Devoted to the auto industry – builders to enthusiasts

I thought, for starters, I would not get fancy with the HTML style and tell you a little about myself.
I am 63 years old and have spent the past thirty years in automotive in the the supplier base. I have seen the rise and fall of most of the fads and buzzwords that have affected the industry in a positive and negative way.
My main area of expertize is sealing with elastomeric and thermoplastic elastomer materials. I hold six patents in this field. Another area in which I have spent a lot of time and sweat is valve train technology. I have invented a system, Patent Pending, that eliminates the use of valve springs. It also allows the rapid rise and fall of the valve thus increasing the open time of the valve, which increases the amount of induction and exhaust from the cylinder.
I have also had years of experience in the moldmaking field with expertize in programming CNC machines to do specific tasks. This entails a working knowledge of the G codes used to perform different movements of the CNC machine. It has also given me an insight into the characteristics of materials used, especially for sealing, including their variance during the molding process and why the use of the buzzword, "six sigma", is totally inaccurate in a molding situation. Whether it is straight injection molding or blow molding, the variances encountered from shot to shot will preclude a greater tolerance than "six sigma" will allow, unless, of course, the tolerance is enlarged to allow for it, thus defeating the purpose.
As you can see, I have had to be my own tooling, process, and product engineer on most of the products that I have brought to market. In one case, in particular, I even was told that Saginaw Steering Gear and DuPont de Nemours, Inc. had said that what I proposed would not work and I made it work anyway, with the help of a tremendous CEO and a wonderful team of technicians. Even to the point that DuPont was forced to purchase a type of molding press that would back me in my experiments.
Sadly, today I am disabled from eight spinal surgeries. Although I can still think and hunt and peck type, thus getting my experience out to others that may be facing the same type of problems in the automotive field. I have also set up an engine dynamometer cell, mainly to test the valve train system, that I will be able to use for other projects down the road. I will be happy to report the trials and tribulations encountered while using this equipment to test for torque and horsepower, especially on the racing engines.