Delaware PCA DE @ NJMP

After the Summit Point club race - which I'll get back to shortly - I had to quickly fix up the car for the annual Delaware PCA region DE event, which is held at Thunderbolt the next weekend. This is our 4th year doing this, and for the past several years I've been the registrar. We only do one DE a year, but we try to make it one of the best for everybody.

First item to address was to replace the radiator fan that was given me so much problems. Pulling it out I was surprised to see that it wasn't a thrown balance weight, but that a whole fan blade had broken off.

Well, in my defense, it was pouring rain, wet, dark and gloomy at the race, and the fans black, so hard to see. I had my choice of fan assemblies from my pile of parts and bolted another one right in. A quick wash of the car outside, when it finally stopped raining for a bit, and it was off to the track.

Friday was our "open track" day where we run alternating 30 min sessions and in theory, get 4 hours of track time. I had a blast, running on my Toyo RA1's that look like Hoosiers now, with god knows how many heat cycle on them. On Saturday my on-track time came to an end during the 2nd session in the morning when I blew a hole in my headers. Not wanting to risk a burnt valve, I parked the car. After all, all I have to do is one more race where I finish better than 14th and I grab 2nd in the 944 Cup North Region championship. I finished out the weekend doing my registrar duties and the occasional instructing stints.

Back home I pulled the header and unwrapped the heat tape and found the damage was greater than I though.

The top area is the one I was able to see at the track. The bottom crack was invisible.

 Even worse, the crack went all the way around the pipe. This header is done. I'll keep it around and try my modest welding skills on it. If it survives I'll keep it as a backup. But for now, I went and ordered a new MSDS Header that was ceramic coated from Lindsey Racing.

Looking Sweet!

The car was running warm at the DE and using water somewhere, so I'll also take the opportunity to tear down the top end to see if I can find out what's up with that. Most of its already off the car and I'll finish up this weekend.

Summit Point PCA race - part 1

For the twitter nation, here's the short version of the weekend: dry, warm, beer, cold, rain, fogged up, 2nd, more rain, bang, miss, 3rd, beer, ribs, trophies,tires, more beer, dry, cold, still missing, 2nd, cup car, mud, 1st, pit, cup car, spin, overheat, dnf, home, beer.

You can leave now, the grownups will stay.....

Friday was dry and warm. With my old 12 heat cycle tires I was able to get down into the 1:27's. Which was nice as I haven't been to Summit Point in years after the thousands of laps I've done there. The track felt good and I remembered where all the turns where. We had 3 practice sessions and then the rookies had their practice starts and fun races and it was time for some beer. We ended up at Winchester Thai (recommended) for dinner in the pedestrian mall in Old Winchester.

944 Cup Head Honcho Dave Derecola has moved to South Carolina from the Maryland area, and so has joined the ranks of the Gentlemen racers, doing arrive and drive, letting his crew, in this case, Gerald from John Behe's shop, drive the truck and trailer and wrench on the car.

Gerald working on DD's car

David Mann and Dave Derecola.Steve's Randolph's car in the background.

By Saturday morning, the clouds had moved in and it was threatening rain. Soon it was time for qualifying and the track was damp enough the decision was made to go to Hoosier Wet tires. And they stayed on the car for the rest of the day. Our group was a mix of 944 Cup cars, Spec Boxsters and misc 911's. It was a bit crowded and I never got a clean lap and qualified 4th, within a second of the rest of guys on a wet track.

Steve Randolph #3 - North Region Champion 2011 -
I was mathematically eliminated over the weekend. when Steve finished
only 1 position behind me. Still in the hunt for 2nd.

Bernie, Steve Randolph's crew and mechanic

Sitting on the grid for race #1, the rain was coming down pretty good. I was feeling pretty good myself, I enjoy rain races. It seems though, that is a minority opinion, as the run group size was only 50% or less from the day before. The call comes, and we head out for the pace lap, taking my position on the outside (left). Just them my windshield starts fogging up. WTF? I use shaving cream on the inside to defog since I don't have any defrosters. The qualifying session was just as wet and visibility was great.

That wasn't the case now, it was seriously fogging up. I could wipe about a 1 foot square circle just in front of me, I couldn't reach any more. We come onto the front straight and there must have been a green flag, not that I could see it, but we all went. Huge waves of spray coming off the cars in front of me. I assume it was coming off the cars, as even if they were 5 feet in front of me, I couldn't see them.

'Well this sucks' I'm thinking. I head to the inside hoping to get out of the spray so I can maybe see turn one and brake for it. The spray lessens and I run down the inside with all the other 944's stacked behind a slow Boxster and take the class lead.

Some of the SuperCups - Noel Hall's turbo

Meanwhile in the car, the fogging is getting worse. Pretty soon my windshield is solidly opaque with just the little porthole in front that I can reach with my glove. The rear hatch was mostly fogged up also, so visibility to the rear was mostly from my left side drivers mirror. Anything out the right side of my windshield is just not there. Since there is only 3 left hand turns with all the rest right-handers, that made driving a bit challenging. I started playing the game "Guess where the ... (brake marker/apex/track-out) ... is". I started taking mental snapshots of the turns ahead and when I thought I was in the vicinity, I would turn in.

Overall, I sucked at this new game. I think I may have hit 3 apexes and maybe a couple of braking points in the entire race. I would brake way too late, get all crossed up and squirelly - remember it's a wet track and slippery. But I was still in the lead!

About lap 7 I caught a 911 that was getting stacked up in turn one behind a Spec Boxster, slowing us both down. Bob Page, who I had been keeping a consistent gap behind me even with my driving by braile style, was able to catch up and parked himself on my bumper.

Heading into Wagon Bend (turn 3) I totally missed the braking point (my marker is on the right side ...) and got the car very much out of shape. With arms windmilling, I gather it back up, but Bob got by. With Bob actually able to see out his windshield, I was never able to get past him and brought the car home in 2nd place. With Bob taking the win, he was now only 2 points behind me. I must finish in front of him in the next race. Steve Randolph rounded out the top 3. Since he finished only 1 position behind me, I was told that mathematically eliminates me from the championship - ala  Formula One! But I still have a good shot at 2nd as long as I can keep Bob behind me.

More SuperCups - Steve Wilson's turbo

Check out that wing on Wilson's 951

944 Cup dinning at Joe's aka The Racing Chef'
(from left) Bob Page, Steve Randolph, DD

After a nice lunch prepared by our own 'Racing Chef', Joe Boschulte, it was time to strap back into the car for Race #2. Still raining, but  I had redone the shaving gel treatment to my windshield and I was expecting to at least see this time. And that was the result, good visibility throughout the race. With that problem solved, Mr Murphy wasn't done with me yet. More drama was in store.

Stealth Car Recognition

Interesting weekend at the Summit Point PCA race. Drama, rain, contact, flat tows and podiums all mixed together. Race report to follow.

But first, at the Saturday dinner, my car was voted by the corner workers to be the most colorful, or unique, or "interesting" design. I'm still not quite sure exactly what the criteria was, but I ended up with the "Andy Warhol Paint" award. And the trophy was much bigger than the podium awards. I'm surprised they were actually able to see in the car in the pouring rain. It's flat black with no lights after all. Anyway, pretty cool indeed.

Cool Mosport video

Here's a cool short video of all the 944's drifting through Turn 3 at the Mosport races earlier this year. #88 is in the middle of the group.

Nuts and Bolts revisited

The Summit PCA club race is shortly in the future. The car is safely tucked away in the trailer so I'm turning my attention back to the motor rebuild. Since I'm not in any hurry to finish the motor - I'm keeping the street motor in the car for the rest of the season - it's time to get back into my electroplating adventure.

When I last left it, I had done several batches of nuts and bolts, but the results really didn't meet my standards. Time for some serious attention. I upgraded some of my equipment, got a big heavy duty controllable power supply and built a workstation. Last week and weekend I spent time varying parts of the plating process to see if I can come up with a repeatable process with good results.

First step is getting a good working surface suitable for good plating. Like painting, surface prep is probably 50-80 % of the real work. No fancy glass-beading process here, just me and my bench grinder with a wire brush. Since the cadmium surface that was left of some of the bolts was highly toxic, I choose to wear a respirator while grinding the crap off.

Bolts, nuts and washers in their original glory

After wire brushing

Wire them up to conduct electricity. This is a pain in the ass if you have 20 washers and  nuts.

Dunk in a bucket of diluted muriatic acid to remove any rust for about 2 minutes

Degreaser step

 I dunk the parts for 10 minutes in a degreasing solution at 180 degrees. I use a crock pot I bought for $10 new at the local Walgreens.

30A constant current power supply

Finally, hook up the parts to the power supply and off to the plating bucket for about 20 minutes.

V1 of the plating bucket

The plating bucket has a special solution to facilitate the transfer of zinc ions to the parts. You can see the zinc plate at the bottom right. It gets hooked to the positive lead of the power supply. I hang parts from a copper tube that's connected to the negative terminal of the power supply. That elongated round tube is a heater which keeps the temp about 105-110 degrees. The square box is an aquarium pump which agitates the solution. As the zinc migrates from the anode plate to the parts, the parts give off a little hydrogen gas. The pump keeps fresh solution flowing over the parts to keep the plating going.

I plate for about 10 mins at 1.5 amps, and then flip the parts around and go for another 10 mins. The flow of zinc is directional, only the parts that can "see" the anode get plated. The backside doesn't, thus the flip.

When the parts come out of the plating solution, they should be nice and shiny. Next a 15 second dip in my yellow chromating solution - nasty toxic stuff, must wear my respirator - and a quick rinse in distilled water and here's the result.

Oil pan bolts

Here's a comparison between some original bolts and the final result.

Just like me, they clean up pretty good!

So, how's the process working out? When I started out, maybe 10% of the time would I get something ok or reasonable. After this weekend, I'm about at 50-60% of the time I get great results, and the rest just ok. So I'm making progress, but there's more work to do.

Here's some timing rollers hardware. This is an example of when it goes right. The original plate was dull and oxidized, slight surface rust, the bolt head rusty. Look at it now.

Latest news

Ok, it's been a while since I updated here, so let's get with it.

When I last left, I had a great series of 3 races at NJMP, but ended up pushing the car into the trailer since it was not working at the end of the weekend. Pouring more water into the system just resulted into a large puddle of water under the car so obviously, some work was needed.

Further investigation revealed that the big polehole bang resulted in my radiator fans to flex at the same time my radiator did, resulting in the big pointy screws on the fan mounts putting a nice hole in the radiator: the source of my overheating woes.

A new turbo radiator and hoses from Lindsey Racing took care of that issue. But the car didn't start and didn't sound healthy. My guess is the head gasket went, and what the EMT crew thought was fire as I coasted into the hot pits was really steam escaping. Since I was watching the gauges and immediately killed the motor, there was no signature massive cloud of steam that usually occurs.

A few hours of work, and while the head gasket may be gone, the true reason was revealed. I had wildlife living in my motor. Not squirrels or snakes this time, but cranes.

I didn't think cranes were native to Pennsylvania

Pretty fertile conditions for waterfowl

 Normally I'd have this fixed in no time, I can do the top end without looking at the shop manual anymore. But it became crunch time at work and the car sat idle for a couple of weeks. Just no time to work on it. I missed the PCA race at NJMP Thunderbolt,but with hurricane Irene blasting the track, I didn't feel too bad.

Last weekend I finally had some spare time and headed back into the garage.

Pretty, shiny head back from the machine shop.

The machine shop worked my head, new valve guides, and needed to slightly shave it to get it back into spec. It was just a tiny bit warped from the heat. They also dunked it into their parts washer for 24 hours to remove all the fine quality leaking street motor sludge.

Since the head gasket was most likely the original, I can't be too unhappy that it let go. The motor has over 120K miles and the odometer didn't work. So I guess we got our money out of it. Time for a new one.

A few more hours of work and it was time to fire it up, which it did immediately. Note the traditional smoke offering to the car gods from the spilled oil cooking off the headers.

NJMP - Lightning Course with EMRA

After baking in a heat and humidity sauna for the last week on the East Coast. opening the door of my trailer on Saturday morning was a treat. Low humidity, a gentle breeze, actually nice for a July morning. And while it was hot in the car, out of the sun it wasn't too bad. A great change from the weekend before when NJMP held the PCA/Grand Am race with temps in the 100's and 99% humidity.

The car was working fine. I put the car on pole with a 1:18.7, breaking the Cup class record of 1:19.5, previously set by Vito Valentino. The race was good, I led from pole for 21 1/2 laps. Unfortunately, it was a 22 lap race. After having a good gap most of the race back to Alan Cohen in 2nd, a pack of EV tow vehicles were sent out, catching me in a narrow space around turns 2-3. This bunched up the field and allowed Steve Randolph who was further back in 4th to get a good run to the front. Steve got past me on the last corner and held on for the win. As they say, it's only the last lap you need to lead.

Here's the video from Alan's camera who was just behind me most of the race.

BTW, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That's a vintage Volvo station wagon, complete with baby seat, top speed of 25 mph, as the pace car. Possibly the least sexiest pace car to ever lead a pack of racers around.

EMRA Sat race from ross Cohen on Vimeo.

After the race we had a Wings, Pizza and Martini party to celebrate the life of one of our own 944 Cup racers that we recently lost. Joe Hrymack, aka Jersey Joe, passed away the week before. Joe was a tough competitor, a National Champion, a good companion off the track. Jersey was the big dog when I started racing Cup and I had plenty of epic battles racing with him. He will be missed.

Here's Joe with his original Rothman's car at Mid Ohio after winning the Cup Championship.

Sunday started off with a Qualifying race. How you finished determined where you started for the official Race later that morning. To spice it up, we inverted the field and Steven and I started in the back. Within a couple of laps we both had made it to the front where I parked myself just off of Steve's bumper. I was faster in the turn 2-5 section, but he could pull me out of the Lightbulb. Steve took 1st with me closely behind him.

Here's the Qual Race from Alan's car. Alan made it to the front first, but Steve and I got by him.

EMRA Sun Q from ross Cohen on Vimeo.

The Sun points race followed quickly. I started 2nd with Alan next to me on the outside. Steve was on pole and directly ahead of me was Frank Celenza running SuperCup (not our class). On the start, Alan got by me into one and followed Steve through, while Frank disappeared. At the end of lap one, I took Alan on the inside going into turn one and hooked myself to Steve's bumper once again. Same scenario, faster in the turns 2-6 section, get pulled in the Lightbulb. I had several opportunities to stick a pass, but often it's better to be behind someone than running up front. As Steve remarked after the race, it was very stressful knowing I was always just there, ready to pounce, likely to be next to him at any moment.  While my battle was going on with Steve, Vito Valentino and Alan were duking it out behind me. 

It was hot in the car, I didn't have a cool suit for the weekend, and I could've used one that race. I made a few small errors and the gap between me and Steve increased a few car lengths. Finally I went a bit wide coming through the left hander after the bridge (turn 6) and drifted just off the gators and hit a huge hole with the rear right tire. Bang! As I came back on track I had a good vibration. I slowed down a bit and let Steve get away. Eventually the vibration stopped, but scanning my gauges I notice my temps were starting to climb. WTF? The temperature stopped just short of the red zone. There's nothing in the rear of the car that should have been affected by that pothole. I kept going, but at a reduced pace and kept an eye on the gauge. There were about 4 laps to go and I decided to just cruise and finish.

Coming up and over the hill at turn 5, the car just had no grip and drifted right off the left side of the track. I corralled it back and re-entered the track. Vito and Alan came up on me and I let them through, losing 2 spots, but it was survival time. Cruising out of the Lightbulb turn my temps spiked into the red zone and the big ! light on the dash lit up. No hesitation, I reached out and killed the motor and cruised on down the hill and into the hot pits. I could smell steam. As I came to the stop the fire trucks came running up and they popped the hood. No fire, but definitely some steam coming there. I was flat towed back to my paddock ending the weekend a few laps early.

Adding water just flowed out somewhere, so the diagnosis was put off and we just pushed it in the trailer. My guess is the off-track excursion broke the plastic radiator drain plug, but won't know until I put the car up on the lift.

Here's the race from Alan perspective again - mostly an upclose view of Vito's car.

EMRA Sun Race from ross Cohen on Vimeo.

The end result was a 10th place finish. But the good news is I crushed the lap record again. This time with a 1:18.003 in the race.  Almost into the 17's. Yessir, that was over 1.5 seconds faster than the track record set earlier this year. Not too bad for a totally stock street motor that came out of a junker car with 120K miles. That was awesome and a good way to end the weekend.

Next month I'll be back at NJMP, but this time at the Thunderbolt circuit for the 1st time this year.