The Quarky Engineer

This little guy popped in to see if I needed any insurance.

Out come ye, oh GR6 Transmission.

For those fellow GTR people that have a lift in their garage – These little gems are perfect for lifting the GTR without damaging the lift points. They fit inside the lift point pockets and provide a flat surface for the lift pad. The little rubber bits on the ends are designed to hold the part in the pocket. They work great and make loading and lifting super easy.

Arr.. me car has one eye.. and one less power steering leak!

My PCBs arrived last week, and I’m finally getting around to placing/soldering one. Like every good PCB it will have at least one green wire. 🙂

What is not to love about a foam gun!

I bought my first Subaru in March of 2001, a World Rally Blue 2002 Subaru WRX. Through that Subaru I met many friends, started a few businesses, replaced a few motors.. ok 14 in this car to be precise.. yet I clearly have not driven it enough. Only 30,990 miles, but lots of memories. A few pictures that summarizes the last 15 years.

I got my X-Carve up and running, and have done some test cuts on plastic and aluminum. I made my first prototype front face plate, which worked perfectly. I will do an aluminum faceplate next. Overall the machine is really easy to use. Design in CAD, CAM to g-code, and send to the machine.

Took my R32 GTR, now with new suspension installed, down to Surgeline to get an alignment. I was surprised that with just a tape measure I was able to get things surprisingly close. Camber was almost perfect ( 1.6, 1.4) and caster was 6.2/6.3 degrees. Toe was a little off, but a few twists got that right in place. It appears that my suspension reassemble was without too many screwups. It feels good on the road, so now it is time to wick up the power a bit.

Manual PCB routing is very relaxing. It is one of the few places you can satisfy all of your OCD needs in one place. This is a protoboard for my DIY open source traction control system. RaceLogic discontinued their system late last year, and I need something for my 818. I’m trying out the MSP432P4, which is a TI mixed-signal processor with an ARM Cortex 4F core. So far I like it. Once the proof of concept works I’ll do a smaller SMD board and the MSP432 in an LQFP package. Clay Cowgill I’ll be talking to you about building a reflow oven. I suspect that is something you have already tackled.