Campus Cruising and Charger Custom Carpet

(Narrator)>> Today on Detroit Muscle we head up to Ohio to check out what is going on at the UNOH campus. They will give us an education on what the future has in store for the automotive industry. Plus we add a custom carpet to Hard Charger, getting it ready for a new interior.

(Marc)>> Hey everybody, welcome to Detroit Muscle. Have you ever wondered where the next generation of car and truck technicians, builders, and race team crews are coming from?

(Tommy)>> We found a place that is teaching young men and women to work in an ever changing automotive world that's full of new technologies.

(Marc)>> This is UNOH, the University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima, Ohio. At times the 200 acre campus is home to about 4,000 students from 40 states and 49 countries. 2,500 of them are studying for various automotive and technical careers. The not for profit university was founded in 1920. If you summed up the core message it would be successful graduates.

(Jeffrey)>> In a nutshell that's what I'd say it is. It's a group of quality people producing graduates that are going out and getting jobs.

(Tommy)>> And they do it very well here. A lot of these students will have job offers before they ever graduate. They earn degrees in automotive, diesel, high performance motorsports, agricultural equipment. Trust me, this isn't your father's tractor. Robotics and HVAC.

(David)>> I don't like to say I teach automotive. I give the ability for these students to have the courage to tackle these nuts and bolts. It's all nuts and bolts at the end of the day. It's the courage to say I'm gonna tear apart this engine, I'm confident in myself, and Mister Baxter has helped to give me confidence to tear it apart and put it back together.

(Marc)>> The first rate faculty teaches about 30 percent form text books but 70 percent is hands on learning. [ engine revving ]

(Marc)>> Everyone admits that was one of the main reasons they picked UNOH.

(Brenden)>> Maybe I'll come pay them a visit and just see what campus is really like. Man it was the real deal. It was the best high performance technical program in the nation. So I knew this is where I had to be to do what I wanted to do and go make a career out of racing.

(Ben)>> UNOH has been a fantastic experience at everything. I never thought I'd be able to do several of the things here. It has amazing staff, amazing opportunities given to every student possible, and also it's an awesome place to even be around with the horsepower, with the race track, with just like minded people in general.

(Anastasios)>> I came to UNOH because of the high performance program. There's no other school in the country that offers such a program.

(Madison)>> I ended up coming here for one of the open houses and I fell in love immediately. It was everything that I wanted. All the hands on experience that I wanted. Real people, it wasn't just flashy technology. Just you know show and tell kind of stuff. It was exactly what it came off as, a really high tech university with lots of hands on experience and amazing instructors with lots of hands on experience themselves.

(Marc)>> One of the more popular programs of study is automotive and diesel tech. Students learn everything from engine building to h-v-a-c.

(Jeffrey)>> The need in the diesel field right now is off the chart. We are a Mac-Volvo training center. So any person that comes in here that wants to take our diesel program they can add that on, and then they're guaranteed to be paid higher and have a job opportunity. The diesel field is exploding, and with agriculture and everything else that diesel engines apply to.

(Isaac)>> What made me pick diesel technology, especially taking it through this school, was the fact that I love to work with my hands. UNOH is preparing me to go out into the work force by giving me the right skills to do the job correctly.

(Tommy)>> Here's a fact that says everything you need to know about UNOH. The students who have a perfect attendance record in the college of applied technologies is an astounding 88 percent.

(Marc)>> When we come back you can get a degree in high performance motorsports. How UNOH is training the next generation of race car technicians with some of them even becoming professional drivers.

(Narrator)>> We'll also have one of the best interior guys in the industry come by and give us a hand installing all new custom carpet to our Hellcat powered '69 Dodge Charger.

(Tommy)>> Hey welcome back. Today we're featuring a place of higher learning, automotive that is.

(Marc)>> And what's really special about the University of Northwestern Ohio is you can get a degree in motorsports. Let's return to Lima, Ohio.

(Jeffrey)>> We provide training opportunities for young people that want to go into any motorsports field other than water. We would have on a Nascar weekend between truck, Xfinity, and Cup 122 graduates working on teams there, and hundreds more back in shops. In NHRA we have 36 graduates work on pit crews right there, young men and women. We have a relationship with Monster Jam. This year they've hired 12 graduates to be pit crew members on their teams that travel the world. Our program provides the training to put people in those fields.

(Marc)>> The nearly 16,000 square foot SNS Volvo motorsports racing complex is as impressive as any professional race team. When you see those haulers lined up outside you know it's serious. The students all earn places on the team as drivers or pit crew, and the school even owns its own race track, Limaland Motorsports Park.

(Paul)>> The goal of the motorsports team here at the university is to give students that they will have in the real world on a professional level. I love nothing more than when a student comes here and they have the right desire to learn. They have a passion about racing, or motorsports in general. They may know nothing when they get here, and if they've got the right desire, and the right willingness to learn and the right attitude, my goal is to see them succeed out in the career world of their choice and I love that when it happens. It's pretty much every avenue of professional motorsports we have graduates in.

(Brandon)>> For the past five weeks I've been in Paxton, Illinois, with Monster Jam university, and I've been able to work as a technician for any of the different trucks that we're driving. We have some drivers from Monster Jam that are in training with Tom Mence. So anything that they work on on the truck or if something happens on the track we can actually bring it in and fix the truck. Do preventative maintenance, and I've been going head to toe, front to back learning everything on those trucks out there.

(Tommy)>> From racing to getting your c-d-l, they're learning how to repair high tech farm tractors and combines that have g-p-s and farm mapping and give you soil moisture readings in the cab, to the complete other end of the spectrum, alternative fuels.

(Tom)>> What we're about is teaching about vehicles that run on something other than gas and diesel. So we have an explosion of compressed natural gas vehicles, and propane powered vehicles, and electric vehicles, and hybrid vehicles all over the world, and with the price of gas and diesel being the way that they are it's very advantageous for fleets to go to natural gas, propane, hybrids, and electrics. So here at UNOH we have a complete fleet of vehicles that run on all of those fuels. I have students that already understand how an engine and how a transmission works, and I'm teaching them a new type of fuel system. So the fuel systems keep evolving. They keep getting better. Electric vehicles keep evolving and getting better. Hybrids keep evolving and getting better. So there's a grown market out there of these vehicles and there's a growing need for technicians that understand how to service these vehicles.

(Tommy)>> UNOH has been on the forefront of diversity. As one instructor said, I've now seen pink toolboxes.

(Anna)>> I believe women belong in the shop. We're part of the guys you know? We can do just the same things as the guys can. It's just the motivation and the mindset.

(Madison)>> I think a lot of people traditional think that the automotive industry is predominantly for men and I'm really happy to see that more girls have actually stood up and said hey, this is something that I want to do. Before I came here I actually had to face that myself. I had a lot of people that would say very rude things to me because they thought that a girl didn't belong in the shop, and that was a little frustrating but it ended up just fueling the fire and made me and other women that I know even more hard workers. I mean we just wanted to get after it and prove everyone wrong. That we could do it just as good if not better.

(Marc)>> No matter age, race, gender, UNOH does what it says. It teaches students to be successful in their chosen careers.

(Jeffrey)>> It's our job at the University of Northwestern Ohio to prepare them to be ready that when they get the opportunity to perform that they can perform to that team's expectation or that organization's expectation. So that's what we do. We produce graduates that can come in and start right off working for that company.

(Tommy)>> Are you looking for an h-e-i style distributor for your circle track or drag car that maximizes spark in that 6,000 to 8,500 range? Well Pertronix may have what you're looking for with their D-1075 Flamethrower distributor. This one is for small block and big block Chevys. It features a lightweight cast aluminum housing, and it's machined with high quality bushings for reduced friction and extended life. It produces 42 percent more energy than the street version with its seven point two amp module and a 50,000 volt coil.

(Narrator)>> Coming up we get a little help customizing the carpet to fit our '69 Dodge Charger.

(Tommy)>> Hey guys welcome back to the shop. Today we're back on our '69 Charger and we're gonna be addressing the flooring in this thing. Now the install we're gonna be doing isn't just your standard run of the mill carpet install.

(Marc)>> What Tommy means by that is that we modified our floor quite a bit. A while back we decided to go with that Hellcat drivetrain and a six speed manual gear box, and to get those to fit we had to cut some stuff out. From the firewall all the way back to that rear seat. Now that includes the transmission tunnel and that driveshaft hump. So you can't just take a carpet out of a box that you'd order from a catalog and slap it in here. It's not gonna fit. So we need to do something custom.

(Tommy)>> So we got ourselves a hired gun. This is Gil Vigil with Speed & Design Hot Rod Interiors. Speed & Design is one of the leading hot rod interior shops in the country. Gil started doing upholstery on his own vehicles. Then slowly started working on friends cars, which led him to start Speed & Design Hot Rod Interiors. They specialize in traditional and streamline custom upholstery on high end hot rods, including several award winning vehicles. Now it's easy to see that these guys have it figured out in the custom. So what's your plan for our car?

(Gil)>> I think what we're gonna go ahead and do is we're gonna take the replacement carpet that you've already purchased. We're gonna go ahead and cut that right down the middle, and we'll figure out how to incorporate that with the new pattern that we make for your center console.

(Tommy)>> Well how do you want to get started?

(Gil)>> Well I think what we'll do is we'll lay that carpet in there and figure out the center.

(Tommy)>> Cool!

(Gil)>> While Tommy was taking out the shifter I went ahead and made the mark in the center here so I could cut out the two pieces and lay them out so we can start fabricating our custom transmission tunnel.

(Tommy)>> He starts by laying a piece of clear sticky plastic over our custom transmission tunnel to make sure he has the right shape. Using a marker he traces the outline of the tunnel to make his template. Once that's all done he can simply cut it out.

(Gil)>> Now that I've made my pattern I'm gonna go ahead and transfer it onto this carpet. I'm gonna go ahead and make my mark and inch or so bigger to give me some allowance for that transmission tunnel.

(Tommy)>> After the first piece is cut it's over to the car to check the fit. Once he gets it into place he will trim off the excess, and with a little quality time with the old scissors Gil get it just right.

(Gil)>> Now that we've dialed in this piece we'll repeat the process on this panel and this panel.

(Marc)>> Do you have a muscle car or hot rod that's you baby but you don't drive it every day? Maybe it sits in the garage collecting dust? Well you may want to take a look at the form fit cover from Covercraft. It's the most luxurious and best fitting indoor car cover available. They're lined with 100 percent cotton sheared to a fleece finish. The material is highly breathable, which prevents vapor and heat from being trapped underneath. It's available in six different colors, and you can even customize yours.

(Narrator)>> Hang around, we put the finishing touches on the carpet for our Hellcat Charger.

(Tommy)>> Hey guys welcome back. We've got our pieces trimmed out. Now it's time for us to move on over to the sewing machine. Are you ready for this?

(Gil)> I've got the machine dialed in.

(Tommy)>> Alright buddy, I'll let you at it.

(Gil)>> What we're doing now is sewing on this piece of leather to dress up the edge of this raw carpet.

(Tommy)>> Once the leather is sewn on he'll trim off the salvage.

(Gil)>> What we're gonna do now is glue this edge, fold this over, take another trip to the sewing machine and sew here.

What we want to do is make sure this edge stays nice, clean, and consistent.

Now that we've sewn this piece up we can go ahead and glue it in and continue the process with the rest of these panels.

(Tommy)>> We've got our tunnel finished up. Now it's time to start installing the left and right side. What's next?

(Gil)>> Well what we're gonna do is we're gonna go ahead and trim this up, bind the edge, glue it in for the final install.

(Tommy)>> Well it sounds like all we need next is some seal plates and kick panels. I'll go grab those.

(Gil)>> Alright time to sew.

(Tommy)>> He will repeat the same process with the driver and passenger side carpet as he did with our transmission tunnel pieces. This type of carpet install will take a bit of time to complete but it's necessary to accommodate our modified floor. This kind of install is very popular in the hot rod world, and after seeing the finished product you could say it's time well spent. Gil's finished up on this side. So I'm gonna go ahead and slap in the kick panel and the seal plate.

Man yeah, that looks nice.

Well Gil I want to say thank you man for all your hard work, and that carpet turned out killer.

(Gil)>> No problem Tommy, any time.

(Tommy)>> I probably owe you a beverage at least.

(Gil)>> Absolutely.

(Marc)>> Now when it comes to your daily driver, especially if you have a high performance vehicle like this 2014 Camaro SS convertible that we have here in the shop, you're gonna run into things like having to replace normal wear items like your brakes. Now you could do o-e-m replacement stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that, and there's even a bunch of o-e-m style replacement parts on the market as well. Or you could do an upgrade, and that's what we're gonna do on this car today. We're gonna use all this stuff we got from EBC Brakes. We got a full set of and rear Ulti-max sport rotors and red stuff pads for this car. The narrower multi-slot design of this rotor and the progressive angle at which the slots are machined, creates a quiet running sport rotor that still has the benefits of removing gas, dirt, water, and debris, which helps maintain consistent pad wear. The only real negative that could be associated with slotted rotors, and you may have heard this before, is the reduced surface area, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. You just need to couple them with the right pads, which EBC offers in these red stuff. These are gonna be a lot better than the stock ones would have been, and not only that these are perfect for a sporty daily driver like our Camaro. Now we just need to go over there, get it all taken apart so we can get this new stuff on. One thing I want to point out before we start disassembly here is the condition of these rotors. They are rusty, which isn't too big of a deal, but the big deal is this groove here across the whole surface where the pad rubs, and it's really got this really hard edge here. That tells you that this rotor's pretty far worn. Now you could have them resurfaced but we're just gonna replace these. Another thing to take into consideration on this car is this is a Brembo car. So you could replace the pads fairly easily without taking the caliper off. You just take the pins out and pull the pads out and service them if you're doing a track day or something like that, but I recommend always replacing the rotors, or at least having them resurfaced, when you're replacing your pads, and actually these pads aren't too warn. So that tells me at some point somebody probably just slapped some pads on here and let it go, but today we're gonna take care of that. First things first, get these pads and caliper out of the way. We'll turn the spindle so that we can access everything and remove the pins and retainer that hold the pads in place. With the bleeders cracked we can depress the pistons and remove the pads.

Then the caliper can be unbolted, removed, and set aside. Now it's time to remove the rotor and install the new one. [ drill spinning ]

(Marc)>> The caliper can then be re-installed and torqued. Now we can install our red stuff pads and the retaining hardware. Well just need to do three more of these and then we can go out and have some fun bedding them in.

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