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Having the most splendid time driving my car on track with Skeen coaching. It was an eye opening experience to see him demonstrate to me that my car with its current setup can do 1.6g braking with absolutely zero brake issue. No "ice mode"! This gave me the confidence to hold the throttle longer and brake later.
If you guys remember from a previous post, the .2 center radiator cooling duct was a total pain to install. Looking at the engine coolant and oil temp data in the hottest session(ambient temp 90F) the effort was totally worth it. Engine coolant temp below 200F and oil temp below 230F at near the end of a run session is pretty damn good. Oil pressure is holding solid at 5.0+bar running Mobil One 0w40.
Watching how Skeen putting the power down with no drama really boosted my confidences with the car. And makes me really proud and humbled by the opportunity to have access to factory Motorsport parts and altering the designs to better suit street cars. The adjustable rear toe links with toe curve options is one of them. I am running Curve #3 for that kickass rear grip(zero toe change up to 13mm of compression!), the pin boss is raised higher than the factory Cup version on purpose to be a better matched geometry for GT3/RS/4.0 street car rear subframes, uprights, and ride height range. I just love this techy stuff. Perhaps more so than driving. Watching someone like Skeen do amazing things with a car I put together is quite emotional. Okay, back to driving.
My times are improving by the session with the great help from coach. Everything is going well until...
Fortunately this happened at the slowest section of the track during the in lap and no damage to the car. Limped the car back to the paddock and swapped my street tires on. Ran two sessions with the street tires. It wan no fun going back to back from DH slicks. So Disney Land is Closed for the day. Time to go home. All in all it was a positive outing. Not only did I lose my doubts, I gained confidence in my car, learned a few things from Skeen, dodged a potentially big incident with a blown tires, and made new friends. Damn right I'm coming back for more!!
Thanks again Mike Skeen!
Thanks. That could have gone a lot of different ways. Glad to catch a break. That's the risk of running used slicks with unknown history. If you can afford new slicks don't consider used ones.
I have returned to Summit Point Raceway for the 2019 Porschefest event. Besides replacing the one blown out Pirelli DH tire with another used tire(that I hoped its in the same condition as the other three), the car is completely unchanged since Skeen and I drove the car at the last event at this track.
Porschefest is an annual 3-day track event. I drove ten 20-minute session. The number of heat cycles on the three Pirelli DH tires ran by my car is 16. Prior to my car these three tires have 3-4 heat cycles so I ran them to the end of the useful life. But up to that point, I was having an absolute blast getting reacquainted with my car! Actually I haven't had as much fun on track since 2017. As I racked up the heat cycles I gained more and more confidence in the car and in my driving. As far as my personal best lap time at this track goes, in 2017 my best was 1:21.75(with stock 3.6L engine and Hoosier R7 tires). In two years I haven't bested myself despite of 4.0L engine build and Pirelli DH scrubs) until the previous event before the tire blowout, I ran 1:21.1. At this event I bested myself 4 times! My best laps were the last two laps in the last run session. I am finally down in the teens! It felt really good and was very satisfying! Here's a video of few laps including the last two laps which are my personal best. I know I can brake later and throttle sooner at some of the turns(I'm 4 seconds off Skeen's time) but I'm working up to it now that I have more overall confidence, and more importantly having fun again!
Absolutely awesome news. Congrats on a great event. I mark it all down to the end plates LOL! Seriously I hope you have many more safe fun fast track days. JBO
Nice to see the car is running so well, Tom. I noticed from the Motec display, that you shift at 8K max every up-gear change...is this a safety margin you leave yourself, or with the 4.0l is there no reason to rev it out to redline due to the increased torque? Engine sounded wonderfully solid. Good job!!
Absolutely awesome news. Congrats on a great event. I mark it all down to the end plates LOL! Seriously I hope you have many more safe fun fast track days. JBO
Nice to see the car is running so well, Tom. I noticed from the Motec display, that you shift at 8K max every up-gear change...is this a safety margin you leave yourself, or with the 4.0l is there no reason to rev it out to redline due to the increased torque? Engine sounded wonderfully solid. Good job!!
Thanks! Good observation. I am shorting 5whp by not running each gear up to 8400rpm. I think part of it is habit, and part of it is the engine revs so fast that if I push the clutch pedal in before lifting the gas pedal the engine will bang up against the rev limiter and likely over rev; timing of the foot controls is critical. The vibration from banging up against the rev limiter destroys the clutch and transmission bell housing. I don't think about this but by lowering the shifts by a few hundred rpms it should increase the service hours of the engine in theory.
Fabulous update and well done on the driving improvements.
The ‘no no ice mode’ comment is really good to read. Is there a snapshot summary of what you changed, to avoid ice mode on track that you can share please?
(I’ve been trying to figure it out. My current theory is that it is triggered by hitting the brake pedal too quickly, as opposed to slightly loading the front tires then really pushing the pedal hard)
Fabulous update and well done on the driving improvements.
Thank You!
Originally Posted by MC 968CS
The ‘no no ice mode’ comment is really good to read. Is there a snapshot summary of what you changed, to avoid ice mode on track that you can share please?
(I’ve been trying to figure it out. My current theory is that it is triggered by hitting the brake pedal too quickly, as opposed to slightly loading the front tires then really pushing the pedal hard)
I don't know what the magic bullet is per say, my theory is it has to do with the combination of suspension setup, brake hardware, and tire height to not trigger the threshold for ice mode.
The ABS unit, master cylinder, and brake booster are all OEM street car parts on my car so the threshold should be the same as any other GT3 street car.
There is a theory floating around of not exceeding 1.0g in less than 1.0 second, the Motec data below(driven by Skeen) doesn't fall in with the 1.0g/1.0sec theory, at least not for this car.
Sorry I don't have a better answer.
Last edited by Tom@TPC Racing; 08-08-2019 at 05:46 PM.
Three GT3's driving down a road in West Virginia could be an opening to a joke.
Here's a clip from last weekend playing with a Red 991.2 GT3 and a Black 991.1 GT3 in the Instructor's run group. We were way slower than our normal times but we did punch the throttle at the straight. Just thought it'd be fun to see.
Some of you may have noticed in the last two in-car videos I posted I was driving with a cracked windshield. This happened at Porschefest being at the wrong place at the wrong time and got kissed by a rock. I haven't had to replace a windshield from a driving incident in 10 years so in Murphy's Law its due time. Perils of track driving. I'm not upset at all because I had a great time and I ran my personal best without a least bit distracted by the bulleye.
In repair mode- Cracked windshield extracted. Scrapping off the old glue is the most time consuming parts of the job.
New and shiney.
The 4.0L engine has been running great. Oil pressure, oil temp, and coolant temp has been very good in Summer temperatures. After two track events(5 track days, total of 221 laps) its time for an oil change. Oil looks pretty clean, no metal in filter. I have no reason to be concerned, sending an oil sample for analysis just for the data.
The suspension setup is very good. Thus, the Pirelli DH's are wearing beautifully after ~20 heat cycles.
Have another set of "scrubs" mounted and ready to go. Unknown history on this set, looks like they were used in an enduro by how the edges are worn. This set doesn't look as good as the used set I ran before.. Again, I don't recommend running used tires from another car if you can afford new. I just happened to have a set I want to use up.
The Stoptech SR33 brake pads were from last year with ~300 laps on them now. The braking is good and consistent all the way down to the last couple millimeters. Zero pad tapering. After using for couple hundred laps I can say for sure this brake system with the optional Titanium-nose piston and AKB springs is superior to OEM.
I am still amazed by no tapering. I have not driven on every brake system on the market, I know there are some great ones out there, but at this time I have a lot of confidence in what's on my car now.
Tail pipes and muffler are the right color. Love it!
Just an observation- judging by the grease rings, the front suspension travel is right around 9mm. Grease rings are normal for track use, it is not a leak. The grease keep the seal lip lubed to reduce friction so I am not wiping the grease off since this is not a show car.
Lastly, after 200+ laps the Left Rear axle nut backed off by 1/8th of a turn. I like to think that I'm so fast I drive the axle nuts off. LOL .Not! But I think what happened was when I replaced this axle nut last months the dealer didn't have the correct part number axle nut in stock, and they told me they had a different part number that's interchangeable. I was desperately in need of an axle nut that day and was glad they had one in stock at all. I didn't think anything of it. 200+ laps later this is the only axle but that back off. The original torque spec was 340 ft-lbs. I measured the torque at 216 ft-lbs with it back out 1/8th of the turn. The nut still had contact so no damage done. I re-torque it to 340 and the paint marks lined up. Maybe this Winter I will replace both drive axle and axle nuts. Until then, this car is ready for track again!
I had the axle nut backing out in my 996 GT3. The problem was found to be the hub that was damaged. At some point the (outer half of the) inner race of the wheel bearing had been rotating and cutting 0.5mm off the bearing surface on the hub. So the bearing wasn't fully supported by the hub anymore. In the end it made a strange clicking sound that was hard to diagnose. Especially as the bearing didn't feel loose when tested stationary.
07-16-2019, 09:36 PM
Disney Land is Closed
glad it happened in the slow section.
LOL! Seriously I hope you have many more safe fun fast track days. JBO
