Larry Cable

yeah thats it.

Tom@TPC Racing

Quick update. Got all the parts in need. Been working around the clock and even pulled an all nighter between this and work. Will have lots more to share soon.

I could be wrong but I don't recall seeing so many holes drilled on the LWFW in the past. Perhaps they are better balanced now than before... Let's just leave it at that because that's what I want to think.

CosmosMpower

Curious to hear feedback in how much difference there is with a 20 pound lighter FW

tcsracing1

who do I see at Sebring about the new module?

Tom@TPC Racing

Please see Harris or Mike.

Raven 666

love your work on the cooling pipe welds ..........Nice Job .........An Great thread

cavlino

Glad to see you had an Italian Orange Pop with your Pasta Oh, the work your doing on the car is cool too

Cloudspin

I like to express my sincere thanks and give a shout out to Mike, Harris, Doug, Brian and Randy Pobst of TPC Racing after spending some time with them last week at DMTD Sebring. I’ve read all of Tom Chan’s RL posts about his GT3 build and everything I could find on TPC’s DSC suspension controller. I’ve also had some PM conversations with Tom but had never met either of the Levitas brothers or any of the TPC crew.

David Murry pointed Mike and Harris out at the drivers’ meeting and told everyone where they were setup in the paddock. I went over mid – morning on the first day and introduced myself to Mike, who immediately introduced me to everyone else. Twenty minutes later Randy was taking my 997.2 C2S out for few laps to feel it out and gather data for me to use as a baseline. He came back with some handling feedback that he shared with Mike, Harris and I. This car has SPASM and is completely stock except for 997.1 GT3 sway bars and Tarret drop links. It has a street alignment and so there wasn’t much that could be adjusted on the spot to improve the handling. They did tighten up the front bar and loosen the rear which helped.

The guys then installed a DSC for me to try. Harris said to use it for both days and report back to them. I stopped by the following day and Mike asked Doug to load the beta software they’ve been working on. I can’t say I could tell the difference between the two versions but the difference between DSC and no DSC is pretty dramatic, especially at rough and bumpy Sebring International. I could definitely feel the loaded side of the suspension stiffen when cornering and there was much less dive under hard braking into 7, 10 and 17.

I think the most noticeable difference though was over the bumps in 17. The car felt significantly more stable and planted allowing a slow guy like me to get to power sooner. Muscle memory kept me from maximizing the new found stability but I’m confident more laps would overcome that. Randy went out again the second day with the DSC installed (and with a passenger this time) and picked up a second over his quick lap the day before without DSC even though there was increased traffic.

The whole TPC crew treated me like a long term customer even though we had just met and they had six customer cars there. Plus they were working hard developing the DSC Sport/Tractive DDA Suspension System on their two Cup cars. They are truly great guys and I hope Tom will be with them next year! DSC is definitely worth a try if you have suitable shocks. Pulling the PASM module and replacing it with the DSC takes less than two minutes so give it a try. I believe quicker drivers will benefit even more than I did.
Thanks again guys!

tcsracing1

I never got a chance to visit the guys at Sebring as i was plagued with too many problems during the event..

What i was hoping to find out was if the B16 damptronics could be made more liveable on the street in a 997.1?

I ask because soon every 997.1 will want new shocks and the B16 could be a nice upgrade that works with PASM. Trouble is, stock B16 is a little stiff?

Cloudspin

All other things being equal (springs, ride height), DSC should definitely address your concerns and be more compliant on the street than the B16 / PASM combo. My 997.2 C2S has Sport and Sport Plus settings. PASM adjusts stock stiffness according to which mode is selected and the shocks are that stiff under all driving conditions until a different mode is selected. With DSC, the mode selection basically sets the shocks maximum stiffness setting. DSC dynamically adjusts stiffness up to the maximum based on all of the sensor inputs Tom has described previously. DSC will soften the shock settings during normal street driving and therefore give you a more compliant ride than with B16s and PASM. Of course DSC will then stiffen things up dynamically as required if your driving becomes more spirited than everyday street driving.

Tom@TPC Racing

Thank you guys! I've got a lot more photos to post.

Tom@TPC Racing

We'll be going other DMTD and PCA events. I'm sure we'll cross paths.

Yes B16 coilovers can be made very liveable on a street car. I don't want to sound like a broken record but DSC will improve the shock damping with will either reduce or eliminate bounce after a bump. Also what springs are you running? The B16 springs or something else? The reason why I ask is because spring rate and spring length are one of the primary factors in suspension heave.

Tom@TPC Racing

My apologies to the Rennlist members following this thread for not posting updates sooner. I've been working around the clock(even pulled some all nighters), dealing with the crazy snowy/icy weathers(I've shoveled A LOT of snow between my house and my girlfriend's house), and dealing with my broken down DD(Jetta TDI). It has been a hectic and stressful time.

The good new is the problems are behind me now and I have lots of photos and info to share once I download the photos from my phone.

PS- can anyone tell me how to do captions with each photo?

Tom@TPC Racing

Well guys, so much has went on in the past weeks(including what seemed to be an endless string of snow/ice storms) I don't know how to begin so I'll do my best to streamline my drama(and streak of bad luck) on this project. Before I go on, I wanted to convey that I am not the "engine building guy" at the shop so please don't take my mistakes on this portion of the project as a reflection of the company I work for. My job entails consulting with customers and put together packages to achieve their goals, product/setup support, and managing daily operations. For this portion of the project I am writing as an enthusiast who made bad decisions on his own car. I did the work on my car at my own time, and as a challenge to myself I didn't ask for help. The owner of TPC was/is gracious enough to let me use the shop and equipment during off hours when space was available and in good spirit he gave me the freedom to do things my way and learn from the experience. He also offered to step up when I feel I'm in too deep, which of course even I was I'd never admit. My sincere gratitude to a good boss.

Back to the car, where I left off 6 weeks ago was securing the coolant pipe fittings, replacing the hydraulic lifter tappets(subsequent work includes removal/install and timing of the camshafts), LWFW conversion, and have the engine back in the car and running in 5 evenings. With 2 all-nighters and the entire weekend I did pull it off. On Super Bowl Sunday, everyone I know was at a party, I got the engine started. It fired right up, idle smoother and quieter than its ever been with the fresh lifters, no leaks, it was freakin awesome! BUT, after couple minutes of warm up I lightly rev it 2000rpm and heard a chain slap sound from Bank 1 only during decel. I made certain that the chain tensioner wasn't on backwards during the assembly. As many of you know, the chain tension is controlled by a hydraulic tensioner, so first instinct was to pull the tensioner out for inspection. The Bank 1 tensioner is much harder to get to than Bank 2, its located under the alternator and behind the water pump housing so two short/angled hoses had to be removed. They were difficult to remove with the newly welded coolant pipes(see photos). After wrestling with the hoses I got the tensioner out for inspection. It was installed right side up and don't see anything wrong from the outside. In my mind I was still in a race against time so what next. Fortunately, our team has a spare race engine with the same part number tensioner. I pulled the tensioner out of the spare race engine and put it in mine to see if it fixes the slap. Three hours later- not fixed. At that point I was thinking there must be something going on with the chain guide rails to cause the slap.

To my dismay, I had to take the engine out again and accept defeat of not finishing the project by the time the race team returned from Sebring.

To be continued.

Jamie_GT3

Good luck tracing it down. We've all been there. When I installed my 4.2 I went through 2 plenums, one custom carbon fiber one and then a factory 4.0RS one that had holes causing vacuum leaks. Took a while to trace it down as was trying to tune around it. Took many months of tuning (like you I have a day job and do this in my off time for fun) to track it down. In the end it's tracked down fixed and learned a lot in the process. (like how to take a plenum out of the car with the engine still in it!)

Just know it will be worth it and you still have plenty of time to fix it by track season!