team illuminata

No exciting modifications or racing exploits to report sorry. The wheel business is keeping me close to my desk. We did get chance to take the car to a German car show recently in Frankenmuth, Michigan called Northernworthersee and won BEST PORSCHE! Our friend Tim's Group B Audi Quattro won BEST EVERYTHING ELSE including BEST OF SHOW. The event was very well attended and included some interesting German specimens along with the usual mix of lowered Golfs and slammed Audis. Here are some pictures and a video at the end.















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team illuminata

Because it's only 70f out we decided it was time for winter tires LOL







During the process we discovered this rather worrying damp patch. Could it be the flexible line? Found out one of the mounts is broken too. How much trouble are we in?

Amber Gramps

Griffiths is making a steel braided set that is carried at Pelican.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/...PEL-GR-LINESET

If I needed new lines, and my car was used for rally-cross, I'd go that route...

team illuminata

So you are going with a leaking line then? Those look just the ticket.

Amber Gramps

May just need to tighten up the outer line....but first I'd spray it all down with Brakleen and take her for a spin on a clean road and inspect it again. Several old timers have told me the lines themselves are bullet proof no mater how corroded the ends look.

team illuminata

hat's exactly what I did today, apart from the driving it bit. I also soaked the line nuts in PB Blaster as they seem very tight.

team illuminata

So to troubleshoot the damp patch we cleaned up the area as best we could. It's not very accessible on the front side and our UR Quattro has squatters rights on the hoist till it's done but we did our best with a floor jack and a flashlight. While doing this we discovered that the outer line was loose where it connects to the oil cooler. We, of course, tightened it up but, not wanting to jump to conclusions and looking for an excuse to test drive the car took it to visit Oakland University's Formula SAE team as they need some wheels for next year's car.





During the "test drive" the oil never got hot enough to open the thermostat to the front oil cooler so that didn't tell us much. We had to let it idle in the showroom for ten minutes more to open it up but we were still not sure if we still have a leak or not. The suspect line is still soaked with oil so we can't tell if it is getting more soaked and the front of the cooler is still caked in dirt and oil and we can't see it. The only hint of a leak was from around the ferrules at each end of the suspect line but we think that was brake cleaner boiling off as oil would just seep and this was bubbling.




So what to do?

a) One idea is "nothing". The car is probably not going to get hot enough to open the oil cooler thermostat till next June and we did find a loose connector which is a pretty obvious red flag.
b) Take the oil cooler out, clean up the connectors and replace one or all of the mounts.
c) Same as above but replace the lines too.

For now I think we will go with b) Agreed?

team illuminata

So we went with b) Take the oil cooler out, clean up the connectors and replace one or all of the mounts.

The lines were a bit tight. Well, one of them was. Had to use a heat wrench on it but it freed up. The bottom mount that wasn't broken broke so we only had to unscrew the top mount then the cooler came out easily. This left us with a damp oil cooler with two broken mounts. The top mount that was was still attached to the cooler refused to budge; the nut was so rusted as to not resemble a nut at all. So then we had three broken mounts to try to remove. Fun!



The two bottom mounts we drilled out on the drill press. The top mount we hack-sawed off. Then we cleaned out RallyCross debris from between the tubes and we were ready for our new mounts we got from Pelican. Only about $5 each. Some parts for these cars are very inexpensive. Some aren't.








Before re-installing our cooler we wrapped it in cardboard as we wanted to see if it had any effect on oil temperature as we experience what we consider very low oil temperature in the winter. Unfortunately our phone died so we have no pictures. Once the outside temperatures head south our 911 barley gets out of the first notch on the temperature gauge. We were always taught that gauges are designed to read straight up or level when at the ideal temperature or pressure or whatever so you can just glance at them and know everything is OK. So just above that first bar (ours is like on the left) always felt low to us but without numbers on the gauge we never really knew what the temperature was. Then we found this face-plate picture which gave us some clues.



So we were getting around 140F on the coldest days in Michigan when it can be -20F outside. That's actually not as bad as we thought. Then we remembered that the engine thermostat is designed to open at around 185F which means that's the operating temperature Porsche expect the engine to stabilize at. If you look on the face-plates that's not that high up. If it can't manage that it opens the external thermostat and sends oil to the front oil cooerl too; the one we just blanked off. A test drive at 50F resulted in our gauge indicating around 180 with the front oil cooler lines still cold, suggesting that the engine oil cooler was doing its job and our attempts to raise the oil temperature by wrapping the front cooler were both unnecessary and futile as it's not even in play.



This temperature was verified by an infra red thermometer aimed at various parts of the engine. However, when it's really cold out the temperature often never even gets out of the first segment so something else must be keeping it cold.

The first winter we ran the car we don't remember it struggling to make heat. This only started the second winter after the engine had been out and a few "while you are in theres" attended to. We always wondered if we'd accidentally improved the cooling while we were in there but recently realized one other thing we had done to the car since the first winter: added a whale tail. It is now our theory that that scoop is a lot more effective at ramming cold air through the deck lid to the fan and is preventing the oil from reaching proper operating temperature during very cold weather. Therefore our next project is to take off the cladding from the front oil cooler and rig up some sort of restrictor for the deck lid and test in lower temperatures that are surely on their way.

Does all this sound plausible?

team illuminata

So, the first attempt (after thinking about it) to add some oil temperature in the winter: block off the engine (primary) oil cooler airflow to some degree, after removing the front (secondary) oil cooler cover we made the other day of course. Here's the bottom of the primary oil cooler. Air from the big fan blows down through this and around the cylinders.






The piece of card we cut to block off most of that flow:




Installed:






And the result after 20 minute sprited driving in ~40F outside temperatures:




Looks like about 170F so not very conclusive but we don't exactly have data on what it normally does when it's 40F outside. At least it didn't overheat. In fact it didn't even open the secondary thermostat.

Next we try it in colder temperatures (excpected over the weekend and/or remove the rear whale tail.

team illuminata

Went tailless today in an effort to see if the whale tail is contributing to keeping the oil temperatures a bit low in colder weather. It's clear to see how much less restrictive the whale tail and open deck lid combination might be when compared to the deck lid grill.












Now for some cold weather testing just as it's warming up again

team illuminata

Tailless test drive tonight. 37F; the coldest it's going to be for about a week. Not liking the look




A 20 minute drive at 55mph to a restaurant for a business meeting prduced this:




I'd say that was 180F. I was hoping for more, after all, it wasn't that cold and the oil cooler is still covered. The exterior thermostat didn't open and it didn't overheat. Maybe I'll try restricying the deck lid grill a bit.

team illuminata

The oil temperature issue continues to frustrate us.

The standard decklid grill is about 101 square inches while the whale tail is about 162 square inches in area. This is just measuring the individual slots and doesn't take into account the sizes of the relative mesh and slats but let's assume they are at least "similar" So it seems plausible that the whale tail would be a) less restrictive and b) capture more air when in motion. So we reinstalled the whale tail but covered half the slots with packaging tape in an attempt to restrict cold air flow to some extent but, alas, with 37F outside temperature and the engine oil cooler still covered with cardboard we only achieved what appears to be 160F. Is this a good enough oil temperature to be thrashing the engine at redline and wide open throttle? It makes us very uncomfortable. We are going to try blocking off 50% of what's left open and see if that helps but at that point we are concerned about restricting air intake for the engine itself. Temperature outside is only going to get lower.

team illuminata

Perhaps driven by the need to score a victory over the car, however small, we decided it was time to install the LED gauge lamps/bulbs we have had on the parts shelf for some time. This is not for bling but for practical reasons as it is very difficult to see the odometer at night; a fact that came to light during a recent TSD rally.

So we had to pull all the gauges out one at a time, locate the illumination lamps and replace them. Actually quite easy once you figure out how to get them out of the back of the gauge.




The effect is quite illuminating.




You can't see the volt meter hidden behind the steering wheel which is fortuitous as it still has it's old yellow incandescent lamp in there. We will need to source a 194 LED replacement to finish the project. And yes, we also fixed the offset steering wheel position, and not by just moving the yellow tape either.

Ed Hughes

I'd think that different viscosity of oils may be beneficial? Don't know what you may be running, but something like a 5/40?

team illuminata

Last winter we ran 10/40 Bradd Penn. It seemed the sensible thing to do. Will probalby do the same again if we can't get a consistent 180F.