My work-in-progress is progressing.

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The 3.2 Carreras are maybe quicker now than the Euro SCs. The accumoto cars had yank on the buckley cars at Road America. They were all on low profile 15's. Poeltl was too in SP3. I didn't see any other SP3 cars on 15's.

The 951s can maybe compete in E at long tracks like Road America and BIR, have never run Daytona but maybe there. Not sure of a track like Sebring. Shorter tracks the tall gearing and weight is a big disadvantage vs the 911s.

Sweet driving Jim.

You are a master of smoothness.
Thanks for posting your video

Agree, a very very close buddy of mine (gave me his SP2 car when he moved to E) used to say, before jumping on the Buckley train, "d@mned 911s fast on the straights and park in the corners"....:roflmao:

That all seemed to change when he made the move to the SC.

He was several races in, in his new 'Cult of E SCs', you know, it's like a former cigarette smoker........, he could never say enough bad things about the "waterheads", the "volkwagen", you have heard them all....., so we are sitting at a lunch table at Hallet looking at the time sheets...., I had never been there and I was racing his former SP2 car, my son hadn't either but he was 23 and learned a track so fast it's really unbelievable (:crying: ) .
So my buddy goes on, I guess out of 944 deprivation ammo, he turns to me about my lap times, etc. etc., but when I showed him that I had been faster than him in his own car, he turned back to degrading the 944s.
So I slid the sheet back over and asked him how come my son was 1.5 seconds faster than him in his new Buckley E car on the brand new Hoosier/custom wheel combo and Eon on used Hankooks...:roflmao:

Look at any of the vids I post, there's usually an E car holding up Eon in his SP2 somewhere in the sprint.

I don't think it's fair to say "a 944T can (or cannot) be competitive in E".

It depends on who set the car up.

It depends on who is driving it.

T

Oddjob - " Nope, not me. I was there with the G-Car but in a different run group. "

T

Went check out RA weekend to see how SP3 played out and hell Jim, 2.39.2 race lap in Sprint 2 aint too shabby.
That kind of pace would have put you above the crease in E and mid pack in SP3.

I took a look see and your best laps come in at L7 and L11 in the two sprints.
Was this on the R7 or the Kooks...?

Great going.

Way up thread is the vid I posted the one-off when Eon drove the stock 968 (development-wise) and nearly beat Hiffman's full tilt racer at NOLA.
Had we had the handling better sorted (new platform to us - set it up night before race with no real testing), given the straight line speed differential to Hiffman's high drag car, I think Eon could have wasted him at NOLA.
Now, as a yard stick, Dennis was only 1/sec off Poetl at RA and Dunne was only .200 back FL/FL in sprint 2.
I think had we installed the new shocks we have for the 968, tweaked and tested setup a little, Eon could have been racing Dunne and Poetl for P1 at RA.

T

Unfortunately, 2:39 for a G car at Road America is nearly embarrassing... Had 37's and 38's in practice on Friday and Saturday. Lot's of GTB1 and SPEC Caymans and SPEC 996/997 cars this year. Pretty hard to run with them. Didn't get a hot qual lap in due to rain during the session, so started in the back of the pack in the sprints. Never got in a rhythm. Practiced on the R7's and ran the sprints on C51s.

Ran 2:34 and 35's the last time I club raced in 2014 and 35's and 36's in DE's since. So need to go back and look for the speed.

Here's a clip of the last couple laps of the first sprint race. Picked up a rock or bolt, put a hole in the radiator. Noticed the water temp pegging the gage going down the back straight, so immediately short shifted and coasted off at turn 5. White 964 is a progressed RS America, short R/P and big front brakes. He had enough yank out of the corners that I struggled getting a run on him out of the carousel and out of the kink - couldn't get my timing right.



Borrowed a radiator from Karl Poeltl (Racer's Edge), swapped it out in between the sprint races, and did start and finish the second sprint. But was still slow.

Don't understand being so hard on yourself.
Poeltl himself is 2+ seconds off 2017 fast lap so could be track shape/conditions.

Next, in G, I'm guessing you are Escort Cup classed at 2920 @250bhp...?
Basically you are 951S SP3 as far as weight/power, taking your lap times from G to SP3 would have put you mid pack.

Unless you think even that would be a disappointment, I don't know.

As far as the video, never driven there, never even been to RA, have some experience with a heavy 944T on track though and it looks like you are turning in too early.

Curious too, 1-2 sec/lap faster on the R7 in practice...., why race the Hankooks..?

We would do the opposite, practice/warmup on the slower tire, mount the running shoes for the races....:D

T

All good questions. I'm still somewhat competitive. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be racing. I don't expect to win, but don't like being in the back of the pack.

The Escort/Cup cars are allowed to run higher boost, so the car should make 270-280 bhp. It can pull the SP3 cars on longer straights. But the S2 SP3 cars weigh less and have the 3.88 rear end, which does help on certain tracks. And some, like the Eurosport cars running wide bodies, wider tires and aero, have some advantage thru the corners.

The R7s were left over practice/race tires from previous events. Had sticker Hankooks for qual and the sprint races. I believe the hankooks would have been as fast or faster (because they were new compared to the heat cycled R7s), felt fine on the car, I just didn't get any good/clear laps in qual or the races.

Not sure if I am consistently turning-in early. My line is not perfect for sure, but I think I am having more problem with over slowing into the corners. And my transitions are a little rough which makes the car unstable and feel loose. I do see that I was getting abrupt with the turn-in, not a smooth dialing down to the apex, but more yanking the wheel at the turn-in point. Function of getting undisciplined in the middle of a frustrating race, and maybe having developed some bad habits dealing with the heavier manual steering over the years. I do need to work on that.

I am thinking about messing with spring rates. Maybe going softer all around, and less rear spring balance. Make the car a little smoother over high speed bumps, so it doesn't bounce around too much. Get a little more push in the car, so can trail brake more on turn-in to keep the nose down. Karl was talking about his current setup which is much less rear spring than a few years ago.

LOL, I have been preaching this here for years.

What shock you on...?

T

I'm on koni dbl adjs, 8742 fronts, 3012 rears.

I always used to run less spring than the crowd, and lower rear balance so the car had some push. But the local shop was setting the 944s up with 750 fr, 800 rr w/ T-bars, Karl was running 700/1050 (no effective T-bar) a few years back, and others were in that range. So I crept up to those rates and balance. Seemed fine for a few years. But now the car seems to be jumping around too much and is a little too tail happy (rear tires, even with 275s or 285s, are gaining about a psi more than the fronts hot). The home track is starting to wear and slow, it's getting rougher. Also not sure if the shocks need a refresh, or my style/preference is changing, but my sense is to soften the car up a little. Was interested to hear that Karl was also talking about softening up the rear balance. Not so much overall rate, but was now running less rear spring compared to the front.

Also an interesting note, my real Escort/Cup car was raced in IMSA Supercar and SCCA World Challenge in the early 90's running 250 lb/in springs front and rear. At the time, the team/shop believed the factory Cup progressive springs were too stiff for the weight of the car (it was down to about 2600).

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Jim, probably has more to do with the tire.
Think about it a minute, the tire is an integral part of the suspension and people are coming around to the logic that the springs are too stiff.
What other thing changed in the last couple of years..?
The change to the R7.
A move to Hoosier from BFG and Hankook was an unnoticeable change (other than 1/sec/lap) for us because we already are softer sprung and maybe a hint as to why you aren't seeing an obvious increase in confidence and performance on them.
I doubt the answer is a combination of multiple variables (you're questioning your driving, your shocks, your increased age, your this, your that) when all along the answer is simple.

That said, the 3012 is tricky.

If you have rebound too stiff, that shock will actually jacked the rear down over multiple bumps before it recovers which amplifies a problem because this stiffens the spring and causes oversteer + a jumpy, chattery feel to the rear.

How long is it until you run your car again..?

For our Sp2 cars, one we used for a once/year enduro with 4 drivers, each, down to a man, all experienced drivers, has commented either "how well/stable/neutral the car was compared to their own" or that this car is "better than my setup and so easy to drive", we have tuned by 25# increments up/down to settle where we are now, which, whether coincidental or not, is pretty close to the mathematically correct formula. From the times I have seen RE car with the 15s in the rear, it's not just the size/profile of the tire, but the rear ride height setting that would explain why softer rear could pay 2 dividends, increased rear traction and the ability to get away with it because with negative rake, weight transfer under braking would be less...., and the normal transfer is negated by the out of proportion front stiffness which keeps the rake consistent, thus on/off throttle inputs cause less of a differential.
Unless you know the full details of the setup, I would not expect improvements when just applying parts of the setup to another car.
For a driver that is smooth on the inputs, they are already achieving this due solely to style of driving.
Keep in mind, in looking for any/all effects of setup, positive rake is aerodynamically superior.

What I do as a baseline for people who ask, is formulate spring rates as - our current setup x a % of increase in weight of the other car's race weight.
So, for a 2920# car (our 968 project is 2900), I take our current weight of car/driver of 2600 # and figure our front as F & R X 12% for your 2920# car.
From there, you are in a window where the shocks we use with remote cannister pressure can fine tune, finer than a minimum available increase in spring rate at 25# increments can achieve.

It would be some work and a small expense (comparably) but if you are up to trusting/trying, I can ship you a spare set of Ledas with correct springs (assuming I have the exact increment for your 2920# car) for you to try. You'll need a local source for nitrogen with a regulator (not a normal welding version limited to max) capable of 150psi. I can even loan you the cannister adjusting tool/gauge.
Compared to what you are on, the car's attitude stays stable while the shocks do the work.
The past philosophy was to to stiffen the car to eliminate pitch and roll.
These incidents are a product of physical dynamics of a race car.
You need to allow some roll and pitch, allow the suspension to work to get mechanical grip, not try to negate them totally.
This is what places too much duty on the tire as a suspension component.
The interface between the entire car's contributing components to the actual track surface, a component of the car as a whole that has the most variable between new/old, hot/cold, high/low pressure is not something to bank consistent suspension performance on but with springs that don't allow suspension articulation, this is exactly what you are doing.

T

Hey T, I thought I'd try reviving an old thread that's languished over the off season and bring up something near to me heart. I gather from a thread on the Racing Forum Porsche probably has the highest percentage of owner participation in racing of all other marques, but it's still less than 2%, i believe 1.6% was quoted.

I think more folks would engage in racing if there was a class designed for street cars, that is to say cars that still have enough of an interior to be usable by two people (sort of implies a passenger seat) and has some of the basic creature comforts. I'm most familiar with the factory motorsports cars built for the Firehawk series naturally, but I'm sure there must be other examples.

I'm thinking of a third SP3 class, maybe call it SP3 Street, to go along with Prepared and Stock? Put a higher weight limit on it to allow things like A/C and carpet. Allow bolt-in removable front cages. Not much else would need to change.

It seems there is an emphasis among the racing culture today on cars that are absolutely built for dedicated track use, which is fine. But there's still a group of people who would like to take a well prepared DE car, one with a half cage, containment seats, harnesses, fire suppression and HANS, and actually race their cars without sacrificing their dashboard, permanently blocking their doors, tearing out the door cards and carpet, etc.

Seems to me there'd be much more interest if there were classes set up for racing "street" cars. Think so?

Could be that your idea would draw in more participants.

Couple of points to consider though.

1) There are already stock classes for what would be an SP1, 2 and 3. Don't recall all the letter groups right now but for instance, most SP3 cars would be F stock.
Even within SP3 proper, a large portion of the cars that fit in this class are able to keep dash, door cards, etc, because the power/weight determines final race curb weight and for instance, a 968 and a 944TS have to weigh in at 2900 and 3000 respectively. There is even a place for Jim's Cup in G stock and a 968 Firehawk in F stock at 3050 lbs, so...., not much you are gonna be shaving off that one.
2) To meet safety requirements (insurance) there's no way PCA would allow 1/2 cage cars on track with full blown race cars competing for the same high speed corner.
So...., that would leave the possibility of a separate run group for cars with 1/2 cage only and the format schedule barely allows enough track time as it is. For instance, SP1, 2 and 3, run a split start with Boxsters sometimes just to make use of a race weekend day's time.
More to that point...., some instances, an enduro, inverted start, fun race, etc., have ALL cars grouped together.
If you had ever been on track with 996/7 Cup cars in a 944, you'd already know that the potential risk just due to the difference in closing speed can be very intimidating.
3) The fastest DE groups are already seasoned guys really hauling the mail. Behind the scenes, even though it's not documented as a race result, there are friendly rivalries going on within the fast DE groups which are basically, "pass anywhere" as opposed to the "greener" groups that have 1-2 passing zones with a point by.

Outside of PCA, - and by the way, this year's Mardi Gras Region NOLA Motorsport's Park PCA race in February will run in conjunction with the NASA event - there is always 'Time Attack' of which there are multiple classes. You + your car, open track attempt at fast lap for your class...., still a competition with way less risk of colliding with something.

Personally, re. your idea, I think that the people in your group are generally people who value more in preserving their machines from track damage.
One hot start at the green with 60 cars in a 2 x 2 lineup going wide open throttle and jockeying for T1 would be enough to scare them off of door to door racing...:D

T

BTW Walt is getting Facts and Figures to find out exactly what made came factory on the Rothmans Turbo cup Cars that allowed in "G" Stock. If they get that hashed out, That's what I am going to aim for. At least on paper there will be a really good chance of running well as opposed to being the one of the heaviest cars in F Stock, Plus boost goes to 1 Bar in G Stock. They are working this out to attract more 951's... Problem is there really isn't any "Spec" Sheet, There is plenty of knowledge ...Mag intakes , Mag wheels, ect ect but we are looking for documented proof... that is proving difficult.