Chris Hammond
Saturday, May 07, 2011 4:00:29 AM
A week ago I posted a “question” on Facebook to see what color we should wrap the 350z in.
Well it looks like the final tally is 31/13/13
31 for Matte Black
13 for Matte Green
13 for Don't Do It!
So Matte Black it will be! Time to order the vinyl! I would hope to have it done by the end of the month, but realizing we are moving before then, we’ll set a goal of the end of June to have this completed. Of course we’ll have a time lapse video of the process!
Views: 566
Chris Hammond
Saturday, May 07, 2011 3:54:25 AM
I took all of this stuff out of my car a few months ago and am just now getting around to selling.
To the best of my knowledge here is what I have, you can find all the pictures from below (and more) at a higher resolution at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157626520108688/with/5628927973/
All equipment is used, but was in working order when removed from the car.
Views: 1402
Chris Hammond
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 2:04:19 AM
So I’ve wanted to do this for a while, and now I’m getting ready to pull the trigger.
I am going to wrap the 350z? What does that mean? I am going to take a solid Vinyl color, and wrap it around the entire painted surface of the car. Effectively changing the color of the car, and covering the paint in a protective vinyl coating.
Why am I wrapping the car? Because I can? Or well, because I want to. I don’t know yet that I can. I’ve applied quite a bit of vinyl in my life, but never to an entire car.
Why not have someone else wrap it? Why not have a designer wrap done? Both of those options cost money, and I really would rather spend money elsewhere on the car. That being said, if you own a car wrapping business in the San Francisco Bay Area and you want to sponsor Project350z, fill out the Contact form on the About page.
What color are you going to wrap it? That’s where you come in. We’ve setup a "Poll" on our Facebook page, where you get to help us decide. The options are "Matte Black, Matte Green, Don’t Do it!" If you have a Facebook account go ahead and answer the question! The Poll will stay open until 5/4/2011.
And while you are at it, don’t forget to "LIKE" our page!
Views: 990
Chris Hammond
Sunday, April 17, 2011 11:52:43 PM
So the car is naked, well about as naked as it can be.
Saturday evening I took it to the car wash and removed all of the vinyl. I plan to put it back on, but it’ll be a while before that happens. I figured it was a little too much right now to attract attention. I’d post photos, but there really isn’t much point, right now the car is just a blue 350z that is a little lower than normal.
In honor of the occasion here’s some President’s of the United States of America, with Naked and Famous
Views: 650
Chris Hammond
Friday, April 15, 2011 1:25:23 AM
So I finally heard back from SPL Pars regarding an email I sent a few weeks ago. I emailed them to ask if they could provide me the information on what the arms are configured for in terms of the heim joints.
In summary of the previous blog post, the heim joints aren’t legal in B Street Prepared (or any street prepared class in the SCCA). So these arms aren’t legal.
Views: 1074
Chris Hammond
Sunday, April 10, 2011 1:01:13 AM
I just don’t have the energy to do a full writeup for the ProSolo today, and to be honest, it won’t happen Sunday, and likely not Monday either 
So what happened? Well, I’m sitting in 5th out of 8, 2nd in the Kumho class. I’m still hoping to get up to first in the K Class 
With the contingency available that would mean a set of tires.
Jodi Fordahl is driving with me as well. She’s doing great, I have a feeling she’ll be faster than me on Sunday.
Random note: This car really needs a diff! I am going to try to find the OS Giken guys if they are at the Pro tomorrow and talk to them a bit.
Views: 708
Chris Hammond
Saturday, April 09, 2011 12:44:21 AM
So today I did some testing with UStream and the FM Audio Broadcast at the El Toro ProSolo. I think I managed to come up with a way to broadcast the announce stream out on the internet (audio only) using UStream.
I setup a new “Channel” for the ProSolo on Ustream, we’ll see how it works out tomorrow, but if you want, give it a listen by going to (only active during competition, and if it works)
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/prosolo
This is completely unofficial, and if it goes down it goes down, no promises that it will work!
Between the live audio and http://sololive.scca.com you might be able to feel like you are actually in El Toro being miles away! The event is supposed to start at 9am, we’ll see how things work out.
Views: 894
Chris Hammond
Tuesday, April 05, 2011 10:41:13 PM
Have you ever wanted to learn how to tune the suspension on a car?
Well, I haven’t really wanted to know that, until recently. Now I NEED to know. I took the Evo Advantage program this past weekend at the San Diego National Tour and felt like a total newb when the instructor kept telling me to do things to the car and I had no idea what he was talking about.
So now the question is, how best to learn the art of suspension tuning? Well, I started off on Amazon and picked up Tune to Win: The art and science of race car development and tuning
by Carroll Smith.
I’ve yet to crack it open, but I plan to start on it this evening. I’ll post more on the website later when I have a feeling for what it actually provides, and can talk about what I am learning (hopefully I’ll learn something!)
Views: 866
Chris Hammond
Tuesday, April 05, 2011 12:52:19 AM
So here we are, one day after the tour and I have all 6 of my runs squared away on video. Now to get them blogged about, in order of course.
Car Class: BSP
Suspension Configuration
Front: TrueChoice Coiliovers(bump 1 full turn, rebound 6 clicks) 650lb Springs
Rear: Koni Sports (rebound 2.5 clicks) 500lb Springs on Adjustable Perchs
Hotchkis Sway Bars: Front Full Stiff (Front hole of 3) Rear Medium Stiffness (Middle hole of 3)
Read the full blog post for all the videos
Views: 984
Chris Hammond
Monday, April 04, 2011 1:16:23 AM
I was pretty down today. Going into the first set of runs I had a headache that didn’t seem to want to go away and I wasn’t happy with my performance the day before. I was actually sitting there thinking, why do I do this? I really was thinking, I love seeing friends and talking to everyone, but I was pretty down on the racing part of things.
While I was announcing first heat a number of cars were DNF’ng corner 3, all the MOD cars dnf’d their first run. I thought, what is wrong with these people, why are they dnf’ng up there? Well, on my first run I found out, as I did the same damn thing. I was flying around the top of the course, looking ahead (or so I though) and all of a sudden I realized I wasn’t anywhere close to making it where I needed to be, I slammed on the brakes then decided there was no way I was going to make it so I hit the gas and drove on.
My second run started off okay, but coming in to the end I clipped a cone, I knew it, wasn’t one I should of hit, but did. So I was sitting in 8th or 9th as of that run, where I started the day in 7th.
My 3rd run I wasn’t really happy going into, I was sitting in 3rd place in ZSP (our little Z car competition with 4 drivers). I went out and did as well as I could. I put up the lowest Z time for the day and moved into first in ZSP and 6th in BSP. Had I not had issues yesterday I truly believe I could have taken 5th for the weekend (1 out of trophies) but I still would have been 4 or 5 seconds out of first.
I’ll have videos up in the next couple of days, I have some photos uploading at the moment, when they are all complete they will be found at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157626299376321/
Views: 566