So finally finished up the motor today. It just needs to be stuffed into the car and all that entails. But meanwhile I thought you would like to enjoy some moto porn. Who doesn't like naked motor pics?
First we have some down and dirty - and when I say dirty, I mean *filthy* - pics of the street motor that got me through the season. New rod bearings, and two head gaskets and about 1/2 lb of red gasket sealer was all the love it got this year.
Greasy, oil seeping out of every seal, rusty bits everywhere. Maybe I should have bought a couple more tubes of gasket sealant. But I can't be too harsh. It did bring me 2nd in the championship this year.
Now here's a face only a mother could love. It makes me want to wash my hands just looking at it.
Finally a side that doesn't look like it's sponsored by Exxon or Shell. After a couple of beers, and last call coming up, you might take it out racing. But you wouldn't bring it home to meet Mom.
And just in case you thought it might be a Pinto or tractor engine, here's the photo evidence buried under the corrosion.
Okay, everybody back from scrubbing their eyes with Lysol? Good, here's the good stuff.
Purdy, isn't she? Block clean and painted. New bearings, seals, etc everywhere. Ceramic coated MSDS headers, tarted up camtower in CFM red.
Driver's side, a nice tasteful mix of different silver textures.
And finally the nose, just before I button the front up and hide those anodized balance shaft pulley covers.
Once this gets plugged into the car and is up and running, I'll take the other motor and give it the same treatment. Down to the bare block, rebuild it from scratch and put it up in the attic. The way it works in racing, if you have a spare <insert part here>, you'll never need it.The only things that break are the things you don't have a spare. So this should be the last motor I'll need for the car...
If you're a racer you probably just blew beer all over your keyboard after reading that statement. Sorry about that, but I can dream. Right now it's the 2012 pre-season, and anything is possible.
The 2011 Racing season is over, but just like in Formula 1, the preparation for the 2012 season has already started.
Most of the new motor is done. Bottom end done, water pump, oil pump, head attached, oil cooler and balance shafts done. Just need the camtower, flywheel and clutch and wiring harness. The clutch, intake manifold and alternator with a/c delete bracket are on the street motor in the car. So I need to pull that lump before finishing it off.
And the unstuffing of the street motor is well underway, hopefully I'll have it pulled by tomorrow.
I ran into a couple of slight snags with the new motor. I was attaching the oil pan since the bottom is done. The proper method to tighten the pan is a spiral tightening sequence that starts in the middle and moves out in a clockwise spiral to draw in all 22 bolts in a nice even fashion. There are 3 spiral seqences: finger tight, to 4 newton meters (nm), then finish with 8 nm. I was working on step 2, when I heard a nice sharp crack! Close examination revealed a nice crack splitting my case at the bolt hole. Off to the machine shop, where they sprayed the crack with a penetrating dye, finding the end of the crack, drilling a hole at the end to relieve stress and then tig welding it all back together.
A couple of days later I had it back from the shop and back to attaching it. This time I made it to step 3 when another crack was heard. Another hole split. I torqued all the bolts but didn't hear any more cracking. Back to the machine shop where Jim will inspect all the other areas and touch up if needed.
Look closely, you can see the split where the red mark is.
While the 944 work is progressing, my rear spacers for the 2002 showed up and I couldn't wait to fit my new wheels. The rub in the front at full lock is gone - a BFH took care of that. There still is a little rubbing in the rear, on some bumps and on turns. That tells me there's a bit of flex in the rear and the rear suspension bits probably need a good refreshing. Plus the front looks a bit high, need to lower it. I'll be looking at that and the rear in a little bit, but here's some pics.
I went up today and met with my body shop guy and talked paint. The plan is to pull the motor and all trim and deliver it as a roller. There's some minor rust work, bottom of the door and few other spots, but nothing major. His major comment was he couldn't believe in what good shape it was. I plan on having the lower trim deleted and the "american federalized" marker lights removed. The body and engine compartment will remain the original Chamonix white, while the hood, trunk and sidelines above the beltline to be painted either dark blue or black - ala Alpina style.
But that's in the future, right now it's looking sweet!
Thought you might enjoy a pic of my windshield at the end of the Nationals Race. Now imagine driving straight into the sun at 100 mph with a bunch of other crazies out there ...
That's the outside, here's a view from inside the cockpit.
If you thought "That's Frigging Crazy!", don't worry, you're normal. But if you thought "Cool!", you might be a racer ...
The racing season got a bit hectic in the last couple of months and the poor old 2002 has been neglected. In fact it refused to start back in Aug/Sept and I just haven't had the chance to look at it. It's been fixed now - a new distributor cap took care of it - and I've been blasting around the back roads this fall, reminding me of why I love this car. Just a sweet little car that's so much fun to toss around. With minimal sound deadening and a blistering 105 hp, it feels like you're really going a lot faster than you are. A speedo in KPH doesn't hurt either.
But it's time to show it some love.
First up is a Elefant front strut brace. I put in a rear strut brace and combo battery box a couple of years ago, but neglected the front.
This is a nice piece, powder coated in black, and should tighten up the front end considerably. A 1970's car stiffness is a bit lacking shall we say.
Strut bar installed
Next step is to install the "Appearance Package". Time for some wheel and tire upgrades. The car came with 13" E30 BMW wheels which was a popular style. I hope to end up with a what an enthusiast would do back in the 70's. Bigger wheels and brakes, upgraded suspension, a bunch of Alpina upgrades, etc. This isn't a pristine original car when I got it. The turbo flares, front and rear spoilers were added sometime in its earlier life. So while I won't be turning it into a Restro-Rod, I don't have to worry about the purity of originality either.
Panasports and MinLites were the hot ticket for race cars and race car wanna-be's back then. So let go with some 15" Rota RB's in gunmetal. Some nice sticky Kumho Esta 225x45's will replace the wimpy US Generals junk currently on. Of course, that will mean I will actually go around corners with some grip instead of tortured squealing.
The Spoiled Boys Racing Team (Joe and Case Crowell) came up from North Carolina and dominated the field, breaking the stranglehold the Canadian's had on the 944 Cup championship the last several years. And when I say dominated, on Friday on the test day, at a track they never had seen before, they were putting in 1:36 laps. Now I've done 1:36's before there, but this time, we were using the turn 3 chicane, which adds another 2+ seconds at least. I'd hate to see their times when they actually get some experience at this track!
But getting to the end of the weekend was a challenge for me and many others.
Friday
Friday started out well. Most of all the 44 guys were here for the test & tune day. Skies were clear and sunny, temps in the upper 50's,lower 60's. Just a nice day to be at the track. There were reports that a wicked snow storm was coming - several inches of snow was predicted - but that was hard to believe with the perfect weather we were having. Plus it's October. Snow? Really?
Dyno testing of cars was done throughout the weekend by John Behe
We ran the course with the turn 3 chicane in, this is the first time I have done that configuration. I like the course much better without it. It hurts our momentum too much. First session was just a get acquainted with the chicane laps. 2nd test session after 3 laps I started to hear a clunking noise out back. I started to come into the pits and on the entry the rear started to lock up. I coasted to a stop and took a look under the car. Nothing obvious, axles still looked good. I tried to move forward under power and get about 3 feet and then hear this nasty clunk and the rear would lock. I had to be towed back to my spot with the rear lifted off the ground. Diagnosis: Broken Transmission. Welcome to my Nationals weekend.
Looking down the garage bays - mostly 944 cup racers
The left side of the garages were mostly 944's also. Here is Rob Provost's SP1 car in the foreground.
However, I did have some luck. I don't have a backup tranny, as all the parts cars I've bought over the years have been automatics. That has been something on my shopping list. Now it was time to go shopping. Big Joe Boschulte had a spare 89 tranny with factory LSD in his trailer and was willing to part with it for some cold hard cash. I had also sprung this weekend for a garage which I usually don't, so we had a nice dry workspace. Gerald Sweetwine from John Behe's shop, and Bernie, Steve Randolph's mechanic gave me a hand throughout the day and we swapped the trannys in and out.
Working tranny going in, dead tranny on right. DD supervising
I missed all the rest of the track sessions for the day, but a spin around the paddock showed that at least I had 6 gears, 5 forward and 1 reverse. I was back in business.
Alan (red/white suit) Cohen's #144 going on the dyno.
My garage mate, John Torgensen from South Carolina
Next door garage neighbors: some of the fast guys from Canada: Gary Loudsbury, chief mechanic for driver Randy Smith (#78)
Saturday
On Saturday we woke up to the sound of rain. Unbelievably the Weather channel was predicting 4 inches of snow in Baltimore and Washington, and 12-18 inches in New York. It's still freaking October! The day was the perfect definition of miserable conditions. The track was wet with poor drainage, streams and puddles everywhere. Which is the norm for Thunderbolt. Lightning, the companion circuit, drains pretty well, and racing in the rain there isn't too bad. Not the case for Thunderbolt. And it was cold, upper 30's and lower 40's. Grip was a theoretical concept at best.
Today was qualifying, and the qualifying race which would set the grid for the Nationals race on Sunday. It also counted as the final regional race for the chapters. For me, this was the focus of my weekend. Finishing well meant clinching 2nd in the North chapter. Regional championships are a season long affair unlike National which is a one shot deal. With the miserable conditions my goal was to stay out of trouble and cruise home to take 2nd. I qualified mid pack and took the green in light rain. By the 1st corner, the rain had intensified and coming sideways. Visibility and grip were horrible. I thought I saw some snow flurries mixed in with the rain. This was going to be a long day.
Surprisingly the race was clean with cars spinning off the track every now and then (including me) but no metal to metal contact. I brought the car home in 18th overall, 15th in class and took 2nd in the region. Mission accomplished.
Maggie, my official photographer, spent her time in the garage or the cab of the truck and declined to take any pics, not that I blamed her. With the racing done, I retired to the hotel room for a long hot shower and then to the Cup Annual banquet and awards dinner.
Congrats to Steve Randolph who took 1st in the North Region.
Steve wins a Million Cup Dollars.
The Crowell brothers display the latest in tasteful raceware.
Sunday
Sunday brought us clear skies and a drying track. It was still cold, but a 180 degrees turnaround from the conditions the day before.
For the rain racing, the chicane was taken out. But for today, the chicane was back on the table. A short practice session gave me some more time to work on my line though it and then it was time to go racing.
Heading to grid for the main race
The track was still cold, but at least it was dry. There was still a river running across the track through the braking and turn in zone for the chicane, and other wet spots around the track. And you definitely don't want to go off, as where it wasn't mud it was sodden grass.
I finished 18th overall in the qualifying race on Saturday, so that's where I started, in mid pack.
Green Flag!
Well, the start was wild and woolly for sure! 3 or 4 wide into turn one, offs, contacts and more. Here's the start from John Torgensen who was towards the back of the field.
And Yan Tremblay's view. You can see me tap Chris Lubinski (red car) going into the chicane.
And here's mine, but my video is pretty crappy.
Going into turn 1, a whole bunch of us were showered with mud. My windshield became totally opaque. I tried my wipers just before going into the chicane and that just made matters worse.
My video died when Chris L and I hit. I continued on but could barely see out the front. This seems to be my season for driving blind. From turn 2 on, through the entry into the Jersey Devil, the sun was shining directly in front, making the mud impossible to see through. I needed another car to follow to make the turn in to the chicane. Once I passed a car and had nobody to follow I would miss the turn in and go careening over the curbs and grass. Despite driving by braile, my lap times were competitive and I was able to hunt down and pass some folks. I started 18th overall and ended up 8th overall, 7th in class. However, I paid for my misdeeds, receiving a 13 for contact with Chris.
Tyler Comat, who had to start at the back due to a Team mistake, came up on me later in the race. I held him off for several laps until I blew the entry (and probably the exit) of the chicane and got by me. Tyler went on to take 3rd. But way at the front were the two Crowell brothers, Joe and Case. It was like watching Seb Vettel. Those two just checked out at the front and nobody could touch them. The were 3 seconds a lap faster than the rest of the field. Joeboy went on to take the win, beating his brother to the checker.
2011 Nationals Cup podium (photo 44Cup.com)
And so ends the 2011 Season. Considering all the challenges, 2nd place in the standings wasn't too bad. I had some bad luck and some good luck. Almost every race was a podium finish and I had several poles plus the track record for the Lightning course. And while it took a lot of work for that result, most importantly, it was a lot of fun. But it could be even better of course. So it's now officially the "off season" which means time to start working on the car for next season. My partially built motor in the garage is calling my name....
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