I would not call myself an artist. However, I do like to work with my hands. My hobbies typically involve working on my old cars, or welding metals together. And its funny, alot of people think my welding looks pretty artistic. It really is never my intention to make art work with my torches, but every once in a while something happens to just look more like art than a functional piece of metal.

The other night I was feeling especially ambitious. I thought I could make some exhaust flanges from some raw sheet metal stock I had in my metal collection. Now its a pretty simple part, just a square flange, with a hole in the middle and 4 bolt holes around the outside. I thought I could draw a square on the metal, and cut it out with the cutting torch. Then drill a few holes and be done. It sounds so simple. Now usually, I just buy these flanges pre-made. They are built on a CNC mill, or laser cutter. And they arrive at my house perfect and ready to use. But this time I thought I might save some money and time by making my own.

If you have ever used a cutting torch, you will agree with me that its not the most precise tool. Though, some really skilled weldors can really work miracles with a torch. And I mean really skilled. Because what I ended up with is actually a pretty neat picture frame, and nothing like what I intended to make. Because its pretty useless and way to ugly to actually weld to a header I thought I might display them in the house. So here you have my new picture frames!

And here is a picture of my number one buddy Zippy. It fits perfectly into the opening.

First of all, if you ever think you are a good mechanic and need a challenge, then you should build your own fuel injection system. Don’t get me wrong. The megasquirt fuel injection project is great. And at times very rewarding. But often, this has been an exercise in extreme frustration. I have been learning all sorts of things about electronics during this project. Mostly that I really don’t understand them.But then you have a “eureka” moment that makes everything better. I have been fighting false triggers, and stumbling under load with my megasquirt system pretty much since I installed it. And this week, I seem to have finally solved the problem. It came to me while eating a tasty burrito at Chipotle.

I needed some aluminum foil in my engine compartment. I mean, this stuff stops rader guns from reading correctly, keeps your burrito warm and fresh, makes TV antenna’s work better, and apparently makes for a really good RF noise shield around critical sensor wires. Its amazing. I wrapped the wires from my hall sensor in aluminum foil, and suddenly my misfire issue was a thing of the past. its great.

So, now that my car can rev cleanly to redline, with whatever throttle setting or boost level I desire, its time to get back to tuning, and really making this car run right.

Talk to you next time.