Tag: 600rr

First Track Weekend Down And No Where To Go But Up.

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Well, I managed to stay shiny side up for both days of track riding with MCRA at Putnam Park this past weekend.  Out of the five that went in my group, two crashed, one bad enough that he may need some surgery on his shoulder.  Even though he crashed, he is still chomping at the bit to go to Mid-Ohio at the end of June and ride with us again.  A video of his crash is below.  You can listen to the sound in the clip and hear how fast he is going into Turn 1 off the front straight.   Simply went into the turn too hot and wasn’t able to keep it on the track.

The main downfall to the weekend was my personal performance on my race bike.  I didn’t go near as fast as I had hoped and my lack of preparation definitely showed as I wasn’t able to stay out for a full session of riding because fatigue would set in.  Because of this, I wasn’t able to ride as fast as I would have liked and got passed by more people than I should have.

My lack of preparation for the track day hindered my end result of the weekend, much like not preparing for the heat of summer can hinder your company’s performance and production.  Now is the time to be preparing to keep those electrical enclosures cool, not when they are overheating and causing shut downs.

If you would like help sizing the correct Cabinet Cooler System for your enclosures, give us a call.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com 
@EXAIR_BF

Quality Of A Knock Off and Racing Motorcycles

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

That’s right folks, the first track day of the year is getting close.  The first for this year will be held at Putnam Park Road Course, with Midwest Cafe Racers Association.  We will be heading out on Friday, April 19th, for the weekend.  The preparations already began a few weeks ago, actually over a month ago.  This year I am not only prepping my track bike, but also my friends track bike.   The best part is, I am learning more and more about his bike, and the bells and whistles that it has.

One of the many parts to prepping the bike for the track was changing out the coolant to a non-glycol based coolant, changing the tires, removing all glass / plastic from the bike.  Not to mention drilling and safety wiring the oil filler cap, oil drain plug, and oil filter.  Those are simply the necessities, we have taken it a step further and changed out some other stock parts for nicer track ready parts.  The main obstacle has been that he elected to go with a non-branded rear set foot control.  These were copies of a very large name brand rear set foot control.  Everything seemed to fit together until I went to install the shift linkage.  The linkage length should be 9″ long, the one they sent with the new set was actually 9-5/8″ long.  Because of this it actually placed the shift lever about 3″ too low and will not work.   Luckily, I have the knowledge and ability to modify things like this.  After cutting the extra length off and re-tapping the hole, the linkage is now to the correct length on the bike, and ready to go racing.

IMG_2363 IMG_2364

The point to the story is this:  my friend went with the company who said they were just as good if not better than the big name brand, yet considerably cheaper and not made locally.  In the end the quality of the product was not what they made claims of over the internet and they don’t have near the level of support that the brand name does.  After some fixing, the units will work but it could have been a costly replacement as the manufacturer of these doesn’t stand directly behind their product.

Here at EXAIR we have instilled quality into our product and customer service.  If you were to receive a part that doesn’t work, we will be here to help figure out why, and then make the correct actions to remedy your problem as fast as possible.   So don’t always believe what you read on the internet about how great some products are when they are so much cheaper than a well established, market leading brand.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Prepping For The Heat. (Not Solar Flares)

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Well, the first day of Spring is right around the corner.  It’s hard to believe that the Summer heat isn’t that far out for us here in Cincinnati.  Of course the first thing on my mind is hanging out outside with my daughters, and track days.  What isn’t on my mind is the heat that most production environments feel.  It most likely isn’t on your mind either, and won’t be until the heat is here and the machine is shutting down.

High Temp Cabinet Cooler

Why not be proactive and fill out a Cabinet Cooler Sizing Guide so that we can help to prevent that down time in the Summer months?  Even though the temperatures aren’t as hot as they will be in a few months, the temperature differential will still allow us to calculate the heat load that is generated within the enclosure.

Sizing Guide

There’s no better time than now to start preventative measures to keeping your machines running.  Whether that is by installing a thermostat controlled Cabinet Cooler System, using a Chip Trapper to filter coolants or a Cold Gun Aircoolant System to keep a cutting tool cool.  All methods will help you to keep production up and lessen the down time and the costly replacements of your equipment.

If you have any questions on how we can help, feel free to contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Winter Is No Longer Welcome In My Book

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

For those of you that read my blog posts it may be shocking that I haven’t blogged about a motorcycle since October 12, 2012.  That’s far too long! Over the winter months I have been working here and there on the motorcycle. Doing the normal maintenance like oil change, cleaning, sitting on it and making engine noises because weather isn’t permitting outside fun.

Of course, one of the things I have done is use my E-Vac Brake Bleeder.  After successfully bleeding my brakes I took my front suspension to a local motorcycle race shop to have it refreshed and new seals installed.  This is something I don’t have the correct tools for so I have to hand it over to an expert.  We then got to talking about bleeding brakes and getting all the bikes ready for this race season.  So I explained the E-Vac system to them and they didn’t believe it would work as easily as I stated.

After showing them a brief video of it I was able to see the wheels start spinning in their minds.  Suddenly they realized that they could use one in the shop and that there were applications that I didn’t think of.

The main application would be for bikes with a hydraulic clutch.  The clutch fluid needs to be changed out and the air needs to be bleed out of the system as a regular maintenance item just like the brake fluid.  The reason I hadn’t thought of it is because I have a cable driven clutch.

Hopefully with the weather today nearing 50 degrees I will be able to get an E Vac in their hands and let them see that the way they were bleeding fluids is obsolete and this is best, easiest, and fastest method to do so.

The old methods are shown in the video below.  (Please don’t try to siphon brake fluid by sucking on the brake line.  You don’t know where that line has been.)

If you have any applications you think we could help with please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF