M. Requin

The bottom line: CONGRATULATIONS! BLNT of course, but what you did was damn fine! The video was awesome, the only thing that would have been more fun was to be able to hear more "comm chatter". Thanks for sharing it with us!

Bill Ball

Yes, I believe the Bilsteins and stock springs are pretty good. It felt softer in the high speed sweepers than I would like, but NOTHING like it did before with the two sets of bad, bad Konis. Straight line stability was very good. The 168 was speedo, which was reading 3-5 MPH slow versus GPS. I did not have a GPS on raceday. That was probably wind aided 5MPH. I have previously been clocked at 165.6 with no tailwind, but we had one on the return run.

Charley B

Bill, Did you swap out the swaybars when you were fighting the suspension issues? Are they stock or heavier now?

Bill Ball

And the thing I noticed is that you see George holding back...179....178...180...because he was tech'd for only 180 EXCEPT in the 5 mile speed trap zone and he didn't want to get DQ'd. As soon as he entered the zone, 188 came up awfully fast. For me to get from 160 to 165 takes almost forever.

Bill Ball

Yes, swaybars are stock. Previously had a DEVEK front, then a 928 Specialists front for a while.

Charley B

That might be the difference in the sweepers for that nice solid feel.
Sounds like you were hitting about 172 through the trap. That just just seems astounding, given the age and mileage of your car. That car grew up about 18 years ago and still hits the same marks as it did out of the factory. Wish I was aging like that.

jorj7

Bill,

I really do appreciate all the time you've spent with me getting the car ready for
ORR. I probably would not be able to compete at this level without your support.

I guess you've seen the advantage of the gps, not only a more realistic speedometer
and a good data logging device. When combined with the right software, it's
a great tool for analyzing your performance. I'd still like to get a WBO2 sensor
with logging like the LM1, but just haven't gotten around to it. So for now this is
what I use.

I still don't know why you've had such bad luck with the Konis, mine have been
great. I did get Marc to do the initial set up (corner balance, ride height, and
alignment), must be some secret incantation that was missing with your setup.
I'm still running stock springs and sway bars also.

mark kibort

thats scary fast. just watched the video
mk

atb

That's just plain haulin' George, very cool video.

Hope she's back on the road soon.

Bill Ball

It is a good video. George makes the turns look easy. This is not the technical section, but I can assure you some of those uphill turns slowed me down. George just romped through them. I wish we could have seen George in some of the tighter turns.

George, do you have video from the first leg?

Bill Ball

Yes, your car handles like a dream. And yes, the same brand of shocks (Koni) bought from the same vendor (DEVEK) and setup by the same person (Marc), using the same springs (stock) and swaybar (stock until I complained about the extremely poor handling - Marc convinced me to buy a swaybar). But my shocks were clearly crap as anyone could tell from just bouncing the fenders - BOING, BOING! Second set almost as bad as the first. My conclusion - Koni QA took a nosedive into the pavement. With the new Bilsteins, that is OVER and the essentially brand new Konis are lying on the garage floor.

Here's hoping there is good news from Salt Lake soon!

Fastest928

Bill, you installed the shocks ...there may be something there.....sheared lower a arm rubber...dont know.

Very odd situation....stumped me....and that is hard to do

marc

Cameron

WOW! I have always wondered about the ORR experience. The video really puts us in the game with you. Thanks for that. Sorry about the bad luck.

Thanks again for the pics and video, guys.

Bill Ball

You assembled the coilovers. I dismounted and mounted them. The second set of shocks were dyno tested off the car. You felt the first set on the car. BOING, BOING! The rears were worse than the fronts. The new Bilsteins work much better.

The A-arm rubber is not sheared, although I considered all the bushings suspect in light of my high mileage and bought all available ones for the whole car from you. I also bought a set of used A-arms from a 35K mile car. They are nice, but going through all the existing bushings carefully, they all look and act like new, so I have left them alone for the timebeing.

The shocks were bad, and I agree it is odd, but the shocks were bad, the first set worse than the second, but both underdamped. The car wallowed over bumps like an old Cadillac. Most people complain the Konis are stiff. I would have given anything for a stiff Koni. The Bilsteins have far better bump response without being harsh. Still, I prefer George's ride quality. It is remarkably controlled (better than the Bilsteins) without being uncomfortable at all. That's what I asked for when I approached you about shocks.

I have left the Konis sitting in a box on the floor, even though they are almost brand new, as I wouldn't want to be responsible for the outcome of anyone else using them.

I consider the shocks a closed issue even w/o a good explanation, other than they were just bad from the start. From day one I felt they were bad. The three years I fought with them completely pissed me off. I'd like to try to forget about it. It just makes me mad when I think about it, and that's not good for my health.

Anyway, sorry to hijack George and Rich's thread.

Richard S

No hijack here. I navigated with Bill at last year's Bonneville 100, or tried to. Practice day revealed the true extent of the crappy handling above 120mph.....downright scary. Didn't die that day either. Guess I'm just lucky.....

Rich