I’m a mechanical engineer who spends a questionable amount of time designing, building, fixing, and racing machines that would be easier to leave alone.
Most of the projects on this site started as simple ideas and turned into much larger jobs involving fabrication, troubleshooting, redesign, and the occasional race car consequence. The common thread is mechanical problem solving: making parts fit, work, and survive in the real world.
Professionally, my background is in mechanical design and manufacturing engineering. Outside of work, that usually turns into project cars, endurance racing, machining, and the kinds of one-off fixes that only make sense after something breaks.
A few of the bigger projects are below.
24 Hours of Lemons #425 Dohn Jeere
A $700 smoky diesel Passat turned John Deere-themed endurance race car and long-running archive of fabrication, failures, and race-car consequences.
First-race chaos, cage work, turbo failures, hub and CV fixes, telemetry, cooling, and far too many Rockauto orders.
Smart Fortwo Battery Pack
Reviving a dead compliance-car Smart with a custom battery pack after the original BMS effectively junkyarded the factory pack and replacements proved basically nonexistent.
Samsung modules, custom cooling plates, module mounts, BMS integration, pack testing, and battery monitoring.
Miata Off-Roadster
A bone-stock NA bought cheap with a catastrophic smog problem, then turned into a lifted daily-driver Miata instead of another lowered cliché.
Smog resurrection, Paco lift, larger tires, polyurethane bushings, custom radio mount, and integrated rear camera.
Kenneth Wong 