June Autocross Report

I'm not sure if the Michelin Man is related to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the M&Ms, or Casper the Friendly Ghost. You never see them all together, that's for sure!

On June 8th NMS-North returned to autocross action at our favorite South Carolina location, the Michelin Proving Grounds. Mostly I just like mentioning 14 ACRES OF TOTALLY FLAT GREAT CONDITION A1 PRIME TOP RANKED ASPHALT! 

NMS #4 at Michelin. Plenty of pavement for autocross. Wait a minute, here comes the rain!

With 42 drivers entered and a mix of Porsches and non-Porsches, the weather man said that it would be on the warm side and with a chance of rain! See, the good thing about driving events in South Carolina is that you KNOW it will be hot. Compared to driving in Iraq, I can imagine it's even HOTTER and NO CHANCE OF RAIN most of the year. At least that was my experience in over a year in Iraq, but then again I wasn't there to drive cars! As it turned out, it rained when we were going to start, but it didn't last too long, we delayed the start a bit, and then we started our 10 runs for the day. 

A big thumbs up for hitting cones today!

The day followed the normal pattern, two driving sessions, and two work sessions during the day. Typically the Porsche Club manages 5 runs in the mornings, and then a lunch break and 5 more runs in the afternoon. This format works pretty well, and keeps you either driving or working during every session all day. Some other clubs with a lot more competitors may run just 4 sessions all day, where you only drive once and then work once, with two more sessions where you don't have to do anything. For what it's worth, that's one way to do it, but the last event like that I did had me drive in the 2nd session and work the 4th session, which seemed weird since I was there all day and had a lot of down time. Oh well, I've seen a lot of ways to run events, and since I'm not in charge, who am I to complain!

Here's the run group with almost all Porsches. Row 1. 
3rd car back is a Honda Civic R. 

Porsches Row 2 in grid. Order is just random, go line up somewhere!

Instead of talking about my fastest driving, let's take a look at my SLOWEST run! This is a great example of what NOT to do, because in at least 3 spots of this video I approached a corner too fast. In the first one I braked too late and sailed past an apex, and kept going. The 2nd one is about 24 seconds in, and I brake too late and go into a cone (which adds a time penalty, so this run already won't be any good.) Then at the end of a long slalom, about 37 seconds into the video, I try to super-hero my way out of the slalom without slowing, and sure enough the car spins to the left and I slide into I don't know how many cones. After stopping (tick, tick, tick the clock keeps going) I cut out a part of the course and finished the run for practice. 

TOO FAST VIDEO!

That run was a Did Not Finish, so no time given. That's a good thing, because just the cone penalties would have made it very slow. Add on the stopping time, and it was maybe the slowest "run" of the day out of all the drivers. Oh well, let's chalk that one run down to experience gained that didn't cost much!

NMS #4 heads off row 3. 

I finished all my other runs, hit another cone or two, probably won my class, but we're still waiting on official results. I had fun and will go back and do it again! Thanks for reading! 

Porsches Row 4. 

Road Trip!

A road trip is all about what you do when you get there!

Like eating BBQ at Rays in Grayling Michigan!

School is out, I'm still retired, so we hit the road!

We drove a lot of miles from home in South Carolina to visit relatives in Michigan, then down to Cincinnati for a family graduation (and some Reds baseball!), and then back home. All in all, we had no car issues, and the 2023 Honda Accord Hybrid cranked out the miles and still got over 40mpg over hill and dale!

Along the way we drove over this cool covered bridge in Ohio. 

Sure, we had to buy gas. $3.99 in Michigan for regular. 

Trip wise, we enjoyed seeing lots of family, enjoyed some great food (yes, Skyline Chili on two occasions) and had fun seeing plenty of countryside. Oh, the baseball game included the Reds winning over the Guardians in the Battle for Ohio. One of my theories that no matter how many ball games you've seen, you generally see something new at each one. In this case, we saw two different runners get picked off of 2nd base, one for each team. This might be one of the rarest plays in baseball, I really don't know for sure, but to have it happen twice was crazy. Base running mistakes like this seem pretty dang embarrassing for professionals, but I guess it happens. 

Along the way we visited two different Buc-ee's stores, so that was crazy too. Nothing like 120 gas pumps and a ridiculous number of snacks and etc. in the store. We probably don't need to go back anytime soon. 

Pictures or it didn't happen. I think this is the one east of Knoxville on I-40. Earlier the same day we visited a Buc-ee's in Kentucky on I-77. 

Without boring you to death with the actual driving details, let's just say that there's still a lot of drivers out there that get a grade of "Needs Improvement" from me. Here's a few tips: 

Julie and I with our nephew Joel Nixon. 2LT Nixon is the one in the middle. 

1: OK, cool, you have a newer car with Daytime Running Lights. Yippee for you! Did you know that a lot of these systems ONLY run the front headlights? What I'm getting at is that as you're driving around with your DRL's on, if it's getting dark, or if it's night, or if you go into a tunnel like in West Virginia or North Carolina, or if it's raining cats and dogs, I CAN'T SEE YOU FROM BEHIND BECAUSE YOUR TAILLIGHTS ARE NOT ON! Please turn your lights on. 

Reds baseball behind 1st base. The Reds defeated the Guardians. 

2: Didja know that your car has turn signals? Didja know that you could use them to indicate a FUTURE lane change?  Based on my analysis of this issue, using your turn signals will COMMUNICATE to other drivers what you're about to do, and makes us all safer! Use your turn signals every time. 

Here we're entering the fun part of I-40 between Knoxville and Asheville NC. This was our first time since the hurricane last fall sent chunks of the Interstate into the Pigeon river and closed the road for months. Currently this stretch of I-40 is open, with one lane in each direction. It's a huge reconstruction job going on that will last a while. 

3: From my ancient driver's education training in high school (and yeah that was a LONG time ago, in the last century!) you should LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER GUY! This lesson comes to mind thanks to a clueless SUV driver on the Interstate that jumped into my lane really close in front of me just in time for them to BRAKE HARD to avoid hitting the huge semi truck directly in front of me. I'm not sure what this person was doing, but it appeared that my existence and the existence of the 18-wheeler was unknown to them. Look out for the other guy. 

When in Asheville NC, we recommend the Sierra Nevada brewing company taproom. Great food, and as you might imagine, all their beers are nice, but don't drink and drive. 

I'd like to think that someday everyone will be a good driver on the road, so let's just shoot for these top 3 tips. Have a great day, let's be careful out there, and LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER GUY!

Nissan 350Z Racecar Update

Brembo brake caliper from the 350Z, ready to rebuild. 

Recently the NMS 350Z (the real race car one, not the one that was just sold, or the other one in the driveway at NMS-South, let's keep this organized!) headed up to Virginia International Raceway for Gridlife. Following a lot of work to prepare for going on track, things were going GREAT! I mean REALLY GREAT...right up to the point of finding some problems and having things not going so great! We have to report that there was a problem with an oil temperature sensor that resulted in a leak that made the car undriveable. While that was unfortunate, Brian was still able to hang out and see a lot of cool drifting, cars, and get on track as an instructor with several students. 

(The photos today will show some later work we started on rebuilding the Brembo brakes, so that's kind of a 2nd blog post inside the written blog post. Hey, you're getting 2 for 1 today! At the same price!)

As you might guess, these brakes are what master mechanics call "used."

His students included a first time track driver in a Honda Civic R, and a 13 year old driver in a Miata! If anyone is worried about the future of motorsports, I'd say this is a great example of new people coming into the sport, even if it's just for 20 minutes on a real track with an instructor. This also answers the question, "Do I need a driver's license to drive on a closed race track?" Even for Max Verstappen in Formula 1, the answer was "no" since he was racing at that level before he got is official road license in the Netherlands. 

Here's the two front brake calipers, also "used." These are much larger, and each has two pistons. 

Brian reports that VIR remains an awesome track, and believe it or not I recently read something from Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear, Clarkson's Farm, The Grand Tour, etc) that listed VIR as one of his favorite tracks. That's not bad coming from a guy that's probably driven just about every kind of car on just about every kind of road and track on the planet. 

The two pins hold the pads in place, and each pin has its own cotter pin. 

Anyway... on a related note...  in other news... and now for something completely different... as scientists say...

Just to really get into this brake job of replacing the seals, we even took apart each caliper. 
Here's one half, you can see the round plastic housing where the pistons live. 

Over in Alabama they've got a track called Barber Motorsports Park, and NMS will be there in July for some track driving. NMS-South lists it as a great place to visit and drive, and since NMS-North has never been there, LET'S GO! You can read all about it at their homepage: BARBER MOTORSPORTS PARK AND MUSEUM

Here are the pistons from the rear brakes. We removed the outer and inner seals on these, and then have to put the new ones on. Once you're taken it apart this far, the seals are easy.  

Besides the track, Barber is the home to maybe the largest motorcycle museum in the country, so we're booking a little extra time there to check out the museum too. Oh, and the Indy Car drivers race there too, so it's a nice track. The Guinness Book of World Records lists their museum as THE LARGEST MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM IN THE WORLD! Shoot, I bet it's the biggest one in the SOLAR SYSTEM TOO! That tiny motorcycle museum on Mars is not worth the visit!

This piston has a new seal on. We learned that the front and rear calipers used three different sizes of inner seals on this set of Brembo brakes. Don't be confused; Brembo is the automotive brake company, and Bimbo is the snack food company!

End of the School Year!

Our shop at school has plenty of lifts, tools, space, etc. 

Mr. Alice Cooper has a little ditty called Schools Out For Summer, and that's our theme song for today! In the Automotive Diagnosis class, we wrapped things up, took a last chapter test, cleaned our tool boxes, and finished working on some cars and trucks. I don't have any classes this summer, so I'll be back in August with my final three automotive classes: manual transmissions, fuel systems, and suspension/alignment. Grades? Yeah, we get grades. Put me down for an A on this one!

The Automotive program only does Air Conditioning and Brake classes in the summer, and I completed those last year. If you're near Rock Hill and need AC or brakes, I know a guy that can help you out. 

BMW Z3

It took a LOT of transmission fluid to fill the 93 Ford F350. Our manual said the total capacity was 15 quarts.  

Overhead engine cradle in action. 

One fun part of the last day is that we also got some Chick-fil-A for the class, provided by the grateful owner of the F350 that my group worked on. His transmission is now working smoothly, all gears are solid, the electrical wires are tight, and life is good after only 380,000 miles! The people that allow us to work on their cars only pay for parts, and they really don't owe us anything, so this was very generous of the truck owner. Sure, he probably got his money's worth out of the transmission job, and we got to learn a lot about the Ford automatic transmission in a 93 Super Duty. 

Our instructor Rob working with students. 

After the transmission work, we did a little work to straighten the steering wheel on the alignment rack. 

I believe this is titled "Student buys $200 VW Beetle, and gets it running!"

Chevy Tahoe transmission parts. And some of the exhaust that was in the way. 
On the left, the transmission pan is sitting on the transmission housing, and of course you noticed that this does NOT have a fluid drain plug. On the right, the green round thing is a torque converter. Apparently this replacement converter was bad, so it was replaced, and then all this stuff went back on the truck. 

More transmission work on a valve body. In this one, the orange plastic is a one piece solenoid pack. Makes replacing them all easy, but if only one of the solenoids was bad, I guess you're buying them all. 

Getting in "gear." OK, I'm not a comedian. 

Just for fun, since I recently posted about the new tool boxes at home, here's a quick look at our tool boxes at school. Each team of students uses one of these Harbor Freight 5 drawer cars, with a Gear Wrench set of tools. York Technical College got these carts and tools in January 2024, and they are holding up well. Besides the drawers, there is some storage on the bottom shelf, so we put parts and bolts taken off down there to get them out of the way. 

Here is the Orange Team's box. We also have blue, red, green, and black carts in this shop. In another building on campus, there are two other shops, and they all have similar boxes and tools. The school has a list of tools you should buy, but that's not required. We're also allowed to use our own tools at school. 

My blue team put the 1/4 inch drive stuff on the top shelf. The black case has other Allen wrench sockets, Torx, etc. 

In the two smaller drawers we put wrenches and pliers. The cheap set of four picks weren't in the set, so I bought this awesome $2 set at Harbor Freight to use at school. They came in handy with removing O rings and seals on transmissions. 

Next drawer down we put the next larger 3/8 socket set and our two hammers. Remember, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

Bottom drawer with the largest sockets we have, the 1/2 inch drive, and a screwdriver set. This socket set included some standard wrenches too. 

NMS Does Tool Boxes

Brian hard at work behind the local Harbor Freight!

So, ya wanna work on cars? You're gonna need some tools!

So, ya got some tools? You're gonna need somewhere to put 'em!

Without a race car in the trailer, there's plenty of room for more tool boxes!

Here at NMS-North we take our tools seriously, or at least as seriously as you can if you work on your own cars and don't earn your living in a garage. Anyway, many years ago we started with some good old basic tool storage from the Kobalt brand you can find at Lowe's. With a top and bottom rolling box, we had a pretty nice set up for the average Joe. or Bob. Throw in a Kobalt work bench and things have been great as we continued to gain experience, gather more tools, and hopefully not mess up too many car repairs.

The 56 inch box comes packed on a pallet, and comes with the wheels attached, as well as its own little ramp!

However, inspired by the continuing purchase of more tools, and attending auto technician school (thank you Post 9/11 GI Bill, South Carolina scholarships, and the SC Senior Citizen discount!) the time has come for an upgrade. OK, this was also inspired by the 27 inch rolling cart having it's rubber wheels disintegrate due to old age too! After also getting a super cool Snap-On top box last year (thanks to their student discount!) we upgraded to two shiny brand new RED Harbor Freight US General rolling tool boxes. 

Tool boxes in search of new home!

The new arsenal of tool storage includes a big ol' 56 inch rolling cabinet, plus a 27 inch roller that the Snap-On top box will fit on, thank you very much. My math skills determined that going from 27 inches wide by 19 inches deep drawers, up to 56 inch wide and 22 inch deep drawers should add a  boat load of storage space. Now, if that results in empty drawers that need to be filled up with new tools, so be it!

Out with the old.

Thanks to NMS-South (Brian Nixon) for providing the truck and trailer to haul these boxes up to NMS-North last weekend. Since we opened the boxes at the store in Columbia, we're happy to report that they were 100% undamaged too. As a bonus, the Harbor Freight folks will use their fork lift to help load your large purchases, although due to liability issues they were not allowed to drive ON to the trailer and make our job even easier. Still, we managed to unbox and roll the big box into the trailer, since it came with the wheels attached. 

The smaller 27 inch box did NOT have the wheels attached, so we just shoved that carboard boxed tool box into trailer and put the wheels on at our destination. Above, it's new home with the 26 inch Snap On box on top. 

If you're wondering, yes, they make an even larger 72 inch rolling tool box, but considering it costs basically twice the price of the 56 inch one, I think we got more bang for the buck with the 56 and the 27. Sure, a super groovy name brand Snap On or Matco or Mac or Cornwell tool box would be cool, but those also would have cost a bazillion more dollars. Hey, there's always time to get one of those when I win the lottery!

The old tool boxes? They now have a happy home with one of my Automotive Technician classmates, and it was fun to give them away to a young guy too. 

The boxes don't match the car, maybe I can paint one or the other!

Dinosaurs or Gymnastics? April Autocross Report!

Somebody else registered with #77, say hello to NMS #411

For the 2nd event of the year, NMS headed north to once again do battle with the Porsche Club of America, this time at the Greensboro Coliseum. Interesting fact, whenever we drive in one of their parking lots, there are other events going on inside the buildings! This time, when I went indoors to visit the facilities, I was greeted with the rare sentence "Are you here for gymnastics or dinosaurs?" While those both sounded like fun options on a Sunday, I was there for the autocross out in the parking lot. 

I TOLD you there were DINOSAURS!

The Coliseum was hosting both the NC state gymnastics championships, and another exhibition hall had a touring dinosaur show going on! In our two autocross visits last year, there was a wrestling tournament going on, and another time there was a big dog show. Not all the dogs were BIG, but the SHOW was BIG! Maybe we can coordinate with these other events and get some dinosaurs driving cars with gymnasts doing their routines on the hood while the cars are driving! Maybe not. 

Anyway, special thanks to Julie Nixon for the big help in making the new #411 magnets. We found a template on line, and cut up an old magnet set I had with her fancy rotary cutting quilting equipment!

First run of the morning, what  nice day at 62 degrees!

With only two cars in my class, the NMS car sported #411 this time and took the class win. With great weather on tap, and a short but tricky autocross course, we had ten runs to set our best time, and then see how it stacked up against 31 other drivers. The course was tight, it was twisty, and there was turning to both the left AND the right! As usual, my goal was to go faster every run, but to tell you the truth, after improving from run 1 to run 2, I kind of got stuck on times in the 53 second range. I tried some different approaches, lowered tire pressures in the afternoon, and finally lowered my best time tp a 52.677 seconds on my last run. 

Afternoon kicks off at 76 degrees, still not too hot, but I lowered the tire pressures. 

In a way it is good to be consistent across so many runs in the 53s, but it's a lot more fun to lower your time on every run! Oh, and my biggest problem was on the first run, driving in manual mode. After the start I had trouble getting into 2nd gear, which I will blame on my weird little thumb-button shifters. It's not manual, and it's not big honking paddle shifters. When you turn the steering wheel, the little thumb-buttons turn too, so I'll blame that first run being the slowest on that! Hey, it sounds reasonable!

If I take off the garage door opener, the weight savings will make me faster next time!

Overall I had the 9th fastest time out of 32 drivers, and was the 6th fastest Porsche on the day. As far as being consistent, here's my 10 times:

Run 1: 56.728  Slow due to shifting issue, will go faster!

Run 2: 53.399  Much better, let's shoot for a 52!

Run 3: 53.154  Ooh, close to 52, make the car go faster!

Run 4: 54.226  NOPE!

Run 5: 54.85  NOPE! Ended the morning with a best of 53.1, go faster after lunch!

Run 6: 53.971  OK, back in the 53s, time to go faster!

Run 7: 53.482  Moving in the right direction...

Run 8: 53.415 Just BARELY moving in the right direction...

Run 9: 53.533 NOPE! These 53s are getting old. Let's try more braking on sweepers. 

Run 10: 52.677 BINGO! Finally into the 52s! 

After the event I spotted this Funny Car dragster, probably just finished at ZMax in the 4-Wide drag races this weekend.