NMS Project TUNDRA THUNDER!

Reliable brand name? Toyota!
Is it a truck? 2000 Tundra SR5 1st generation!
Does the truck have power? V8!

Project TUNDRA THUNDER? Are we going to Alaska to study the weather? Visiting the far north of Russia? Nah, it's a Toyota truck project we just started. It's about 100% positive that you've heard of the Toyota brand, and just as likely you know their full size pickup truck is the Tundra. So what's the deal with this one? Glad you asked!

Tundra SR5 with the small rear seat came with these wheels...

And then Brian added these wheels. 

When this truck became available, the NMS Acquisition Department quickly concluded that it would be even more reliable and suitable for a new driver than the 2002 PROJECT INFINITI. So, the INFINITI was sold to a new owner, and the TUNDRA THUNDER TRUCK will be our project to give to a young relative that just got their learner's permit! 

Ready to do some towing almost.

On a related note, the younger NMS-South wanted a truck when he started driving in high school, and his thinking that a truck holds up to other young drivers around a high school parking lot better than anything else, so there's some great thinking there! That was the NMS Ford Ranger that is now long gone, but man it lasted a long time!

Mileage? Only 166,000 miles!

This is a 2000 Tundra SR5 with 166617  miles. Unfortunately the owner passed away recently, and the family put it up for sale. It needs a little work, but this generation (2000-2006) of  Tundra trucks has a great reputation. They also have a reputation for a not-so-great lower ball joint design. Knowing this ahead of time, we checked it out and sure enough, Brian at NMS-South went ahead and replaced those ball joints with new Toyota OEM parts. This is a known issue on these vehicles, and as long as you replace them every bunch of thousand miles, you should be good.

New Toyota OEM lower ball joint. 

What happens if you don't maintain those lower ball joints? BIG PROBLEM. Like, the ball joint loosens/drops and your truck comes crashing down to the ground as the wheel falls off. With preventative maintenance, you can avoid the BIG PROBLEM. 

Creature comforts and modern technology? AC, along with CD player AND a cassette tape player baby! What could be more modern than 2 basically obsolete music systems?

Class Victory in Greensboro!

Driver meeting

The Carolinas Region of the Porsche Club of America returned to autocross for this year up at the Greensboro Coliseum. Let me update that first sentence and call it the First Horizon Coliseum, since it was renamed just over a year ago. OK, we're all up to date, so, how did it go? It went just like in this video of one run:

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK

I hope you liked that video, because it was from a new GoPro camera! When I bought my used Cayman, the previous owner had stuck a GoPro mount on the dash, and even the latest cameras still use the same mounting system! 

A Ferrari owner with a sense of humor, they picked #911 to drive with the Porsche club!

NMS in 6th overall, you can see all times for the 10 runs

Earlier, before everyone drove, I was briefly in 1st place!

Boxster #16 waits to drive, Autocross director John Kelly takes photos. 

Overall, the NMS #77 won the S03 class of three drivers, finished 6th fastest overall from 38 total drivers, and was the 4th fastest Porsche out of 26 P-cars. In case you are wondering, the fastest overall car was a Lexus ISF! We had a couple of classic cars, Miatas, an older Camaro and Trans Am, as well as a Porsche 914. Shoot, there was even a recent Ferrari!

Waiting on my first run, 10:13 in the morning, it's 72 degrees, and my tire pressures are at 29psi. The car calls for 30 front and 31 in the rear, but I've found that slightly lower pressures work better on this car. 

The weather was great, and all the drivers had five runs in the morning, and five runs in the afternoon. OK, the weather warmed up to the hottest day of the year so far, so I drank five bottles of water and used my sunscreen. Shoot, I bet all that extra weight in the water slowed me down by the afternoon! 

Afternoon session at 1:41, the temp is up to 85, and I lowered the tire pressures to 27/29. 

Driving wise, I managed some pretty good times in the morning, but struggled to improve much in the afternoon, and only dropped another tenth of a second from the morning. I tried lowering my air pressures, and that wasn't any faster, so on my final run I pumped the pressure up to normal, and that wasn't any faster either! I guess I just need more experience, so look for more autocross action in April! 

NMS flies the Ohio flag on the helmet. 

Rotate Those Tires, Change That Oil!

2023 Ford Maverick Hybrid. Ask me about getting 40+ MPG!
Don't ask about the Aston Martin F1 flag, they aren't looking too good this year. 

Car manufacturers always recommend rotating your tires and changing your oil, so recently that's just what I did on the Ford Maverick. The truck just hit 30,000 miles, so whether that was due to hitting that number, or that I was 7,000 miles past the tire rotation, my Ford app told me it was time to get to work. You can always do this the easy way and just take your car to a shop and have them do it, but what fun is that? You'd hardly get dirty and have to spend money!

Well heck, with the wheels off, go ahead and inspect the shocks and brake pads. 
This one has the coil over the shock. They're still there!

I admit that I did check the owner's manual to make sure I was rotating in the right direction and got the right type of oil, so other than that, it was straightforward. Ha, ha, just a little tire rotating humor there, "Straight Forward!" Only the rear tires could possibly get rotated "straight forward" if you think about it! My little book said that the rears move straight forward to the front, but that the fronts crisscross and go to the back. 

In the wheel well on the driver side rear, what's that green thing?
It's the backup fuel door opener, if the regular door opener button on the dash doesn't work, so you can still put gas in the truck. Some cars will have a backup thing like this in the trunk, or even in the door jamb area close to the fuel door. 

At first, this moving tires was very difficult, so let me give you a PRO TIP: JACK UP THE VEHICLE FIRST! Hey, that's two hilarious jokes already, you're welcome! Yes, jack up the vehicle safely and use jack stands to make removing and installing the wheels easier. It really is a great tip!

When the wheels were removed, I checked the suspension, brake pads, and just kind of in general looked for any problems. This also let me measure my brake pads for wear, and measure the tire tread depth to see how they are doing. As far as I know a lot of cars come with cheaper tires if you buy them new, so I'm curious how much mileage these Continental tires will last. With 30,000 miles, they are all around 5/32nd, so I'll keep watching them and replace them down around 4/32nd. 

Sometimes the shock and coil are separate.

Brake pad wise, things are still good there, although I noticed the rears were down to 8mm and the fronts were better off with 10mm. Normally this would be all backwards, but with hybrid vehicles that use regenerative braking, it is common for the rear pads to wear faster than the fronts. That's just some good to know info. 

Oil change, and showing off my nifty cart!

Another excuse to write on my truck, reminder on what size the drain plug uses.

 

Removing the oil filter was also easy, but sure, I dripped a little bit on the garage floor, so no world record there! The Maverick came with the first oil change included for free, so I've now done two others. The easiest part of this oil change is going to the dashboard and changing the oil change setting, since it's very user friendly with the computer menu. No tricky "hold the key with your toe, stick out your tongue, turn the key 27.5 times, and say There's No Place Like Home."

In the NMS Oil Change Department (OCD I guess!) we tied a WORLD RECORD by draining the oil with exactly NO DROPS of oil on the ground! This was easy with the truck jacked up high enough to get a 5 gallon bucket right under the oil pan, remove the bolt, and BOOM the oil just flowed into the bucket. 

I was going to remind you to SPRING ahead, but that's just too corny.

Project INFINITI Final Update!

Adios 2002 INFINITI I35
Yes, it is pollen season in SC, hence the greenish tint on the car!

We thought we were all done with Project INFINITI, but the car stalled out again. We'd already done a "LITTLE" work, like the cam and crank sensors, all 4 shocks, all 4 tires, replaced hoses, oil change, valve cover gaskets, front right suspension and CV axle, etc) but apparently something was still not right. 

Remove the passenger front wheel and a wheel well cover. 
A: Main Crank
B: AC Compressor
Belt is removed, so leave the crank alone, and loosen the compressor to get it out of the way of removing the Alternator which is UP ABOVE the compressor!

The NMS team diagnosed a weak or failing alternator, so a replacement one was ordered and the mechanic team got to work last Saturday. Through the magic of YouTube, we figured that if guys making lousy videos could do this job in their driveway, that we could manage it in the NMS-South garage! Turns out we were right!

Circled in red is the pulley for the alternator. It was just held on with two bolts. 

Getting TO the alternator involved just removing one passenger front wheel, the wheel well shield, and then loosening (NOT REMOVING) the AC compressor, and taking off the tensioner pulley and belt. Once all that stuff was out of the way, we could disconnect the electrical wires to the alternator, and then take it out by removing only 2 bolts and wiggling it down and out of the car. Oh, and we certainly disconnected the battery before starting to mess with this entire job. They good old Haynes manual we have said to also remove the radiator fan shroud to get more clearance, but we didn't need to do that step. 

Brian approaches the alternator from the top. 

Installation was the reverse process, and we had this job and a test drive wrapped up before lunch! We felt like that was pretty good for a couple of DIY'ers, and I'd hate to look up the flat rate book answer for how long it should take a real mechanic to do it. Sure, it would be easier/faster if you'd done it before, and if you had the car up on a lift, but we got it done anyway. 

You might know that the Nissan 3.5 liter V6 engine was also used in the Nissan Maxima, and the Nissan 350Z. 

After confirming that the battery was happy and getting 14 volts or so while being driven with the high beams and AC on, Brian ran into a code for something else. He diagnosed that as being caused by a bad gas cap, so he replaced the original one from 2002, and the code is now gone. 

This is the last update for Project INFINITI, and it has moved on to a new home, with a lot of stuff repaired and replaced. Our original plan was to donate this car to a young relative, but an even cooler vehicle came up for them, and the INFINITI was sold to another driver. 

What's the new vehicle for our young relative? Look for this NEW PROJECT coming soon, code named PROJECT TUNDRA THUNDER!

First 2026 Autocross: Class Victory at THE ROCK!

The NMS #77 wins the B Street class from four other drivers!

After such a grueling winter (hey, we DID get some snow this year!) here in South Carolina with no autocross events since November, it was finally time to start driving some Autocross events! My first competition was with the Triad Sports Car Club in North Carolina. This was their first points competition of the year, held at the Rockingham Raceway's "Little Rock" oval right next to the big oval. 

Course map from the Little Rock. Don't hit those orange cones!

Competing in the B Street category, NMS brought home 1st in class over four other drivers, and placed 42nd overall on PAX and 51st on RAW time, out of 127 drivers. The TRIAD club ran a nice event, with everyone getting four runs on the day. With such a large field, we were split into four driving groups, and I drove in the LAST group. 

This was my favorite car to watch, a GMC SYCLONE! They made less than 3,000 of these bad boys in 1991-1992! If you need a 280HP turbo truck, get one!

This made for a long day, with about a two hour drive to get there, watching the 1st group from about 10:30-11:45, then working on course about noon to 1:15. For the third run group I watched some driving and then got my car ready, and then finally drove in the last group starting about 2:20. During my driving group we had just a little bit of rain, but I don't think it slowed me down at all. 

Another B Street car, Porsche Boxster. 

In the B Street class we had a Porsche Boxster, a Toyota Corolla GR, a Toyota Supra, and a novice driver in a Corvette at his first autocross. Since the Supras come in 4 and 6 cylinder, I think it's the 4 cylinder in BS. The drivers in 2nd-4th were REALLY close, with best times of 49.837, 49.850, and 49.983. With just over a tenth of a second covering three drivers, it was close! Good thing the electronic timing system goes down to the thousandths of a second!  

Toyota Supra in B Street. 

With only four runs I tried to go fast on run #1, and then speed up from there. Run two was quicker, so that felt nice! On run #3 however, I overcooked one turn and missed the next gate, so that run was a DNF or Did Not Finish. HOWEVER, the Autocross Karma kicked in, and I was told that the timing system had glitched and that I would get a RERUN! Ah yes, auto-crossers LOVE getting a RERUN, because it throws out your last run for some reason beyond your control, and give you a do-over/mulligan! That meant that instead of only one more chance to drive, I had two more! More is better!

My helmet got a new sticker! In red, a 2026 sticker from the Triad Sports Car Club. 
Remember, each sticker adds 5 more Horsepower!

OK, on my NEW run #3 I dropped some more time even with a few wet sprinkles, and then on my last run (also just happened to be the last driver of the day, so just maybe if the course was getting faster, then that's where you want to be!) my time was even faster. Having other cars in my class was a great incentive to keep driving faster, although looking at all the times now I can see that my first run was enough to win the class. 

Final standings in B Street after 4 runs. The Toyota in 2nd and I got reruns, so 5 runs for some of us. The Corvette in 5th was a Novice driving his first event, so you can see he dropped a HUGE amount of time. Not counting my run 3, I was happy to improve on every run. 

WAY over there is the main grandstand at THE ROCK, Rockingham Speedway. This view is from the LITTLE ROCK oval where we auto-crossed. 

For the first event of the year, even the long day of waiting for those 4, I mean 5, drives made for a fun day. Sure enough, it was rainy on the drive home, but I caught the start of the NASCAR race in Vegas on the radio too! Well, I guess that explains why there weren't any NASCAR talent scouts watching us autocross!

The Triad Sports Car Club put on a great event, here's their website on the trailer that holds all their cones, loaner helmets, timing equipment, etc. 

One really GREAT thing that Triad does is actually WRITE DOWN the class driving and working assignments so that you can see when you are driving, and when you are working on the course. With four run groups, this makes it easy to see. 

Another Car Recall

Brian with both NMS Honda Hybrids: Accord on the left, Civic on the right. 

By "ANOTHER" recall I mean that our 2023 Honda Accord has already had several recalls, and today we got a notice for another one. Like the previous few, this will require a FREE appointment at the dealer, so that they can reprogram something in the car's computer. This one is related to emissions in some way, but also says that it could cause the car to turn off while you're driving. Losing power and steering while driving could be a bad thing, so I scheduled an appointment and got it fixed. Hey, the local Honda dealer offers free coffee, so if nothing else I got two free lattes!

Modern cars are just chock full of computers, so it's no surprise that they are constantly getting tweaked and updated. Some people react to the word RECALL like they were just diagnosed with the plague or something, but for these electrical gremlin type computer things, I'm not really worried about it. Now if it was a really serious recall like the WHEELS WILL FALL OFF ANY MINUTE then I'd get a bit more worked up about it. 

On the positive side it will only cost me the time to drive to the dealership, and then hang out in the waiting area for the computer update. The letter I received said it would only take 15 minutes once they start to work on it, but it was more like an hour and a half. I figure they were busy on a Friday morning. On the negative side, I know that the technicians that perform recall and warranty work typically don't get paid the full flat rate, so it's a raw deal for the guys and gals doing the work. If I was king for a day, I'd require auto manufacturers to pay their technicians and mechanics the full hourly rate for all he work they do. 

On the other side of the NMS Daily Driver garage, our Ford Maverick has also had it's share of recalls for computer-related glitches, and like the Honda, nothing has really gone haywire with the little hybrid truck. Both the Accord and the Maverick, as well as the NMS-South Civic hybrid are just doing GREAT on mileage: over 50mpg on the Hondas and the Maverick is in the 40s. 

And Then the Check Engine Light Came On!

"Check Engine, Visit Work Shop"
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

There I was last month, driving home in the rain from Carolina Motorsports Park  after some fun filled track driving, and WHOOPS!!! The Check Engine Light (CEL) came on to give me a heads up that something was wrong! Well dang it anyway! The car was still running and shifting fine, the brakes that I'd worked on recently were working normally, but the computer part of my car thought something was wrong. 

Luckily I was only about two miles from home, AND more importantly, the car was running just fine. So, I drove home, parked in the garage, and thought of all the bad things that could be wrong. Oh, and how much that might cost to fix! I was hoping it was just some kind of computer glitch caused by hard driving on track, or maybe the car's computer was amazed how fast I went and was just messing with me! 

Trouble codes: 
"Refer to service manual" -- Well, DUH!
"Communication PSM control unit (Drive)" -- OK, some part of the car isn't talking to another part of the car. It says (Drive) but it's driving OK!
"Communication instrument cluster (Display)" -- Cluster? It's working fine. 
"Voltage supply below lower limit." -- OK, this might be a real clue! Check the voltage. 

I visited my friends at York Technical College and the great instructors let me use a scan tool to read all the codes and try to figure out what was going on with the error message. There were codes basically saying that the various parts of the car weren't talking to each other, so maybe it was just an internal argument over oil viscosity or whether or not the Cleveland Browns would ever get into the Super Bowl. These kind of communication issues happen all the time!

The scanner wasn't giving me an instant or magical solution, so I figured I'd just erase all the codes, drive the car, and see if the CEL came back. Sometimes stuff like this happens, and again, since the car was driving fine, maybe that was it. No luck, the scanner I had wouldn't erase the codes. Oh well, I drove it home and sought out some more advice from people smarter than me (which is A LOT OF PEOPLE!)

Even more codes, great!

My region of the Porsche Club of America seemed like a good place to ask about this problem, and sure enough I got two folks that jumped right in. One suggested that since one code mentioned low voltage, that possibly I just had an old/weak batter, and that Porsches do not like low voltage. He felt that taking care of the battery would resolve the issue! That sounded easy!

These codes were fun, because they say the loudspeakers aren't working. BUT, they were working fine. Another clue that there was some temporary glitch and not a very expensive ruined car!

Another helpful club member said he had a different scanner and could come over and help me out! What a generous offer! We made plans to meet in a few days, and hopefully read the codes a bit more, or at least try the erase-it-and-see-if-it-comes-back method!

Luckily I also had a battery maintainer at home (thanks to NMS-South) so I hooked that up over night to see if the battery was OK. My records showed that the battery is just under 4 years old, so maybe it was due to be replaced. Fast forward to the next day, and VOILA! No more codes, and the car continued to run just fine like it had all along.  

Made sure the battery was charged, and BAM! NO MORE CODES! 
Why was I worried!

I don't think the hard driving or heavy rain caused the code, so maybe it is time for a new battery. My digital multimeter comes in handy for checking voltage, and after the little session on the maintainer the battery was right where it's supposed to be, over 12 volts while turned off. I'll keep an eye on that battery!

Porsche Autocross Awards

DRIVER OF THE YEAR TROPHY!
(some assembly required!)

NMS brought home the Carolinas Region Porsche Club of America Autocross 2025 Driver of the Year award for being the only driver to win all six events in their class last year! Other fast drivers in different classes won four or five events for their classes, but only one driver won all six! BOOM! Once I put it together the Breitling stopwatch will be mounted inside the glass case!

The Porsche Club kicked off their 2026 season and recognized drivers from 2025 at Porsche North Lake in Charlotte. As kind of a 2-in-1 meeting/info session, there were awards for the 2025 class winners, and the club also gave an introduction to Autocross for drivers interested in starting to autocross in 2026. Oh, and there was lunch, so I'm a big fan of a free food too!

NMS brings home the trophy for winning the S03 class last year. 

This event was held at the Porsche Charlotte Northlake dealership, which just opened last year. As you can imagine, a shiny brand new Porsche dealership is in a nice new building, with tons of service bays and other amenities. OK, they don't have hot and cold running caviar, but they do things first class. 

Autocross schedule for 2026

Ready for some awards, and thanks to Porsche Charlotte Northlake for hosting.

Autocross Chairman John Kelly explains the strategy for driving a slalom. 

One way to encourage some more folks to come out and drive at these events is a big discount for college students. Instead of the usual $80 per event fee, current college students can autocross for only $25! Too bad I just wrapped up my Automotive Technician courses too!