Brent's attempt at a Blog

nospam@example.com (Brent Knoll) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:49:26 -0800

Hi! I'm Brent and this is my attempt at chronicalling the life of a track rat, his car and associated needs of a track guy. Have patience, I'm not a literary genius and have no aspirations to develop the skill.

My track weapon of choice is a 1987 Porsche 944 turbo. 212 factory quoted HP, fairly low options, bought from my friend Trevor Hill of HRE Racing in Pennsylvania. I bought the car in March of 2004 and proceeded to start the work on it.

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The previous owner had put a huge turbo on it, a few suspension tweeks but not much else. The interior was okay, a couple dash cracks but certainly far from a trailer queen. Add to that, the previous owner had decided to see what kind of lateral loads could be generated when a passenger front wheel met the curb at a high rate of speed. Shearing the a-arms and bending the fender. Because I want to compete in PCA stock class, the motor will have very few tweeks as it must remain fairly close to stock. (Exhaust and Intake to the Air Flow meter are free)

I picked the car up in March of 2004 and promptly began working on the asthetics. Procured another fender, painted it up and replaced anything needed on the suspension that was bent or broken. The sub frame was straight and undamaged. In general the bottom side of the car looked pretty good.

Arghh, The Motor
Starter was shot so I never really got a chance to drive the car when I first bought it. After replacing the starter on a cold March day, I had my first opportunity to hear it run. Not good. The car had a new head, due to a broken timing belt and some bent valves. But there was a tremendous exhaust leak that prevented any boost from developing from the motor. I was also in a hurry to get the car ready for the track so I wanted to get a rebuild motor and pull the existing engine as a spare.

I have always liked to have spare equipment when doing anything. Hiking, boating, why would a track car be any different. So why not have a spare motor right? Que eBay on 3...2...1....Yep, found a rebuilt Turbo S motor from Terry Heath in Indianapolis. Zero hours, good rebuild so I bought it and got ready for the install. Got the engine in June and called my good friend Dwayne Jans in Wisconsin to come help me wrench it into the car. DJ used to wrench for a living. He's an animal when it comes to getting a job done. He won't quit till it's done.

Nothing sucks worse than laying on your back working on these things. Enter another buddy Fast Eddy Tripet. Eddie is a fellow PCA club member who got me started in online racing, that's another blog of it's own though. He has a nice 3 1/2 car garage with a lift. After a phone call and some re-arranging, we opened up a 4 day window to swap out the motors. We started on a Monday morning and by the evening had the engine out and the new one headed in

Brent Knoll's personal blog

Brent's attempt at a Blog