Today started with a great breakfast provided by the conference. A full day of classes started for Vadim, Paul and myself in the VW class. Tons of great VW info!
A real fancy meal greeted the 6 students who made it to lunch. TC was unable to make it, Evan had to fly out early today and Lucky headed home in his new car!
We had a great time at lunch and as a bonus we got to witness Cliff's abilities to create modern art with some butter balls, table pepper and salad dressing. It was foul!
The afternoon class on new vehicle technologies was terrific. The Lexus with all it's collision avoidance radar and cameras is truly amazing!
The evening was capped off with a great light dinner and open bar which made some of the guys REAL happy.
Spent 2 hours weeding through all the junk collected at SEMA, AAPEX and CARS and now all packed and ready to go home in the AM. Can't wait to get the heck out of this place!
Saturday, November 3, 2007
CARS Conference Day 2
Today started out with a decent breakfast at the conference and some tired students. Most of the students took the Powerstroke class which, they tell me, was great IF you work on them all day long. TC and I took a "Diagnostic Challenge" class. It was quite good. Evan and Brad came in 1/2 way through.
The guy that taught the class is a mobile driveability repair tech and he made case studies out of vehicles that HE misdiagnosed. He is well know to be one of the leaders in the US. It was good because he had one study on approaching a REAL data bus failure. It was a GM something. The SIR and IP modules were setting U codes saying they could not talk to the TCM (transmission control module). After some diagnosis, he replaced the TCM and it did not fix. Instead the BCM (body control module) acts as a gateway and was lying to the other modules. He did a good job making it easy to understand. He also did a good job with some vesicles that had transmission solenoid faults. TC was able to follow the whole thing all the way through.
We had an OK lunch and then we got to see who won the prizes from last night. Student Paul won the Bosch tool kit, same as I won last year! This one: http://bosch.cpotools.com/combo_kits/18_volt_combo_kits/cpk40-18.html
Brad Watts won an IPOD! Everyone else won lots of pens and hats and a cool calculator from Toyota.
After lunch I ran back down to the SEMA Show as they were closing at 4 today. I did a whirlwind tour and saw a few things I missed before.
Millions of things like this:
A really cool Challenger:
Watched a few minutes of taping an Overhaulin episode. They had a ways to go yet so they better get going since the SEMA Show was closing in 1 hour!
The guy that taught the class is a mobile driveability repair tech and he made case studies out of vehicles that HE misdiagnosed. He is well know to be one of the leaders in the US. It was good because he had one study on approaching a REAL data bus failure. It was a GM something. The SIR and IP modules were setting U codes saying they could not talk to the TCM (transmission control module). After some diagnosis, he replaced the TCM and it did not fix. Instead the BCM (body control module) acts as a gateway and was lying to the other modules. He did a good job making it easy to understand. He also did a good job with some vesicles that had transmission solenoid faults. TC was able to follow the whole thing all the way through.
We had an OK lunch and then we got to see who won the prizes from last night. Student Paul won the Bosch tool kit, same as I won last year! This one: http://bosch.cpotools.com/combo_kits/18_volt_combo_kits/cpk40-18.html
Brad Watts won an IPOD! Everyone else won lots of pens and hats and a cool calculator from Toyota.
After lunch I ran back down to the SEMA Show as they were closing at 4 today. I did a whirlwind tour and saw a few things I missed before.
Millions of things like this:
A really cool Challenger:
Wild Honda:
Watched a few minutes of taping an Overhaulin episode. They had a ways to go yet so they better get going since the SEMA Show was closing in 1 hour!
I also was able to get Vic Edlebrock to sign an Edlebrock hat I brought with me. Too Cool. While I was leaving I got to see something you don't see every day...2 small block Chevy powered bar stools going down the road! I couldn't get my camera up fast enough so you will have to trust me.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
CARS Conference Day 1
Today was our first day attending the conference which is the real reason we are here. Considering I got to bed at 2am after getting Jeff from the airport and having to solve all of life's big problems, I was fairly fried today.
The first class I took with Paul, Jeff, Cliff, Galen, Greg, Evan, Paul, Lucky, Vadim and Brad. The subject was interesting enough: throttle by wire. Unfortunately, the whole class could have been done well in about 1 hour yet it was stretched to 3 hours. The instructor kept going over the same subject in different ways. Since the class was not good, most of the students bailed out at break time. Cliff is still not well so I encouraged him to go home and rest. Only Brad, Vadim, Greg and Evan hung in there.
Today was just a box lunch with a croissant sandwich...not bad/not great!
The second class of the day was better. It was so packed with info about E85, flex-fuel vehicles that my head was spinning by the time I left. Great info/genius instructor/too much info. None of the students were in this one unfortunately. The guy that taught the class has a shop in Colorado. He built this gem and drove it to Vegas! http://www.seyferauto.com/project_01.html This is an unbelievable build! Paul and I went and looked at it in the parking garage. Read the text, amazing.
After having dinner with Mike Shannon, Bruce and Paul, Paul and I headed down to the CARS trade show around 7:30. There was a huge food spread and great desserts. The only student left at the trade show by the time we got there was Evan. He hung out with me as I talked to vendors and buddies. We entered a bunch of giveaways and got lots of free-bee stuff. Too many hats though!
Tomorrow looks like some good classes and the big classy lunch is also tomorrow. The food will be high end I am sure. I will be leaving a little early as I plan to catch up to my Mother-In-Law for dinner.
To read more about the on-going SEMA Show and see professional pics, try these sites:
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_1
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_2
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_3
Just make sure you scroll down as each page has multiple more pages attached near the middle, after the text.
The first class I took with Paul, Jeff, Cliff, Galen, Greg, Evan, Paul, Lucky, Vadim and Brad. The subject was interesting enough: throttle by wire. Unfortunately, the whole class could have been done well in about 1 hour yet it was stretched to 3 hours. The instructor kept going over the same subject in different ways. Since the class was not good, most of the students bailed out at break time. Cliff is still not well so I encouraged him to go home and rest. Only Brad, Vadim, Greg and Evan hung in there.
Today was just a box lunch with a croissant sandwich...not bad/not great!
The second class of the day was better. It was so packed with info about E85, flex-fuel vehicles that my head was spinning by the time I left. Great info/genius instructor/too much info. None of the students were in this one unfortunately. The guy that taught the class has a shop in Colorado. He built this gem and drove it to Vegas! http://www.seyferauto.com/project_01.html This is an unbelievable build! Paul and I went and looked at it in the parking garage. Read the text, amazing.
After having dinner with Mike Shannon, Bruce and Paul, Paul and I headed down to the CARS trade show around 7:30. There was a huge food spread and great desserts. The only student left at the trade show by the time we got there was Evan. He hung out with me as I talked to vendors and buddies. We entered a bunch of giveaways and got lots of free-bee stuff. Too many hats though!
Tomorrow looks like some good classes and the big classy lunch is also tomorrow. The food will be high end I am sure. I will be leaving a little early as I plan to catch up to my Mother-In-Law for dinner.
To read more about the on-going SEMA Show and see professional pics, try these sites:
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_1
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_2
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/coverage/sema/112_0710_2007_sema_show_part_3
Just make sure you scroll down as each page has multiple more pages attached near the middle, after the text.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
