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I will be there through Monday Nick and I are staying for one day at Tbolt. It has been a long couple of weeks.
I had a little down time so I decided to fix some more botched wiring. While at it I added a 4th and 5th brake light. Someone eliminated the heat shields from the back and the reverse wires were dry and cracking so I reworked them and shielded them from the heat the best I could with what I had. I eliminated al the wire nuts by now i hope. Funny how it isn't the age as much as the shoddy work done by others that creates all the problems.
Not quite finished here but should keep things safe. Still clean but we will see for how long. I spilled some ATF when filling the power steering which has to burn off but looks a lot better than it did a few weeks ago. LOL
🙏🤞 All works as expected. I went through just about everything so it should be a fun weekend. Looking forward to trying the new RE71RS's a huge departure from the cup 2's. I hope to find some R7's for the other wheels.
For starters the car is amazingly strong and is a bit frightening at WOT. All the adjustments and fine tuning paid off especially making sure the WOT sensor was set properly. Put your foot to the floor at 4500 RPMS and the power comes on strong. Quite similar feeling to the GT4 at about 6k rpms.
Sadly my weekend came to a halt when the breather hose at the top of the engine came loose. Might have been when I installed the engine or not sure when to be honest. I was surprised to see it become a problem. The clamp was adequately tight but the hose came loose enough to spew oil over the entire top of the engine. I had originally thought the oil pressure sending unit was leaking. Something I had dealt with before on earlier 911's. The breather hose looked in place so I spent some time cleaning and verifying the oil pressure sender was good so I assumed ( you know what they say when you assume) that all was good and went back out. After being black flagged for smoke a second time I dove back in found the loose hose but the damage was done. I would estimate about 1/4 quart of oil or more saturated the top of the engine. Once hot it migrated to the sides and pooled in the tins. I am not running the side heat shields and the oil dripped through the holes and down the valve covers onto the exhaust in the hard turns. They wouldn't let me back out even though the slight smoking was just residual oil. It would have eventually burned off but we decided to pack it in and go home yesterday. I was supposed to meet TJ at Thunderbolt today with MoE and had a half dozen or more friends that will be there today. They seem to be having nicer weather as well. Life is a Bitch sometimes.
So **** happens but one good thing is I can now remove most of the intake to get to the back of the engine in under 10 min. My friend laughed when I said I could do it and was shocked to see how quickly I did it.
It was a bit of a bummer and I tried to clean it up with the only thing I could get my hands on. Brake cleaner. I think I would have been better off just leaving it until I got home as the cleaner dries everything out and did a little damage to the rocker cover paint. Not an issue as I need to adjust the valves again. I set them loose to work themselves in and was planing to readjust them after this event anyhow. So it is just a little more work.
Amazing how the simplest thing can cause such aggravation. My son didn't have much chance to take the car for a spin on track but really enjoyed the laps he had. He enjoys driving the GT4 but finds the 964 to be so much more engaging and challenging. He ended up driving the GT4 while I worked on the Sbox. He was the second fastest driver in advanced black second to a friends son driving their 992 cup car. When i started doing HPDE in the 80's I recall looking over the paddock and saying in amazement, there must be $100k worth of cars here. Today there was millions in one run session. The latest cup cars RS's and RS club sports all being toted to the track in their huge rigs.
So I am hosting my HS reunion at my house this weekend so the car will be on hold until next week but it will be ready soon for another event and my son to begin club racing. A long time friend's son Noah apparently did quite well at LRP Club race this weekend with 3 podium finishes
So I normally don't post pics of myself but my son was kind enough to send me this one. A position I found myself in more than I wanted. . What I love best is when you do this type of work is when most people love to come up and chat with you.. Makes it hard to work but I was able to diagnose everything and the car is ready to go once the mess is cleaned. At least I know everything else is working fine. Car handles great and the new RE71RS tire is amazing. Far better than the Cup 2's and a lot more affordable.
I don't like working without a lift but at the tack you have to do what you can.
My son getting the GT4 ready to go out. He is quite fast doing consistent 1:12 second laps with traffic at Lightning with an optimal 1:11s.
The guilty culprit
I find it shocking how much attention this car gets
The club sport brakes are noisy but boy are they amazing. Adding the double shear front uprights with these brakes was a nice upgrade.
Bummer on that leak but in the grand scheme of things it is extremely minor considering the entire engine was apart. Looking forward to more track pictures!
Doing a plank like this will keep you in shape for sure Haha! I was just fiddling with changing the top #4 spark pug wire with the bottom #4 and I thought- man it would probably be faster to pull the intake. Of course for me that means the A/C/ compressor as well but... What is your order of operations?
Doing a plank like this will keep you in shape for sure Haha! I was just fiddling with changing the top #4 spark pug wire with the bottom #4 and I thought- man it would probably be faster to pull the intake. Of course for me that means the A/C/ compressor as well but... What is your order of operations?
Pete
That is funny. A new exercise craze planks while wrenching.
The A/C unit would slow the process down considerably. Although easy enough to remove and hang off to the side. Then remove the filter and cover. Remove the 2 nuts holding the filter assembly in place. Remove the plugs at the center of the engine and push to the side. Loosen the clamp on the air flow meter and remove the entire assembly. It should rotate out. Reach around the back of the meter and unplug the connection and most importantly the vacuum line that feeds the canister from the diaphragm up top and not from the canister. This makes installation easier later. Then the 3 clamps on the lower intake and the 2 larger ones in the center. Lift and remove. I use paper towels to fill the intake so nothing falls in by mistake. The other side can be done in similar fashion but you need to remove the 6mm bolts that hold the metal bracket which can be a bit tricky and the 6mm bolt that holds the lines to the back of the plenum. I use a small 3/8" swivel headed ratchet and short extension to access them. Lastly the vacuum hose attached to the back of the plenum and the rest can stay in place. This eliminates the need to mess with fuel lines and other stuff back there. Install is basically in reverse. Just make sure you have the vacuum line in place when installing it can be a PITA if it gets caught below.
Much easier than fighting it and trying to get your arm in there. It wouldn't be a job if there wasn't some blood. The **** Box decided it wanted a pound of flesh from me. This is just some of my right arm days later after fighting this thing. There was almost as much blood as Oil.
Gotcha- so leave the throttle body in place- that makes so much sense. I fitted the left rear shock today with it all in place and man- that stuff is tough to get at those nuts. I'll be following your method next time and pulling the runners for any work in the engine bay....
That would make the engine bay pretty spartan. Great throttle response too. I was surprised how responsive and fast this car is compared to my 93 C2 and both have similar leak down and compression numbers. I might drop my C2 engine and play with the timing.
We missed ya on Monday. 3 cars didnt survive PCA weekend and we had 2 guys that wanted to get some coaching in the instructed group, so we only had 9 guys in our group and the track was wide open. By the final session there was just 3 of us as the rest called it a day early to get home to their families. Moe runs a great day. We'll do it again soon. If I can get the race car back together I'll likely see you at PCA day before then.
We missed ya on Monday. 3 cars didnt survive PCA weekend and we had 2 guys that wanted to get some coaching in the instructed group, so we only had 9 guys in our group and the track was wide open. By the final session there was just 3 of us as the rest called it a day early to get home to their families. Moe runs a great day. We'll do it again soon. If I can get the race car back together I'll likely see you at PCA day before then.
I was very disappointed I couldn't make it Monday but it wasn't worth pushing it. I have a lot of oil to clean up but overall it was successful. A minor issue in the scheme of things. Car runs strong and these things can happen on a fresh rebuild with no seat time. I had a friend that was at lightning on Monday and he said the track had much more grip than the prior 2. I am assuming the new surface at Tbolt has made it faster as well. I would have liked to stay and hang Monday even if I didn't drive but this party is a lot of work. I have the entire house to get ready and we are now moving it partially outdoors.
BTW were you hanging with the guys from Paul Miller?
So what a great weekend. I hosted I hate to say my 45th HS reunion at my house last Friday and had such a great time catching up with classmates. So many great friendships rekindled after all these years. Everyone in my class has done so well for themselves and I am happy for them. Although the garage got a bit more attention than I was hoping and spent more time there than inside. Some friends showed up late and entered through the garage, the expressions when they saw the toys was priceless.
So now that all this is behind me I have the process of cleaning the mess ahead of me.
It wasn't as bad as I thought once on the lift but bad enough. You can see the oil and how it migrates. It is even easier with a little spray 9 to follow the path.
There is a coating of oil on everything down below. But as you can see it drops directly onto the headers so it smoked badly. At least the covers don't appear to be leaking just flowing down from above.
Spray 9 turns oil purple and as you can see it is right below the vent hose and then migrates to the sides where it makes its way down.
It spills down from the side sheet tin.
Left side wasn't as bad but it made its way everywhere.
After hosing it down it all appears to be gone. I plan to drop the oil anyhow and send it out for analysis. I also plan to pull the exhaust. Blast and paint it and adjust the valve lash now that it has had some run in time. A bit of a mess that was something that can happen but was shocked it did.
What id id not expect was the left rear CV boot let go and made an equally big mess. Although oil is much easier to clean than grease. It appears I will be rebuilding the half shafts. I have a few spare axles so I will rebuild one first and see if it is economical. Quality rebuild kits with rubber boots that will last are nearly as expensive as buying anew GKN half shaft. Rebuilding these is a nasty messy job.
Maybe it was best we didn't have much runtime. This could have gotten messy. I once was in Switzerland when this happened to a friends uncle racing down some switchbacks in a V12 jag and we lost all braking due to grease on the rotors.
All cleaned but now the work begins. Exhaust needs attention as do the axles. Might as well rebuild or replace both.
All In all I can't complain. Things happen when doing this much work in a rush but in the scheme of things relatively minor and easy fixes. The only problem is if I start this now I won't be pulling the others out for use for a while. I have another event at Tbolt in a few weeks so I will see how to get it all done.
BTW the 2k rattle can paint from Eastwood held up quite well considering all the cleaner I used. A lot cheaper and easier than having someone powder coat and or paint them for you.
04-19-2024, 08:42 AM
. Makes it hard to work but I was able to diagnose everything and the car is ready to go once the mess is cleaned. At least I know everything else is working fine. Car handles great and the new RE71RS tire is amazing. Far better than the Cup 2's and a lot more affordable.
