team illuminata

On Saturday we took the car to round 3 of Detroit's RallyCross series for 2013.




This was the first event that wasn't sloppy mud or snow and ice so was something of a new experience being dry and dusty. The final phase of a week of firsts for the car: first autocross, first track day and now first non-slippery dirt.

Based on an old horse racing oval the course consists of sandy rockck dirt on one saide and more grassy loam on the other. The organizers, anticipating plenty of grip designed a tight and twisty course to keep the speeds down and challenge the driver. Perfect for the agile 911.




As usual I shared the car with Scott Harvey Jr. based on the adage "If you can't beat them at least let them beat you in your car". Scott's dad was a national level professional driver back in the day. My dad was a carpenter so all things considered I think I doo pretty well just to keep up. After 4 frantic runs in the morning and four more controlled efforts in the afternoon we finished just 5 seconds apart with Scott and his genes in first place and me in seconds. Five seconds is just two and half of the four cone penalties I accrued during my runs. Just have to be more precise with the car I guess.






Here's some iPhone video footage, mostly of the starts.










https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151920053997646

Ed Hughes

You guys are on a roll!

team illuminata

Roll? I hope not. LOL

Reiver

Looks like a real hoot....would like to do that snow/ice driving thing too.

team illuminata

What's stopping you?

team illuminata

You'd think we'd be crazy busy working on the car prepping it for the Porsche Parade in 10 days. Well, we have been crazy busy but keeping up with wheel sales instead so the car my not be quite as we'd like it to be when we get to Traverse City. It will work; just wont have it's new livery perhaps. We have worked on a few things though. Mostly small issues. The PC680 battery we put in had to be replaced. The one on our parts shelf proved to be less than pristine, probably how it got on the parts shelf. Now it starts every time again.

At the last RallyCross the car popped out of second gear twice on me. Didn't do it for Scott though. On our Subaru when this happened replacing the transmission mount was the fix so we popped out the two rears on the 911 and found almost new Club Sport mounts.




That's good because we don't need to replace them but bad because we haven't found the cause of the problem. Of course the front mounts could be bad but we have a car stuck on the hoist so haven't been able to get under the 911 yet. Let's assume they are good and move on. A little research suggested that worn shifter bushings could cause it to pop out of gears and are a common wear items so we ordered some new ones from Pelican along with some new brake lines (later).




The rear coupling was easy to find and soon came out.




It definitely had some play both side to side and along its axis




Soon dismantled it and put in the new Delrin bushings



We were a bit disappointed to find that the holes in the new bushings were as ovalised as the old ones but at least the side to side play has gone. More research suggested that this is a "design feature". We may have to source some after market round hole versions later.


On to the front bushings. The console was a complete PITA to disassemble. Took an hour to figure out and ten minutes to put it back together.




Got there eventually then removed the lever form the tunnel.




We replaced both the bushing on the end of the lever and on the rod support






We applied some grease to the lever mechanicals then installed this modification



Yep, that's a rubber band. I never liked how the lever flops around in neutral so thought this might help.

So what did we achieve? Well, at least with the gear box cold the shifting felt a little smoother but it is still not super slick. I suspect the bushings were replaced in the somewhat recent past. None of them seemed desperately worn and there were paint marks in the coupling to indicate how it was positioned. Have we fixed the popping out of gear problem? The next RallyCross will tell us but we did notice that in second and fourth gears the shift lever was all the way back against the gate. I suspect this was why it popped out. We forgot to take a picture of this but when we put it back together we made sure it had some clearance. Time will tell I guess. Stay tuned.

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PelicanParts.com

Staying tuned - good stuff Paul!

team illuminata

All loaded up for RallyCross followed by Porsche Parade, all week!

team illuminata

Some catching up after a hectic two weeks:

We had another successful RallyCross finishing first and second again. As usual the car ran perfectly in the dry and dusty conditions.






Not sure which got dirtier; the car or the van.



We wanted our BRAID BZ Fuchs replica wheels to be white like the Rothmans SC/RS cars but thought nobody else would. So we decided to Plasti-dip them as it can be easily removed or so they say. For those not in the know, Plasti-dip is essentially spray on vinyl so these will be wrapped liked the car except sprayed on.

It went on just like paint



and then we found that stickers wont stick to it.



and it peels off REALLY easily.



Still, once reapplied to the two wheels effected it looks quite good. At least race car good.






We also discovered that the car DOES have a cup-holder. Its just Euro-sized.



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team illuminata

After the RallyCross we took off up I75 headed for Traverse City and the week long Porsche Parade, the Porsche Club's annual convention if you like. We only got 20 miles before the RALIVAN cried foul and slowed to a crawl while making a loud exhaust noise from under the cab. After a few phone calls and about 100 miles of 50mph crawling we found an Autozone and pulled in for a code reading.





As suspected we had a boost leak. The computer shuts it down by opening the waste gate so it just runs normally aspirated and slow. We limped into Traverse City around 7pm instead the anticipated 5pm.

As we were too late to check in for Parade on Sunday and with the concours being at 8am, too early to check in, we couldn't get the car into the concours at all. Seemed a bit silly as we'd paid and were physically there on time but whatever. We parked the car in a conspicuous spot and went off to breakfast in a huff.



When we came back we ddi find a treat in the form of an authentic Rothmans SC/RS sporting one of only two light pods at the entire Parade!






Excited again we went off and set up our display.



Unfortunately we had to miss the TSD rally on Tuesday morning because the car was sick. After the last run on Saturday it developed a high idle as in 2000rpm high. Not knowing what the cause was we thought it prudent not to drive it and try to fix it before the autocross on Thursday. We also broke the passenger door handle and the rear view mirror fell off! Oh, and we now have a small oil leak from the front main seal area.

We found this small vacuum hose flopping around behind the throttle body but replacing it didn't make any difference



So we took of the idle air control valve and sprayed carb cleaner through it. A lot of carb cleaner.

Fortunately, that seemed to fix it. At least for now.



So at least we should be able to run the autocross on Thursday. Stay tuned.

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theiceman

yeah i found the same thing with the coupler bushings .. I have heard you can get brass machined ones or there is a guy on pelican that used to be hear that made much tighter fitting ones. Maybe you can check that out.

The shifter bushings are about a 10 minute job but about an hour of PITA dismantling to get there .. lol

team illuminata

But before the autocross a few other items to take care of. Parade is a very busy week and you can't do everything, not even close. We signed up to instruct at the Street Survival course Wednesday morning. We've done a few of these now and find them very rewarding. The people we train also share the road with us so from a purely selfish point of view very useful too.



Wednesday afternoon we spent a very entertaining couple of hours with David S. Wallens from Grassroots Motorsport Magazine shooting the breeze about older 911s. GRM has a similar car to ours that they are running stock to show their readers that you can have affordable fun in a Porsche. David and I had some "fun" in ours in a gravel lot we found nearby but before that he took some pictures in clean-mode.



With all the activities going on, not the least manning or display, it was quite late when we finally got all loaded up for the autocross.



The autocross took place at the Beach Bums Stadium outside of Traverse City. I think the Beam Bums are TC's minor league baseball team. PCA do things a little different to SCCA but the event ran very smoothly and we got five runs instead of our usual three so that was a bonus.













We managed second in class which surprised us no end as the car is not really setup for autocross and this was only our second one. To be fair we only had one fast run with all the others being in the 6-7th place times. Still, it only takes one and we didn't hit any cones all day


Friday was pack up the display, check out of our condo then spend the rest of the day in seminars before heading of to Grattan for the High Performance Drivers Education event hosted by the RSR division. FUN!


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Ed Hughes

Nice! Bummer about the Concours though.....seems like common sense should've prevailed.

team illuminata

The final phase of our Porsche Parade adventure was the High Performance Driving Education event put on by the RSR region of the PCA. The event was held over Saturday and Sunday at Grattan Raceway near Grand Rapids, about 3 hours south of Traverse City.





The weather on the way down Friday looked a bit ominous but cleared up for the weekend with only one damp session:




All set up and ready to go




Grattan is a challenging track with many blind apexes and elevation changes




But our instructor, Christopher de Graffenried is one of the best.










Apparently the car leans a lot under hard cornering




which may explain this:




Brake dust on Plasti-dip

Ed Hughes

Haha, I saw a picture of Ruby like that once, I immediately started on the suspension.