Who Says NMS Doesn't Know Jack?

Meet Jack.

Come on now, I bet you've told someone who was totally clueless that they "didn't know Jack." Well, just by chance, both NMS drivers were shopping for jacks on the same day at two different Harbor Freight stores! Figure the odds!

Meet Transmission Jack.

Down south, Brian needed a transmission jack to keep working on the Chevy Silverado tow truck, since he's smack in the middle of multiple projects on the truck. Up north, Bob was upgrading his little 2-ton jack to a 3-ton jack with long handle.  Nothing wrong with the two little jacks, well, other than on a recent job he noticed that a bolt that holds one of them together was missing in action. Key point here being that it was a great chance to snag a much better, longer handled, higher capacity jack. Oh, and Harbor Freight had a 40% off coupon that day! Shoot, even Formula 1 teams have to stay under the cost cap, just like us. Well, ok, their annual cost cap might be $150,000,000 or so, and ours is more like $150. 

Very little assembly required.

One thing you really don't want to be cheap on is safety, so that's why it's important to have reliable jacks, jack stands, and other safety gear. 

Project K Update

The NMS team held a brief press conference today, and formally announced their latest effort, Project K. No, it's nothing like Special K the cereal, or vitamin K, or the mineral Potassium (atomic symbol K) either. 

Director of NMS Future Projects Brian Nixon stated that the K in Project K stands for Kart, as in a Go-Kart. He went on to explain that the Bunch of Idiots (BOI) Racing Team has been accepted to compete in the Red Bull Non-Stock 600 kart race! Under further questioning, we learned that this is a real event sponsored by Red Bull Energy Drink, and that they engage with their customers around the world with all kinds of competitive events that range from building flying machines, to soap box derby, breaking, mountain biking, to you name it. Here's the link to the event: 

    Red Bull Non-Stock 600

This event will be held on November 9th, 2024, at The Music Factory in Charlotte, where the 20 teams selected to build karts will race in qualifying heats, and then the final race lasting 600 seconds around a gravel oval. All the teams will have the exact same engine and chassis. Nixon filled us in with the rest of the details: 

        "Each team receives identical fiberglass kart shells, and then can modify, decorate, paint, or design them in a creative theme in an effort to have the most inspiring or funny themed machine. Once the five weeks building phase is complete, each team brings their shell to Charlotte to attach it to the chassis, and then each team's entry is judged along with performing a short skit before the real racing begins."

According to Red Bull, the winning team of four members will win a trip to the 2026 Formula 1 race in Miami Florida. 

At this point the Bunch of Idiots team had to depart, promising to keep us updated on their progress with the actual build, and that they would give us the full details on the theme of this crazy project. 

    

Fundamentals of Electric Class Done!

Snap-On circuit board and DMM for training. 

This week finished the first of three consecutive electrical classes, and I really got a charge out of it! It's important to be positive, and not negative when learning about electricity. Yes, that might be shocking to some people, but if you're well-grounded, it's good stuff!

Magnets inside a starter. 
Windings and commutator on the right.

In addition to a lot of classroom time learning about the electrical and starting systems, we managed to take apart a starter AND put it back together! Usually, a bad starter is just replaced with a new one, but there just might be some cases where you could repair the old one. We learned a lot about different types of batteries, how to take care of them, how to diagnose them, and how to blow them up if you do something wrong! One funny part of this was the book answer that you should recharge a battery and not jump start it, so after stating that guidance, the book then explained step-by-step how to jump start a battery the right way! OK, makes sense! 

Got a Snap-On DMM? There’s an app for that!

An essential tool for diagnosing electrical systems is the digital multi-meter (DMM) and I can now announce that I am CERTIFIED in using a Snap-On DMM! Honest, I had to pass a grueling test of living off the wilderness in Siberia for ten days, armed with nothing but a cup of water and a DMM! Wait, that wasn't me! Our test was 35 multiple choice questions, and I passed it on the first try! I thought for sure I'd fail it, and then learn from that and pass on a retake (since you're allowed to test three times) but I just barely passed the first time! I was SHOCKED!

The NMS hybrid on the lift. 

One skill we started developing is using the reference material and learning to read the wiring diagrams for the entire car. Wow. You might have seen some diagrams or seen a video of someone working on a wiring harness for a car, and all I can say is that there are a LOT of little wires all over your car. It made me think that this kind of work is like in old WWII movies, or James Bond Goldfinger, when to defuse the bomb the hero has to cut the red wire...I mean the green wire...NO WAIT, cut the black wire, and save the world! Easy to make a mistake with stuff like that! 

So, what good is this info? Well, here's some cool car electricity trivia tidbits you might be able to toss out and sound like you know something!

1: Yes, you can blow up a car battery if you over-charge it or jump it the wrong way. 

2: Yes, a car battery can freeze. If this happens, don't fast charge it, or #1 will happen. 

3: With so much wiring in your car, there are circuits that power more than one thing, so this is why (for example) your buddies in the garage might play a joke on you and wire your horn to blow whenever you hit the brakes!

4:  If the wrong weight motor oil is used, an engine may crank very slowly or may not start in cold weather. That’s what the textbook says anyway.

5: Poor or incomplete diagnosis accounts for the fact that nearly 80 percent of starters returned as defective on warranty claims work perfectly when tested. Stuff like this happens if you don’t really understand automotive electric systems. 

TOP SECRET: PROJECT "K"

Could this be Project K?

An anonymous source, deep within the NMS team, has revealed the existence of what is being called "Project K." Little is known about this project, nor the exact significance of the use of the letter "K." Given what we know about the NMS team in general, (also known as the Bunch of Idiots) we have to assume that these people don't even know how to spell. This opens up the possibility that this secret project actually involves a word starting with the letter "C." Our leading theory at this time is that it has something to do with what scientists call a "Car," which 9 out of 10 dentists recommend starts with the letter "C" and not the letter "K." Actually a "CAR" doesn't start with a "C" because it starts with the starter motor getting the crank going until the combustion cycle fires up! Hey, this reminds me of one of my favorite trivia questions:

    Q: What do you call the person that graduates last in their Medical School class?

    A: "Doctor"

I'm not seeing any letter "K" clues here...

While we're still very early in the development of this story, one other totally believable working theory is that the NMS team has already failed at multiple Projects A through J. That leads this reporter to the hypothesis that whatever Project "K" might be, it is sure to be another failure. 

Does it stand for Kryptonite Krank Arms and Pistons?

We've speculated in the past that one of the NMS team drivers might advance to Formula 1, but we currently don't know of anything related to that racing series that uses the letter K. This new project then might be related to other automotive endeavors using the letter K, such as an Evil Knievel style motorcycle jump. With no other sources or background at this time, let's go with that as an option. If you don't know about Evil Knievel, check it out. 

Could it be braKe rotors or a K member?

Our only other clue about Project K is that one of the secretly leaked early milestones is coming up on September 22nd, so maybe there will be more to report in the near future. For now, we're keeping our eye on automotive news in the Carolinas that might give us more information on Project K. 

Spec Z Car Update: Dry Ice, Hummingbird, Etc.

Brian mixes up the TOP SECRET X-30!
Chevy AVEO not included, your mileage may vary. 

NMS-South has been making progress on the Spec Z (Nissan 350Z) build for next year, so here's a few tidbits of recent activity. Our immediate goal is to have the car on track at Watkins Glen in October, with both of us taking turns driving. This car is attracting so much attention, one day we had a hummingbird fly into the garage to check it out. Real work wise, Brian completed a clutch bleed with yours truly serving as the pedal pumper, which of course is the highly skilled part of this job! 

After that, we made a custom seat insert for the shorter one of us, because apparently Brian is so tall that I can't reach the pedals from where his driver seat is mounted. This was a fun science experiment as much as anything else, because we got some Tap X-30 expanding foam. You just mix the two fluids together and put it in a big garbage bag. Once the reaction starts and it is expanding a bit, you can place the bag in the seat, sit on it, and the material will form exactly to the seat and your body. We did a bottom section and a lower back section, and then got some twin bed mattress foam to put behind my back. If you watch the IMSA and Le Mans drivers, you'll see some of them carrying their own little custom seat cushion like this when they change drivers. You really want the seat permanently mounted, so having a little booster seat for the short drivers is the way to go!

The X-30 stuff comes in different sizes and is used in boats because it floats! Here's the link: 

    TAP PLASTICS X-30

Then, the crew chief wanted to remove some more of the sound-deadening material from the trunk floor, so using the 3 part process, we 

        

    PART 1) Bought some dry ice

Here's some other ideas for fun with dry ice!

    PART 2) Put the dry ice on the trunk floor to freeze the black material and make it brittle. 

The darker area is what we will scrape off.

    PART 3) Used a hammer and a scraper to remove the material. 

OK, let's go to the SCRAPER CAM!

AFTER: A lot of the material has been removed. 
According to Einstein, or was it Graham Chapman? A Lighter Car = Faster Car!

The next step on this area is to wire-wheel off the tiny bits left, then spray paint the floor to make it look better. Total weight removed on this job was maybe half a pound, so that's easily worth probably a second a lap! And if you believe that one, stay tuned, we're just getting warmed up!

Auto Parts Store to the Rescue!

This Bud's for you, Mister Auto Parts Store Guy!
Brake piston tool kit in orange case.

Recently I was assisting a friend do some work on his car, and sure enough, we got stuck. Not stuck in the car, or stuck with super-glue, but stuck doing the work because we didn't have the right tool. In this case, we couldn't get a rear wheel brake piston to retract so that we could put the caliper back on. So, we headed over to our local auto parts store to rent a tool. 

This is the main point here, that when YOU get stuck, you can drop by and rent/borrow a tool from the auto parts folks! Sure, we had to put down a credit card deposit equal to the value of the tool, but once we finished using it and returned it, BAM! Instant refund, with no charge, no muss, and no fuss. Along with rentals and selling you stuff, you can always count on your local store pros to provide a free trouble code reading, and to help with simple stuff like replacing your windshield wipers or the car battery when you're stuck. Like the time my battery died in Milwaukee, and once I bought a new battery at a store they loaned me a wrench for free and we got on the road in no time. Some of them also recycle motor oil, just ask!

To tell the truth I was kind of focusing on the other part of the story, that it was irritating that I couldn't do this repair easily, so maybe just not having the right tool makes me feel a little bit better, but not much. Dang there's a lot of stuff to know about working on cars, much less all the different manufacturers that have different ways of doing things!

One other thing I've learned to appreciate about auto parts stores, is that for their industry customers (like dealerships, independent repair shops, and even our school shop) they do a great job of having what you need in stock AND delivering it to you quickly. 

On the other hand, it's always fun to get a new tool, even if you just rent it!

NMS to Return to NASCAR!

Yes, you read that right! Next month we're going back to NASCAR, this time at the Charlotte ROVAL 400 in October as part of the PLAYOFFS!!

Well, uh, no, we're not driving the event. 

Joe Gibbs Racing

And also no, we're not buying the Stewart-Haas Team either. 

We'll be sitting in the stands and enjoying race day thanks to tickets from the VET TIX organization. They make really cheap tickets available to veterans, and we'd like to thank them for the many concerts and sporting event tickets that they offer. We should be able to see most of the track from our seats up pretty high. Since we've both driven the ROVAL, it should be fun to watch how the professionals get 'er done too!

Automotive Electrical Class

Starting with the basics, building a circuit, and reading a Digital Multi Meter.

This semester I'm in a whole heap of electrical classes (three classes in a row, as long as you pass the first one!) and thank goodness we're starting with the basics! We're studying wiring diagrams, three kinds of circuits, using Ohm's and Kirchoff's and Watt's laws, and even doing math! On top of all that, we're practicing with our digital multi-meters, and before too long we'll be using some soldering irons. Dang, maybe one day we'll apply all this knowledge to some cars too! 

As a bonus we had a visit from our friendly Matco Tools guy, so it's nice that they give us poor students a discount. 

DOUBLE BONUS! We also were visited by our friendly Snap-On Tools guy! They also offer a great discount on their tools to students. OK, yeah, even WITH the discounts these are expensive tools, but it's there if we need it. Or can afford it. Or want top line tools that will last.