As experienced by Mark “Hymee” Pickering

Wednesday 19^th September 2007. 

After a panic packing effort, following a marathon “make parts” effort, I got a cab to the airport and arrived in plenty of time for my 11:05 flight, 2 ½ hours early.  Or so I thought.  Went straight to Duty Free and bought some Bundy for a gift to a guy in the US who was going to help me out.  Got in the queue (why oh why had I let my Qantas Club membership expire?!), and was nearly the last of the QF175 pax processed.  Then there was lots of mucking around and panicking due to my excess baggage.

Got checked in just before the flight closed, then had to proceed straight to Customs.  That was OK, then before I went through security check they called my name.  “Passenger Mark Pickering please proceed immediately to gate 81.”

But just going through security wasn’t going to be easy.  Firstly, my aerosol shaving cream that I had prudently removed and had in a separate plastic bag (as required) was more than the 100g allowed.  I told the idiot that I had already used 96 grams of the 195g contents, but just to chuck it in the bin as I didn’t really care, and was running late for the flight.  He didn’t care either, as he proceeded to read me the riot act.  FFS – I told him I didn’t care – and it was already in the bin.  I wasn’t even arguing about it.

Then they needed to put my laptop backpack back through the XRAY, as it looked like there was lots of electronics in there.  Of course there was – it is a frigging laptop bag.

So I got through security, with sweat pouring from my head as I was in such a stressed panic state.  Heading for the gate, I remembered I hadn’t got any US dollars like I was going to do, and I had also forgot to pick up my Bundy from the airside duty free counter.   Shit happens.  Keep walking to gate 81 at high speed.  Of course, gate 81 is right at the end.

At the various checkpoints along the way, they knew my name before I got there, and was advised I would be the last aboard.

You have so much more time when you have Qantas Club…

Flight was uneventful to the US, with a record (for me) of only getting up out of my seat once to stretch my legs and a comfort stop.  In flight entertainment was good, as now they have video on demand.  Watched a nice documentary about Le-Mans, and the Mazda 26B powered 787B got a mention for its 1991 winning performance.

Got through immigration and customs OK, all baggage arrived OK except one of the cases (the one with the compressor) has a hole punched in the side.  Arrg.  Thankfully compressor was OK, and no parts damaged or missing.

By this time, it was sort of ground hog day, as the time was 7:00am, Wednesday.  4 hours before I had left, 13 hours prior.  This makes for a long 1^st day’s blog entry!

I picked up my rental.  Somehow a $119 weekly rate quickly blows out to $450 pretty quick!  Thank goodness I got the GPS option at $9.95 a day.

On the road, I called my new mate (who I’d never met) who organized me a Renesis block.  He used to work in the Star Mazda open wheel series (RX-8 Powered), and had contacts who could get me junked parts.  We organized a time to meet him at his work – a Hot Rod shop J later in the day.  I gave Richard Paul a call, and went and met him at his ‘shop.  Pretty awesome worksop, much larger than his previous.

Towards the end of the day, I met up with the engine buddy, and he had all the parts ready for me, and was very apologetic that he hadn’t had time to put it all together during his lunch break.  No worries.  I was in awe at some of the projects in the hot rod shop.  His work mates were pretty impressed by my blower kit as well, although I only had pictures of it at the time since the kit was still in pieces in my luggage.

Went back to RAP’s place, and had a nap.  Then had some Chinese take-out, and back to bed for a well earned sleep.

Thursday, 20^th September 2007. 

First job today was to bolt the engine together.  That went pretty much OK, except I didn’t have any dowells, so the crank wouldn’t turn unless everthing was just right.  I made some calls to Marzda (yep – they pronounce it different) dealers about getting them, but they had some problems working out what “engine dolls” where.  Richard kept telling me they are dow-ells, not dolls.  No luck with the Marzda dealers.  Called hot rot mate, and explained my problem.  He called his buddy who still worked with the series.  I rang him, he had the parts – no problem, and arrange to meet me at some Chevron somewhere, with some other bits I asked for.  Never met the guy before, but he turned up, parts and all.  Well done buddy!

Friday, 21^st September 2007. 

On the way to RAP’s workshop I stopped at the Home Depot and got myself a 10’ x 10’ tent and a fold out table.  Plus a chair to sit in.  All for my display at seven stock.  I felt a bit like an Apollo mission – all this stuff you need to get/take with you that won’t come home with you!

At RAP’s ‘shop I re-did the engine with Dowells and stuff.  The guy that owned the building, another fine machinist, helped me out buy making me a bush to take up some slack in the crank due to the missing oil pump drive etc…

Got my kit all bolted together, and mounted on the motor.  Nice.

Helped Richard Paul with some testing of his compressor to see how fast it could rev before the sparks came out.  I guess that is a story for him to tell.  Let me just say I did my job and hit the kill switch the moment I saw sparks/flame as per his instruction.

Got all my gear into my rental Chevy HHR.  A bit like a PT Cruiser.  Lots of room in the back, exactly what I needed.  Was just about to leave on my drive to Irvine for SSX, and got an SOS call from Richard.  His RX-8 running the e-manage and the AFSC wasn’t running at all well, and he need some help getting it going again, or else he wasn’t going to go to SSX at all.  RAP was spitting the dummy big time.

So I made the small detour, and whipped out the sCANalyser to check why he had an engine light and all that.  At one point I couldn’t get his car started, until I worked out the US makes you have your foot on he clutch before the starter will work.  D’oh.  Richard found and rectified a vacuum leak, and I reset the fault codes.  Was running a lot better, so I took off – Irvine bound.

Got to the hotel just on dusk.  Took my luggage to my room.  Lots of rotors in the car park, and bunches of rotorheads in congregating as well.  I didn’t want to leave the blower in the car, and I also wanted to spend some time going over a few bits with the cloth that night.  So I got it out of the car, and was walking into the lobby, trying to be inconspicuous, as you do when you have a shy streak like me…

“Hymee!” went the shout.  It was Rotarygod and a bunch of others.  Well, they all wanted to fondle the blower, and get their picture taken with her.  It was nice to meet them, and see such keen interest in what I had poured so many hours into throughout the preceding weeks.

We all went out to dinner at some place that seemed to want to make more rules about serving us than they did dollars profit.  I met a bunch more guys including Ryan Scott – owner of rx8club.com forum.  Mazda Maniac was there as well.  Too many guys to mention.  I ended up getting a lift back to base with MazdaManiac, but we detoured to some place where Richard Paul had ended up for dinner, all by himself.  The four of us (RAP, MM, Rotorrocks and me) had a good chat, until it was time to get me back to my temporary home at around midnight, Friday.

Saturday, 22^nd September 2007.  SevenStock 10 – The big day.

My todo list before I left included a couple of important items.  “Make Business Cards” was one of them.  “Write and practice presentation” was the other.  It was now midnight the night before SSX and I hadn’t even written my presentation, let alone practice it.  And business cards – what business cards…  L

So I spent about an hour or so writing my presentation.  Luckily I had thought about lots of things on the flight over – but it is almost impossible to use a laptop in cattle class, especially one with a 17” screen.  At 1:00am or thereabouts, I needed some sleep.  But the presentation wasn’t finished yet.  So I set the alarm for 4:00 am and got 3 hours solid sleep.  I spend another hour and a half from 4:00 am finishing of the spoken part of the presentation, and then it was time to get my stuff in the car and drive the short distance to Mazda North American Headquarters for the big day.

The organizers did a great job, and set me up a nice spot in the vendors’ area.  I set up my tent – all by myself, while I watched with a smile as other multi-man-teams struggled and argued amongst themselves.  I’m glad they weren’t holding a chook raffle, else people may have starved.

It wasn’t long until I had my engine setup on the table, and the blower fitted.  I used a specially cut piece of timber to prop the middle of the table up, as it only had $49 worth of Home Depot strength.

The first guy who had a look was worried about my setup, as he didn’t want to cut through his hood.  Bugger, I had forgetten about that.  I then told him how it all fitted under the engine cover.  I also wanted to ask him to go find another setup on display that could claim that!

So while the crowds flocked to inspect my baby, I needed to spend time putting together the slide show that I wanted to go with my talk.  After all, the good SSX organizers had especially set-up a projector per my requests.  There were at least 2 heavy rain showers though the morning.  It was pretty heavy, and I remember thinking all these people had come under my tent to check out the blower…

People loved the quality and layout of my kit, noting that much thought must have gone into it.  They also like my newly unveiled large bore, drive-by-wire throttle body that I have been keeping secret for quite a long while.

My talk was scheduled for 2:30, and I was under the pump.  Then they came and found me and told me I was going to be on 1 hour earlier!  In the end, I got it all done, and sat through the previous talk, which was from Speed Source Racing who campaign RX-8 “touring cars” in the US.  It was very interesting, and they are competitive against some more established marques, such as Porsche, as well as American V8’s.

My talk went OK.  Well, I was a little nervous in front of 80 to 100 people in the cafeteria at MNAO’s headquarters.  Who wouldn’t be?  I had a 1 hour time slot, and my show went bang on 50 minutes, then there was a solid 10 minute Q&A session to close off.  I was pleased with how things went, and got satisfaction from the comments I received from the others.  The pesky 26B powered 792P had one of its famous warm up sessions during my talk, and that was the last for the day.  I didn’t get to see it, but I will remember forever its unique revving noise while I was on stage!

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful.  I managed to look around the other vendors sites, and look at some the race cars there, including the 792P.  I had a close look at the Petit S/C install, after Moon had come and had a good close look at my setup.  I had someone tell me that the strut brace had to be bent in a tree to enable fitment on their customer car.  Hmmm.  Moon did introduce me to Cam from Pettit.  We chatted briefly, and the encounter was quite cordial.  I also found out what size blower he was using these days.

There were plenty of RX-8’s on display as expected.

I even managed to find an LS1 powered RX-7!

The Star Mazda Series car on display was pretty awesome.  Renesis Powered open wheeler!

I didn’t really want to pack up my stand.  After all, I had flown 7,000 miles to get there, so I wanted to make the most of it, and take it all in!  I remember when I was packing up I heard this distinctly rotary sound go past on 2 wheels.  I quickly glanced around to see one of the two rotary motorcycles that had been on display.  A very rare site indeed.

After packing up, the evening’s entertainment was the SevenStock Banquet.  Very well attended, with quite a few Mazda representatives.  There was even a contingent from Japan, including the Cosmos Sport club.

I sat at a table with forum members such as Rotarygod, Ajax, Zoom44, Rootski, RotorRocks, Brillo, Shaunv74 – heck I can’t remember them all!

There were a number of passionate talks given, all were memorable.  The first was by an RX-7 owner about what makes a great car.  I wish I had a transcript.  Speed Source Racing gave another talk, but of most interest was the video of their participation in the US circuit racing scene.  They run a couple of RX-8’s that have been quite successful.  It was very encouraging to see video of RX-8’s passing Porsches and other established race prepared touring cars.  More than encouraging – it restored a lot of faith!

Then we were privy to a whole series of slides from a Japanese gentleman who was involved in Mazda’s rotary motorsport efforts right from the early days, culminating in the 1991 Le Mans victory.  He ended up signing some folks’ body panels from the race cars that were auctioned or raffled of at the end of the night.

The night went pretty late, but I managed to catch up with some of the people who put together the whole Sevenstock thing.  I thanked Berny from the SoCal RX Club – and he introduced me to the Mazdaspeed tech guy who organized the RX-8 engine that I ended up not needing.  We promised to keep in touch.

Sunday, 23^rd September 2007 

Well I basically packed up my stuff after a good nights sleep, and headed north again towards Richard Paul’s.  I stopped for some shopping on the way.  I found a huge model shop where I picked up a couple of gifts, including a 787B replica for myself J.  I also found an auto parts store that would be pretty much the Bunnings version of such a store back home.  Too many things to purchase!

It was that afternoon I stopped in at a Starbucks right in the middle of LA, close to Beverley Hills High School.  I asked the young waitress for a hot chocolate and some cake.  “Where is that accent from??” she asked.  “Can’t you tell?” I replied.  Her workmate told her it was Australian.  “Wow!” She said.  “Say something in Australian!”.  “I just did,” I replied, “I asked for a Hot Chocolate and some cake.”  She didn’t have a clue what I said, nor got my humor.

That night I took my hosts to dinner at Chillies.  We were only 1 hour late as the mad professor misunderstood the location…  The boys from the hotrod shop and the Star Mazda series where very interested to talk with Richard Paul.  He has so many stories to tell.

Monday, 24^th September 2007 

Spent all day packing my stuff and saying goodbye to my hosts.  I got a bit more shopping done, but before I was finished I went through a Golden Arches drive through for some lunch.  “I’ll have the X-Burger in a meal, please.”  “What??”  “I’ll have an X-Burger with a fries and coke, please”.  “Do you want that as a meal?”  “Yes please.”  “What drink do you want with that?”  “Coke please.”  A little further up the road I took my first sip of Sprite…  FFS.

It was also during that day I got my first S/C order.  And it wasn’t someone who had been at SevenStock.  It was a very keen customer from Germany.  Hymee is Happy!

At the end of the day, I had 1 hour to pack all my stuff, and have a home cooked burger at Richard’s place.  I was so rushed. I eventually got all my stuff packed, and then I couldn’t find my passport.  20 minutes later, I found it and was on my way to LAX.  Checkin, security, and the flight home was uneventful

Tuesday, 25^th September, 2007. 

This day does not exist in my life.  Well, it sort of does, as I left LAX at 11:40pm on the 23^rd, and some number of hours later we crossed the International Date Line, where the rest of Tuesday was lost forever.

Wednesday, 26^th September, 2007. 

6:00am, landed back at BNE, and was greeted by my loving wife and kids.  They have put up with so much over the last few months.  I’m so grateful for their understanding and encouragement!

In some respects, after 3 years, it seems like the journey has only just begun!

Cheers,
Hymee.

Hi all,

It’s about time I send a bit of an update on the progress of the twin-screw supercharger kit I am developing for the RX-8.

Here are a couple of photos under the bonnet (hood) of my car when I had just finished a trial fitment of the the new components under development. 

My main mule to date for this development has been an RX-8 engine on a stand or sitting on the bench.  This has been invaluable, and I thank the legendary Phil Laird from Graphic Skills Racing for letting me borrow what I have needed.

From time to time I have also had to remove various parts from my car to plan and measure for where various components will be located and where plumbing will go.  During the past week, I removed the “top half” of the intake manifold and did a trial fitment to the engine, including the supercharger and mounting brackets, intake plenum and blower discharge cowling.  All went well, including a trial fitment of the beginnings of the pipework to the intercooler.  Since this was only a trial fitment, I wanted to get the car back on the road, and spent a couple of hours fitting all the removed equipment.  She started first go, so I was prety happy with that, considering the amount of fittings, both mechanical and electrical that I disconnected.

The photo’s might look a bit boring, but they do demonstrate the kit will fit with all standard covers in place.  I have not seen (or been made aware of) a FI kit for the RX-8 to date that has been able to claim that.  But don’t worry, when the engine cover is removed, there is plenty to show off for those who like to do that as well.  All will be revealed when I have this on display at SSX later this month.

Speaking of SSX (Seven Stock 10), I will be taking with me a special example of my updated “MKII” version of the Hymee Enhanced RX-8 cat-back sports exhaust.  All new systems now have the Hymee brand embossed in the muffler casings, and also have a nice stainless steel ID tag that has a serial number laser engraved into it.

This is a special example to celebrate 40 years of Mazda’s Rotary Engine development, so it wears the serial number 40.  I decided to run an auction for this unit, so I stuck it on eBay.  The auction is due to close at noon on the Sunday of SSX (September 23rd), which is about 5:00am Monday morning back home in Australia.  The most I could run the listing for was 10 days, so it won’t come on-line until about the 14th of this month.  I can’t post the link yet, as she isn’t available yet!

I’ve also held onto serial number 8 for other collectors to have the opportunity to own.  It is on eBay now, and you can find it by following this link.

Anyway, I hope that is a good update for the week.  Counting down the sleeps until I fly to LA and on to SSX.

Cheers,
Hymee.

Hi all,

I find myself at last in a position to relax and make a blog post.  It has been about 12 months since I really made any noise.  This time last year I was busy arranging the Mazda RX-8 Club of Australia’s Nationals for 2006.   Starting a new job coupled with an illness was serious enough to keep me from attending the very event I poured so much effort into!

 Anyway, 12 months later, things are much better.  I’m sitting here on a nice Cataraman anchored in the Brisbane River relaxing and waiting for the year’s biggest fireworks event, riverfire (http://www.riverfestival.com.au/riverfire/).  It should be a great night, the highlight for me being the dump and burn fly past by a pair of RAAF F111’s.  These 40 year old aircraft are still exciting enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck.  It is a truly awesome experience, as anyone who has experienced it would know.  Not sure about the carbon footprint of the dump and burn though!

In a little over 2 weeks I will be heading to the USA to help celebrate 40 years of Mazda’s rotary engine.  I’ll be attending the 10th annual SevenStock http://www.sevenstock.org event at Irvine, CA.  As part of that event, I’ll be lucky enough to be a guest speaker, so this is something I’m really looking forward to.

I’ve been spending a lot of time, particular since the beginning of July, in further developing my RX-8 Supercharger kit, and I will be showcasing it at SSX It is going to be something special.  I won’t be publlishing any photographs prior to my trip, as I have serious IP invested and need to take the appropriate measures to help protect it.  One of these is that I must have not published or sold such items prior to lodging the paperwork with IP Australia.

Anyway, time to relax a bit more and enjoy the show in a few hours.  Enjoy my pictures!

Cheers,
Hymee

What?  A virtual engine?  What is that?

One definition of virtual is “not real”.  So I suppose one could think I am talking about an “unreal” engine.  Well, not really. (Virtually!).  Read on to find out more…

Many people are aware of the work I have done in the past with piggyback ECU’s, and most will be unaware of the work I have been doing lately regarding ECU programming.  There are two ways to test the changes made to the “software” inside the ECU that controls the engine.

The first way is to try the ECU out on a proper engine.  That would be the same as changing the landing software of an aircraft and doing a physical flight test to see if it worked!  Who would do that?  Using this method, if we made an error in re-calibrating the ECU, we could potentially let the smoke out of the engine.  And we all know that the smoke is what makes them work.  Don’t believe me?  Try to get anything to work properly after you have let the smoke out!!

The other way is to put the landing software in a test harness, or simulator that provides the required inputs to the landing system, and see how the outputs behave.  That is exactly how they do it in places like Boeing, as I learned on a recent visit to an air force base.   It was pretty amazing, and was partially the stimulus to take on this project.

Lets start by thinking what the ECU inside you car is actually doing.  What it really is doing is looking at a whole bunch of inputs, such as engine RPM, Throttle/Pedal position, Air Flow, Air Temp, Coolant Temp etc and making a number of decisions based upon these.  These decisions manifest themselves as outputs, mainly fuel injection and ignition signals.  There are of course a few other things, like fans, fuel pump voltage, metering oil pump stepper motors etc.

Since all these inputs and outputs essentially go to and from the ECU in the form of electrical signals, it is a fairly straight forward task in simulating them.

Since in my “lab” I already can place an ECU on the bench (a fine topic for another Hymee Homily), and communicate with it with my sCANalyser, it would be handy to also plug in the other “inputs” and “outputs”.  Then I can also validate much of the ECU’s operation via the OBDII communications.  All this without a real car in site.

So that is one tool I am building at the moment, and have started making some of the components.  The main one is something to simulate the “crank” angle sensor.  On the real Renesis engine of the RX-8, this is a 30 tooth wheel (10 degree teeth, 6 missing, aka 36-2-2-2) and a hall effect sensor.  And I suppose it is really called an “Eccentric Shaft Position Sensor” in the world of rotary engines – but I can use this other engines as well.  I’m going to simulate this using a notched wheel and a IR sensor.  If that doesn’t work, I can go hall effect as well.  Or I could just use a signal generator and output the waveform that matches the hall effect sensor.  In my initial practical approach. the toothed wheel / chopper disk is being spun by a 12V electric motor.  I have built a variable speed controller, so at the turn of a knob, I can dial in any RPM from about 600 to about 14,000.  I also have a laser RPM counter that I can use to cross-check the RPM against what the ECU thinks is going on.  So far I have only had one prototype chopper wheel explode at close to 15,000 RPM – it was a blank CD, and a bad vibration caused a wobble which eventually caused a stress fracture in the plastic disc, and she let go.  I have only found enough shrapnel to peice together 50% of the disc.  And I only suffered cuts to my leg, stomach and forehead.  Go on – laugh now.  Could you imagine a more terrible week…

The other inputs are much more simple, as they generally are based on voltage levels.  So I can set up a control panel with dials and gauges, where I can dial in the desired voltage for one of the sensors (e.g. Mass Air Flow or Throttle Position), which translates into a digital signal to the ECU via it’s internal ADC.

Then for the outputs, the main ones I want to watch for now are the fuel injectors and the ignition.  I will just hook up some LED’s that will flash when the these devices are “pulsed” by the ECU - 6 green LED’s for a Renesis “6-port” and 4 red LED’s for the spark plugs.

What this means is that when I make changes to the PCM and, for example, reduce the fueling requirements at a certain load point, I can run the virtual engine at that load point, and validate that the changes are in fact taking place as predicted.  I can further validate the changes by using the sCANalyser to log the fuel injectors “pulse width” or “duty cycle” to see if the before and afters do actually change.

Neat, yeah?

Now I must stress, this is not to measure or simulate the performance of an engine.  We are not making fuel burn, and measuring the torque/power of an output shaft.  But when we go through all the load points on the virtual engine, and optimise the fuel/spark and check it is at safe levels, then we can go try it out in the actual vehicle for the “flight test”.  That will be the virtual proof in the pudding.

Cheers,
Hymee

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.