Automotive

Adam's Air Cannon Car Blow Dryer

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Adam’s is a well-known name in the auto detailing industry but not so in the car blow dryer industry. So, when the Air Cannon Dryer came to market, it seemed to be overlooked. There’s very little information out there from users on this device. Because of this, I decided to pick one up for myself and give it a try in hopes of helping everyone out there who’s also interested in this product.

To start, let’s take a look at the Air Cannon itself. This product comes in a red, black, and white color scheme that matches the Adam’s logo very well. The unit itself features a 3.2 HP motor and outputs 106.7 cubic feet of air per minute.

At the top and on the carrying handle, we have an on/off switch and above that, a knob to control the speed or output of air. The speed control knob is nice. With some of the other blowers that I’ve tried, it’s either on or off. Full power or no power. Some blow dryers have high/low setting but this can be a hit or miss. Here, the powerband is quite wide. I like this because I’m able to dial in the proper amount of power for the occasion and surface. This is one of those things that you don’t think you need until you experience it.

Included with this device is a self-expanding and retracting 30-foot hose. Coming from a blower with a 7-foot hose, the 30-foot length is extremely handy. I can leave the Air Cannon in one place and just move around the car with the hose rather than constantly having to reposition the blower around. I also really like the self-expanding and retracting design. Most car blow dryers come with a hose that is just one size, so if you buy a 30-foot hose, you have a 30-foot hose to deal with. Here, when the Air Cannon is not in use, the hose retracts and is roughly 10 ft long. This makes it smaller and more manageable.

The Air Cannon also comes with two different nozzles that can be attached to the hose based on your needs. The nozzles have a twist locking design that keeps it in place. I felt the need to mention this because some much more expensive dryers hold their nozzles on with modified hose clamps and it looks super janky. Here, the design doesn’t seem like an afterthought. The same goes for the padded grip towards the end of the hose that helps to keep the warmth off of your hands because this device, of course, blows warm filtered air.

I’ve been using the Air Cannon now for a few days and I like it. Overall, I think it offers a lot of value for the price but there are two things that I would like for Adam’s to change. First is more power. My other blower dryer is advertised to have 4 horsepower and it does feel like it moves water off of panels faster than the 3.2 horsepower of the Air Cannon. Not to mention that the Air Cannon is getting pretty close to the price range of some other blowers that have 8 horsepower. My second suggestion is to add a temperature control. Right now, it seems like the warm air is also controlled by the speed controller. So, the more speed or power that the blower pumps out, the warmer the air gets. If you have the speed knob at a low setting, you’ll pretty much get no warm air.

These two complaints aside, I do think that this is a good product. The Air Cannon has been my go-to for drying cars and I wish that I went with it in the first place instead of messing with some of the other cheaper alternatives.

If you're considering buying any of the products mentioned, please support my work by using the links below.

Adam's Air Cannon https://amzn.to/3jd8Yqx

Adam's Air Cannon Jr. https://amzn.to/2QqNY3e

Homend Pet Dryer https://amzn.to/32tTyt7

SHELANDY Professional 4.2HP Dryer (same thing different name) https://amzn.to/30ZTnVn

SHELANDY Motorcycle & Car Dryer (smaller version) https://amzn.to/2PTau4w

Other Car Dryers https://amzn.to/2DXPabz

Other Pet Dryers https://amzn.to/32DQoTL

All the Auto Detailing Equipment I Use: https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AF43XRPGVOUH2E5CJXQY4FIOGVAQ/3AI3XVAQEMORX?type=explore&ref=idea_cp_vl_ov_d

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Toyota Supra AMS Performance Carbon Fiber Intake

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I recently purchased the AMS carbon fiber intake for my Supra. Long story short, things didn’t work out and I sold the intake to someone else. At least I was able to still make an install video. Watch and enjoy it. Hopefully, it’ll help some of you out there!

I purchased this intake from Speed Industry.
They didn't sponsor this video but gave great customer service!

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Spotless Car Wash Deionized Water System | DI Rinse DI Pro 100

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I finally did it. I bought a water filtration system to get spotless car washes. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll run through it real quick. When we use tap water to wash our cars or really anything else, water spots can develop. This happens because the tap water has minerals in it and if it is left to dry, the water may disappear but the minerals are left behind. I personally cannot stand this. I spend a lot of time taking care of my cars but water spotting is just something that I could not get around. So, I finally just bit the bullet and invested in a water filtration system that would remove the minerals from my tap water and leave me with a spotless car. Well, at least moving forward because the system won’t help with the water spots that are already there.

The system that I went with is the DI Pro 100. If you look at this product up by name, you’ll see that there are a few different companies that sell what seems to look like the same item. The particular system that’s shown in this video is manufactured by RV-Mods and is 100% made in the USA. Other companies buy it from one main manufacturer wholesale, slap a different sticker on, and resell. I can’t speak for any other DI Pro system’s performance, only what I purchased from RV-Mods.

The DI Pro 100 is advertised as being able to filter up to 4,000 gallons of water and costs $585. This was a huge selling point for me. If you’ve been in the market for a deionized spotless car wash system, you’ve no doubt come across the CR Spotless system. This is likely the most popular or, at least, the most widely known system. At $399 it only filters approximately 300 gallons of water. So for $186 more, you can get over 13X the filtering ability. If you can afford the upfront cost, the DI Pro is a no brainer.

So, here is the unit itself. At the top, we have the head unit and bypass valve assembly. Moving down is the 8”x35” tank that holds the 1 cu ft of DI resin.

The system itself is fairly simple. We attach a hose from the tap to the “In” port of the bypass valve and another hose to the “Out” port and that’s where we’ll be getting the filtered water. This process is made a little bit easier as the system comes with quick connectors. As tap water enters the tank, it gets filtered by the resin and deionized water comes out. The great thing about this system is that the bypass valve has controls to allow us to use tap water or filtered water. Some other systems only allow for filtered water once it’s hooked up. With the DI Pro, we’re able to close the valve and use tap water for the main wash. Then, open it up and use filtered water for the rinse. This means that we’re able to really stretch out the resin’s lifespan.

So, is something like this for you? I can't answer that but let me explain to you how I justified the purchase for myself. Getting into a system like this is a bit difficult because there isn’t a lot of information out there on it when it comes to the details. The various manufacturers may say that their system will filter X gallons of water but that does not mean that that’s the amount of filtered water that you’ll get. This was the factor that made me hold off on buying a deionized water system prior to this. How do I know if it’s even going to be worth buying? What if I buy into the system and have to replace the resin after a few washes or after a month? It’s all up in the air.

A major factor in determining how much life you’ll get out of any filtration system is the water that you currently use and what the total dissolved solids (TDS) content that it has. In short, TDS tells you the amount of minerals that are in the water and it is commonly calculated in parts per million (ppm). After some research, I found a web page published by CR Spotless that had some good information. I’ll link the page in the description below but the important thing is that this page gives us the formula to calculate the amount of filtered water that we can expect to get from any system given that we know our water’s TDS prior to filtering and the volume of resin that the system uses. This formula is 235,000 ÷ TDS x Volume of resin = Gallons of “Spot-free Water”. The volume of resin is based around 1 cu ft and is easy to find as many manufacturers list it in the specs. The particular system shown in this video uses 1 whole cubic foot of resin so it’s a given and is nullified in the equation. The only thing that I really need to find was the TDS of my water prior to filtering. To figure this out, I ordered a cheap TDS meter from Amazon and tested my water. After testing my water every day for a week, the meter told me that my water was sitting at 59-91 PPM. This is great news as from my research, this is relatively low. The CR Spotless page actually lists a few different city’s past TDS. San Diego had 400 ppm. Another city in Orange County had 40 ppm. Grand Rapids, Michigan 170 ppm. In any case, TDS ranges quite a bit around the world but luckily for me, I had a pretty good start especially considering that the DI Pro is rated based on incoming water of 110 ppm TDS. To get back to the formula, 235,000 divided by my lowest TDS of 59 would result in roughly 3,983 gallons of filter water. Pretty close to the manufacturer's listed 4000 gallons, which is great! At it’s highest, 235,000 divided by 91, I would get about 2,582 gallons of filtered water. In either case, that’s a whole lot of filtered water.

Considering that I only use this system for a final rinse, I’ll be able to get many washes out of the resin that comes with the original purchase. By my highly overestimated guess of 20 gallons of water used per week and 1040 gallons per year, I’ll be able to get about 2.5 to 4 years’ worth of use. This of course is just a very rough estimate but you get the possibility of the insane value.

If you’re going to try and do these calculations for yourself, there are a few things that I want to point out. First, my testing showed that not all tap water on my property is the same. For whatever reason, the water from the tap that I use to wash cars is purer than anywhere else on the property. So, if you’re going to test your water, test the tap that you’re going to be using the system with to get the most accurate calculations. It should also be noted that the TDS is not going to always be the same. It changes throughout the year based on various conditions so this means that you’ll be getting more or less filtered water depending on the time of the year. Realistically, I got a different TDS measurement on every test within a few seconds. So, it’s more important to understand your range of TDS rather than a specific number. Also, the equation previously shown from CR Spotless is not going to be 100% accurate. Not all manufacturers use this to calculate their filtered water output so the equation should only be used to help, not to be a definitive answer.

But it is still very useful because once you understand the amount of filtered water that you can potentially get from a system, you can then make a much more educated buying decision because remember, this is not something that you buy once and forget about. The resin used to filter the water is a consumable and will have to be replaced periodically. This system uses one cubic foot of resin at a time and that costs $225. To me, $225 for 2.5 to 4 years of use is not all that bad. It’s something that I’m willing to pay for. Now, if you test your water and it’s really high, to the point that you'll potentially only get a few months of use, then I would suggest looking for a different solution because the cost is really going to add up over time.

And that’s about it. I hope that this writeup has been helpful for anyone looking to get into a deionized water filtration system. If you have any questions, leave it down in the comments below and I’ll do my best to help you out. Make sure to also subscribe to my YouTube as I’ll be making update videos in the future as I get more time in with this system.

UPDATE

After less than 100 gallons of use, my water's TDS is sitting at 3 and producing water spots. The manufacturer recommends changing the resin when the TDS is around 50 because water spots shouldn't be a problem until then. However, the problem with TDS is that it doesn't tell us what minerals are present. A TDS of 1 can still produce water spots if the minerals left behind are those that produce water spots. After weeks of contacting the manufacturer of this tank, it doesn't seem like we're going to reach a resolution. I have to say that for the price and to get less than 100 gallons of filtered water, I can no longer recommend this system from RV-Mods.

If you're considering buying any of the products mentioned, please support my work by using the links below.

Things you may need for this system:

Water Quality / TDS Tester: https://amzn.to/3fmcWea

Hand truck to move the unit: https://amzn.to/2XgrqWJ

Bungee cords to strap the unit to hand truck: https://amzn.to/39LEjgA

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Olsa Tools Split Beam Torque Wrench

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I’d like to share with you guys a new tool that I recently acquired and I think some of you will be interested in. This is the 1/2” Split Beam Torque Wrench from Olsa Tools.

If you don’t do a lot of research on torque wrenches, you may have never seen one of this design. To be honest, I’m new to it too as this is my first split beam torque wrench. If you’re like me, you’re likely more familiar with the micrometer click type torque wrenches. Micrometer torque wrenches work by adjusting the tension of the spring in the shaft. Split beam torque wrenches, on the other hand, have a spring that’s always under the same tension and is more dependent on something similar to a lever and catch mechanism. A big advantage of the split beam design is that because the spring is always under the same tension, users don’t have to worry about it deforming and contributing to inaccurate readings as possible with micrometer torque wrenches.

With a micrometer torque wrench, the proper procedure for storage is to release the tension of the spring by lowering the torque setting to it’s minimum. That way the spring doesn’t form to its compressed size while it’s not being used and sitting in storage. With the split beam design, there is no such thing. It can be left at whatever torque setting for however long and the spring will not deform.

Another big advantage of the split beam design is the ease of adjustment. With the micrometer design, you typically twist the handle up and down working your way through the torque range. Depending on the size of the torque range, this can take a bit of twisting to get from one end to the other. With the split beam, you’re able to move through the range almost effortlessly. This Olsa Tools Split Beam Torque Wrench has a working range of 50-250 ft-lb and you can get from one end to the other in a few seconds.

To use this torque wrench, you first flip open the safety lock. From there you turn the knob up and down to get to the desired setting. When you’ve achieved the desired setting, just close the safety lock and you’re good to go. This design is very quick and easy to use.

When in use, this torque wrench will emit an audible click when the desired torque is achieved, like other click type torque wrenches.

After owning this torque wrench for a few weeks, I would say that I like it a lot but I have noticed two drawbacks. First, the torque display window only shows increments of 5. This is fine if everything that you torque down requires a torque setting that ends in 5 or 0 but that isn’t always the case. And because all the numbers and lines are so close to each other, whenever you need one of those in-between numbers, it becomes a guessing game as to where to set the torque wrench at. The second drawback is that this torque wrench only measures when used on forward, clockwise rotating fasteners. There is no reverse. This is something inherently attributed to the split beam design so it’s not a knock on Olsa Tools.

Overall, I would give this tool a thumbs up and a recommendation. It seems to be of high quality and functions really well. Not to mention that Olsa Tools offers a lifetime warranty on this thing so if it were to ever become defective, they’ll take care of it.

If you’re interested in trying this tool out for yourself, check out the links below. If you use the one that leads to Olsa Tools’ official website and use the code HT10, you’ll be able to get 10% off of your order.

If you're considering buying any of the products mentioned, please support my work by using the links below.

Olsa Tools Split Beam Torque Wrench

https://olsatools.com/a/rewards/r/dZjrVdPO

https://rebrand.ly/HaiTran

and use discount code HT10 for 10% off orders

https://amzn.to/32UArsk

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Toyota Supra Tinted with XPEL Prime XR Plus

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My Supra gets park outside. Now that it’s summer time, it just gets beat down with sunlight. I have a front windshield sunshade and I protect the entire interior with various products but no doubt, the interior is taking some damage. It may look fine now but down the road, there will likely be some fading and possibly other damage. Because of this, I’ve finally decided to tint all the side and rear glass.

To do this, I headed to California Tint of Everett, WA. This shop works with a bunch of super high-end cars so I was comfortable with them working on my car. Another reason why I went with California Tint is that they are authorized installers of XPEL window films. XPEL is widely known in the window film industry and is among the best. They offer 4 different types of window film, the Prime CS, Prime HP, Prime XR and Prime XR Plus. Now, this is not an informational or advertisement video for XPEL so I’ll leave some links down below to where you can find more information about the various films. For the sake of time, I’m just going to categorize the films as standard and ceramic. The standard films reject 99.9% of ultraviolet rays. The ceramic films do this too while also rejecting infrared heat. The Prime XR film rejects up to 88% of infrared heat while Prime XR Plus rejects up to 98%. With each level of quality, the price increases, and in the case of Prime XR Plus, the price jumps quite a bit. I don’t want to give you any price quotes because this differs from shop to shop so it’s best to contact your tint shop for the most accurate pricing.

For this project, I personally knew that I wanted to go with a ceramic film for the heat rejection properties. I just didn’t know if I wanted to pay for Prime XR Plus. But I figured that because the Supra is likely a forever car or at least one that I’ll own for a very long time, I might as well pay for the best upfront and not have to deal with possible headaches in the future. It definitely helps that with XPEL Prime films, you are getting a lifetime warranty that covers defects such as discoloration, fading, bubbling, peeling, cracking, and delamination. Realistically, anything short of abuse will be covered for the life of the vehicle.

If you’re unaware, the Supra comes with some sort of tinted privacy glass from the factory. We tested it at California Tint and it’s rated at 77%. This means that whatever tint that you decide to go with, it will be slightly darker. XPEL offers Prime XR Plus in a few different degrees of tint. With all my cars, I have them tinted at 15% and that’s what I wanted for the Supra. But remember the factory tinted glass makes any tint darker so you have to go with a slightly lighter shade. In this case, I went with 20% tint and after installation, it sits exactly at 15% with the stock privacy glass.

To me, 15% is a good compromise. It’s pretty dark during the day and unless the interior is fully lit up by the sun, you still have to focus and really look in the car to make things out. At night, it is pretty much non-seethrough and looks black from the outside but still very visible from the inside. I thought about going down to 5% for this car because the murdered out windows look really good but it also looks super illegal. Not to mention that 5% tint is really dark and hard to see through from the inside at night.

So here is the final result. In my opinion, the Supra looks so much better with the tint. This is something that I should’ve got done from the beginning but better late than never. The interior will be better protected moving forward, for years to come.

Now if you’re going to get your Supra’s windows tinted there are a few things that I would suggest. The first is to get the installer to apply the tint all the way up to the window’s edges. Some installers like to leave a small gap of untinted space and it always looks really tacky. Second, remove the third brake light and tint the entire rear windshield. Luckily, Ryan the owner of California Tint also owns a Supra and reminded me of this. If you don’t tint under the third brake light, you’ll have a small section of clear glass that will really stand out.

If you’re interested in getting something similar for your vehicle and you’re in the western Washington area, definitely give California Tint a try. They did an amazing job and have really competitive prices even compared to some other shops that I talked to that uses inferior window film.

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