xbeerd

hello. So, I was approached by someone who was wanting to do a reflective flame design along the side of a truck, he had already purchased enough Oracal 5700 reflective do accomplish this prior to coming to me for help. However i was looking at the spec sheet on the 5700 and says its not designed for vehicle use. I was wondering exactly why that is the case. i could not find any information on the net regarding why so i thought i'd ask here. my assumption was in regards to the vehicles paint and the adhesive on the vinyl probably damaging it. any help greatly appreciated. I want to let him know what he could run into down the road if we go thru with this.

if it sticks to the backing, is it difficult to remove from the backing then? or is it just held in place enough until you make the effort to remove it

hey thanks for the reply. can you recommend a good paper tape that you use?

Ok, so i bought this Rtape ClearChoice AT65 high tack application tape because of numerous places saying it was good for use with oracal 651 vinyl. well. i applied the tape to the graphic and it is a real pain in the butt to get the vinyl to release from the backing. is there a trick to it? do i need to wait a certain amount of time before i remove it from the backing? i applied some pressure to it, and it helped a bit but the amount of effort i went thru to get an decal off was rediculous. I cant imagine what is gonna happen if i were to send these decals off to someone who is unexperienced in putting these things on. this high tack tape is much less tacky than my other tape i have been using, which unfortunately i cant recall the brand. but i ran out of ti. help?

its pretty much the same concept as your jug swap. those enduros are sweet, i keep my eye out for those on craiglist but they are just outta reach, unless i wanna rebuild it from the ground up. the stock 2.5L motors range from 9.5:1(phase1, the dreaded dual cam motors) to 10:1 (the phase2, model year 00-04 etc) compression ratio. since 99 was a transitional year between a few different lines of their cars. some cars got the new block, some got the old one, my car got the upgraded block, so basically, i am going from a 2.5L Dual Cam 10:1 CR engine to a 2.5L Single cam 10.6 CR. so its not THAT drastic. i could theoretically, put the rest of the parts together, and make a low compression 2.2L motor for a turbo application. LOL. it works in the opposite way too. not as common tho. i would like to try that (minus the turbo), and fit a carbureator to it, mate it to a honda goldwing trans (or possibly a trans from a transverse AWD engine car (such as a Mitsubishi 3000gt etc) and put it into a motorcycle frame, that'd be weird.. or try a rear mount turbo setup (which is jjust weird, but people do it)

yeah its a horizontally opposed/boxer engine. re: headgaskets, typically the REAL bad years would be the 2.5L DOHC motors (EJ25D) from 96-99, pretty much guaranteed to fail. it was due to a design flaw in the headgasket itself. which has eventually been worked out. so now days, if you come across one of thse cars on the cheap that wasnt owned by a total idiot who drove it home from where ever they were when it was overheating, you can swap the headgaskets with the newer designed gaskets and be trouble free for the rest of the time you own the car, 100k+, for the frankenmotor setup, we use a custom made gasket from Cometic which is made for race applications. and has been documented as being trouble free as long as you keep the stock cams, with other cams, youd need to (well.. dont NEED to but its recommended) to go with an aftermarket engine mangement system. i cant speak for anything much newer than 2004 really. as i dont have anything newer than the 04 models. the builk of the HG problems are relating to the 2.5L engines. from 96-2002, the single cam 2.5L got a redesigned head gasket, but it wasnt the failproof design which they later found out. LOL. basically, if you find a 14 yr old subaru for sale that has had its HG's replaced by reputable place (dealer, local subaru mechanic, id trust the local subaru guy a little more than the dealer personally) you should be good to go for another 100k+ i love my subarus, i have 3, technically 4, as the engine from the one that got Tboned(2000 Outback) is now in my 92 Loyale. you take care of them, and they'll take care of you. frankenmotor... this is going into a 99 Legacy GT sedan, who was previously owned by a total idiot. and i got the car for $400 to save it from the scrap yard. couple of the 'fleet'

here is another one i've done. its for builders of 'frankenmotors' which is a 2.5L subaru engine block with certain year 2.2L engine heads on it, it creates a high compression 2.5L motor. they are built on the cheap for good bang for the buck. with some fun low end torque I thought this worked out well for a logo... and hopefully others do to. i cant take credit for all the artwork as i snagged some of the graphics from the google. but i did have to draw the path around the whole frankenstien head and pistons after i assembled the image as i wanted it. i can draw, im just really trying to get a better idea of how well the machine handles etc. and good ol google images saves alot of time time. (sideways pistons cuz subarus have flat motors )

cool. oh hey. i just saw the 02 fxst your sig, haha, duh. i cant wait to ride this year. i have to build some custom mirrors to complete my 'look', and maybe repaint the bike and make a stripe kit of some sorts

sure thing. what kinda bike you got? i roll a 07 sportster custom custom (i customized the custom )

link no work anymore??

wasnt sure where to put it, so its here... SkullPistons.svg

let me see if i can get the file for you guys, not sure what format you'll end up with, but, you'll get it. LOL.

bah, i'll just spray her down in a month when it warms up a bit here in Milwaukee

Thanks! cant wait to see how actually centered and straight it is when i sit on the bike, i applied it from a non preferred angle my bikes so neglected in the winter months. covered in saw dust from other projects and stuffed under a shelf.

thought i'd put up a pic of a graphic i did, this is my second cut, my first one was a subaru emblem for my car i snagged a pic of off google images and modified it a bit so it would be doable. i have a uscutter MH that i got off of ebay, didnt expect to win the auction but ended up winning it, haha. anyways... not really trying to start a business or anything, but just gonna try to make my money back on the unit by supplying small runs of things for a few local car clubs im in. one thing i noticed it seems the blade holder slips upwards in the carosel when i have it tightened down, the lip on top is supposed to be above the carosel clamp thing right? i cant wait to try out some 'real' projects created with Illustrator and see how that plugin works