944 Racecar - After it's first race - October - December 2005
The web server holding my earliest postings into an uncaring universe quietly expired a while ago. Rather than replacing it, I'm posting the content so it will live on forever in the cloud, polluting my little corner of it. Enjoy.
October 2005 - A Club Race Survior
Made it through the club race weekend. Final results about what I expected for a development weekend. Scored pole for class H in the sprint. Came in after qualifying and discoverd my left front tire had about 5 degrees of camber. The slotted camber plate bolts were loose. Made life interesting under heavy braking into turn one. Finished 3rd in the sprint after leading the class when a whole series of events screwed up the running order after a full course yellow followed by a black flag all with the lead group already past the pit entrance. Not a stellar day in PCA officiating, but hey, they're all volunteers and its only for fun right? So what the hell. The racing was fun. Gremblins bit me in the enduro. The motor died 3 times, the last time for good about 15 minutes into the 90 minute race. I had to be towed in and my race was done. Even though I was 42 laps (42 laps!) down, I still ended up 2nd in class. Guess there wasn't a whole lot of competition in my class in the enduro ...
The cause of the motor-no-go was traced to a faulty kill switch. Needless to say, that got replaced and hopefully that will take care of the problem. We'll find out next race.
Now that we have some down time, lets add more crap to the car!
One of the driving forces in the development of this car was equiping it with the latest thinking in racing safety. Modern practice to view all of this as a system. I wear a HANS device when racing. I decided that I want a custom seat with good shoulder support, plus a "halo" for the head to complement the HANS. I talked Eric Andes of Velocity Management into becoming an Ultrashield dealer and had a RoadRace SS seat built for me. The seat is bolted to the floor and to the rollcage via the seat back brace. I added a 7 point Polyester G-Force harness and a Kevlar center net to complete my driver's "safety cocoon". I have to have a detachable steering wheel just to get into the seat. When I'm belted in and snug, I'm part of the car.
Here's a side view of the center net supporting the seat.
The front of the center net. It attaches to the roll cage behind the dash. The red strap is a quick-release lock enabling me to release the net if I have to exit to the right side of the car.
Next up is the Fire System install. But that will have to wait until after the next race or two.
December 20015 - The Off Season
Idle Hands and all that. While I removed the various interior bits to get started on the fire system install, various other projects started rearing their ugly little heads. Like this one, I've been planning to coat the driver's side floor of my 911 with a Line-X type of material, but never got around to it. I love the Line-X bedliner in my truck. Non-skid, even in the rain, and takes a beating. It was a no-brainer (which was good as I don't have much brains left after huffing all those fumes) to do the 944's floor. That white stuff is tape to mask the edges.
Another view. I'm really happy with how it came out. We'll see how well it performs during the racing season.
With the fire system, I needed a place to put the fire pull handle, so decided to fabricate a plate and put it in where the radio was. And since I had to fab a plate, why not use it to hold switches for various race car electric bits, like the Data Acquistion system I was installing also, which led to building wiring harnesses for the various electric bits, which led to pulling some of the not needed wiring left over from the street car period of its life, which led to tidying of the remainding wire bundles, which led to mounting the loose wires to the tub, which led to painting of the inside of the tub .... you see why this is taking so long? As I tell my wife whenever she asks why I'm always in the garage: "Race Cars are Never Done!"
Here are a couple of pics of the Fire System install. This is a 5.0 liter AFF (wet foam) system from ESS. Non-toxic stuff that is easy to clean up and user-rechargable. I'm using a total of 4 discharge nozzles, 2 in the engine compartment, one covering the driver, and the last one in the rear over the gas tank.
Here's the driver's discharge nozzle. It sprays out and down and is at about my knee level. Right now it's just ty-wrapped while I'm working, but will be mounted more securely.
One of two nozzles in the engine compartment. This is the important one, right above the hot headers where leaky fuel rails and oil leaks can bar-b-que a car.
October 2005 - A Club Race Survior
Made it through the club race weekend. Final results about what I expected for a development weekend. Scored pole for class H in the sprint. Came in after qualifying and discoverd my left front tire had about 5 degrees of camber. The slotted camber plate bolts were loose. Made life interesting under heavy braking into turn one. Finished 3rd in the sprint after leading the class when a whole series of events screwed up the running order after a full course yellow followed by a black flag all with the lead group already past the pit entrance. Not a stellar day in PCA officiating, but hey, they're all volunteers and its only for fun right? So what the hell. The racing was fun. Gremblins bit me in the enduro. The motor died 3 times, the last time for good about 15 minutes into the 90 minute race. I had to be towed in and my race was done. Even though I was 42 laps (42 laps!) down, I still ended up 2nd in class. Guess there wasn't a whole lot of competition in my class in the enduro ...
The cause of the motor-no-go was traced to a faulty kill switch. Needless to say, that got replaced and hopefully that will take care of the problem. We'll find out next race.
Now that we have some down time, lets add more crap to the car!
One of the driving forces in the development of this car was equiping it with the latest thinking in racing safety. Modern practice to view all of this as a system. I wear a HANS device when racing. I decided that I want a custom seat with good shoulder support, plus a "halo" for the head to complement the HANS. I talked Eric Andes of Velocity Management into becoming an Ultrashield dealer and had a RoadRace SS seat built for me. The seat is bolted to the floor and to the rollcage via the seat back brace. I added a 7 point Polyester G-Force harness and a Kevlar center net to complete my driver's "safety cocoon". I have to have a detachable steering wheel just to get into the seat. When I'm belted in and snug, I'm part of the car.
Here's a side view of the center net supporting the seat.
The front of the center net. It attaches to the roll cage behind the dash. The red strap is a quick-release lock enabling me to release the net if I have to exit to the right side of the car.
 |
| Radio system in place. |
Next up is the Fire System install. But that will have to wait until after the next race or two.
December 20015 - The Off Season
Idle Hands and all that. While I removed the various interior bits to get started on the fire system install, various other projects started rearing their ugly little heads. Like this one, I've been planning to coat the driver's side floor of my 911 with a Line-X type of material, but never got around to it. I love the Line-X bedliner in my truck. Non-skid, even in the rain, and takes a beating. It was a no-brainer (which was good as I don't have much brains left after huffing all those fumes) to do the 944's floor. That white stuff is tape to mask the edges.
Another view. I'm really happy with how it came out. We'll see how well it performs during the racing season.
With the fire system, I needed a place to put the fire pull handle, so decided to fabricate a plate and put it in where the radio was. And since I had to fab a plate, why not use it to hold switches for various race car electric bits, like the Data Acquistion system I was installing also, which led to building wiring harnesses for the various electric bits, which led to pulling some of the not needed wiring left over from the street car period of its life, which led to tidying of the remainding wire bundles, which led to mounting the loose wires to the tub, which led to painting of the inside of the tub .... you see why this is taking so long? As I tell my wife whenever she asks why I'm always in the garage: "Race Cars are Never Done!"
Here are a couple of pics of the Fire System install. This is a 5.0 liter AFF (wet foam) system from ESS. Non-toxic stuff that is easy to clean up and user-rechargable. I'm using a total of 4 discharge nozzles, 2 in the engine compartment, one covering the driver, and the last one in the rear over the gas tank.
Here's the driver's discharge nozzle. It sprays out and down and is at about my knee level. Right now it's just ty-wrapped while I'm working, but will be mounted more securely.
One of two nozzles in the engine compartment. This is the important one, right above the hot headers where leaky fuel rails and oil leaks can bar-b-que a car.
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