Tuesday, November 26, 2013

TE37 RT review, with manufacturing equipment

Prepare to get nerdy. A friend of mine recently got some TE37 RT's for his S2000 fresh from the factory and agreed to let me take a look.

So this is going to be a little different than a normal review because I used the industrial measuring machinery I use at work every day. The machine used is a Mitutoyo CMM, it rides on air bearings so it feels like an air hockey table, it also costs as much as a new car and uses an incredibly flat piece of granite as it's table surface. It uses a probe tipped with a small ruby and records its movement in the 3D environment of X, Y, and Z axes. Whenever the tip gets moved by bumping into an object it records the direction and distance of travel. It can reliably record down to the .0001" and reasonably measure down to .00001", as reference, the average human hair is .003" and the thin plastic that seals up cigarette packets is .001".

I should also say that I can only get so accurate of a reading with the wheel having been painted, at these tolerances slightly thicker paint and clear coat in one area can dramatically affect the readings. Also, these aren't my wheels, so don't break in here expecting to find them.


So, the results...

Monday, November 18, 2013

Did I mention Tim takes great photos?

I got Tim from Automotive Digression to take some photos of my 1973 Honda CB500, and am absolutely stunned by the results. Head on over to Automotive Digression if you'd like to see some more great pics, mostly car related.