texasviany

After searching all the forums now I am completely confused, so I have to start over. I have a stock 1983 944 that I am going to race in the Lemons series. I planned to drop the rear end but I am not exactly sure how. There is an eccentric bolt right? Has anyone done this to level the car out?

Next, what should I set camber, caster and toe at? I am driving on **** tires, not track tires.

Thank you for the help

Van

Umm... what do you mean "drop the rear end"? Do you mean lower the ride height or remove the suspension? If it's the former, make sure you corner balance it. If it's the latter, it's probably not worth the effort.

For Lemons, stock alignment isn't bad. A little extra negative camber (front and rear won't hurt).

Be prepared, Jay Lamm and Co. isn't fond of Porsches - 944s particularly. (Do some searching.)

Good luck!

Kerry Chadderton

This has your answers:

http://www.924.org/techsection/Suspe...reparation.htm

There are some pdf's and a great explanation of the bolt you are talking about.

ZR8ED

Great link! I had never seen that information before. Very straight forward for introductory mods!

CurtP

Why are you driving on **** tires? Falken Azenis RT-615 are LeMons legal, and there's a new version (RT-615K) which should be too.

But after having done a LeMons event, the 944 is the last car I'd choose.

texasviany

JAy does not like anything. The car has 170k on the odo, was hit and was on fire. Other than that, its in pretty good shape. I am running the **** tires that came on the car to use them up. We are doing 5 races, so I can buy better tires later on.

Thanks for that link!

M758

http://944spec.org/944SPEC/news/1-la...s-buttonwillow

These guys finished 3rd in A 944 at a Lemons race in buttonwillow. I think finally the potential is being found. It is posted on the 944 spec area since it was 944 spec guys involved.

User 52121

A group of us ran an '86 944 at the Chicago Lemons race this past October. I think it made for a pretty good choice, the car ran great the entire first day. Trans broke on the 2nd day though. I guess we couldn't expect much from a car that had literally been sitting in a field for 7 years before we found it. All we really did with the car was a timing belt/water pump and a ball joint. Car was definitely a scary ride but it was fun at the same time. We're planning to run it in a few races this year.

A little tip for the BS inspection: do NOT let on that you are a "Porsche guy." Do NOT mention "rennlist." And bring a VERY good bribe.

SamGrant951

The huge fuel tank is a nice bonus for endurance racing - good luck with getting 5 races out of the engine...I think they are a good choice and can run up front but engine reliability has been the weak point for us so far. Finished 1 race out of 3 and got 3rd.

User 52121

What kind of failures have you had?

Our philosophy so far has been to drive it like it's an endurance race - so keep the revs a little lower (shifting at 5,000rpm, etc.), don't run it as hard as you would in, say, a short sprint race, etc. Our team has 6 drivers, and we do it just as much to compete as we do for fun, so we have 6 driver changes per day (so each driver gets to drive once each day and it lessens the risk of a driver putting his money in and then having the car break on the 2nd day before they got to drive at all.)

At each driver change we check the fluid levels and top off as necessary.

At the Never-Say-Die 500, we started around 40th. We over-filled the oil prior to the race start and got black flagged for smoke-screening the field the first few laps and fell back to ~65th or so while we worked to drain some of the oil. Even with our multiple driver changes, etc. we were up to ~27th by the end of the first day, and up to 20th (and making ground up at a few seconds a lap) at the end of the 1st hour on day 2 when the trans let go. (Pinion bearing failed.) We got a reasonable residual value from Jay that should allow us to find a cheap junkyard trans and install a trans cooler to help prevent the failure in the future.

I think the 944's biggest advantage on the track at least for Lemons seemed to be the brakes. We would get out-powered down the straights by some pretty sad competition (big Northstar powered Cadillac, a turbo Saab, some other interesting stuff) but could dive-bomb on the brakes pretty easily.

SamGrant951

Well granted it wasnt all the cars fault.

Race 1 we cut a hose on the fan, coolant gone, didnt pit right away as race was under caution, figured it would cool down - overheated and blew headgasket. Changed HG and then we got our car killed by sodium silicate in the engine.

1st rebuild - undeserved

Ran at VIR 24hours, got 3rd. Car had some AFM issues/was cutting out but ran well once it was sorted.

At a DE after VIR burnt a valve - redid the head/head gasket, rebuilt injectors/etc.

About 3.5 hours in at Putnam (running 2nd) - head gasket went and it hydrolocked, chunked the motor...Dan thinks the head had an imperfection/knick and it caused the headgasket to go.

Car now has another rebuilt engine and is ready to go for 2011.

Maybe we just had some bad luck and some things happen that shouldnt have - its a blast when it runs and is competitive. Hopefully this engine lasts us a year or two

paralleltangent

Karl, I'm in Round Rock and would be glad to help if you need some assistance, just shoot me a PM. I'd take a ride in the RS as payment. .

BTW, my car is in the same calendar.

texasviany

Paralleltangent, I may consider that offer. The calendars are out? Where can I get them? We may be looking for a 4th driver for the next event. My email is karl@ms-tx.com

V2Rocket

i remember reading in a magazine one time, the magazine crew wanted to enter lemons and thought about using an infiniti q45 which i found amusing as i have one...they classified it as looking forward to "the buttery smooth beatdown from the v8-powered battleship"

not a flashy looking car, but has 300hp and standard LSD and a quick-shifting automatic...very reliable...

hp18racer

After we gutted our car it raised almost 3 inches in the back, the ride height adjuster didn't have anywhere close to enough range to get it right! We had to 'lower' it just to get back to stock. Drilled 2" holes in the body in line with the torsion bar tubes. Dropped the rear suspension one side at a time to remove the torsion bars. Removed the end caps from the torsion bar housing, welded nuts on the end of the t-bars. Now I can pull the t-bars out with a slide hammer in a couple of minutes to set ride height.

For the front we bought some spring clamps from o'reillys. For $14 in parts you can clamp two adjacent coils together. I liked it better than just cutting out a coil because it includes some adjustability.

I maxed out the negative camber in the front. Will probably look for less than 1 degree of camber in the rear. Zero toe all around.