944 Racecar - The Beginning - September 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.
Late September 20015 - 2 days to the 944's first Club Race
Well that didn't take long .... I buy a waterpumper Porsche, pick it up from the cagebuilder, drive from the trailer into the garage and tada! coolant on my garage floor. If this was a 911, that'll be oil, but I'm used to that, that's why I save old pizza boxes. But this whole water and antifreeze thing will take some getting used to.
My car marking its territory. Yeah, feeling better and better about switching from a 911 to a 944
Inspection reveals a passenger compartment underwater also. Here's a shot after most of it was mopped up with a few stray towels left because ...
Here's today's lesson on why the person who re-assembles a car should be the same person who took it apart. Notice those brass tubes in the middle of the picture? They're coming from the heater core. Notice those flanges on the right end of those tubes? Those are the joints where the coolant tubes from the engine compartent connect to the heater core. When I was 16 I learned that a car's coolant system was pressurized after retrieving the radiator cap from the bottom of the ravine where it had been ejected with some force after the novice driver opened it by the side of the road. That lesson wasn't in the skill set of the guy who put my dash & heater back into the car. The clamps and seals that hold together the two heater pipes are most likely nicely tucked away in a nice box, in a dark corner of the garage, by the guy who took my dash apart. No pressure clamp = Lake George in my passenger compartment.
The solution was to bypass the heater core entirely. Who needs heat in a race car? You sweat to death in your nomex anyway. I ran a new hose from one side of the engine block to the other side, also bypassing the heater control value which tends to fail on 944's anyway. This only took a couple of (unplanned) hours. One slight delay was when reaching deep into the engine compartment, I hooked up one side of the old heater hose, instead of the new hose. Easy mistake, you can't see down there, too much crap (unlike the purity of my 911 engine compartment). This mistake was kindly pointed out by my spectating wife as the water pump dumped another gallon of coolant onto my garage floor.
So how does the cage look now? Here's the driver's side. Nicely painted. Looks strong. That's my window net tywrapped to keep it out of the way while I work.
Another view, a little higher. Knee bar is behind the dash. nice. Cover's not on the seat, as I have to mount the 7 point harness.
Right side X As you can see, lots of work before it's ready to go racing. Since I am running in a PCA stock class this weekend, I need an interior back into the car. Also need to mount the 7 point belts, change oil, bleed brakes, install a fire system, decals, transponder, mirror, do something with the rats nest of wiring left behind and a whole list of stuff. By this point on Thursday, all my racing buddies had already left for the track. Not me. Hours to go before I sleep...
(Editorial note from the future - This set the pattern for the racing history of the car. Wrenching long hours into the wee morning to make it to the race).
View of the seat back brace which is bolted directly to my UltraShield Roadrace SS aluminum seat.
Rear seats mounted, carpet starting to go in.
On a roll. Interior carpet mounted, ballast weight bolted in - need at least 150 lbs to make my PCA weight of 2966. Center console back in. Next up is a passenger set and then start working on the belts for the driver side.
Many hours later and a few hours of sleep ...
I make it to the track and through tech. I may be short on sleep and intelligence, but I'm ready to go racing ...
Late September 20015 - 2 days to the 944's first Club Race
Well that didn't take long .... I buy a waterpumper Porsche, pick it up from the cagebuilder, drive from the trailer into the garage and tada! coolant on my garage floor. If this was a 911, that'll be oil, but I'm used to that, that's why I save old pizza boxes. But this whole water and antifreeze thing will take some getting used to.
My car marking its territory. Yeah, feeling better and better about switching from a 911 to a 944
Inspection reveals a passenger compartment underwater also. Here's a shot after most of it was mopped up with a few stray towels left because ...
Here's today's lesson on why the person who re-assembles a car should be the same person who took it apart. Notice those brass tubes in the middle of the picture? They're coming from the heater core. Notice those flanges on the right end of those tubes? Those are the joints where the coolant tubes from the engine compartent connect to the heater core. When I was 16 I learned that a car's coolant system was pressurized after retrieving the radiator cap from the bottom of the ravine where it had been ejected with some force after the novice driver opened it by the side of the road. That lesson wasn't in the skill set of the guy who put my dash & heater back into the car. The clamps and seals that hold together the two heater pipes are most likely nicely tucked away in a nice box, in a dark corner of the garage, by the guy who took my dash apart. No pressure clamp = Lake George in my passenger compartment.
The solution was to bypass the heater core entirely. Who needs heat in a race car? You sweat to death in your nomex anyway. I ran a new hose from one side of the engine block to the other side, also bypassing the heater control value which tends to fail on 944's anyway. This only took a couple of (unplanned) hours. One slight delay was when reaching deep into the engine compartment, I hooked up one side of the old heater hose, instead of the new hose. Easy mistake, you can't see down there, too much crap (unlike the purity of my 911 engine compartment). This mistake was kindly pointed out by my spectating wife as the water pump dumped another gallon of coolant onto my garage floor.
So how does the cage look now? Here's the driver's side. Nicely painted. Looks strong. That's my window net tywrapped to keep it out of the way while I work.
Another view, a little higher. Knee bar is behind the dash. nice. Cover's not on the seat, as I have to mount the 7 point harness.
Right side X As you can see, lots of work before it's ready to go racing. Since I am running in a PCA stock class this weekend, I need an interior back into the car. Also need to mount the 7 point belts, change oil, bleed brakes, install a fire system, decals, transponder, mirror, do something with the rats nest of wiring left behind and a whole list of stuff. By this point on Thursday, all my racing buddies had already left for the track. Not me. Hours to go before I sleep...
(Editorial note from the future - This set the pattern for the racing history of the car. Wrenching long hours into the wee morning to make it to the race).
View of the seat back brace which is bolted directly to my UltraShield Roadrace SS aluminum seat.
Rear seats mounted, carpet starting to go in.
On a roll. Interior carpet mounted, ballast weight bolted in - need at least 150 lbs to make my PCA weight of 2966. Center console back in. Next up is a passenger set and then start working on the belts for the driver side.
Many hours later and a few hours of sleep ...
I make it to the track and through tech. I may be short on sleep and intelligence, but I'm ready to go racing ...
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