little round hardened steel piece with knurling in the middle.  The scraper for the pocket is just a slightly tapered flat bar that is maybe 1/32″ thick.  It takes quite a bit of effort to clean the pockets even on brass that has only been fired once and never reloaded before.  The knurling messes up your fingers due to the effort required.  Again, something simple that you probably don’t really need anyway, and I don’t really know how you could make it better other than making it sharper and/or mounting it in a drill.

OK, that covers the parts.  So to summarize, the powder measure while it seems fine for now got loose pretty fast and won’t surprise me if it fails to work well after maybe 1,000 rounds of use.  The scale works, but is fairly cheapish.  The Press has a great feature in the quick change bushings, the primer catcher works well, but only with the inconvenience of the primer insertion tool, and the main shaft has some drag on it during use.

Overall, it’s an OK product at a great price.  So if you are like me and plan to only do a few hundred rounds a year and have a tight budget.  Then this is not a bad choice.  However, if you plan to do a lot of reloading you probably won’t be happy saving a couple hundred bucks up front because 6 months down the road you will likely be buying all new equipment.  That being said, Lee must be given props for providing such a complete package at such a great price.  I really can’t even see how they have it made for as little as it costs.