The Project Pad

awesome on the house. There are tons of super cheap places like that in the ADKs, and it is such cool land up there. It has a bit of a ghost town feel, like all the people that were working in logging and tourism up there got foreclosed on and left over the last 20 years. What do you do for work that allows you to live there?

I spent all weekend looking at Whiteface while putting a chimney on the roof of my new house, thought I could see you over that way in the quantum.

Awesome man, congrats!

Some legit winters up there, for the east coast at least!

dana wrote:awesome on the house. There are tons of super cheap places like that in the ADKs, and it is such cool land up there. It has a bit of a ghost town feel, like all the people that were working in logging and tourism up there got foreclosed on and left over the last 20 years. What do you do for work that allows you to live there?

I spent all weekend looking at Whiteface while putting a chimney on the roof of my new house, thought I could see you over that way in the quantum.

That's exactly what it's like! It's nuts. This house is in Vermontville, NY and if you drive 20 minutes south to Saranac Lake or Lake Placid things are just hoppin! Literally the minute you leave either of those city lines it turns quiet and there is nothing around, but trees and old run down buildings/homes.

According to my place of employment I'm a "Design Engineer". My company is the leading supplier of battery monitoring systems which help people keep batteries for reserve power systems used by large data centers, military sites, ect in check to avoid severe failure. My job is to analyze the customers particular battery string(s) and then design a system based around one of the products we sell which will accurately monitor the voltage, impedance and temperature of each cell without being effected by loads of electromagnetic noise.

I'm not really an engineer though. I don't have a degree in engineering so I hate that they call me that lol. But I do all my work on the computer so I have the ability to work from home. So being that it'll be a few years before I move up here full time, I'll have some time to work out a deal with them to let me work from home like 3 weeks out of the month and then be in the office for 1 week.

And you probably could have seen me and heard me in the Quantum blasting up and over Whiteface

jlw wrote:Awesome man, congrats!

Some legit winters up there, for the east coast at least!

Thanks man! And yeah I know, I'm very excited for that especially to blast around on my dead end road in the Quantum in the snow!

Sweet!! congratulations that looks like a dream!

the german wrote:Sweet!! congratulations that looks like a dream!

Thanks Kirk! It is! I've wanted to have this kind of space for a long time. I'm almost more excited to put a roof on the barn and get a lift in it than I am for the actual house haha

dougkehl wrote:Thanks Kirk! It is! I've wanted to have this kind of space for a long time. I'm almost more excited to put a roof on the barn and get a lift in it than I am for the actual house haha

I'm the same way! I've been in my house for 5 years now and I'm just now doing the first real house project: vaulting the garage ceiling to fit a lift in the back! way more exciting than a shiny bathroom or fancy kitchen

the german wrote:
I'm the same way! I've been in my house for 5 years now and I'm just now doing the first real house project: vaulting the garage ceiling to fit a lift in the back! way more exciting than a shiny bathroom or fancy kitchen

Exactly! Fancy kitchens and bathrooms are boring. I'm hoping that's where I'm going to be in about 5 years! Installing a lift in my barn after I get the new roof on it with a partially vaulted ceiling. I want to have the other half be a loft or storage for hay for the animals. Time will tell lol

Ha! that's exactly what mine is going to be. Front half is a storage loft, back half is vaulted with the lift.

Small update. More washing machine pics lol. Now that the car is just getting driven and having small loose ends buttoned up I decided I would start ordering some parts to make some progress on the intake manifold for the 20v. Yesterday my velocity stacks showed up from Ross Machine Racing. These are crazy nice. I plopped them on top of the ITBs just for fun and it looks good.. It's a shame they'll be hidden in the plenum. So now I've got a few things to sort out, a few measurements to take and then I'll drill the required holes in the backside of the intake plenum and I'll weld them in place.

IMG_8712 by dougkehl1, on Flickr
IMG_8713 by dougkehl1, on Flickr
IMG_8714 by dougkehl1, on Flickr
IMG_8718 by dougkehl1, on Flickr

Progress has been slow. I've been busy fixing my truck to haul things up north to the new place. But I did get this done; all the holes cut out in the plenum for the velocity stacks. They fit perfect, so now I've just got to vigorously clean the plenum and attempt to lay down some nice welds on this plenum. Hopefully this cast material will weld better than I'm expecting.

IMG_8723 by dougkehl1, on Flickr
IMG_8722 by dougkehl1, on Flickr

Wire wheel the crap out of it right before welding. Good luck!

the german wrote:Wire wheel the crap out of it right before welding. Good luck!

That's the plan! Along with a thorough preheating and a good scrubbing with acetone. I saved the pucks of aluminum from cutting out the holes in the plenum so I'm going to do some test welds on those first to find out what I'm going to be working with. I may be pleasantly surprised, I may want to say screw it lol.

Post heat similar to your pre heat will help as well.

Looking good!

Last weekend I decided to give welding cast aluminum a try.. Needless to say, this cast plenum welded very nicely to the billet velocity stacks. Considering this is my first time welding any aluminum this thick or cast I'm pleased with the results. Not the prettiest, especially between the stacks, but it should hold very well I think. I'll find out in time haha.

Cleaned and prepped.
IMG_8844 by dougkehl1, on Flickr

First stack most of the way welded in place.
IMG_8845 by dougkehl1, on Flickr

Completed. The dirty spots in the first picture are from me accidentally dipping my tungsten.
IMG_8847 by dougkehl1, on Flickr
IMG_8849 by dougkehl1, on Flickr

Those welds aren't bad at all for a first time on cast (or for someone like, say, me, for any kind of AL)! Love the manifold design, look forward to finished pics.

vt10vt wrote:Those welds aren't bad at all for a first time on cast (or for someone like, say, me, for any kind of AL)! Love the manifold design, look forward to finished pics.

Thanks man! I was plenty nervous with the cast, but now I see, as my dad and many others have told me that preparation is key. Prepare it well and it will be just like doing any other piece of aluminum and it was.

I'm excited to get the bead rolled aluminum joiners from Treadstone in the mail so I can weld them to the velocity stacks and then it's just a few silicon couplers and I can attach the ITBs and this plenum to each other!

Looks good! Much better than the first time I welded on cast aluminum

Thanks Kirk!

I should be able to have this whole manifold complete by the end of October/mid November. My friend just picked up his kiln/foundry so now I can start preparing to cast the actual manifold that will allow the ITB and plenum assembly to bolt to the head. Should be interesting when the time comes.

Ah. Mazing.

dougkehl wrote:Thanks Kirk!

I should be able to have this whole manifold complete by the end of October/mid November. My friend just picked up his kiln/foundry so now I can start preparing to cast the actual manifold that will allow the ITB and plenum assembly to bolt to the head. Should be interesting when the time comes.

Sweet! that should be fun. I don't know what your level of experience with casting is, but if you aren't already planning on it you should get or make a vacuum degassing chamber to use in your casting process. You will get much better results, especially if you plan to machine or weld the parts after casting. I look forward to seeing how it goes!

Edit: I say vacuum just because in my experience it works well to pull out hydrogen and reduce porosity. You can also use tablets or nitrogen gas in the aluminum melt for degassing.

the german wrote:
Sweet! that should be fun. I don't know what your level of experience with casting is, but if you aren't already planning on it you should get or make a vacuum degassing chamber to use in your casting process. You will get much better results, especially if you plan to machine or weld the parts after casting. I look forward to seeing how it goes!

Edit: I say vacuum just because in my experience it works well to pull out hydrogen and reduce porosity. You can also use tablets or nitrogen gas in the aluminum melt for degassing.

Thank you for this bit of info. This will be my first time casting anything. The guy who has the kiln/foundry that will be helping me is also in the same boat. He normally reads very far into things, so he might already know about this, but I'm going to make sure he's aware because I want this to come out good. Also he's going to be casting parts for the company we work for so he should probably be aware of this if he isn't. We'll probably make some test parts first to get a feel for it. I'm excited to try this out!

Sand or plaster molds?

I hope we get treated with pics and commentary of the process.

I remember being dumbfounded and amazed reading a thread on vortex (?) of a guy making an intake for his 16v, just because he could. So cool.

PRY4SNO wrote:I hope we get treated with pics and commentary of the process.

I remember being dumbfounded and amazed reading a thread on vortex (?) of a guy making an intake for his 16v, just because he could. So cool.

yeah that thread (and all of that guys others) are pretty mind blowing.. someone should dig up the link for those who havent seen it..

mrdeye wrote:Sand or plaster molds?

I believe he wants to do plaster.. I'm unsure right now exactly how he wants to do it though. I think we'll probably end up making some test pieces and doing one in sand and one in plaster before making the final mold out of whatever mold we feel yields a better finish/product.

PRY4SNO wrote:I hope we get treated with pics and commentary of the process.

I remember being dumbfounded and amazed reading a thread on vortex (?) of a guy making an intake for his 16v, just because he could. So cool.

jlw wrote: yeah that thread (and all of that guys others) are pretty mind blowing.. someone should dig up the link for those who havent seen it..

Ahhhh yes! That thread! I wasted a lot of time at work sitting on the computer looking through that thread. That was one of the coolest threads I've ever seen, especially because of how intricate that manifold was by comparison to this one.

But there will be plenty of pictures taken of every step along the way and commentary to go along with it!