Tag: motorcycle

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

A Bachelor Life Weekend

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

So this past  weekend began early for me.  A little while after I left for work last Friday,  my Wife and daughters embarked on a 10 hour journey with my mother and niece to visit some family.  It’s a little different because I am normally the one that is leaving to go to track days.  (Which can also be considered bachelor weekends).

The first thing I thought of was this scene from the classic Risky Business.

Of course, I immediately tried to think of all the things I want to do with the time.  The problem was, I have about 150 hours of projects that I wanted to do and really only had about 48 hours to do so. That being said, I had to prioritize and decide what would be best to do with the time that is given. Sleep, as unfortunate as it may sound, was first on my priority list. Sleep was quickly crossed off the list as a friend arranged to show up by 8:00 am to work on our motorcycles. I ultimately settled on making sure I didn’t miss my favorite meal that my family doesn’t care for – a gyro from Sebastians.

What it boiled down to is the fact that I only had so many hours in the day to get the projects done and when the dead line hit I needed to have the most important ones done.  The key point is to prioritize, much like the Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compress Air System does.

6 steps

My personal priority list looked like this:

1. Measure the consumption of frozen foods and fast foods one can consume in a weekend.

2. Find and Fix the leaking faucets in the bathtub.

3. Upgrade to being aggravated with plumbing and go blow off some steam.

4. Turn off all the lights in the house for the entire weekend.

5. Re-purpose some lumber to create storage in my garage.

6. Control the air temperature in my house to save a little more money.

Yeah it was a great weekend, but they can come home any time now…

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