/Rock//It///GT3

Tom@TPC Racing

Thanks for the additional cam info, Ray. I'll have to measure my stock 3.6 exhaust cams with a pin tip when I have spare time.

Tom@TPC Racing

Thank you Sir.

Tom@TPC Racing

Okay, so nothing about this situation is ideal- Hauling the rolling tub, the seats, the roll bar and other stuff in sub-freezing temp, high winds, and salt brine in the air. And I was expecting to have the tub here on Monday, that'll give me an entire week of evenings to make the car whole while the shop is pretty calm. This week almost everyone I know is testing, tuning, and racing at Sebring FL so the shop is less hectic. But due to various set backs the tub didn't arrive until today(Wednesday, for those not reading this in real time), so I'll be working pedal to the metal to complete the job before the race team returns and occupies the shop. I side swiped my co-workers Marco's car with my truck today because I was distracted from stressing about not completing within the time window. Sorry Marco, I'll pay for the damage. While the situation is not at all ideal, it could be a lot worst. I appreciate having some shop space to work in. Lets make do. Mad props to Jack Ford @ Euro Pros for the superb frame and body work!! Signing out for now.

RAudi Driver

Look as good as new. Nice work. This thread will live longer then all of us.

Sorry to hear about the sideswipe. It happens.

Tom@TPC Racing

Here's the updates from Wednesday and Thursday nights' work-

Replaced the busted up rads.



The stuff you'll find in the radiator ducts...



On these cars its not a simple radiator swap like on a Honda or something. Each radiator has to be built up to an assembly before it goes on the car. During race events Porsche Motorsport and race teams have complete assembles in the trailer to reduce the replacement time.



I am switching to .2 ducting(upper portion of image). The difference in the duct openings is huge. Not that I've ever had overheating with the .1 ducting but I'd image the increased air flow will help cooling the brakes since the air exiting goes to the brake duct.

Tom@TPC Racing

Exhaust on. Retaining the 100-cell 997 Cup headers(they've been on the car since 2016 with on issue). Got a zero-mile "take off" 991 GT3 RS titanium center muffler at good a deal. The Ti muffler is a 7 lbs lighter than the steel.







Have the new decklid and wing ready. Its a Getty Design .2 Cup replica.



Here's how the decklid scoopes look side by side between .1 and .2 Cup. The .1 is in foreground of the image.



Closer look of the .2.



The .2 decklid requires a different cowl (aka the filler panel).





The non-factory decklid & wing kit is a very good value. Functionally, I doubt there's a difference in lap time but the fitment is not brilliant. I don't want to pay $10K+ so this will do the job just fine with a little die grinder touch up.



The exterior fit is pretty good.




Need to drill a hole to feed the new wiring harness and for the rubber grommet.





Fed the harness through for the new brake light. Oh, my thumb got cut pretty badly last night extracting a piece of sharp debris from the crash. I thought for sure I needed to go to the ER for stitched a 1am but wrapped it tight and held a fist to put pressure on the cut while I replaced the radiators with one hand and the other elbow.



I'll eventually paint, power coat, or anodize these wing uprights satin black. Bare aluminum finish will do for now.







On to cleaning up body shop dust and putting the interior pieces back on.





Alcantara headliner is definitely a classy and refined way to complete a sunroof delete project. I am neither so I'll it unfinished like my basement.



I kind of like the unfinished raw look.

gt2-josh

Tom,

You are doing an amazing job. Your car is like the bionic man; better, stronger, faster. I love it. I can't wait to see the finished product. It's no doubt waaaaay better than before the incident.

I have the same exhaust as you. Do you happen to know how many decibels it generates at full throttle high RPM? I like loud and I'm curious if this will be louder than my old setup. Also are you running O2 sensors? If so could you tell me what you have. Right now I have a plug in the 02 bung. I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Thanks in advance and congrats on the great progress.

​​​​​​​Best Josh

Tom@TPC Racing

Thank you Sir!


A nearby track has 103 db limit. I have never been flagged for over that. My guess is around 101 db with OEM steel center muffler. The sound db results of course depends on far away the sound testing equipment is located. I don't think OEM Ti muffler will change the db. I use all four OEM O2 sensors. In fact they're the original O2's that came with the car. I do have O2 extenders on the secondaries.

gt2-josh

Thanks Tom. Greatly appreciated.

I also have a complete Grand Am Inconel exhaust. It's nearly identical to the 07-09 RSR exhaust. Does anyone following this thread have any data or an idea how loud measured in decibels an 07 RSR compares to the 103 ish db generated by Toms exhaust? I know there are tons of variables that are significant to get an accurate measurement. I'm just looking for a rough comparison. BTW this is not the no muffler Grand Am setup that is basically straight headers side pipes into what is effectively a full race center muffler bypass. This has two small muffler cans on each side like the early RSRs. Thanks in advance!

Sorry for the threadjack Tom. This my last question. Best Josh

TheSilverFox

Tom@TPC Racing

Thanks. A couple things didn't go as expected this weekend so there's still a lot more work to be done but will get sorted in time.

No, the Ti muffler is not reinforced, its OEM spec. This is the updated version with 991 part #. The earlier version that came on some of the 2016 GT3 RS had 997 part # . I am hoping the 991 part # Ti muffler is improved. If not, no big deal, I got a good enough deal on it that if it cracks I won't feel bad about it and will modify it to a home subwoofer. I also have an OEM steel muffler as back up.

Tom@TPC Racing

Been working non-stop on the list of items to do to get the car to be capable of driving home. At this point I am just frantically tackling the items in no particular order. The plan is to do have the in such a state that it can be legally driven to my house, park it in my pint-size garage until the weather is consistently good enough so then I can sort out the small details outside no stress on time.

Tail lights. Converting to factory .2 LED.



The connector seem to plug in fine at first and later I realize the connector on the light housing needed to be modified for the pins to make contact. Shoulda done a neater cut but I was in frantic mode. It definitely makes contact now and still stays tightly connected.



Replacing and then recoding the .2 rear body control module to work with LED's.



Before putting the roll bar back in, now is the time to clean the residual factory glue and clean the inside of the windows.



Needed stronger 3M tape to hold my thumb together from the frantic motions.



Here's unexpected issue # 1: The center radiator part # is the same for .1 and .2 cars but had not occurred to me before that on a .2 car the center rad is mounted up-side-down, which in itself is no problem since the coolant flows the same from one end to another but the problem for me is the small hard line for the vent is now on the other side. I used to a rubber plug to temporary block the line to get the engine running that day.



I ordered a hard line without the vent for Overnight Saturday delivery(new line on Left). This deletes the vent from the center rad but the side rads are still vented. I don't foresee losing the center rad vent is an issue since the factory Turbo cars and factory 996 race cars don't have center rad vent either. The vent makes it easier to bleed the cooling system but once bled properly the vent is not essential.



Unexpected issue # 2: the engine run and sounded fine when I first started it for 15 minutes. After replacing the vent line I ran the engine again to circulate coolant. And then this happens...
Needless to say I was completely disgusted and mortified. Youtube vid here-

Tom@TPC Racing

That engine sound was absolutely horrific. I shut the engine off and was done for the night. Felt defeated and didn't sleep much as I was running through in my head every step during the camshaft and lifter installation and possible errors I could have made. The following day my co-worker Marco helped me out by listening to the engine with stethoscope. I was hoping for the best and expecting the worst while Marco was locating the source of that revolting sound. The stethoscope narrowed down the source to Bank 1, Cyl 2, upper portion. The location ruled out VarioCam actuator and hydraulic chain tensioner, and worst let piston slap or rod knock. The most plausible source of that sound is a lifter tappet not pumping up. Which is odd because brand new lifter tappets can be very noisy at first, but one was quiet a first then got extremely noisy. At this point I had two options: 1) take the engine and take it apart to replace that lifter again, or 2) against general good judgement continue to run the engine until the noise subsides. Here goes nothing...


Thank goodness the lifter quiet down after 20 minutes of ruckus. I was completely relived!!! No time to celebrate, the mission carries on.

I wanted to integrate the street car front crash beam with the Cup retractable tow loop but I loss enough time with the lifter tappet that I have to defer this mini-project to a more "convenient" day. For now, have to take my chances with no crash beam.





As a side note, these mid-pieces that go between the crash beam and tub act as shock aborsbers during an impact. In the image below the new one is on the left. The two old ones crumbled to the impact to save the front tub.



Cup cars don't have crash beams and these mid-pieces from the factory. I think for a road car the extra few pounds is well justified for tub protection. If weight reduction is the primary objective then deleting the front and rear crash beams and the four mid-pieces will drop ~30 lbs.



I didn't install this upper center rad ducting because the electronic front trunk latch interferes with the fitment. Another mini-project for another day.



Front bumper on. Have to do something about the turn signal later. Right now the orange bulbs are just zip tied to place but they do work.



The center muffler heat shield got pretty mangled up. Parts like these cost hundreds of dollars and they add up very quickly. I am not going for a CPO car so this part will see a vice, pliers, and hammer.



Its def not CPO material but will work for my intended purpose.



Rear bumper on. Currently with no rear crash beam and not all the heat shields are in there so add that on the list of mini-projects.



Have a bunch of mini-projects ahead but the car is road legal and drivea-able. Will drive home and store the car there until a space frees up at the shop or until the weather is good enough to work outside. Mission accomplished. Time for a drink!

shadowz

.2 bits look amazing, forgot how significantly different it looks with the updated lights and bumper. Love it