Boys instead of cars

A blog twice in one day. Does this allow me to take the month off Ms.iA?

Thought I would share a quick personal picture. These are the future tuners and engine builders of ImagineAuto. The one on the left and right are Ms. iA's, oh and mine. Quinn is on the left. He has C16 running through his veins. No fear and little common sense to go with it. Like his mom? I suspect he will be our driver. Our other son, the one on the far right is Jett. He is the smart methodical one. More like me :) Yea, right. He will be our engine builder. The hotdog in the middle is our friend and tech Stephen D's son, Andrew. Andrew will more than likely be the crew chief as he is always on the go and never gets tired. He is a go getter..

Last one, Ms. iA and our red head Monster!

PhD and motors

The holiday breaks are always a love hate thing for me. I personally find tranquility when I am in the engine room building motors or doing an EFI conversion. So, while Ms iA and the boys took some of that holiday time to hang Christmas lights I made a B-line to the shop.



I have spent most of time in EFI conversions and engine builds. Everything to the 67S motor to a 996TT upgrade and engine build. My days are filled with piles of motors. This is a good thing, but keeps me from the forums and the blog. I have a special case that I wanted to share. No pun intended. This is one of the two motors I worked on over the break. The other is a 996TT motor which I will show later. This is an example of extreme in every aspect. Originally an EFI conversion customer the HP bug hit hard and fast. The car came back and went to the drawing board for MORE. The new design mapped out a 3.5 liter short stroke motor. Pauter Rods, SS head studs, flame rings, ported and polished intake and exhaust ports. Flowed heads, custom exhaust, custom intake and a T78 turbo. The projected HP of this steed will be apx 800HP. Oh, and powder coated and polished everything. Originally the owner wanted to polish the case. I agreed this would be fine. It cam back in full powdercoating. Reservations aside I was shocked how nice it looked.




What do you do with something like this? Well, sit down and hang on. It is headed to the drag strips to prove that wheelies still exist. Not for the faint of heart.

The owner is also a die hard Mustang fan and not afraid to pull a time slip from some 8 second rides he owns. So this will be the small toy in his collection. Enjoy the pics.

Turkey Thoughts

Thanksgiving day is always such a welcome break from the fast-paced hectic days that so quickly pass this time of year. The opportunity to spend time with immediate and extended family and good friends renews our soul and reminds us of what is truly important in our lives. Granted not everyone is thrilled with the prospect of being "forced" to see their family on this day. We are either inspired by those we admire or encouraged by the fact that we did not inhereit some of the traits that run deep within our family lines.

Whichever the outcome of those experiences yesterday and even if there was no family or friends with which to gather, the world was forced to shut down and slow down for one whole day. That in and of itself was, as they say, priceless.

Oh Little Rock......

Today a customer drove up from Little Rock, AR to us in Kansas City (425 miles roughly) to do some work on his 996 Twin Turbo. We did a 60k mile service, a new battery, new wiper blades, brake fluid flush, K&N air filter clean, new fuel filter, Coolant flush, Mobil 1 oil change, etc. We had previously installed a fabspeed exhaust system on his TT, and it was a little loud for his taste, so we found him a Miltex system instead, which is a little more gentle on the ears. He stopped in this morning, and by 6 he was out the door.

Getting ready to start the day.....

Not bad for a daily driver......

With 60k miles......The old Fabspeed exhaust system.....
The new Miltex system. O2 sensors mounted and ready to go in the car.....

A few hours later, the car came to life, and sped off into the night.

We take great pride in saying our customers will drive hundreds of miles in from neighboring states, and all over the east, west, and midwest to have us work on their cars. Usually a day or 2 in KC, and they are fixed up and ready to head home.

996TT Motor Drop

Speaking of 996TT motor drops, I was digging through my camera last night and came across some pictures from a motor I dropped a couple of weeks ago. This motor will be taken apart, beefed up, and put back together, ready for a LOT of horsepower. I believe we are looking for around 800hp with this Stage kit. Dropping it consists of the lift, a ladder, a big table, and lots of tools......and typically a mess of coolant, pentosin, and oil. Out the bottom she will come....

The car on the lift.....

From the underside, lots of stuff already taken apart......
The pile of shields and suspension parts starts to build.....

HEY!!! Where did the motor go????

Oh, there it is!!

The Guys at European Car

Today we were busy cleaning for the guys at European Car Magazine. Apart from the normal cleaning around the shop we cleaned all of the cars, and all of the rooms that usually go forgotten through the busy weeks. They will be coming for a 944 chip shootout. This will go along with the 300 Horsepower 944 turbo we talked about earlier. Hopefully once they see the shop they will want to do an article about our 2.5 supercharged Boxster. That would get some good exposure. Karl started tearing in to a 996 TT today, He was in the process of removing the engine when I finally called it quits for the day, its not that I'm slacking but I don't really think I have ever seen Karl leave, He lives there. The other thing is I'm trying to balance school with work, now that's kind of funny because when I am at work I don't really feel like it is work, I guess that's because I love what I do, and when I'm at home I truly feel like I have to work to do my homework. Some of you out there will understand what I am trying to say. In the words of Forest Gump "that's about all I have to say about that."

It's a disease...

I've been lurking around the ImagineAuto shop for well over a year now, although I'm a relatively new employee here. I knew I'd fit it well when I first started talking to the employees of this establishment. They're all fanatical car people. They adopt sick cars and fix them and find them good homes after being a foster parent for a while. Or just flat out take 'em home. Like a good vet I could always count on them to give good sound advice even when it was a little hard to hear. “We’re really sorry Jimmy, but it might be best to just let your little rabbit go.”

I'm not too dissimilar, although I do tend to get a little too attached to my foster kids. My wife could be a little happier about it. The *$!%*& '82 VW Rabbit/Golf that I've owned since 1989 is a little past it's prime (ok, two wheels in the grave) but was such a loyal steed that I struggle sending to that little glue factory in the sky (also know as the scrap yard). The '91 944 that has spent 3 of the 8 years I've owned it on jack stands or under a cover in the driveway received similar opines from the missus... until I finally got it running again (with a tranny that it didn't need and a new clutch that it did). Now she's chomping at the bit to drive it to the gas station. Too bad the break in period for new clutches is about 10,000 miles. And then there's the hopeless VW Corrado I bought a couple of years ago for a song and about $1200 worth of suspension upgrades that it actually needed. It came stock with Koni Sports and polyurethane bushings right? It now languishes in the driveway with brake booster issues.

And now there's a fairly straight older 911 that's taken up residence out back that seems like it would fit in pretty well in the Nate family of misfits. And with one of THE MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE Porsche guys on the planet only a few feet away 50-60 hours a week, the "mommy can I please take it home with me" urge is irresistibly strong. And the missus is fairly understanding too. She knows it's a disease. An irresistible urge linked directly to my generosity impulse. The same impulse that compels me to buy popcorn I don't like from neighbor kids I like even less. It's pity mostly that I get from her, but I'll take that if it means another Porsche in the family.

And for the first time in my life I’m surrounded by people who understand, who share the same passions and encourage me to give good homes to unappreciated vehicles. Call them enablers if you wish, I call them good friends.

Freaky Friday

It is always amazing to me how the first part of our IA weeks are so tame and quiet but gradually build to climatic Fridays!

Among countless other projects, this week consisted of the near completion of two major 930 motor rebuilds, a transmission issue in one beautiful 911, discovery of a blown motor in a Saab, dent repair in a Discovery Land Rover, a drop-in 993 servicing and a 996TT DE pre-inspection. Friday we greeted a new customer who had left Chicago at 3:30 am and drove all the way to KC to leave us with his pride and joy 964. We are to do a motor refresh for him.

The VW HP kit PorscheDoc spoke about on Thursday turns out to be the highlight of this customer's year. He was still vibrating from his excitement when he came back to hang out with the guys on Friday. In his first visit on Friday he came in the VW, but then being such a nice day he took the VW home and came back on his Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle. This of course took everyone from the shop to oooh and ahhhh and talk about the other two motorcycles that had been driven to work on Friday. We love our Porsches but when you get an 80 degree day in November, you have to take advantage of the opportunity to ride!

Fridays are both chaotic trying to complete the work week yet anticipated by a diverse group of friends and customers and all of us at IA who enjoy late Friday afternoon happy hour. IA is THE place to be to forget the week just past, gab about whatever and unwind with a refreshing beverage. The connection we have with our work family and car community is what it's all about.

Volkswagen Horsepower in a Can.....

Well, not exactly in a can, but we did find a few horses laying around in the ECU. This afternoon we flashed the ECU in a 2004 1.8T Jetta, and installed a billet diverter valve. ECU flashes typically take 30 minutes to do, and involves my laptop a couple of cables and a little know how. In 30 minutes, without touching anything else in the car, the Jetta had 30 more HP and 50 more Ft/Lbs of torque. Pretty impressive for so little work. This flash consisted of a 91 octane performance flash, the stock program, and a handheld switcher, which enables the user to switch between the two programs at the push of a button. In the near future, this car will also have the "race" program installed as well, which runs on higher octane gas, resulting in even more power, and will also utilize the same handheld switcher. The billet diverter valve was installed to replace the stock bosch unit, which has a rubber diaphragm that is prone to tearing under boost. The billet valves, have a metal diaphragm that will not fail like a stock unit. In about 45 minutes, the customer was on his way again, with a lot more power :)