PCA DE with Nordstern at Brainerd, June 21st

nospam@example.com (Billy Newport) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:45:35 -0700

It was a funny weekend for me. I almost lost the car on Saturday. The car was very loud over the bumps in the pit out but it sounded like it did every other time. This turned out to be a big problem. Riding over the curbs in T3 the car felt very wierd. and wouldn't turn right after it. I got a pointed flag at me and I pitted. The right front wheel was showing a ridiculous amount of camber. After I got back to the stall (slowly) we jacked it up and the nut on the right shock securing it (tightens the shock against the camber plate on top) was missing. The whole shock was inside the wheel well on that side. The left hand shock nut was still there but loose.

The banging was the shocks bouncing up and down because the nuts were loose. The problem looks like the original nuts are lock nuts BUT with the locking washer AND the camber playes there isn't enough thread for the lock threads to grab so it's loose.

A trip to Ace Hardware found a replacement nut, an M14 with fine thread but they didn't have a locking one so I got blue loctite also. We removed the locking washer on the surviving shock and then blue loctited both nuts and impacted them down. If you didn't know already, if you need bolts/nuts etc then don't bother going anywhere other than Ace.

My brother (mechanic) says with a metal monoball that all the vibration goes through the nut and it wouldn't have enough thread to lock with a locking washer and camber plates. He says you need to check those all the time as it's easy to vibrate the nut loose with a metal monoball.

The adjuster knob was bent over at like 45 degrees from being in the well and the threads on the inside of the shock were flattened from rubbing up and down against the camber plate with the nut loose but the shock seems to work fine. Least now I know what a loose front shock sounds like, I didn't before. I think they have been loose for a while now.

Lap times wise, I didn't do anything special. I mostly rode around on my own and ended up with a 2:07 flat on the logger. Not much of an improvement (2 seconds) but I found it hard to get two fast laps together with traffic. The theoretical improved for me from a 2:07.9 to a 2:05.4 (holds up to the couldnt get two fast laps) and I can see myself carrying more speed in T2 and through most of the turns. I spun the car in T10 trying to trail brake and almost did it in T3. It's easy to use a little too much pedal and then around it went. It stopped pretty fast with both feet in and then I screwed up when I turned the car around (i.e. pointed in the right direction). Trouble now is I can't see the corner worker at T10 to tell me when to go.

T10 has new pavement on the inside which means you can take it in 4th now (for the brave) so it's going to improve lap times. A lot of us were still using the old line though. I started taking T7 in 4th instead of 3rd and it does help carry more speed through T8/T9 but you need to be fast to avoid bogging the engine down.

Hotel wise, the Rodeway Inn on highway 210 and 371 is ok I'd say. More motel than hotel, no internet. It's not somewhere I'd book with the family but for 80 bucks a night, it's fine for what it is. The rooms were clean and I'd stay there again.

The transmission was acting up also. Sometimes, I can't get it in to first but it shifts between all the other gears just fine. If I'm not moving then it will go in to 1st just fine. But, on the track it's not an issue. I'll drain the tranny to look for pieces of metal regardless.

My hawk blue pads look like they will last forever wear wise. I may try a set of Hawk Blacks on the front next time though. It's hard to trail brake with the blues and the black may be easier to modulate.

Happy enough with the weekend. Could be a lot worse...

Finally got my car

nospam@example.com (Billy Newport) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 08:41:45 -0700

I picked up my car just outside Denver from Tim (comeauracing.com). When we got the car home we started to go over the car. We found some serious problems with the car as delivered.

The first big problem was the alignment. The car was leaning heavily to the left. The right side of the car was about 1 3/4 inches high and the left side was very low. This concerned me although Tim said the alignment guy said it was normal. My local race shop, carraige house customs in Wanamingo looked it over and said it wasn't ok. They figured out the rear sway bar drop links were very short on the driver side and long on the passenger side. This let the sway bar pull the rear driver corner down which caused the lean. They reckon the previous alignment shop didn't fix this issue and then corner balanced with the ride height resulting in the leaning power of Stuttgart. So, the Zumbrota guys first switched my cat for a test pipe and then fixed the alignment. The car looks great and is as it should be now. I also asked them to tech the car. They found the steering lock was still enabled which they say isn't NASA legal but Tim disputes this. The total cost for the diagnosis, corner balance/alignment, switching the cat was 915 dollars.

The other issue they found was the cage wasn't legal. Tim paid a builder to put in a NASA legal cage. The cage is Chromoly and very tight with the car. The problem is where the cage is tight with the car body, they didn't weld all the way around the tubes. NASA requires the welds to be all the way around. The carraige guys reckon this will cost about 1200 bucks to fix because they will need to cut pieces of the car off where the cage is and then weld the cage all the way around and then weld the car piece back on. Plus, it's all Chromoly so everything has to be TIGed which costs 3x in labor.

I'm going to get this work done this week and while they are at it, I'll get the top front bar on top of the windscreen moved tighter to the windscreen for more head room. I also ordered a Kevlar Safety net for an inside driver net which I'll get in also. I want to buy a 5L AFFF fire system also. It's going to be an expensive week.

Tim already offered a kilo buck towards the cage so I'm hoping he follows through which I'm sure he will.

Porsche 944 sp1 owners guide - HPDE

PCA DE with Nordstern at Brainerd, June 21st

Finally got my car