Happy Holidays

While we're away for the holidays, we want to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous new year. We've enjoyed the exciting year of motorcycles, cars, shows and friends and look forward to an invigorating '07. Stay tuned for some pretty incredible projects like: the Speed Racer / Racer X project, the underground Porsche machine, some Vegas bling and the 'big green monster'. Also, we'll have updates on the Warrior project and several new LED technologies that will make their debut in '07.
All that and more when we return for the new year. Have a great holiday!

Reading List : Classic Racing Engines

Just finished reading the highly detailed book: Classic Racing Engines: Design, Development and Performance of the World's Top Motorsport Power Units
Outstanding detailed information on the most successful racing powerplants in the history of the sport. Worth a look if you are an enthusiast.

Can't resist the picture

Here's a photo of the side of a rental truck as seen on the return trip from Las Vegas a few weeks ago. The company shall remain nameless.... (click for the full image)

More ProWire installations

We just completed delivery on two custom projects that incorporated the ProWire system. the response has been overwhelming since the HotBike article hit the streets. We've shipped well over 100 units in the past 4 weeks with many of the units going to dealers all over the country. The installations keep getting simpler and now we're thinking about producing a simple wiring harness to go along with the ProWire module. If you want to see a basic wiring harness, be sure to email me (joe at mercurycustoms dot com) and let me know what features you would like to see. A basic set would probably include the most common wiring needs like:

Starter button
key switch
kill switch
turn signal switches
rear turn signals
Ignition/coil
headlight
brake switch and wires

I'm sure I've forgotten something but please let me know what you want and we'll include it on the big list of features to be considered. And don't forget to order your very own ProWire here:
http://www.mercurycustoms.com/prowire.htm

Still standing...

Sorry for the lack of posting lately (ok, it's been more than lately...) As our clients put it "more building, less blogging!" So we'll finish up a couple of the current major project builds and be back to the opinions soon. We have commentary on several topics such as the new fall tv schedule, political agendas, custom motorcycle engineering and business and, of course, more formula 1. So stay tuned, we'll be back in a minute!

CHOC Ride a big hit...

We just wrapped up a successful day at the CHOC Ride. A great event designed to benefit the Children's Hospital of Orange County. It was a great crowd and we met a great bunch of people all there to support a very worthy cause.
Also, I received a great offer to trade HardEight for a Z06 Corvette... a great offer, but unfortunately I had to decline but I appreciate the gesture. See the event photos by following the link below...

CHOC Ride photos

New site is up.

Finally logged the hours of updating the mercurycustoms.com site to include all of the new content and some of the new images.

Hopefully people will enjoy some of the new features including a link to the blog, Liquid Mercury (here) and the event photo section.

Also, the new HardEight mosaic was fun to produce, 2000+ photos to use and a fairly decent result. Time to sleep now.

More cool stuff... (part 1)

Here's a cool site that will finally, once and for all, tell you what your internet connection performance looks like. It has a cool interface and, more importantly, tells you both upload _and_ download speeds from any number of locations across the world. Definitely worth checking out- and maybe even bookmarking. Please support these guys, they're both smart AND clever.
http://www.speedtest.net/

It's often what you don't see...

With the completion of the Formula 1 race at Hockenheim now firmly in the record books, we're learning about the engineering details that had a significant effect on the outcome. First, we've learned that Kimi's outstanding qualifying effort was due in large part to broken engineering! It appears that a fuel sensor malfunctioned during qualification laps and mistakenly kept the McLaren refuelers from putting a full qualifying load of fuel into the car before the 3rd knock-out session. Result? Kimi qualified in first, however he had to make a fuel stop just nine laps in. That, combined with a crossed wheel nut on the pitstop, caused him to lose 2 places to the Italian red of Ferrari... and he thought he was just the fastest guy in the race...

In addition to the fuel sensor news, the hysteria over Renault's use of a mass damper to aid in the overall transfer of energy during directional changes caused a potentially unfair advantage to the blue and yellow team from Enstone. The team smartly removed (or so they say) the technology from the nose of the R26 to avoid a potential disqualification later in the schedule. Could this have been Renault's secret weapon over the past eleven races? We'll likely never know mostly due to the fact that the performance of the Michelins is now degrading faster than ever. Blistering tires caused the Renault team to suffer poor performance and a less than optimal finishing order.

Where it gets interesting is that Flavio Briatore, Renault's team manager, while directing the team and overall strategy in order to win the world championship still retains the management contract on Felipe Massa, Ferrari's number two. So either way, Flavio will get a piece of the pie, should Renault win or Ferrari overtake the World Championship.

It's nice to have your cake and eat it too.

Branding 101

The Saleen Store grand opening. Now here's a guy with a vision.


We attended the Grand Opening of the Saleen Store in Irvine, a fantastic showroom and salon-like environment for the common man to take hold of the dream. Saleen Mustangs, the new Saleen truck, the Saleen assembled Ford GT and, of course, the ever sleek Saleen S7... three of them to be exact. Steve Saleen has seen his brand destiny and is charging toward it.

In addition to the 200,000 sq. ft. assembly complex in Michigan, known as Saleen, Troy, the Saleen company is moving toward the assumed goal of branding - making the company a household name. While the displays in the store covered the range of clothing to performance accessories, the overall identity fell a bit short. We get that it's all about the Saleen brand, however we never understood our place in the food chain. While we would love to plunk down the $500K+ for a new S7, we're a bit short this month. Something a good branding exercise should always tell you is where you fit in... at what level you are 'allowed' to buy in.

While the store was beautiful, the displays were average. The one exception was the Mustang, carefully sliced in half to reveal all of the inner workings of everything from supercharger to the hvac system. That was cool.

With the driving simulators, (with additional cost to test drive anything other than an S7) to the N2O bar, boutique water and O2 shots for those who couldn't catch their breaths over the sight of the cars to the casual but sparse displays of performance parts; overall the brand impact felt just a bit light. We didn't see many people buying into the accessories, clothing or memorabilia, just a large number wandering about in search of their place in the food chain.

Never leave them wandering Steve, tell them where to buy in.

photos from the visit

Day 1 : Let the blogging begin

Welcome to the Mercury Customs blog. We're here to discuss anything that crosses our mind which could encompass engineering, motorsports, music, news, motorcycles, cars, people... well you get the idea. Stay tuned for information, updates, opinions and observations on anything and everything. We'll be sure to entertain and inform.