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yesterday I visited the Honda Institute, and I have to say....what a cool place
Imagine a huge, white tiled workshop, sufficiently large to hold about 30 cars, 50 motor bikes, a dozen lawnmowers, 30 marine engines and lots of desks for PC's plus lots of test beds for engines.
Exhaust Gas extractor pipes hang from huge reels in the ceiling to pull down and place over exhausts, engines tick-over on test beds, and bike frames stand empty of their motive power.
ONE HUGE CLEAN, SHINY ROOM.
One end is glass windowed offices for training, and they look out, from 2 floors, over the assembled engineering
It's just sex. A big white room full of sex.
A cut through Accord, where even the seat, steering wheel, roof airbags, side impact beams and floor sections are cut precisely through, and the edges painted perfect, Honda red
Chrome rails surround the work shops immaculate tiled floor, subtle lights from every direction means you can lie under a car and see perfectly, and you can wander around, touching, feeling and probing.
Sex. in a white clean box
It is of course impossible to get in the place without Honda backing, security tags and appointments. I believe lots of Honda garage staff have visited it.
It's lovely. White clean sharp precise.
I learned stuff. Lots of it.
£10,000,000 per DAY is spent on Honda World Wide Development. That covers your lawnmower and your Interga Type R.
10 million pounds. Per day.
These blokes don't mess about.
Brake pads. The positioning of the rivets that hold the braking material to the backing plates. Inspired. I saw a huge batch of pads yesterday from Delco, Lockheed, etc etc...and a Honda pad too.
No contest. Once you know what you're seeing. Once you understand the principle of rivets being OUT OF LINE to prevent cracking along a weak point, you start to see wisdom. When you see a patent part with 4 rivets in a dead straight line down the centre, begging to crack under heat, and see a Honda pad with 4 rivets in wierd places, it dawns on you.
Honda.
Zakky was more impressed than he wanted to be.
Exhausts. Back pressure. Baffles. Once again, Honda vs Opposition. Cut through, perfect engineering just in the cut throughs.
More baffles, the tubes inside having fluted ends, the welds, the triple layer skins PLUS heatshield. When you heat an exhaust and then drive through puddles they expand and contract at different speeds to prevent them stressing, weakening and rusting too fast. Even the bends in the pipes.
Honda.
Blimey.....DISKS....ventilated disks. I've always used factory disks and pads for my cars, but thats more snobbyness than need.
Until now. Seeing vented disks cut through...beautifull. The vents in the Honda disk was shaped like areoplane wings. They are twice as recurring as the oppostions bargain ones, and the metal castings narrow at the outer edges, but in the centre are thicker and stronger.
Even a humble oil filter. Honda one...smaller in size by quite a margin. bargain-part ones, bigger but so much less filter material. The steel grid inside that supports the filter element from being crushed by the oil pressure, finer holes, better spread out, better supporting. The non return oil seal to stop drain back after you've switched off.
Honda.
Blimey I'm impressed.
Sadly no jobs for me yet. But maybe one day.
Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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