Hisserman
Enthusiast
The name of our Fall Tech Day this year was "Wheels, Tires and More!"
We were hosted by MotorWerks, one of the highest quality shops in the Detroit area ( MotorWerks ). They have the latest equipment, high quality techs, a superbly clean environment and a fanatic dedication to doing things right.
Bill Keys, a factory representative from Hunter Engineering was present to demonstrate their sophisticated tire mounting and balancing equipment. He showed us how it will check rim trueness so closely it seemed that it could tell whether the valve cap was on or not. The wheels are precisely read for runout and true diameter and balance.
After the rim is calibrated and corrected if necessary (more about that later) the tire is mounted on it. It's impressive to see the Hunter machine caress a tire onto a Viper rim with it's nylon wheels - without a chance of getting a scrape or scratch on it. Then the tire and wheel are balanced under a rolling load of 1,000 lbs, marked and matched. The machine rotates the tire on the rim to match high and low spots to optimize the best true diameter. Finally, plastic coated weights are added -- skillfully calculated to hide them behind the spokes for a totally clean look. The result is a perfectly balanced tire that allows your Viper to smoothly attain the speeds it is designed for.
After adding new tires (or even newly balanced tires) it is wise to have the alignment checked. Bill demonstrated Hunter's latest alignment equipment. It's four lasers, with both real and virtual video screens and sophisticated adjustment capability will blow your mind.
Following the Hunter presentation, we heard from Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists of Michigan ( Alloy Wheel Repair ). They have a mobile lab that can come to your shop, home or office and do wheel repairs on the spot. They also have a larger permanent lab where they can do alloy welding, special machining and other procedures they can't do in the mobile lab.
Don Neubauer and his assitant Tim Bush made a great presentation on how they can repair wheels from simple tire rash and scratches, to filling gouges and retruing rims. They answered endless questions about wheel repair and maintenance.
After the questions they demonstrated their work on wheels brought in by club members. For example, they showed how they could take a rim that had read out untrue on the Hunter machine and retrue it to nearly virtual specification. They repaired one wheel that looked like it had run head on into an 8" curb (although they are careful to say that they can't always guarantee success). Don can only be described as an artist in alloy. He does wonderful work and persistently stives for quality. He's also a straight shooter. Don made a big sacrifice by coming to Tech Day right after the funeral of a close relative. We share his sorrow and are eternally grateful. Here he is finishing up making deep rash go away from a Viper wheel -- NO ONE could find where it had been when he was done!
Our third set of presentations was by Rod Wesley from Touch-Up 'N' Go ( Touch-Up ), who shared his tips on detailing wheels and other parts of Vipers. Rod's long experience showed that he knew his stuff!
In addition, club member Bill Easterday enlightened us on his recently installation of a B&M short shifter. With his console off, he showed us the results of his battles removing the rivets and his tricks for making the minimum intrusions into the housing.
During lunch we held a drawing for a skip-shift eliminator. The winner was Sandy Emerling. Sandy's been skipping shifts for a long time, because he was one of the members of the original Viper team. Many of you have Sandy's likeness on the instructional video that came with your car!
Finally, yours truely displayed my recent installation of a Snake Oyl cruise control (no, I'm not putting in cupholders next!). The install went in beautifully and the unit works like a top. Now there's a way to stretch my legs on those long trips!
All in all, we had a full day of sharing solid technical tips for maintaining and enjoying our Vipers. Much thanks to Satish Tummala of MotorWerks and all the other experts that made our day so enjoyable.
We were hosted by MotorWerks, one of the highest quality shops in the Detroit area ( MotorWerks ). They have the latest equipment, high quality techs, a superbly clean environment and a fanatic dedication to doing things right.
Bill Keys, a factory representative from Hunter Engineering was present to demonstrate their sophisticated tire mounting and balancing equipment. He showed us how it will check rim trueness so closely it seemed that it could tell whether the valve cap was on or not. The wheels are precisely read for runout and true diameter and balance.
After the rim is calibrated and corrected if necessary (more about that later) the tire is mounted on it. It's impressive to see the Hunter machine caress a tire onto a Viper rim with it's nylon wheels - without a chance of getting a scrape or scratch on it. Then the tire and wheel are balanced under a rolling load of 1,000 lbs, marked and matched. The machine rotates the tire on the rim to match high and low spots to optimize the best true diameter. Finally, plastic coated weights are added -- skillfully calculated to hide them behind the spokes for a totally clean look. The result is a perfectly balanced tire that allows your Viper to smoothly attain the speeds it is designed for.
After adding new tires (or even newly balanced tires) it is wise to have the alignment checked. Bill demonstrated Hunter's latest alignment equipment. It's four lasers, with both real and virtual video screens and sophisticated adjustment capability will blow your mind.
Following the Hunter presentation, we heard from Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists of Michigan ( Alloy Wheel Repair ). They have a mobile lab that can come to your shop, home or office and do wheel repairs on the spot. They also have a larger permanent lab where they can do alloy welding, special machining and other procedures they can't do in the mobile lab.
Don Neubauer and his assitant Tim Bush made a great presentation on how they can repair wheels from simple tire rash and scratches, to filling gouges and retruing rims. They answered endless questions about wheel repair and maintenance.
After the questions they demonstrated their work on wheels brought in by club members. For example, they showed how they could take a rim that had read out untrue on the Hunter machine and retrue it to nearly virtual specification. They repaired one wheel that looked like it had run head on into an 8" curb (although they are careful to say that they can't always guarantee success). Don can only be described as an artist in alloy. He does wonderful work and persistently stives for quality. He's also a straight shooter. Don made a big sacrifice by coming to Tech Day right after the funeral of a close relative. We share his sorrow and are eternally grateful. Here he is finishing up making deep rash go away from a Viper wheel -- NO ONE could find where it had been when he was done!
Our third set of presentations was by Rod Wesley from Touch-Up 'N' Go ( Touch-Up ), who shared his tips on detailing wheels and other parts of Vipers. Rod's long experience showed that he knew his stuff!
In addition, club member Bill Easterday enlightened us on his recently installation of a B&M short shifter. With his console off, he showed us the results of his battles removing the rivets and his tricks for making the minimum intrusions into the housing.
During lunch we held a drawing for a skip-shift eliminator. The winner was Sandy Emerling. Sandy's been skipping shifts for a long time, because he was one of the members of the original Viper team. Many of you have Sandy's likeness on the instructional video that came with your car!
Finally, yours truely displayed my recent installation of a Snake Oyl cruise control (no, I'm not putting in cupholders next!). The install went in beautifully and the unit works like a top. Now there's a way to stretch my legs on those long trips!
All in all, we had a full day of sharing solid technical tips for maintaining and enjoying our Vipers. Much thanks to Satish Tummala of MotorWerks and all the other experts that made our day so enjoyable.
