OK, I know most folks will prefer threads about interior mods, or the latest CF doodad. So, sorry if this is boring. My 2003 MCS is the guinea pig for a lot of TSW prototype products. As such, it tends to stick with pre-production versions of the products we sell. That's good, because it allows me to exercise the parts and to see how they perform in the long term. It's also a bit of a pain, though, because often there are small adjustments made to the designs for the production parts to make the parts better (lighter, stronger, easier to install, more accomodating of existing parts, and so on). So, as it turns out, the combination of the TSW Big Brake Kit prototype plus my old, beat-up Rota Slipstream wheels means that I can't get the front wheels to center on the hubs. The nose of the hub is just a little too short. Well, Sunday I got tired of having front wheels that bolted on slightly off center (by about 0.3 mm). I sketched up a hub nose extension, and went down to the shop to turn the part on the lathe. An hour later, presto, a hub extension. This part is about 5/8" long, and it slips over the hub nose inside of the wheel. It has a pilot that sticks out to extend the hub nose about 3/8 inch, and this engages the wheel center perfectly. Driving on the highway today, the slight shake in the steering wheel at speeds over 70 is completely gone, so, mission accomplished. (edit: picture added) So like I said, it's a strange little project, but it keeps me from having to scrape money together for new wheels for a while. By the way, the center bore in the wheels is 56.1mm (a typical number) but the hub pilot is 55.9mm. I really think the pilot hole should be 55.95 to 56.0 mm, but that's just me.
Yes, sort of. The Rotas I have already have a 56.1mm centerbore, so they don't use centering rings. So I had to extend the hub nose out to the wheel. But in theory I could have replaced a centering ring with an extended, funky-shaped piece. Anyway, this piece allowed me to use any of the Rotas on the front, or any other wheel that creates the same problem on my car. Or, you know, I could just upgrade to non-prototype TSW parts. NAH.
Oohhhh! I need these! This is not a "want" but a real need. My Rotas don't fit the TSW Big Brake Kit without a spacer and that eliminates the hub "nose." I don't like that because it puts strain on the studs and I had a wheel fall off once before due to stud failure. So let's put the boys to work at TSW and make these doodads mui pronto!
That's a heckuva lot more practical/useful than anything made of carbon fiber. Or, more to the point, anything made to LOOK like it's made out of carbon fiber when it really isn't. Which is about 98.75% of that junk. :wink5: Man, I need more tools. Power tools. Power tools that are bolted to tables that are bolted into the cement of my garage floor and run on 220. The kind with big red kill switches for when they start ripping your arms out of their sockets & mercilessly beating you about the head & neck with them. Arr, arr, ARR!!!! :ihih:
I used to work in a lab with several robotic arms. the biggest one was really larger than the available space would accommodate, so we had to be careful when working around it. One day our programming was off, and the arm whipped around and found its own emergency stop button. I laughed for about two minutes over that one, since we couldn't move the robot until the e-stop was released, but the robot was holding down the e-stop...