MOTOR CITY TERMINATORS tour NICHE-LINE, I got to meet my engine builders!!!
Our club went to the Romeo Engine Plant yesterday for the most amazing tour. Total red carpet treatment, all the way through. The tour was setup by MysticBob, one of our members with serious connections. Our guide, Bob Herrick was so cool, a terrific ambassador for the plant, showed us the High volume line (Focus Taurus F150, IIRC) and the Low volume line (Navigator, Aviator, MACH1). Told us they "drop" (produce) an engine every 18 seconds and that they provide the engines for 11 assembly plants.
After a quick trip through the Office/Management area (small) and a little briefing in the main boardroom we went to the PIT STOP gift shop and bought shirts and hats. The profits from this store go to local charities, not into someone’s pocket. They have shirts with a replica of the SVT tag on your cam cover, also many nice ROMEO ENGINE and patriotic items. The lady that runs the store, Charlotte Young will take a shirt back to the Niche-Line and have your builders sign it if you want one. More details on that later.
Then on back to the dyno area. They had a 5.4 Navigator engine doing a 100hr WOT test. It was about 36hrs into it, manifolds were cherry red, got a great pic of it!. It was making 350hp and 36X tq. I think it was pegged at like 5600rpm, awesome sight.
After that we went though the engine teardown area. A couple problem engines were disassembled to bits with all components in trays. If you puke an engine and it is replaced under warranty it will likely end up in this room.
All of this was in the main building where the majority of the approx 1400 UAW/Management ROMEO folks work. Next we went to a much smaller building where there was a tool shop, bunch of forklifts, maintenance stuff. Only about 30-40 guys in there.
Finally on to the SECRET LOCATION of the NICHE-LINE. It really is completely separate from the regular production and in an even smaller building than the tool shop. It is a single line, two sides, about 50 yards long. The cradles start off empty, move to the position of the bare block, then on to piston stuffing, crank install, water pump etc…. Then around the corner to heads, Cam chain cover, blower, pullies, accessories….
The heads are assembled in the main plant and sent over to our builders. They actually do the “CAM CAP RETOURQE” on every head after it is completely assembled. That is what stopped my “TICK”.
The line is very clean, maybe a pop can here and there but looks neater than my cube at work. We met the line supervisor and he started hunting down our individual builders. I was looking for Jay Conklin and Jeff Hamblin. Total luck out that they were both there! Jeff made me a spare Cam Cover tag and Jay showed me some of the components. Man are the rods on these pistons beefy, says MANLEY right on them. The piston assemblies are dated on the top dish showing when they were assembled with the rods. Every part has different color dots. Some they knew, some they said other people had put on. The blue paint on the heads is showing it is from the new casting, was told that by a fellow there.
Funny thing was that Jay and Jeff did not remember working together. Seems they both have different partners now. Jay now works with Ann Lemay, the only female Terminator engine builder. Ann is a very nice lady and she made me another CC tag with here name and Jay’s on it (her current partner). She joked about how rare and valuable it would be ‘cause ‘she is the only girl back there’. These folks were the nicest people you would ever want to meet. They were about as excited as we were to meet such enthusiastic SVT owners. They get tours through there regular they told us but not many Terminator owners.
After the tremendous high of the Niche-Line we went to the graphics and Audio-Video area. Just two guys there. One was making a video animation of the new 3-valve motor. Dang does it use tiny profile rods! It looks like a decent engine though, showed how the variable valve mechanism works. The other guy is the one who makes the cool posters. He verified the "TERMINATOR" anme was pulled because of the movie folks objecting.
Then we posed for a group pic with Bob Herrick and took our goodies home.
Like to thank Mysticbob and SNAKEBITE of the Motor City Terminators for setting this excellent tour up. I never imagined it would be so thorough and show us so much. We had 12 of our 25 members show up. I have 41 pics of the plant, Niche-Line, lots of cool stuff that will be up at our clubs website by tomorrow late. Hope you guys can stop by and check them out. This is one club where membership has huge benefits.
We are also setting up another tour of the Dearborn Assembly Plant end of the month. Can’t wait for that one either. I would suggest you don't wait any longer to join up.
Link to our page in my sig.
Our club went to the Romeo Engine Plant yesterday for the most amazing tour. Total red carpet treatment, all the way through. The tour was setup by MysticBob, one of our members with serious connections. Our guide, Bob Herrick was so cool, a terrific ambassador for the plant, showed us the High volume line (Focus Taurus F150, IIRC) and the Low volume line (Navigator, Aviator, MACH1). Told us they "drop" (produce) an engine every 18 seconds and that they provide the engines for 11 assembly plants.
After a quick trip through the Office/Management area (small) and a little briefing in the main boardroom we went to the PIT STOP gift shop and bought shirts and hats. The profits from this store go to local charities, not into someone’s pocket. They have shirts with a replica of the SVT tag on your cam cover, also many nice ROMEO ENGINE and patriotic items. The lady that runs the store, Charlotte Young will take a shirt back to the Niche-Line and have your builders sign it if you want one. More details on that later.
Then on back to the dyno area. They had a 5.4 Navigator engine doing a 100hr WOT test. It was about 36hrs into it, manifolds were cherry red, got a great pic of it!. It was making 350hp and 36X tq. I think it was pegged at like 5600rpm, awesome sight.
After that we went though the engine teardown area. A couple problem engines were disassembled to bits with all components in trays. If you puke an engine and it is replaced under warranty it will likely end up in this room.
All of this was in the main building where the majority of the approx 1400 UAW/Management ROMEO folks work. Next we went to a much smaller building where there was a tool shop, bunch of forklifts, maintenance stuff. Only about 30-40 guys in there.
Finally on to the SECRET LOCATION of the NICHE-LINE. It really is completely separate from the regular production and in an even smaller building than the tool shop. It is a single line, two sides, about 50 yards long. The cradles start off empty, move to the position of the bare block, then on to piston stuffing, crank install, water pump etc…. Then around the corner to heads, Cam chain cover, blower, pullies, accessories….
The heads are assembled in the main plant and sent over to our builders. They actually do the “CAM CAP RETOURQE” on every head after it is completely assembled. That is what stopped my “TICK”.
The line is very clean, maybe a pop can here and there but looks neater than my cube at work. We met the line supervisor and he started hunting down our individual builders. I was looking for Jay Conklin and Jeff Hamblin. Total luck out that they were both there! Jeff made me a spare Cam Cover tag and Jay showed me some of the components. Man are the rods on these pistons beefy, says MANLEY right on them. The piston assemblies are dated on the top dish showing when they were assembled with the rods. Every part has different color dots. Some they knew, some they said other people had put on. The blue paint on the heads is showing it is from the new casting, was told that by a fellow there.
Funny thing was that Jay and Jeff did not remember working together. Seems they both have different partners now. Jay now works with Ann Lemay, the only female Terminator engine builder. Ann is a very nice lady and she made me another CC tag with here name and Jay’s on it (her current partner). She joked about how rare and valuable it would be ‘cause ‘she is the only girl back there’. These folks were the nicest people you would ever want to meet. They were about as excited as we were to meet such enthusiastic SVT owners. They get tours through there regular they told us but not many Terminator owners.
After the tremendous high of the Niche-Line we went to the graphics and Audio-Video area. Just two guys there. One was making a video animation of the new 3-valve motor. Dang does it use tiny profile rods! It looks like a decent engine though, showed how the variable valve mechanism works. The other guy is the one who makes the cool posters. He verified the "TERMINATOR" anme was pulled because of the movie folks objecting.
Then we posed for a group pic with Bob Herrick and took our goodies home.
Like to thank Mysticbob and SNAKEBITE of the Motor City Terminators for setting this excellent tour up. I never imagined it would be so thorough and show us so much. We had 12 of our 25 members show up. I have 41 pics of the plant, Niche-Line, lots of cool stuff that will be up at our clubs website by tomorrow late. Hope you guys can stop by and check them out. This is one club where membership has huge benefits.
We are also setting up another tour of the Dearborn Assembly Plant end of the month. Can’t wait for that one either. I would suggest you don't wait any longer to join up.
Link to our page in my sig.
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