I got sick and tired of our old porting booth, so I made a new porting area. The old booth was like a closet. Very cramped, limited shelf space, dirty and poorly lit. Rob thought it was fine, but he has been using the same booth for over 15 years and is pretty set in his ways. As an added incentive, I am writing an article on engine porting for MazdaSport Magazine and I wanted a nice environment for the photos.

One of the biggest PITA about porting, IMHO, is frequently having to stop and reposition the work to get a better angle. And still, you are constantly bending your body this way and that to get the perfect angle, which plays Hell on your back. To combat this, I recently purchased an industrial strength Work Positioner, which has a single control that releases a ball-joint. I fabricated a mount for the plates and now I can always get the perfect position in a fraction of the time it used to take. The difference is phenominal! I mounted the work positioner on a drill press base, so I can adjust the height easily. No stooping!

Lighting is always a problem too. The old booth had a couple overhead fluorescents, plus a couple vertical on either site. Even light, but never enough. So, I installed four 3-foot 32 watt fluorescent (128 watts; equivalent to 512 incandescent watts!), which is several times brighter than the old booth. I also got a goose-neck fluorescent lamp, plus I have a couple magentic base lamps when the need arrises. The walls are painted an off-white color, so I get plenty of reflected soft light.

I built a work bench around the porting area, so I'd have a lot of space to set the tools and parts. Above the main bench is a small shelf that runs all the way around. For the counter top, I used High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), so it's easy to take care of and looks clean.

The final thing I did was mount a retractable air hose reel in the ceiling. This is a seriously nice feature. When I need the air line, I just reach up and grab it. When I'm done, it just retracts away. No tripping over air lines or wondering where the die grinder is hiding. I will probably add about four more, so I can have multiple die ginders with different bits, ready to grab and use...less time wasted changing bits.

So far, I've used the new porting area to work on one engine. I cannot put into words how much better it is. What was drudgery is now actually enjoyable, and it now takes less time to get the same quality of work.

Here are a couple pics. The second one gives you a good look at the work positioner.

 

wow thats cool,do u put the engines beack together too?

 

Only my own projects. Rob does the final assembly on the customer motors, though I sometimes help him out with the porting and oil mods. Often enough that I got fed up with the old porting booth. My next project is to build a clean room for engine and transmission assembly. Something like you see in NASCAR engine building shops, where you could eat off of any surface. We have been planning to do this since moving to our new facility, but the work is so piled up that it's hard to find the time.

 

Nicely done Blake! It really does make a difference, if you pay attention to your work area. I see plenty of good ideas put to use here...

 

Yea I got some good useful ideas from this too!

 

Very nice setup! I saw the setup that Endyn did in their shop, and this looks better then that so far. There is a reason why Pinapple is well respected. . . .

 

yeah it looks really clean and nice.

 

Nice work Blake.

 

Very sweet.

 

lookin good Blake

 

Nice work. That positioner looks like the perfect fixture for that.

 

Thanks. Yes, the work positioner is awesome. Expensive (~$300) but it will hold 70 lbs, 12 inches out from the ball joint, with nothing but a hand lever lock. There is an air/hydraulic version with a foot control that would have been even cooler, but I could not justify the $700+ price tag. I might add an air/hydraulic table height adjustment in the future, but it's not a high priority. I also have a few other ideas in the works but the priority is always to get paying work out the door. If we can now do the same quality work in less time, that achieves my primary goal.

 

you got skills buddy ill give you that
whats the security number for the shops alarm
lol

 

That's a nice idea. Did you have to bolt the drill press base to the floor?

 

Actually, no. With the cast-iron base shimmed flat, the stand does not move at all. I do plan to bolt it down sometime, but it is not a priority. If I go forward with my idea of using an air/hydraulic lift for the platform, I will need to move it around for fabrication anyway. For now, it is plenty secure...

 

Where did you get?

 

The best place to get them is McMaster-Carr catalog page 2422. They have several of the Wilton work positioners, but only the "D" and "E" ones are rated high enough to do the job safely and, between those two, only the "D" one has a quick release arm.

EDIT: Keep in mind that I had to make the jigs to hold the plates.

 

Nice work Blake. I bet Rob's back thanks you too.

 

Honestly, I wonder if Rob will ever use the work positioner. He is just so acustomed to doing things the way he's always done them that anything different is uncomfortable. It was like the time I tried to get him to use a phone headset to keep his hands free while he multitasks...it was like puting a leash on a cat. He kind of got all rigid, held one hand to the earpiece and would not move until he took it off his head. First and last time he ever used it. Oh well, he's got his ways and I've got mine. I'm the only other person he trusts to port engines, so when things get busy I do enough porting to make the work positioner worth while. I might get him to try it, but it will take a subtle prod...like tearing down the old porting booth and turning it into firewood.