November Progress

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!