Millwright/metal fabrication/welding/machining/disaster management for FedEx Ground


In school for mechanical engineering with emphasis on automotive design.
SAE member for 3 years.
Formula SAE engine builder at University of Texas at Arlington 2004-2005.
Formula SAE composites fabrication at UTA 2004-2005.

 

i am a car nut in the most basic sense. mechanical devices fascinate me. i sucked at drawing, even with a computer, so i washed out of mechanical engineering in college.
my big thing is that i follwo a ton of different types of motorsports and look at the cars in detail. no one form of sport has all of the answer, but collectively i believe they all have answers i need.

 

I'm going to into mechanical engineering. Currently I am a machinist. I build everything I can on my car including the intercooler setup and fuel system. I have tuned several LT1 f-bodies, and am finishing up my FAST install right now with coil on plug and E85.

 

I figured I've been reading in this forum enough, I ought to post in this thread. I have a degree in Mech. E. and am a CEC officer in the navy. I grew up around cars and my dad has his own shop where I help him out whenever I'm home. I do all my own work on my car provided I have a place to work on it. I also end up fixing all my friends' cars.

 

Senior Mechanical Engineering student, have done minor car work. Very interested in cars and IC engines.

 

20 y/o Automotive Technology student. I'm about to earn by AAS from Triton College in IL, will be transfering to Ferris State University in MI for an Automotive Engineering bachelor. I do not work on cars as a profession, but I do sketch concepts and technical drawings often in my free time

 

Other:

I've kept a side business doing automotive work since I was 16, now 33. I'm a non-automotive engineer by day, but my veins pump motor oil. (I've gotten yelled at for researching car stuff during work hours) My rock buggy (ls powered) was built from the frame up, to include the frame, so I know my way around some fabrication tools..

 

I'm a 24 year old Mechanical Engineer. Been wrenching on stuff since I picked up my pickup truck at 15 1/2 and left it stock for one day. Never looked back...since then, I have been around drag racing and automotive work the rest of the time. My uncle owns a transmission shop and I pretty much have been spoiled by having access to 5 lifts...so I'm not a fan of laying on the creepers anymore . I graduated in 2005 with my BSME and then went to work for Borg Warner making Variable Cam Timing Phasers (new stuff then). I now work as a manufacturing engineer at Trane (Air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps, etc)...not much automotive there, but I do get some relief when the innocent factory worker asks me if thats a 350 in my 2002 Trans Am I have been through numerous engines, mainly GM, and have the mechanical stuff down pat..just lacking a bit on the wiring side of things....PFM I tell ya! (Pure F'n Magic!)

 

I'm a nuclear engineer by profession. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering. I originally got into that because I wanted to design cars, but somewhere along the line that took a turn. Currently I'm studying for my P.E. that I'll be taking in April.

I've been around cars and working on them pretty much since I was 10. My dad always had cars around (80 T/A, 70 Chevelle SS, 69 C-10 all come to mind). Then when it came to get my own wheels, I got a 4 banger Rustang and then a 72 GMC that I hot rodded (and sold last monday after 11 years). I've had 3 LS1 T/As, the vette, a jeep grand cherokee that I built a custom long arm suspension for, and now my 68 project truck.....plus other cars that I've wrenched on. I've also done work for friends (LSx: 3 cam swaps, heads, torque converter, 2 clutches) So I get my fill of cars on the side.

I've read a couple of suspension books, but never really put them into real use. The jeep's suspension was so oversized for driving purposes. It was built for impact resistance (2" DOM .25" wall tubing!).

 

Chemical engineer here.
Wrenching with engines since 14 (I'm 40 now).
1st US car was a 91 TBI Firebirs.
2 nd US car is the actual 98 LS1 TA.
I'd like to do more with cars than now but here (Switzerland) laws are pretty restrective, police pretty annoying, fines really high and cars stuff is extremely expensive (US cars parts costs 3x - 4x more than in the US).
The people are in general against noisy and pumped up cars and always complain (with the annoying police). Result: you may have to visit a judge and the car is inspected... with a fine if it's not stock.

My dream: a little house with some land and a fully equipped garage (with lift and ever kind of tools) and do all the mess and the noise I want.

This dream costs at least $1'000'000 (house in a quite place far away from ********). So it'll remain a dream!

 

32 years old, I've been in a few fields, computer networking, business management, production, now I work where the real money is..daycare

1st project took my tricycle apart at 2 always like to race, used to take my moms car when I was 14 and do donuts in the park on the grass and race people at street lights when she was sleeping

1st motor I built was a 350 sbc 350 hp 700r4 setup with 3.73's and a 2,800 stall. Had some other cars in between, got my z28 Camaro in 1998, went 11's in it back in 98 with a stock motor and some spray, blew that motor up in 2005 and got another motor and trans but never modified it besides headers and T/B.

My 1st attempt at building a dedicated hot rod was a 65 chevy II tube frame back half, 4 link, coilover car with a nitrous injected 377 and th400 with a brake. It went 10's on motor 9's on spray, but I never put much of a hit on it. Pretty much built it to beat my big mouth friends at the street races, needless to say with 33x16.5s and a small block it would hook in the rain pretty much.

Now I am building a 25.2 tube frame out of my 1998 camaro with stock shock towers with plans for a 600+ inch motor on a small shot of spray, then switching to a boosted setup on alky. Car will be stock style front suspension with a 4 link, coilover rear with room for 33x17's.

It's going to be 11-1 and run on pump gas so I can drive it a lot more than my last project. I love pro street setups and drag radial cars.

See whoever is going to the LA Invasion at Fontana on memorial day at the races.

 

Im 21, Ive been around cars my whole life. I currently work at Gear Heads Performance in South Arlington, Texas...And My experience with cars is Ive been a tech at a Gm dealership since I was 18 then got my break into a performance shop.

 

I really enjoy cars and do some wrenching but leave the big stuff to the pro's . If i cant figure how to do it i will pay a pro but not to many pro's here

 

I'm 39 years old. I work in the oil field as a HSE (health, safety and environmental) Consultant for the major oil companies...Shell, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, BP..on a contract basis. Although, I have no engineering degrees.

I grew up in an oil puddle at Southland Dragway where my dad ran his 1973 Dodge Dart Sport in G/H/Stock Automatic. He was the class record holder for a couple of years. When we weren't at the tracks, we were home wrenching on the stocker. His Dad owned 3 car lots so there was always a hot rod or two around.

Been drag racing myself for quite some time now. Got my first real hot rod about 10 years ago, a 1970 Camaro w/ a SBC 400. It ran high 11's...too damn slow. Managed to blow that in the burnout one day so I put a 14-1 383 in her. Ran mid 10's and had a blast with it but got tired of not having a toy when the track was closed. So I bought my '97 WS6 in 2006 and joined these forums to start learning about the computer cars. And the first thing I learned was that I shudda bought an LSx. That's the reason I come to Ad Eng Tech.

 

I am an ASE Certified Master Engine Machinist, although I have not done machinist work in 6 Years. I now work in the IT field and enjoy working on computers. I am enjoying working on and learning about the LSX engines. I have been around for awhile and used to drag race back in the '70s. I liketo play dumb sometimes, just to see what people will tell you. It never ceases to amaze me.

 

Like many of us, I started at a very young age out in the garage with my father. I could change a tire before the age of 5. We worked on practically everything to save the expense. My father was a jet electrician in the Air Force during Vietnam and his father was a GM Master Mechanic so I learned a lot from them. Building on those experiences, I got my Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. I worked contract for a supplier to Mercedes-Benz for a year before joining my current company, a manufacturer of utility trucks and off-highway vehicles. For the last 2-1/2 years, I designed said vehicles that were to be manufactured at our local facility (company has several assembly sites). Just recently, I have moved into a position dealing with the chassis OEMs (International, Ford, Freightliner, etc) for the company as a whole.

I pretty much work on everything myself unless I don't have the tools to do it (paint). I'd love to have a lift but I don't have a place to put one. I hate lying down to work! But I spend a lot of time helping my friends with their cars. I enjoy it because it allows me to experience other types of setups that I normally wouldn't have run into. I need to spend more time on my car, but life has a tendency to get in the way. However, I'll always have a hotrod to play with. Couldn't live without it!

 

I do enough drifting around here that I might as well say that I'm a 20 year old nerd working toward a double major in math and physics. After I graduate, I want to go on to get a PhD in either solid state (computer circuits,batteries, mostly electrical ****) or plasma physics (fusion reactions and such), more practical things than other subfields of nerdology. I do fab work, ie welding and stuff, because I work for a general contractor in the summer to pay for school. Anyway I started wrenching on my cars at 18 and will take on most any challenge, but I do go to my mechanic Chris when I'm out gunned, he's the only other soul I let touch my car.

 

26 y/o here
I have a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and currently a Powertrain Development Engineer for Roush (3 yrs).

 

I'm a Junior mechanical engineering student at the university of TN who is currently on a Cooperative work program here at BORGWARNER TURBO AND EMISSION SYSTEMS. I know a thing or 2 about turbo's.

 

Hot rodder and wannabee racercar driver in Highschool. That's how it starts for most of us in the aftermarket. A freakin' 16 year old terror that drove sideways in every corner. Didn't have the money for a cast iron 4bbl manifold for my '68 ranchero at age 16. Built a Holley 750 conversion manfold for my 240z at age 17 out of exhaust tubing and burned the hell out of myself welding hand-fabbed frame rails to a high carbon rusted out Japanese steel unibody. Figured out the beauty of REALLY deep gears in a '67 mustang at age 18. Went into the Airforce for 4 years and worked in a Satellite control facility in Colorado Springs doing things I could tell you about, but then I'd have to kill you

Figuring out how I could get into the racing industry from a electronics background wasn't easy. Back in '96, the only school that specialized in Racing was the Judson Massengill's school of automotive machinists. I had the blessing of meeting Judson Massengill while at David Vizard engine building conference while still in the Airforce and knew it was my way in. I broke my neck doing a 130mph powerslide in my '87 supercharged notchback and spent 6 months in Rehab before showing up on Jud's doorstep. I worked night and day at the school soaking up engine after engine on the dyno and broke a lot of tooling. That's when Trevor Johnson pronouced that no matter how much I ported heads and went back and forth between the flow bench....I'd never be a head porter....and he was right. I met a lot of top notch engine builders and racers. Did a lot of general hooliganism and racing with some of the best people you could ever meet before graduating. That's when I learned the difference between people with hands and ears versus people with mouths. Many of the best are the tops in their perspective racing today

I put out my resume at Scott Shafiroff Racing engines in Long Island and had the pleasure of seeing what BIG big blocks did on nitrous. Scott was a big influence on me. I got a call from CJ Batten's people to come to Michigan shortly after that...still wet behind the ears. That's where I met people that could design engines from a clean sheet of paper and learned about engine architecture. 4 valve conversion heads for big blocks, 3000 horsepower billet turbo 4 cylinders, etc. etc. It was there I met some of the top GM engineers and many of the top people in the aftermarket learning about manufacturing engine components.

I had the opportunity to come to Wiseco in '99. Manufacturing is it's own form for racing. So I spend what I can on my cars, live vicariously through my customers (friends) and spend their money for them. I've had to settle down a bit trying to raise my son and stay married, but I still get dirty and I keep driving forward.

This is long and drawn out, but I consider it one of my purposes in life to educate young people to go out and get a job at what they're passionate about..don't worry about the money...that comes later. The main thing you've got to do is find a mentor and be willing to move for opportunity when it happens.