Sam Lin

Hey Jeremy and z3bra, here's our little chat post.

Zebra, to elaborate on the Kokeln fit, it seems to hit that rounded top edge of the belt cover, and I wasn't so concerned about the cover as the filter getting rubbed and deformed there to where there would be a localized spot of poor filtration. Even more issue to me is I'm not running any covers, so it'd wear through immediately against the belt or gear.

That water crossover tube I'm looking at and planning to remove in preparation for a larger project, and just run AN line for what's needed - I'm dumping the factory water cooling on the turbo so I won't have that plumbing to worry about - am thinking about making turbo cooling its own standalone cooling circuit and might go that route.

Jeremy, instead of e-mailing you, have you heard anything about the Griffith's AC products here: http://www.griffiths.com/porsche/ac/944ac/index.htm

In looking around they seem to have the most researched replacements for our parts - their Kuehl compressor actually seems to fit properly and their new condensor seems to be both more efficient and flow air more freely, which I'd like, to increase radiator air. I was thinking maybe new compressor/condensor, get replacement lines made locally, and just shotgun everything. I'm still not sure what's wrong with my current compressor and why it doesn't do anything, whether relay, switch, or pressure switch.

I'm back in town May 8 or so - just in time to miss every freaking track day this season, but lets plan a belt and A/C day!

Sam

z3bra

That Kuehl compressor looks nice, but those later style nippondenso units are a dime a dozen as long as your clutch and pulley are ok. Mitsubishi Eclipses use them, Geo Trackers use them, I'm sure the list goes on and on.

Sorry I didn't post sooner, missed the thread as I was taking off from work.

Did you get a BMC or a K&N filter in your Kokeln kit? the only reason I ask is that I think the metal plate on the end of the BMC would be the part that hits first so just putting something on the timing belt cover should fix the problem and the metal can take the wear for a long time before it becomes a problem.

Sam Lin

Mine is the bluish filter with the metal lid - sounds like the BMC (didn't buy new). It hits about halfway down the filter media, there's a spot where the stainless braided filter jacket has been frayed by contact from the PO's usage.

Sam

z3bra

That filter sounds completely different.

This is the one that came with mine:

http://www.bmcairfilters.com/VisDetail.asp?ID=266

Mine might be a TW90-140 but I'm pretty sure it's the TW80-140. I'm at work, it's at home so it's somewhat of a guess.

The separate cooling circuit for the turbo sounds interesting though. On that note I've wondered about a separate oil circuit for turbos in the past. It seems like the only drawback to either of those would just be the additional complexity of the circulation system for it. If you were to go to that extent, I'd also like to know about was the possibility of using aircraft turbine engine oil for the turbo since it wouldn't need the properties of a reciprocating engine's oil if it is running as an independent oil circuit. (Good old MIL-L-7808 or the like is what I had in mind). Granted the turbine oil is very low viscocity but it's expressly designed for just that sort of high temp, high RPM application. The biggest potential problem I thought might arise is that turbos are built expecting normal motor oil as a lubricant and the bearing clearances might be greater because of that. I guess it's something that probably could probably best be answered by the turbo's manufacturer.

Back to the expense and complexity though, you'd essentially need to run a dry sump pump for the oil circuit to do it right, and if you're going to the trouble to mount one you might as well go full dry sump at that point.

Well anyway I'll quit rambling for now.

Sam Lin

My filter is very different - look here at Kokeln's site: http://www.kokeln.com/products/951_8...aner_kit.shtml

That metal top, straight profile, is what I have.

Real interesting idea running turbo oil separately and using a high speed turbine oil, if I did that I would definitely ditch the water. You're right though, a separate oil pump is considerably more complex than water.

Jeremy, where you at?

Sam

z3bra

Just an estimate but I'd say that filter you're using is easily 2 inches longer than the BMC. Maybe even 2 1/2 or 3 inches. I was expecting that kind when I ordered though honestly.

I think the overall design of the BMC is a little better particularly with the second cone on the top plate. K&N makes some like that too though. Having used the K&N on other cars it seems like the BMC is put together a little better and the "rubber" is actually urethane on the BMC (not sure on the K&N, but I think the K&N is just rubber). If nothing else at least the urethane is more resilient with regard to oils and such than rubber is and I've heard of the rubber on K&N's getting dry rot and crumbling and doing bad things in general when pieces get into the intake tract.

Oh, and another plus on the separate turbo oil circuit (especially if running an oil only center section) is that it would be easy to make an electric circulation pump along the lines of the turbo water pump rather than having to look at something like a turbo timer that keeps the whole engine running.

As far as the turbine oil, well that's just my former helicopter mechanic self from the Army days coming out. It does make a lot more sense that that type of oil would be better suited, I think it's just the simplicity and cost of running it off the engine oil that is the driving factor for existing turbo designs. Maybe not though, theoretically if it provided a big advantage I suspect race teams would be doing it too considering the amount of aviation crossover there is in racing anyway.

Oh well, just a little more food for thought.

Sam Lin

BTW, Jeremy, do you have a leakdown gauge?

Sam

Sam Lin

Bump

Jeremy Himsel

Sorry guys, I'm here. Been a bit busy at work (which they're shutting down). Sam, I do have a leakdown gauge if you need to borrow it as well as all of the necessary AC tools. I've got several p-cars at my house right now that I'm trying to get finished up and out the door............ I may even have some time this year to finish my own car

Sam Lin

Hey AZ guys, anyone interested? I'm thinking about parting it since I can use quite a few of the parts. Specifically the Fabcar arms, front spindles/hubs, Weltmeister swaybars, Sparco seats/brackets, and some other small stuff. That's a nice TurboS tranny with LSD in there too but I don't need another. Anyone maybe want to go in together?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...K%3AMEBWA%3AIT

Jeremy, how's the job market now for finding another job?

Sam

Jeremy Himsel

I'm tossing aroung the idea of buying the whole car. I can't make up my mind. If GOT ME A PORSHA (az lister) would get off his *** and buy my mustang, it would make the decision easier (are you reading this kev).

The PHX job market isn't the greatest for what I do but I think it's time I go another direction. My wife wants me to buy a shop so I've been looking into that. I'm having a hard time finding one that generates reasonable cash flow. I've been offered a transfer with my company but I'm not interested. We'll see what happens. My wife's offered to be my sugar momma for a while so maybe I'll do the Mr. Mom thing?

z3bra

What kind of shop are you looking at buying? If it's a car shop I'd be happy to come wrench for you a couple days a week provided my 4/3 day work week schedule doesn't get switched to 5x8's. (Just to build up some sweat equity or something, I wouldn't be doing it for the money), hell just having access to a lift would be worth it alone.

Jeremy Himsel

At this point I've been looking at general auto repair with a solid fleet business. There is way to much p-car stuff here so I'm not interested in going that route. I've even looked at a boat & RV repair facility as well as building the factory five cobras. The long range plan for me is to build up enough of a solid business so I can expand (body shop, dyno facility, multiple locations). We'll see how it plays out, I have about six months to decide. Anything for sale in PHX just before summer hits isn't worth owning. A good example of this is one place I looked into generates 850K in revenue and only 50K in cash flow? I'm sure the cash books show something different, but getting a partial loan on a place like this is nearly impossible. Who knows, maybe I'll find a job doing what I'm doing now that is decent.

Did the baby come?

Sam Lin

Hey Jeremy, glad to hear you've got some time to look into things - what exactly is Belden doing? Downsize or mass restructure? Unlikely, but let me know if there's anything I can help with! May be tough to get any form of performance shop going in AZ, competition will be stiff as it really already is a hub for many tuners. Fleet market may be valuable, if you can get contracts with a few of the many companies that have fleets here.

Would either of you be interested in a member page on a web site I run with some friends? It gets you space and a page to upload pics and list your car's mods. You can check it out at http://www.motorspec.net/ We're still debugging and coding each section of the site, but you get the idea.

Sam

z3bra

Yep, baby was born at 15:33 on Friday. Everyone's fine and we just got home from the hospital an hour or two ago.

Decided to name her Jordan Elizabeth. So that's three girls now. I've just failed in carrying on the family name it seems. Not that it's an issue anyway. This will probably be our last one though, any more kids would require a minivan or the like and that's just wrong. (Granted the new VW Microbus might be acceptible as far as that sort of thing goes when it comes out next model year.)

850k revenue and only 50k profit? Sounds like someone's not a very good business owner although I can't say I know enough about the business market for that kind of shop to make a good assessment, just seems like a pretty low margin. Oh well I'm just a computer geek so that sort of thing isn't my area of expertise anyway.

Sam, might be interested in a site over there, I have the preliminary part of mine up at z3bra.arizonagt.org but that's on a friend's server at his work and it's his test webserver so it could theoretically go down. Not too likely but ya never know. Then again it's totally under his wing so he has full say as to the bandwitdth it uses etc and nobody's going to say anything about how much gets used.

It's pretty empty right now, bout the only thing I did was to "NVG-ify" the graphic, it's just a stock photo with some filters applied etc.