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Author: Jeff

Garage

Garage

(I posted this in a group with some of my car friends, but realized I am missing a bunch, so posting on my feed)

So.. I’m getting into the design phase of the new house. Based on the topography the shop and my garage are going to be below the house, with the house built on top of them. That provides some height for the main house, which increases the mountain views, etc. The outside dimension of the ‘box’ for the shop and garage are pretty fixed at about 45 feet by 55 feet or so, and there will be a driveway on the right side that goes down and around the back side (so the shop doors will be hidden on the back side of the house.

Kristin will have her own 2 car garage on the level above, so the 4 car garage below is just for me. Since that will have ~12 foot ceilings, I could do at least 2x 4-post lifts, making it capable of storing 6 car.

The question is how to layout the shop. It is slightly smaller than my current shop (1400 vs 1600 sqft), and this time I want to have two working 2 post lifts, as I find one isn’t enough when you have a long term project on one.

Pictured below are some of the options. I could have the lifts angled.. Thought? I realize now I would not want the lifts that far back as it would be hard to do engine removal etc. I could reverse one lift (which I did in one picture), or reverse both.

Love to hear comments, criticisms, recommendations, etc!!

GTR R32

GTR R32

The oil filter location on the R32 GTR is similiar yet worse than on a 90s Honda. On the 90s Honda they are on the underside of the block below the intake manifold, but at least you can reach it cleanly from the bottom of the car. On the GTR the front diff is in the way, and there is no way to remove the filter without getting oil the front diff case.

I decided on this oil change to move the filter location. I ordered a couple of adapters, some hose, and fittings.

I also removed the original factory boost solenoid and replace it with a MAC solenoid.

Turbo

Turbo

I decided to drive my GTO today and do a little bit of calibration tweaking. It was all going great, so I turned up the boost a bit.

A few pulls, a few tweaks, and it felt fantastic… right up until it didn’t. The coupler on the intake side of the passenger side turbo was loose and it got sideways and then sucked into the compressor. It wasn’t obvious driving the car because the other turbo was able to make up for the difference in air ( these are GT3071s ). As soon as I got home and looked under the hood I saw the damage. Time for a new turbo. Drivers side turbo is of course fine.

It does look like a few small parts of the compressor wheel broke off, and I suspect those pieces might be stuck in the intercooler. Further investigation required.

Wheel

Wheel

Alright my metallurgically enhanced friends… if you had this happen to a wheel as a result of a very hard direct impact (that also ruptured the tire), would you conclude the wheel was:

Forged
Gravity Cast
Low Pressure Cast
Flow-Form Cast

Based only on this picture, with no other knowledge of the wheel.

Eclipse

Eclipse

Interesting to see how the eclipse is seen by my solar system on the house in Portland.

Eclipse (Full)

Eclipse (Full)

I did get one with some coronal mass ejection… Nice!

Eclipse

Eclipse

The smaller dot to the lower left of the sun is Regulus(79 light years away). Cool!

Eclipse

Eclipse

That’s no moon!

Sun Moon

Sun Moon

Matthew R. Wilson and I are ready for totality!

Cars

Cars

I know… there are only so many cool cars you can look at in a single day. It it tough, but we will work through it. These last few were on the walk to dinner. I really love the color of the red F12.. slightly darker than the typical Ferrari red.

I took a few more pictures of the LaFerrari Aperta, and it really is a fabulous looking car.

The green 918 isn’t too shabby either. 🙂