A Neophyte's Track Blog

1. Supplies Needed
a. Water Wetter
b. Mobil 1
c.
2. Start and Drive – Check out issues
3. Compression Check on all 4 Pistons
4. Fluids
a. Remove Anitfreeze, replace with water
b. Check Differential Oil – Royal Puple
c. Check Oil – Replace before track time
d. Bleed Brakes - Pads should be ok.
5.
6.
7. Remove Seats - Pulled the Front Driver's seat, to go into John's Sim set up, and got John's sim seat to go into the Porsche. This is going to be great. Many thanks for John and Rob for sacrificing their surplus to get me some firmer seats. It almost fits the stock mounts.... It's about an inch too wide, so I will have to run at least two mounting screws through the floor on each side. It will rest on the reinforced part of the floor, so that should at least stay strong.
8. Install Harness Bars
9. Install Harnesses
10. Install Seats –
a. Do these Need Modification for the Belts? Is it OK to?
b. Do these need mounting bracket changes?
11. Wheels
a. Strip Cookies
b. Paint/Powder Cookies
c. Mount, Balance, Metal Valves for Cookies
12. Sway Bars
a. Front -- Got the Front Sway Bar put in yesterday. Took about 2.5 hours, not bad. It helped that we'd had the original out when we did the bearings, so none of the bolts were stuck. It didn't help that it only got up to about 30 or 32 degrees in the garage with the heater running. Made the rubber bushings a little tough to mount, especially since the bar is bigger. It wasn't too bad a temperature to work in. Warmer than working on Brent's Beast the week before. You don't really feel the cold until you warm up later. Add the Lindsey Racking stiffener bracket to the sway mounts. That seems like it will go a long way towards firming things up.
b. Rear
13. Alignment – needed after sway bars.
14. Fire Extinguisher to Harness Bar??
15. Camera Mount on Harness Bar??

Comments or discussion over in the forums:
http://www.trackpedia.com/forums/showthread.php?p=38346#post38346

Well, its cold and we're all inside up here... but we can start thinking about the driving season. Mine will be mixed this year. I am going to spend some time crewing for John's F1000 season in the SCCA, but will try and get a couple driving events in too. That's partly because I don't have a lot of money for driving events, and partly because I really enjoyed attending my first SCCA event last summer. I suppose I should write that up and point to all of the videos from that session to.

I have been able to accumulate some inexpensive parts for the 944 this winter. I got used belts from another Trackpedia member, Jim Lill. John and Rob are giving me some old seats they had that they weren't using, and I got a Harness Guide from eBay. This should allow me to snug up the interior some. Won't be particularly aesthetic, but should make the driving better. I also got a 28m front swaybar off eBay, and have been promised a new rear sway bar from Brent. Some good, low-cost improvements.

My todo list looks like:

2008 To Do List


1. Supplies Needed
a. Water Wetter
b. Mobil 1
c.
2. Start and Drive – Check out issues
3. Compression Check on all 4 Pistons
4. Fluids
a. Remove Anitfreeze, replace with water
b. Check Differential Oil – Royal Puple
c. Check Oil – Replace before track time
d. Bleed Brakes - Pads should be ok.
5.
6.
7. Remove Seats
8. Install Harness Bars
9. Install Harnesses
10. Install Seats –
a. Do these Need Modification for the Belts? Is it OK to?
b. Do these need mounting bracket changes?
11. Wheels
a. Strip Cookies
b. Paint/Powder Cookies
c. Mount, Balance, Metal Valves for Cookies
12. Sway Bars
a. Front
b. Rear
13. Alignment – needed after sway bars.
14. Fire Extinguisher to Harness Bar??
15. Camera Mount on Harness Bar??

Well, clearly, this entry is a little behind schedule, but there is no racing on except for the Daytona 500, so I guess I'll multi-task.

If we needed to describe Nordstern PCA's 2007 Last Fling HPDE event, it would be "Weather". It started sprinkling during the warm up lap of the fist session, and two laps in it was a total downpour. As the folks with slicks, or no windshield wipers, or just insufficient guts to drive in the rain peeled off Warpedcow in his Volvo S60 R and I nearly had the track to ourselves. There was a point where visibility was very very low, but that cleared quickly, and we just had a good hard rain. Twice, between turns Two and Three, I saw a huge lightning strike in the trees beyond the track... that was impressive. Too bad the in-car video wasn't working on that session!

It was a blast. No one set any records... but who cares. Got a LOT of practice keeping the back end in line. It spent a great deal of time to the left or right of center.



Fortunately for all of us, Rob had rented a trailer, but the company didn't get the trailer returned in time, so they gave him an enclosed one instead. That made all the difference in the world, as the conditions in that picture where the conditions for the whole time. There was a little section of dry weather, which turned out to be the time when they were running the time trials... so the only dry track time only had a few drivers at a time on the track!

There weren't many pictures, since no one wanted to go out in the rain, but there are several collections of in-car video. I had rigged up a simple camera mount with some cheap aluminum straps hung from the sun-roof, with a nice sony video camera bolted to them.

There are some fairly good videos out on Trackpedia.com. They can be found here...
http://www.trackpedia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3317

The one titled "EJ re-encoded his mix video to 720P HD WMV:" sort of emphasizes the slipperiness of the track.

Nordstern PCA's Spring Fling. Took the intermediate class on Friday. Ron Johnson was my instructor. Weather was perfect, Track was great, Instruction was top notch. We worked primarily on lines, and Ron gave me some new shift points... some excellent new shift points. Some 9 seconds a lap better lines and shift points.



There were 2 other 944s and an older 911 SC that were all very closely matched. It was a blast to grid up together and trade spaces. In addition, at the end of the first day, the students were allowed to ride along in their instructors cars as passengers. I can't adequately describe how cool this was. Ron drives a 968 Club Sport. A 968 Club Sport is apparently a factory built track car. Fully prepped by your friends at Porsche, and very very fast. The run was done with group 4 passing rules. These guys know each other well, and are used to running neck and neck... and they did. A lot of wheel to wheel work. I could not believe how good these drivers were and how fast we were going. This was dramatically faster than I will -ever- drive, and more fun that I could have imagined.

That really sums it up... save for some pictures... and video. John broght a bullet cam, which we attached to the roof of a couple cars to capture some fine track video. I'll post some once we get it cut into a palatable size clip or clips.

The paint is, once again, CarArt washable paint. The livery is the official Trackpedia livery, of course.




Given that I was one of the slowest cars on the track, I decided that a little bright orange tape would help ensure that my point-bys were very very clear.

Only a couple days until my first track day of the year, but on Monday, I got a little scare. I had taken car to the alignment shop on Monday, since we'd had the A-arms out 3 times in the engine repair process. As I was driving home from, I accelerated (relatively) hard, and all of the sudden I was in a rocking chair. It was as if the seat was not connected at all at the front, and the back was a hinge. It even managed to swivel side to side. It made for some pretty interesting driving as I essentially had to support myself by holding myself up on the steering wheel.

I wasn't too worried, as loose bolts were pretty common given the MASSIVE level of vibration that ensues when someone installs your balance shafts backwards! My concern increased when I pulled the seat out. It turns out that the front right bolt had backed out, but the front left bolt looked like one of those exploding bolts that they used to blow the hatch on the mercury capsules!



The nut that was in the hole is the next picture. It appears to have been tack welded in a couple places to some filaments of sheet metal that were left in the hole. I cannot imagine how this held as well as it did.



Fortunately, I am still in possession of Mr. Stecher's Mig welder, so it was time to but that few hours experience of playing with it in my basement (and nearly burning down my house) to use. I cut a patch of very strong sheet steel, and ground away the paint around the patch on the floorpan. I drilled an over-sized hole in the patch and welded the nut to it. I made a template of the rail with a piece of plexiglass, to hold the patch in place. You can see the plexiglass template in the third picture. The screw in the top right is one that I put in to hold the clamp for the ground on the welder.



I tacked it in, took the plexiglass out, and finished the weld. This picture looks rough, but I ground down all of the roughness and its a nice shiny even patch now. After Spring Fling I'll take the seat out and paint it to prevent rust, but for now, its a very strong patch... and I'm still pretty excited about having some success with a welder!

Well, she's back on the road. Did 180 miles today driving to a meeting, and not a problem.

But I suppose and explanation is in order.

In our last visit (Its been a while) we were speculating that loose sending unit wires gave us a false negative on the oil pressure. Well, it turns out it was not a false negative, there was no oil flow. After buttoning the new oil pan and baffle back up. We pulled the observation ports in the cam cover, and saw very little oil in there. We pulled the oil filter, the sending unit, and the oil pressure relief valve. None of them had any oil flowing by.

Stumped and frustrated we called it a day, and retreated to our homes to check with friends and forums for possible ideas. There were quite a number of experts who felt that we needed to prime the pump, but Brent insisted that he's never needed to do that on any of the Porsche's he'd worked on. Refusing to buckle to the consensus, Brent pulled the suspension and oil pan back off, and found this:



One might ask how we missed that the first time. Well, he did pry it a bit to get it opened up for the camera, but bottom line is we just didn't check it closely enough.

Brent and his Dad put things back over Easter Weekend (I suspect I'll find a cold welcome from Mrs. Brent on my next visit!!!) and voila!! I received a cell phone call on which was played the most melodic 2.5L inline 4 cylinder orchestra I'd ever heard. It is indescribable how smooth a porsche engine with a correct balance shaft alignment and oil pressure sounds. You just can't imagine the difference.

There are a couple entertaining stories about gorilla-men breaking off bolts and extractors, and other miscellaneous excitement, but I'll save those for another writing.

For now, suffice to say that I am eternally endebtted to Brent for all his help, and essentially saving me from thousands of dollars of repairs, that I probably would have had to defer. Without his help, and the help of John, Conan, Dave, and Dave, who also made the 2 hour trip on a couple occaisions to help out, I wouldn't be writing about Spring Fling in a week, I'd be reading about it.

In the end, there weren't really a large number of problems with the car. There were problems that took a lot of energy to diagnose and solve, and which had repurcussions on other parts of the car, but it isn't like the car is a basket case.

The fundamental problem was that whomever did the timing belt replacement installed the balance shafts 180 degrees out of phase. (I suspect that the shop in S.D. that did the restoration messed this up)

The excess vibration most likely caused...
1. The fuel rail brake that could have ended in calamity, but didn't
1.1 The fuel rail brake caused the ignition wire cut, easy to fix.
2. The alternator to give up
3. The oil pressure sending unit wires to come apart.
4. The oil pan baffle to break
5. The oil pickup tube to break, which killed our oil pressure.

We went through a lot of agony to diagnose the oil pressure problem, but we ended up validating or updating the Rod Bearings, Oil Pressure Sending Unit, Oil Pan, Oil Pan Baffle, Piston/Piston Walls, Oil Filter, and finally the oil pickup tube. We never found any metal or shavings in the oil, or any other sign of -excess- wear and tear. It is clear that the pickup tube was the only failure in the oil system. Let's just hope I haven't jinxed it.

There is a lesson here. Many people who saw the car thought that there was a lot of vibration in the engine, but we all just shrugged it off as a characteristic of an old engine. Two different qualified Porsche mechanics worked on the car. One even noted the vibration, looked at the balanced shafts, and decided that they were not a problem... all this happened well before the car was ever driven hard. Had I taken more seriously the symptoms and gotten other opinions, I might have saved a lot of trouble.

Trust your instincts, post your questions, seek help, don't just "hope" it will get better. BTW, this applies to that funny pain in your left arm too.

The Porsche went under the knife this weekend. Thanks to a good friend with a lift, the aforementioned Dr. Knoll, we were able to make some headway. You'll recall that ever since the last round of the HPDE at Brainerd (the one that ended with a broken fuel rail and fortunately no fire) the oil pressure guage was flickering... and it kept getting worse. After the local service guy put a new alternator on, it pretty much went to zero... no oil. As mentioned before, the mechanic checked some things, and decided that the engine was shot and that the best thing to do was to pack it in and get a new engine... figure 30 hours of labor plus the cost of a new engine... ouch. The mechanic was thinking that the thing to do was to fix the oil starvation first, and then address the vibration.

After a bit of work to get a -real- 944 off the lift and out of the way, and the fabrication of an ingenious 4x4 rig to hold the engine in place (plans for which were found on the internet), we got the 944 up on the lift. It turns out that by removing the suspension cross member, and, uh, yes, the A-arms, you can drop everything enough to remove the oil pan and expose the bottom of the engine.

The first thing to check was the oil pickup tube. Ironically, we'd hoped that it was broken, but it wasn't. That would have been an easy fix. The baffle in the oil sump was broken, however, which showed that the engine was shaking around a LOT, and that the pickup tube had hit it and broken it, supporting the excess vibration theories. With this taken this off, it looks like:


Given the oil starvation, we needed to figure out what condition the shaft and cylinders were in. We pulled the Rod Bearings and replaced them, and it turned out that the shaft was in very good condition. None of the bearings were spun, and none of them were too bad off. the sides of the cylinders that we could see were fine. Good news.

While brainstorming possible reasons for oil starvation, Brent hypothesised that a bad sending unit could have created a false negative. In checking the sending unit that was on the car, I discovered that one of the wires was not connected to the sending unit. It was inside the little rubber boot, but not connected, so in some instances, it might have gotten a signal, but if the engine moved around any, it would clearly disconnect.

Yeah.... you'd think a trained mechanic would have checked that.

So, and order has been placed for a new oil sump insert, and the wire has been reconnected. We'll see what happens next.

Possible Solutions to 944 problems...
Vibration - Balance Shaft adjustment
Oil Starvation - Connect the damn wire.

I've written up an email conversation that I had with Progressive Direct, at:
http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Drivers_Ed_and_Track_Insurance


and started a discussion at:
http://www.trackpedia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2031


CORRECTION: A Supervisor at progressive wrote me and apologized for his employee's misinterpretations of the rules, and that it is NOT possible to cover cars in these events. Details after the jump.

If you, like I, have been sitting home, dreading the winter, and fantasizing on what you might do to improve your ride when the garage is finnally warm enough to work in, share your thoughts and suggestions on some of the new Wiki pages over at Trackpedia.com

Conan has added lots of information about Brakes and Braking Issues on the Brakes page

There is a page dedicated to . Managing Heat in your braking systems.

There are also several open pages that could use your input on:
** Brake Fluid
** Brake Lines
** Calipers
** Brake Pads
** Brake Accessories

We're looking for technical tips, product reviews, anything that would help your fellow driver improve their braking situation... because we all know, its fun to go fast, but it's reeeaaallllyy important to slow down!

Be sure to post any cool brake ducting solutions that you've come up with over in the Ducting section.

Made Progress last week. Dragged the the baby up to Red Wing to have Dr Knoll take a look at it.

The patient seems to be lacking the appropriate markings for top dead center. There was no obvious marking through the viewport, and the mark on the flywheel was definitely not in the right place. A previous owner clearly didn't pay attention to reassembly, which might explain several things. John invented a new way to find TDC by Jamming a Screwdriver into the piston... I suppose the big gashes in the top of the piston will result in increased capacity. We pulled the Timing Belt cover off and looked at the balance shafts.... definitely not right. Supposed to be showing a "0" indicator in the cam cover... nothing. Another mis-assmbly no doubt.

Cylinders are running very dry. It didn't run dry while I had it for more than a minute total... two 30 second runs to experiment. However, I do not know how long the mechanic who had the car ran it while he was looking for problems. We'll have to pull the head to look for damage, (unless we can come up with a bore scope.)

I've got a gasket set ordered, have bearings in hand. We should be ready for surgery soon.

I've been reading a bit about vortex generators,after hearing a mention of experiments with them on dpcars.net, and wanted to share some of the links. I'm not a physicist, but this intrigues me. The turbulence over and behind a race car, especially a sedan, seems significant, and if something can be done to reduce it, or more appropriately, control it, then advantage should be gained.

Vortex Generators are small aerodynamic surfaces that adapt the flow of air. They're used extensively on small airplanes, and have started showing up on semi-trailer rigs. On Semis, they help eliminate the turbulent, low pressure area behind the rig, bringing a more laminar flow behind the rig. They are said to reduce fuel consumption, and provide a smoother ride. For graphics of how they work on trucks, see: http://www.airtab.com/

It seems like this same concept can be applied to auto racing as well. There is an anecdotal reference on the airtab site about a 914 who used Airtab VGs to bring the airflow from severe back glass on the 914 down to the spoiler on the back. Also, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII MR has VGs along the back end of it's roofline. You can see them clearly in this picture: http://www.rsportscars.com/foto/03/lancermr05_07.jpg

Their engineers did some studies to determine what shapes to use, and have made them available at:
http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/corporate/about_us/technology/review/e/pdf/2004/16E_03.pdf

A more "accessible" series of articles can be found at Autospeed.com. Unfortunately, it looks like after a certain number of views, autospeed asks for a subscription. Those who know me, know I'm cheap, so until I decide to spring for the online copies of Issues 400 401 402 and 403, you'll have to live with my summaries. If you want to take a look, see the links:

http://autospeed.drive.com.au/issue_403/cms/issue.html - issue with the final article
http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_3061/article.html - part 4 of the article

The authors put wool tufts all over the back glass of a prius sedan. They started with a few VGs in the center of the rear roofline, and added more, showing pictures as they were added. There was a clear indication that the VGs improved the flow of air over the glass. This configuration is very much like that of the Evo in the picture referenced above.

It would seem there there are many applications where VGs could be put on the roofline and improve the flow of air down to the spoiler, increasing downforce without adding drag. Seems like a win-win.

The article did recommend the airtab style VGs shown at www.airtab.com.


Vortex Generators under the car

There is some anectdotal evidence that VGs under the splitter at the front end of the car may help organize the airflow under the car, keeping it from interacting with the uneven underside. Obviously, if you have a full undertray, this wouldn't help.

Vortex Generators on Helmet

Bell has a new series of helmets that have vortex generators along the sides to help reduce buffetting experience in open cockpit racers. Google 2005 BELL VORTEX to find examples.

Experiments that we'd like to see

Can vortext generators on the rear end of formula style cars, and along the top of the wings of formula style cars decrease the drag of the wings, and reduce the turbulet low pressure area behind the car that provides a draft for followers?

If you have comments on Vortex Generators, and especially their use in racing, please add them to the wiki at: http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Modifying_your_car

Mechanic says Shaft or Rod bearings must be shot... that its the only thing that explains the vibration and lack of oil pressure. Also says that the best bet is to replace the engine. Also says that it's 30 hours of labor to do that... D'oh.

Input from Brent and others at trackpedia is that we should not go for the engine right away... you don't necessarily know that the new one is anymore solid than the old one... and that it should be possible to put it up on the lift and replace all of the bearings in 4 hours.

We're going to have a trackpedia engine party in Maple Grove one of these days... I can't say enough how appreciative of all the help I've gotten and will get.

The engine is a big, mystical monster to me... it's tough to believe that we can redo all the bearings in that amount of time without upsetting the engine gods... but I am assured that we can, and I'm going to put my trust in folks who've been down this road before.

Still Nothing. As of Friday, the mechanic hadn't gotten to it.

The deal I cut, where I don't pay full shop charges, so I stay at the bottom of the list when he is busy, isn't sounding so good to me now.

Nicest November on record and I've got nothing to drive.

I thought I was being responsible getting the Spitfire stored securely, and I figured the Porsche would be fixed by now.

So, the Porsche. Yeah... Got the fuel rail on and it was running rough. The the oil guage was still flickering... which we thought was the voltage regulator or alternator.

The mechanic took a look at the alternator and said it looked like it had been "Shook apart"... so that's fixed now. The oil guage works now, but shows low oil pressure. Separate oil pressure guage confirms. So now we're tracking down oil pressure problems.

It is NOT the oil pressure relief valve. That's been pulled apart and found to be working.
Right now, the oil pan is coming off to see if the pick up is clogged. We're liking this theory, as it doesn't require any expensive parts.

Should be ready tomorrow... fingers crossed.

Updates....

Fuel Rail replacement went pretty smoothly. The cost of a new rail at either of my favorite spots, Pelican Parts, and Paragon Products was way too much. Over $500. That's 20% of the cost of the whole CAR!! Those guys are great for most things, and Pelican has a very helpful technical section.

I did, however, find a place that is basically a chop-shop for Porsche's. It was recommended by a friend in NC who knows the sales rep there. It's called DC Automotive, and you've probably seen it advertised in Panorama. They were able to ship me a fuel rail for $100. Happy days. One of the brackets was a little bent, but you get what you pay for, and it installed fine. Also got an injector rebuild kit.

While I was at it, I upgraded to Magnecore K85 ingnition wires. Strange to call this an upgrade, as they were significantly cheaper than stock wires, but everyone says that they are much better. Also replaced the spark plugs with some Bosche Platinums that were recommended.



She's currently at the doctor getting her nervous system checked out. Could be alternator, could be voltage regulator, could be something else. Too cold to diagnose in an unheated garage, so the pros get a stab at it. Also gives me an opportunity to show the mechanic the fuel rail he put in my car. ahem.