Hello World: Hymee hits the blogging scene

Hello all.  This is a new place that I have decided is a great way to share with everyone frequent updates on the exciting things going on with my product developments.  It is also a place where I might post technical articles or just general topics.

The main genre of the posts will be things related to automotive enthusiasts. Almost 5 years ago, I started frequenting Internet “forums”.  I quite literally got addicted.  The first forum where I was really active was the Australian LS1 Forums.  I had an SS Commodore, an Australian designed and made vehicle based around a GM Omega platform with a 5.7 litre Chevrolet engine.  I participated in all sorts of discussions, and posted lots of various technical opinions, not to mention learning heaps from other members!  I even designed my own “mods” to help alleviate technical shortcomings in the vehicle that I experienced under demanding situations.  The first of these was a power steering oil cooler setup.

Anyway, as we all seem to do from time to time, I eventually swapped the SS over for a new Mazda RX-8, just as they were first released in Australia.  It wasn’t one from the first ship load to enter the country, but it would have been off the second boat-load, or soon thereafter.  I pledged to myself that I wasn’t going to tinker anymore with cars, just leave it as it was, and concentrate on my already successful career as a Software Engineer.

Well, that didn’t last long, as 2 weeks into ownership, a stone pentrated my air-conditioning condensor, as reported here.  This part cost me $700 (at cost price) to replace, as it wasn’t covered under the new car warranty, and was deemed to have suffered from “road damage”.  So as they say, fittingly for my first homily “Necessity is the mother of invention”.  Henceforth, the Hymee RX-8 Grill Kit was born, and is now sold to RX-8 enthusiasts around the planet.

Since that humble beginning, other things have followed.  In conjunction with a custom exhaust specialist, I designed a sports “cat-back” exhaust for the RX-8, and the very first prototype was fitted to “Wildcard’s” RX-8.  Wildcard is my faithful test pilot.  He also flys very fast jets for his day job!  This was rather sucessful, and a jig was soon made and the systems put into production.  Now, these are also air-freighted to RX-8 lovers around the world!

All this time, I was very interested in “chip tuning”, or more correctly ECU reprogramming.  I started part time R&D on what was involved, purchased a capable “dongle” to fit to the RX-8’s under dash diagnostic port, and started coding away.  I wrote a simple windows application that allowed me to “see inside” the engine, and what was going on.  To cut a long story short, this eventuated in the “sCANalyser”, a joint effort between myself and another frequent RX-8 forum goer “sco”.  This also led to Sco and Hymee forming our company, Performance Design Australia Pty Ltd”, in 2005, and the rest is pretty much history.

One of the exciting developments that sort of started before the founding of PDA, and still being worked on today is a twin-screw supercharger kit for RX-8’s to designed to massively increase low end torque of the rotary engine, and still maintain a nice linear power delivery with an even stronger top end.  This is still in development, and getting closer to reality with each day, each lesson learned, each problem solved and each “box ticked”.  The next exciting stage is some scheduled testing on a real engine dyno test cell.  We have already baselined our tests on a naturally aspirated Renesis engine, as detailed here.

What has transpired in the last 8 months on the employment front for me is somewhat remarkable.  The company I had worked, lived, and breathed for over the last 10 years, decided they would get into the export business.  A whole section of our office was closed, and our IT jobs were “exported” to India.  I hold no malice towards the Indians in this regard – in fact I have worked with a couple of them who are very capable software developers.  Anyway, the point of that last bit of news actually is really great for the RX-8 community, and allows me to chase a passion, and something that I seem to have an aptitude for…  I am now able to concentrate on all this RX-8 stuff I have been chipping away at for the last 3 years, and try to turn it all into a commercial reality, delivering great top quality practical products, at realistic prices.

I trust you will enjoy my postings here.  Please feel free to sign up to recieve email updates whenever I post something new, well – that is when I work out how one can subscribe!

Cheers,
Hymee.