Olsen Spec Projects

[olsenmotorsports]

Tim,

MS Project is the classic tool used to manage projects that are now called Waterfall. Jira is pretty much the standard for managing Agile projects.

I can see that you would be able to setup a project template in MS Project where you input a project start or end date and those dates drive dependent project milestones. Ex: Initial Teardown complete in X days. Subassembly teardown so many days later.

The issue with the above methodology is that typically the project manager doesn't learn that a deadline was missed until the due date. People tend to think that they will catch up, but they rarely do without help.

The Agile approach includes amongst other things, breaking down the project into small chunks that are at most a couple of days long with daily formalized checks on how every team member is doing.

If someone hits a snag, you learn about it quickly so that you can plan how to recover.

Given that many tasks are the same across every Porsche that you restore, I can see these PM software tools working for you, but I wouldn't try it without getting experienced Project Management help. And if they don't recommend implementing a new approach using baby steps, I'd look for someone else.

I am going to look into this thank you!

The thing I like about Enterprise is everything works together so well. Easy to integrate in between the different programs in the suite.

The someone hitting a snag comment though, oh the forgetting to do things has bitten me in the *** a few different times.

Thank you I am about to jump on some research right now!

You nailed it with the baby steps. Made that mistake before with changing too much too fast and never again! Lots of wisdom in what you said

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Thank you! Team is really rocking it! I cannot wait either - I think we will end up waiting the most on interior…… The leather the customer wants has to be custom made, that is putting some brembo sized brakes on the project unfortunately



Thank you! We will deliver this one start to finish in 3 months depending on what happens with interior.

As far as the pajamas Lol . Those are my Nike Golf pants . Hilarios.

Thanks for following along guys!

The keys to success on these projects I think can be summed up in one word. INVENTORY.

Them Nike golfers is KING!

 

[Scuderia-F1]

This one is motul 75-90

Gear 300 LS I assume? I'm very pleased with the Gear 300 LS, even more so with Gear Competition (although I won't go any deeper on the subject, as lubricant related topics often stirs feelings).

 

[Wiz02]

I am going to look into this thank you!

The thing I like about Enterprise is everything works together so well. Easy to integrate in between the different programs in the suite.

The someone hitting a snag comment though, oh the forgetting to do things has bitten me in the *** a few different times.

Thank you I am about to jump on some research right now!

You nailed it with the baby steps. Made that mistake before with changing too much too fast and never again! Lots of wisdom in what you said

Given how much information contribute on a daily basis, I'm grateful that I can pay back a tiny bit.

But enough of PM stuff, I can't wait for your next post.

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Gear 300 LS I assume? I'm very pleased with the Gear 300 LS, even more so with Gear Competition (although I won't go any deeper on the subject, as lubricant related topics often stirs feelings).

Yeah dude it’s good stuff. Honestly it all is good at the higher price point.

You ever use the swepco stuff? Seems to help those 915’s shift better (if that’s possible lol)

I agree. Fluids omg. A daily conversation with customers lol. We have a script for that.

“Does fluid a,b,c matter when it fails? Probably marginally yes. But we don’t ever let it get to that point so run what you like. We like brand x”.

Usually makes sense to most.

 

[danski0224]

I truly am sorry about that. Feel horrible for you.

Thanks, but it isn't something that I have any control over.

Except to go somewhere else, but most other places in my field are the same (despite self made claims otherwise). The difference here is the continuity of work. I would more than likely give that up for the same general environment.

I'm not being yelled at here, I wouldn't tolerate it. However, the people above me receive the brunt of the attitude. Most of the problems are created by the owner.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Yeah dude it’s good stuff. Honestly it all is good at the higher price point.

You ever use the swepco stuff? Seems to help those 915’s shift better (if that’s possible lol)

I agree. Fluids omg. A daily conversation with customers lol. We have a script for that.

“Does fluid a,b,c matter when it fails? Probably marginally yes. But we don’t ever let it get to that point so run what you like. We like brand x”.

Usually makes sense to most.

Never dealt with Swepco. I run Motul EVERYTHING.

We are in total agreement, but I don’t waste 1 second of my day to debate and or discuss. Same thing goes for parts and hardware etc.
it’s a non discuss topic, just as ”deals” and ”can you just”…..

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Most of the problems are created by the owner.

Facts, Takes a skipper to run a ship

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Never dealt with Swepco. I run Motul EVERYTHING.

We are in total agreement, but I don’t waste 1 second of my day to debate and or discuss. Same thing goes for parts and hardware etc.
it’s a non discuss topic, just as ”deals” and ”can you just”…..

It’s good stuff, but only for that box. Nothing wrong with Motul it’s a great product. I would use it on the daily, but it’s difficult to get from the suppliers in 55 gallon drums. So we only use it when it is Spec’d out.

Another great product here in the states is the Driven stuff. (That I buy in 55g drums)

LOL here we go discussing fluids

 

[olsenmotorsports]

it’s a non discuss topic, just as ”deals” and ”can you just”…..

Yeah but TBH, people do not come to establishments like yours or mine to save money, they come to get it done right. That never has been and never will be a how much discussion other than for cash flow planning.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

It’s good stuff, but only for that box. Nothing wrong with Motul it’s a great product. I would use it on the daily, but it’s difficult to get from the suppliers in 55 gallon drums. So we only use it when it is Spec’d out.

Another great product here in the states is the Driven stuff. (That I buy in 55g drums)

LOL here we go discussing fluids

Heard a lot of good things about the Driven stuff. I also have great experiences with Red Line (I exclusively use their grease in the CV joints, learned that back in the 993 GT2 R days).
i only run the competition stuff from Motul, that only comes in 60L drums.
By the way I love discu these things with fellow retards (I mean that in only good ways).

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Yeah but TBH, people do not come to establishments like yours or mine to save money, they come to get it done right. That never has been and never will be a how much discussion other than for cash flow planning.

Open wallet policy or GTFO.

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Open wallet policy or GTFO.

LOL well when you say it like that no lol. Not how we do it. It is a discussion, but when people call I think they understand that we are not cheap by any means, which comes with expectations. No different than walking into the Louis store (bad comparison but you get the drift)

 

[danski0224]

Facts, Takes a skipper to run a ship

Yes.

Success, or failure, starts there.

The person in the field doing the actual work isn't usually the reason why the project doesn't go as expected.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

LOL well when you say it like that no lol. Not how we do it. It is a discussion, but when people call I think they understand that we are not cheap by any means, which comes with expectations. No different than walking into the Louis store (bad comparison but you get the drift)

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Yes.

Success, or failure, starts there.

The person in the field doing the actual work isn't usually the reason why the project doesn't go as expected.

I think it takes a team. We run a hybrid bottom up and top down accountability system. Meet in the middle and it usually works. Everyone has to hold everyone accountable for the vision and execution of the task to achieve the main goal. One chink in that armor and it all crumbles at an alarming pace.

Without accountability, teamwork, and culture we rode the struggle bus for years (100% my fault and I own that, and I apologize to all my former employees and customers for that).

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Our Buggy fluids have always been:

Swepco power steering fluid
BelRay Brake Fluid
Redline Heavy Duty in the transaxle (Albins or Fortin 5 spd)
A mix of Belray Anti-seize and Swepco for CV's (934's)
Amsoil Oil
Belray Grease for pivots
Copper Antiseize for pivots

I don't spec any of it, I just call corners.....

 

[zmotorsports]

Never criticism this is how I learn!

That is interesting Data. I come from the Motorsports’s space and we always tried to keep gearbox oil at our around 80-90C. (We always ran Mobil 1 75-90 in those boxes (Porsche Motorsports made us) and never had any issues that weren’t driver related. This was running flat out for 24 hours as well. Now having said that I only know what my engineers at Porsche educated us on, and that is the limit of my knowledge. I have had discussions with Rader, CMS, and others and they recommend at our power levels and gear speed levels to run 75-90. Granted we are not running these in any kind of cold weather, I would probably thin out a touch if we did.

The coolers we run and pumps are made for these oils so that is not an issue. Temp I think is more critical. These boxes have about $35g in internals in them and are all polished and cryogenic treated. Gear temp has a lot to do with longevity so I try and keep them at recommended levels.

The pumps and fans are all controlled by Motec and turn on and off via logic,

TBH and please do not take this the wrong way I think all the stuff out there about boiling points/failure points etc is all marketing ****.

I agree, conversations like this is how we all learn, especially me.

I also agree, keeping gearbox temperatures within check is critical to longevity, but I wouldn't say cool because cold fluids have issues as well and don't lubricate properly either. I wouldn't go out as far as to say fluid spec's are marketing ****, because when we have to research fluids for new pieces of equipment or to solve issues, these spec's are exactly what we sort through and focus on. I would say however, that when various manufacturers start touting minute differences over their competitors fluids at the extreme ends of the spec's, then yes, I think that becomes more about marketing ******** than it is about choosing the correct fluid for the application. I have tried throughout my career to use fluids like I use my torque wrenches, seek out fluids where their middle range fits the application as closely as possible. Just because a gear oil states 350*F is the top end, that isn't where I would feel safe about running it if longevity and reliability were my goals. An application where the gearbox routinely sees 180*F to 200*F I would 100% feel safe using a fluid with a 350*F upper limit.

Out of curiosity, what kind of temperatures do you see in these gearboxes without aux. coolers? In my experience the 80C-90C (~180F-200F) temperature that you referenced is about normal of what we would see in our VW and Mendeola gearboxes in our sandrails that we ran in the desert. The gearboxes I built were not $35k gearboxes, but still expensive and worse, when one failed 10+ miles from civilization it was not an easy task towing a car back to camp running sand paddles that wouldn't turn due to a transaxle failure. I ran both the Redline 75-90 as well as the Swepco 202 with excellent results. Many of my gearboxes used Weddle gears used bronze bushings as well as synchros and fortunately I never had a catastrophic failure. In my personal sand car, I tested using a temperature probe for the fluid and compared using an IR gun on the case as a reference. Then when out on the dunes with clients I could keep track of temperatures by just shooting it with an IR gun to make sure everything was in check. We do the same thing in the industrial world to gather baseline data on equipment so I'm sure that's where I got in the habit of doing that. Once I established some correlations, then I would just use the IR gun as I hated extra wires and **** hanging off my car's components. We routinely measured case temperatures after a hard run of around 140* to 150* Fahrenheit which correlated to around 165* to 185* fluid temperatures. Granted these were not 24-hour runs nor even hours on end, but in 90~ish degree ambient temperatures and a 45-minute to an hour hard run from camp out to the back dunes it worked the transaxles pretty hard slamming through the gears.


I guess I'm fortunate because I have been involved in motorsports as well as the industrial arena for the better part of 4 decades now, so I've been able to carry some of that experience and information between the two worlds. In the industrial world we have some machines and equipment that actually have heaters on them to bring the fluids, and therefore the components, up to a certain temperature for optimum efficiency and longevity. We also have others that operate for full shifts in -20F freezers so we have to use special aviation fluids that will fulfill the lubrication tasks at those temps.

I'm just curious as to what temperatures you are actually seeing on these gearboxes to warrant an aux. cooler as maybe it isn't really necessary if the temperatures are staying within the range already. I used to have clients that wanted all these fancy air shifters, aux. coolers and "cool" stuff they saw on high end race cars, however, the way they drove and the environment they drove in didn't necessarily justify introducing such potential failure points into the car.

 

[zmotorsports]

Our Buggy fluids have always been:

Swepco power steering fluid
BelRay Brake Fluid
Redline Heavy Duty in the transaxle (Albins or Fortin 5 spd)
A mix of Belray Anti-seize and Swepco for CV's (934's)
Amsoil Oil
Belray Grease for pivots
Copper Antiseize for pivots

I don't spec any of it, I just call corners.....

Ryan, I see a LOT of similarities in our choices. I am even running Swepco power steering fluid in my daily driver Jeep I like it so much. I also ran a mixture of Belray anti-seize and Swepco grease in the CV joints of our sand cars. Worked great, until a client treated his hi-performance car like a lawnmower and put it away and expected it to perform flawlessly after sitting all winter. Fortunately, I didn't have many clients like that though. Most were very good about understanding that their hi-po cars needed additional maintenance and either performed the routine maintenance themselves, or brought it to me to perform the maintenance, but they knew and understood that these vehicles came with increased maintenance in order to survive the environment. Sand is HARD of anything that moves.

 

[GeoRoss]

I am going to look into this thank you!

The thing I like about Enterprise is everything works together so well. Easy to integrate in between the different programs in the suite.

The someone hitting a snag comment though, oh the forgetting to do things has bitten me in the *** a few different times.

Thank you I am about to jump on some research right now!

You nailed it with the baby steps. Made that mistake before with changing too much too fast and never again! Lots of wisdom in what you said

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to start the journey of formalizing their project management.

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager

It is a quick read and will set you with the basic processes.

 

[olsenmotorsports]

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to start the journey of formalizing their project management.

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager

It is a quick read and will set you with the basic processes.

Thank you! bought that and started reading it this morning! I am a huge advocate of reading and developing the mind. Thank you very much for the recommendation!

 

[olsenmotorsports]

930 Update. 4 days left (T-F next week) till our media deadline.



The team is getting after it. They have 3 guys working on this one so the ladders are out making it happen. Super proud of their efforts. No stress just punching through the list. Interior still has not shipped, so not too sure how that is going to work into our deadline yet….



Exhaust fab continues. Getting the E-Gate fitted into the car, it is a fairly large unit so that is tricky but I think they nailed it.


We still need to make some heat shields for the exhaust. But we had a tech meeting and I think we are just going to wrap it with iconel shielding and send it. It is a better option for the next guy that has to service it VS heat shields. Plus it looks better.



Fitting up the exhaust pipes to the surrounds we made last week.



I have to decide what profile I want these cut to, will mull that over The Weekend. But I think I will wait to do that till it is all painted and final assemblied and the car on the ground till I make that decision. That way I can view the car as a whole package to get the right angles.


Gearbox pump is in, mounted, and wired into the Motec. So is the cooler. Kind of a big unit for the tight space, but we achieved the ground clearance we needed as well as axle shaft clearance. Pretty tight spaces to fit all this.



Lines all done up - I need to buy a crimper this year from BMRS so we can do proper lines in house instead of the threaded on lines, going to work that into my budget for q1.



Clutch is also all hooked up and crossover tube for oil is fabricated, tumbled and installed.



Also the tires showed up for the HRE’s. Started to set some initial ride heights - I am not 100% happy with the front offset so I am going to have the fab guys machine a 5mm spacer for the front to bring it out a touch. That wont make media day as they will need to be hard coat anodized so we will run out of time for that….


rear fits perfect! Now that we have the wheels and tires on we can make our bumper braces to tweak the metal to the exact shape we want for the surround.

Thank you all for your input! And for following along!

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Deleted duplicate for some stupid reason - freaking technology

 

[danski0224]

I think it takes a team. We run a hybrid bottom up and top down accountability system. Meet in the middle and it usually works. Everyone has to hold everyone accountable for the vision and execution of the task to achieve the main goal. One chink in that armor and it all crumbles at an alarming pace.

Admittedly, I am not up on corporate speak.

However, I have been involved in two fairly large projects that have had pretty much zero meaningful input or direction from the Owner. Both projects are into the 7 figure range and have taken WAY longer than 90 days.

Bear in mind, in this case, the Owner has generated the Bid, and out of that comes "The Hours".

"The Hours" is a nebulous number that the field people always seem to "go over", and no Owner has opened up the books or shown a contract. When "The Hours" go over, the job "loses money". I do know that "losing money" can mean actually being in the red, or it can mean that instead of "X%" profit, there was "X-C%" profit. It must be the latter, because the doors are still open, eh?

Yours truly has done all of the field design, measuring and most of the installation either directly or by directing.

I know that the Owner has a line item in the bid package for "Design", but absolutely zero design comes from the office. It is done by the people in the field.

The company time cards do not have a way to differentiate between "installation" and "design" or "layout", so it all gets lumped into "installation labor" and the Owner pockets the line item "Design/Engineering" fee... and then the job goes "over hours".

On a job where I saw this Design line item, and heard about the bitching about being "over hours", I told the Project "Manager" to convert the Design line item to labor hours and then tell me where the numbers landed. Guess what, the "Hours" were OK at that point.

A few weeks ago, the 3 people under the Owner had their jobs threatened in a beat down, er, meeting, if "The Hours" go over in the next phase of one of those projects.

I do hope that one day the Owner does the same to me, because I will let him have it.

There's more, but it will get way too detailed and does not benefit me, because nothing will change because the problems start at the top here.

I have made mistakes and Owned Them. I did not pass blame to others. The person in charge is always to blame. I have learned to enable 3 way communication to ensure that the directions are clear. Yes, people do not listen, but I am not in a position to do anything about that.

The work is consistent and the projects are usually interesting which is why I stay. I don't put up with the office BS and CYA, and they know it.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

930 Update. 4 days left (T-F next week) till our media deadline.



The team is getting after it. They have 3 guys working on this one so the ladders are out making it happen. Super proud of their efforts. No stress just punching through the list. Interior still has not shipped, so not too sure how that is going to work into our deadline yet….



Exhaust fab continues. Getting the E-Gate fitted into the car, it is a fairly large unit so that is tricky but I think they nailed it.


We still need to make some heat shields for the exhaust. But we had a tech meeting and I think we are just going to wrap it with iconel shielding and send it. It is a better option for the next guy that has to service it VS heat shields. Plus it looks better.



Fitting up the exhaust pipes to the surrounds we made last week.



I have to decide what profile I want these cut to, will mull that over The Weekend. But I think I will wait to do that till it is all painted and final assemblied and the car on the ground till I make that decision. That way I can view the car as a whole package to get the right angles.


Gearbox pump is in, mounted, and wired into the Motec. So is the cooler. Kind of a big unit for the tight space, but we achieved the ground clearance we needed as well as axle shaft clearance. Pretty tight spaces to fit all this.



Lines all done up - I need to buy a crimper this year from BMRS so we can do proper lines in house instead of the threaded on lines, going to work that into my budget for q1.



Clutch is also all hooked up and crossover tube for oil is fabricated, tumbled and installed.



Also the tires showed up for the HRE’s. Started to set some initial ride heights - I am not 100% happy with the front offset so I am going to have the fab guys machine a 5mm spacer for the front to bring it out a touch. That wont make media day as they will need to be hard coat anodized so we will run out of time for that….


rear fits perfect! Now that we have the wheels and tires on we can make our bumper braces to tweak the metal to the exact shape we want for the surround.

Thank you all for your input! And for following along!

Nice work and yeah, a crimp rig will be a total game changer!

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Nice work and yeah, a crimp rig will be a total game changer!

It’s on the list. The machine isn’t terribly expensive. About 4.5k. And they give you one for free if you buy 10g in inventory. It’s the ten g I don’t want to part with now lol. But I don’t want to pay for the tool either. So they have me by the cajones lol.

 

[danski0224]

Sounds like you can get two for the price of one.

Gotta have a spare, right?

 

[Scuderia-F1]

It’s on the list. The machine isn’t terribly expensive. About 4.5k. And they give you one for free if you buy 10g in inventory. It’s the ten g I don’t want to part with now lol. But I don’t want to pay for the tool either. So they have me by the cajones lol.

Dude if you gonna go that route you need the hardware anyway.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Sounds like you can get two for the price of one.

Gotta have a spare, right?

Absolutely, downtime *****.

 

[danski0224]

Absolutely, downtime *****.

That depends.

In my case, I'm usually getting paid during downtime, so I'm ok with it. Especially when it isn't my fault.

 

[olsenmotorsports]

I was able to stop by and check out process on the bronco seats


Pretty happy with how they turned out. The jubilee looks nice on the stripe. It is such a rough material and as this will be pretty much bathing suit use at the beach I didn’t want to do much more.



Alcantara inserts. I decided to do the whole center.



Two sets of double sticking, one color matched to the grey on the outside of the vehicle to bring that flow inside, and orange to match the rest of the orange OEM ford stuff. Leather is Italian and feels amazing like a soft skin glove.

Overall pretty happy. Subtle but classy.

 

[Boosted1]

Bronco seats look great. I like them.
Ditto for the exhaust work on the 930.

 

[coldh2o]

930 Update. 4 days left (T-F next week) till our media deadline.



The team is getting after it. They have 3 guys working on this one so the ladders are out making it happen. Super proud of their efforts. No stress just punching through the list. Interior still has not shipped, so not too sure how that is going to work into our deadline yet….

Hmmm, OSHA says that's not a ladder...

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Bronco seats look great. I like them.
Ditto for the exhaust work on the 930.

Thank you! I’m pretty happy with them, but it’s like the man who kissed the cow, all a matter of taste.

Full clarity, we are not tubing benders or welders of tubing. So I’m sure it trash and there are many who can do better. But that’s what we had to work with!

Thank you for your comments and support!

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Hmmm, OSHA says that's not a ladder...

Probably educate me on how I can improve!

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Tim, was thinking about the cost to be able to do proper crimped plumbing. It’s important to mention, that if you can settle for an 36” Epiq KEMW361 workcenter as a base for the crimper and to hold the inventory (except for the hose itself), instead of going for a full height 36” or bigger, even if a single bay 68” would be sweet since you’d probably be able to store some serious amount/length of hoses in the bottom drawer of that bad boy.

I wont charge anything for my advice, since we are friends and all that.

 

[olsenmotorsports]

Tim, was thinking about the cost to be able to do proper crimped plumbing. It’s important to mention, that if you can settle for an 36” Epiq KEMW361 workcenter as a base for the crimper and to hold the inventory (except for the hose itself), instead of going for a full height 36” or bigger, even if a single bay 68” would be sweet since you’d probably be able to store some serious amount/length of hoses in the bottom drawer of that bad boy.

I wont charge anything for my advice, since we are friends and all that.

LOL Hilarious…. I actually have the KEWB601 on order for almost a year but they have not released it in that silver color like the rest of my boxes. How sick of a crimping station that would be with an orange theory vise mounted, the BMRS rig mounted and a Cohline crimper?

Snap on really upsets me that they wont let toolboxes be customized, meaning hey I want these drawers (which they obviously make) and this color (once again they obviously make).

I tried to order a 68 all drawer box with all 2” drawers for a hardware station and they told me no…. Couldn’t believe it. I even threw in my lifetime statement (over 650k in equipment tooling, boxes etc) and they still told me no. I will gladly pay extra? Nope. Furious.

 

[danski0224]

Go buy a Lista box and show Snappy the pictures.

 

[Boosted1]

Agree with danski0224

 

[Scuderia-F1]

LOL Hilarious…. I actually have the KEWB601 on order for almost a year but they have not released it in that silver color like the rest of my boxes. How sick of a crimping station that would be with an orange theory vise mounted, the BMRS rig mounted and a Cohline crimper?

Snap on really upsets me that they wont let toolboxes be customized, meaning hey I want these drawers (which they obviously make) and this color (once again they obviously make).

I tried to order a 68 all drawer box with all 2” drawers for a hardware station and they told me no…. Couldn’t believe it. I even threw in my lifetime statement (over 650k in equipment tooling, boxes etc) and they still told me no. I will gladly pay extra? Nope. Furious.

That would be a nice crimp unit.

Regarding custom orders, don’t make me go there. Luckily I have the best guy, so it’s easy to order individual drawers as spare parts.
For the build a bay units custom ordering isn’t a problem. But they’re based on Master Series & I’m an Epiq guy, so have to do it myself.

Lista is a hard NO (as they’re now Chinese owned), I’m not interested, period.