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Old 05-23-2012, 12:38 PM
  #31  
GTgears
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Skypalace,
Who is sealing the PGCTUW gearboxes?
Old 05-23-2012, 01:52 PM
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/\ I believe they want you to use Brian
Old 05-23-2012, 05:33 PM
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PMNA checked and scanned seals at last event so I know they're intact.

I haven't opened the box yet on my 2011 (other than fluids), so unless PMNA was sneaking around the paddock putting on seals, I suspect it was sealed at the factory before delivery :-)

A little birdy told me that PMNA might be thinking about other options for gearbox rebuilding.
Old 05-23-2012, 05:44 PM
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Sounds like PMNA is throwing their weight around in more than just IMSA. They wrote us out of the rules for the GTC and GT3 Challenge races. Last year, Greg Franz personally told me our parts were legal for the Pirelli series and even posted here on Rennlist to that effect. If PMNA are the ones checking seals at Pirelli races, they've claimed the series as their own.

Leaves me wondering if they will force car owners with GT gears in their gearboxes to remove them and replace with OEM gears like they have with several GT3 Challenge teams/cars.
Old 05-23-2012, 07:09 PM
  #35  
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This year Pirelli series is an official Porsche sponsored one-make series. As a competitor who chose to run in a spec series, I'm personally glad to see that the rules are being enforced.

If the rules say sealed engines and gearboxes and stock ECU (as they do), then they need to enforce those rules so it's not just the honest guys that are running spec cars :-)

Let me give a little detail on PMNA checking my seals, I don't want to leave the impression that PMNA is running roughshod over the Pirelli scrutineers. My car was used to help train the Pirelli scrutineers, so for my car both PMNA and the Pirelli scrutineers were there. Some checks were done by PMNA, some by Pirelli scrutineers, some by both. Don't know what happened with other cars.

I know that there are non-performance mods that can be made, but IMHO, I think sealed boxes is much easier for competitors and officials alike. Franz doesn't have a huge gang of techs and a teardown tent to pull apart gearboxes to check for examples that gears may be non-Porsche, but still have factory ratios. I (again personally) think it's the right call. The rules are pretty simple. Cars must be as-delivered from Porsche, other than a specific list of allowed changes. Any modification not specifically allowed, is disallowed.

I ran my previous car (996 Cup) in multiple series, but I kept everything bone stock as I wanted to always have the option of running it in a one-make series, and I figured that couldn't hurt (eventual) resale also. Some of the other series I ran (like SCCA GT2) required the cars run as-delivered, though not always associated with a set of officials with the understanding to be able to adequately enforce those rules (I could see obviously non-compliant aspects of cars from the tv coverage of some of the Runoffs). I also want to win because I drive better, not because I've found some way to get an advantage, that the other drivers and officials haven't figured out.

Of course, that's just me. Others just want to run their cars, be able to choose any engine builder and tranny builder, be able to make changes for cost or reliability or (perhaps) performance reasons, etc. Or they've bought a car and aren't fully confident of its pedigree, and haven't verified that it's fully compliant. That's totally fine, there are series and classes where that's totally ok, but a factory-sponsored one-make series might not be the right place, unless you're willing to do what it takes to ensure it's fully compliant before running it. For the Pirelli series this year, there was plenty of warning, well before the season there was email sent out specifying the seal requirements, and how to get inspected/sealed if you didn't have them.

What I'm also not (personally) excited about is people with an 'almost-compliant' car wanting to run in a stock class, when a simple reclass would make them perfectly legal, without changing their run group. GTC cars in PCA with hot motors or RSR uprights or aero mods or brake kits? Easy solution, run GTA! Non-compliant Cup in SCCA? Run GT1 versus GT2! Oh, you want the trophy because you're almost compliant, and you'd probably have won it anyways because of your superior driving? Umm....

Even a car running in a class by itself can cause hard feelings if misclassed. I was a little bummed when one of my track records was beaten by a non-compliant car (both drivetrain and suspension). Not the first time it's happened, and I know it certainly won't be the last, but still a drag. I just wonder how proud you can be of a track record when you know you have a cheater car...
Old 05-23-2012, 07:45 PM
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Skypalace,
I don't know who you are, but you've clearly been around the scene a lot longer than your post count suggests. I agree with about 95% of what you are saying there.

But here's the big catch to it all. One of the nice things about Pirelli was the inclusion of 996 Cups and early 997 Cups that didn't have a place to run anymore. However, the problem is that a lot of the service parts for those cars have either been discontinued by PMNA or are priced in such a fashion that they have zero direct correlation at all to cost.

I'll make an example that came to my attention in just the last two hours. I got a call from a customer looking for some parts for a 2000 GT3 Cup with some serious provenance. I won't name the car because that would reveal the owner and the shop but lets just say that anyone who has followed Porsche racing in the last decade knows this car. Anyway, they called for one of our LSDs because the old factory unit is timed out. This particular customer was unaware that we also make ring and pinions for the GT3 Cup Cars. He informed me that he had just paid well in excess of $4k for one from PMNA. Our unit runs about 2/3 that price. And the part I found really interesting was that less than 2 weeks ago I had a different customer tell me that Porsche was selling GT3 Cup ring and pinions for less than $3k.

So, did they give the old 996 Cup Car customer a different price because it's a different car? Or have they raised their prices that much in the last month? It's the same part for both cars. It's one of the few things that hasn't changed between 1999 and 2012.

I do not encourage cheating. I also encourage appropriate scrutineering. Everything we are making is to homologation ratios and direct replacement spec. For 20 years the PCA has considered our gears as acceptable replacement components in the stock classes. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of 996 GT3 Cups in PCA that are running our gears instead of Porsches.

And last year, both in IMSA and Pirelli, the parts were allowed in the sealed gearboxes. But what is coming back to me from my clients is that they are deciding to skip the last 2 or 3 races of the year in GT3 Challenge because the gearbox rules (and the mandatory 2012 updates since PMNA no longer carries parts or services 2010-2011 spec gearboxes) are so expensive that the extra $15-20K they had to put into the gearbox to race at Sebring is going to keep them from showing up at Road Atlanta unless they are in contention for the title.

If it's Porsche's series, and it's a spec series, they are free to scrut. it as they see fit. I just know that I'm getting a lot of feedback from teams who are bugged by it all. One team showed up at Sebring with a gearbox that was rebuilt and sealed just one race from the end of the season last year. They were told it had to come apart and get resealed. When Brian Copans found GT 5th and 6th gears in it (of the proper homologated ratio) he told the team he couldn't reseal it without putting in Porsche 5th and 6th gears. PMNA reps were called into it and told the team owner that my parts are banned because they are inferior and that it would hurt the marque to have a car fail to finish when my gear broke in the gearbox. Given the history of the Holinger/Porsche gearbox and it's reliability issues, that claim doesn't hold water with a lot of people. People who have installed and run my parts see better lifespans out of the parts and fewer failures.

I guess only time will tell. If Pirelli sees big fields this year, the racers have spoken with their wallets and don't care. All I know is that I've got IMSA guys tell me that they are staying home because they don't want to spend that extra money and they are fed up with it.
Old 05-23-2012, 07:55 PM
  #37  
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GT, I may be in error. IMSA requires sealed gearboxes. Franz's rules are for stock gear ratios, it does not specify PMNA parts.
Give him a call for clarification.
Old 05-23-2012, 08:04 PM
  #38  
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Originally Posted by Surfbum
GT, I may be in error. IMSA requires sealed gearboxes. Franz's rules are for stock gear ratios, it does not specify PMNA parts.
Give him a call for clarification.
After skypalace's first post, I visited the Pirelli site for the first time since my face to face meeting with Mr Franz at Sears Point last year, where he told me that my parts were very welcome in his series and that he might even be interested in having us come on board as a sponsor. I pretty quickly found this:

http://www.competentmotorsport.com/c...ophy-usa-west/

I'll ring up Greg tomorrow, but this press release sort of spells it out for me. It's now a PMNA sanctioned series. If there were PMNA scruts. checking seals on the gearboxes, something tells me that the rules of the game have changed between 2011 and 2012.
Old 05-23-2012, 08:24 PM
  #39  
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Current 2012 Pirelli GT3 Cup USA Trophy West technical regulations are at http://www.competentmotorsport.com/w...hRegsV1211.pdf

Article 6 covers drivetrain. Starts with 'stock', then allowed gear ratios from other year transmissions.

At the start of the doc, everything not specifically allowed is disallowed. There is no allowance for non-stock gear manufacturers, so section 6 doesn't need to specifically cover PMNA parts, that's part of the overall 'if it's not specifically allowed...' aspect.
Old 05-23-2012, 08:37 PM
  #40  
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GT, I don't believe that PMNA were the scruts, at least not at Miller. Greg has his own scruts that were checking seals and cross checking those numbers against numbers I assume they received from PMNA.
PMNA employees were there to read ECU's if you wanted and were probably there to be able to check any items that the scruts might have felt they needed to look at.

I am about 95% in agreement with Skypalace, but I would have liked some additional mods, i.e.., springs and pads.

Although I don't enjoy paying PMNA prices, it is real nice when you have a rolling parts store there at the track to get you back going again as soon as your mechanic can put the pieces back together. And face it, it cost a lot of money to have that truck there with the support staff and after market guys don't incur those costs. So I kind of have to agree to have almost exclusive PMNA parts to promote sales to support having that truck at every event.

I am a free market capitalist, but if PMNA doesn't sell enough parts, PMNA isn't going to be sending that truck to all the events.
Old 05-23-2012, 09:03 PM
  #41  
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Right, PMNA weren't scruts, but they were helping with some training.

Springs I think should stay stock, as it's a big cost item - if you have huge budget and lots of test time, you can optimize springs for each track. The low budget guys can't do that.

I'd like to run non-factory pads, the P50's work great but wear pretty aggressively, if you're not crazy on braking you could likely get sufficient performance, and much longer pad life, from some of the other Pagid compounds. But I'm in the same boat as everyone else, so P50's it is.

I fully get your comments re the cost of the truck etc. I just wish that PMNA is at every Pirelli event this year, I asked Ralph and I think that Miller was the only event on the (current) schedule that the truck was at, as it was a shared weekend with World Challenge and IMSA. I suspect that's why they were helping get the scruts fully up to speed at Miller.

I'm ambivalent about non-performance mods. There are lots of examples. Gearsets, ring & pinion, crashbars, attachment hardware, end links, etc. etc. Competent, for whatever reasons, has decided to have fairly tight rules, even bumper attachment hardware must be stock, can't even use aftermarket screws or washers. It's actually very little rules change from last year, but it seems that compliance may be a little more strict.

As I competitor, I want the rules, whatever they are, to be enforced. This is a fairly prominent series, the budgets are not small to run the entire series, and the series, and the vast majority of entrants, want a fully level playing field.

If crashbars are ok for someone else, but aren't listed in the rules, that's fine, just put them there, so that I know that I can run them too. I don't want a competitor being willing to be a little more aggressive (whether contact or offs) because he doesn't have to worry as much as I do about protecting the front radiators, if I choose to follow the rules to the letter, and they choose to make a mod they they believe is cost/reliability but not performance. Maybe he gets to put more budget towards tires or testing, versus towards spares or repair allowance, so even cost reduction can end up being a performance mod in the end :-)

I'm not sure how much, or if, Pirelli and PMNA want consistency in rules to allow straightforward transfer of cars between series. Certainly plenty of IMSA cars run Pirelli, esp. on shared weekends, or when Pirelli is running at a track shortly before an IMSA event (like at Laguna last year). The reverse happens also (Pirelli drivers/cars running occasional IMSA events). Consistent prep rules also (IMHO) improves the market for used cars, when there are more series that it's fully eligible and legal for.

You can do lots of really cool things to Cup cars in World Challenge and Grand Am, but competive cars built for those series can't really run too many places except in catchall classes in club series. WC and GrandAm have no choice but to allow those mods, if they want any Porsches to run, because they need to be reasonably competitive with all the big v8 iron and tubeframe cars. But that's a whole 'nother ballgame re budget etc.
Old 05-23-2012, 10:35 PM
  #42  
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I was led to believe the PMNA truck was going to be at every event, oh well that shoots that theory in the a$$!

RE crashbars, I asked Greg if we could put them on just in the rear, thus protecting the motors/exhausts and providing a deterrent to those who like to go through front bumper covers, but was turned down. Seems a shame I thought that was a great way to protect all those sealed motors.
Old 05-24-2012, 01:26 AM
  #43  
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I'd love to have the truck there every race, would be very handy, and I wouldn't have to carry as many spares.

I'm actually fine without crashbars, with the 13/13 rule there should already be plenty of deterrent against contact, though if allowed I'd certainly take advantage.

There were two incidents of minor contact in the first race (all cars continued driving, though one later had a flat) and the race director spent a lot of time on the incidents, getting written statements from everyone, interviewing the drivers involved, etc. so I believe it's being taken very seriously.

No other contact that I'm aware of in the three races since then. The only full course yellow all season was for the flat in the first race, the driver spun and was sideways on the track in the middle of the exit of turn 1 at Miller.
Old 05-24-2012, 01:46 AM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by Skypalace
Article 6 covers drivetrain. Starts with 'stock', then allowed gear ratios from other year transmissions.

At the start of the doc, everything not specifically allowed is disallowed. There is no allowance for non-stock gear manufacturers, so section 6 doesn't need to specifically cover PMNA parts, that's part of the overall 'if it's not specifically allowed...' aspect.
Yeah, I know how to read the rules. That's no different from how it was written last year and Greg said that they considered our parts a direct replacement for factory components. I will call Greg tomorrow for anyone who might actually care.

I suspect that as is often the case on web forums there are 10 lurkers for every poster and that some people who own Gold class cars in particular will care about the answer to this question. Platinum class guys tend to be at the bleeding edge of the game and take a bit more of a win at all cost mentality. When I previously spoke with Greg part of what appealed to him about having my parts available was a bunch of guys with earlier 997 Cups were very cost concious and that part of the reason why they weren't racing GT3 Challenge is because they couldn't afford to travel nationwide to compete, but that his series offered a more cost effective and inclusive series to let them get more days on track actually racing than PCA and POC events granted them.

With respect the comments about Porsche having a trackside vehicle that can support the racers warranting a premium, I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just know how many weekends I have shipped gearsets and other components to people like Bill Rader, trackside. Just because I am not there doesn't mean I can't put the parts in the builder's hands and make sure they get the job done in time for the race.

As for running Pirelli and GT3 Challenge in the same weekend? Mercer Motorsports tried that at Miller last year. Rich told me he would never do it again. The difference between the Pirelli tires and the Yokos is big enough that they spent every spare second trying to readjust the car and ended up not having the car well set up for either race. It's a nice idea on paper but in practice it doesn't always work out too well.

I realize that on the surface I may sound bitter about all this. Let me make one thing clear, which is that I am not. Business is good and I can barely keep up production with demand. PMNA is also in the business of making money. A lot of people don't realize that Porsche is pretty much the only company in the world who turns a profit on their racing operation. That deserves a certain amount of credit.

Furthermore, some of PMNA's decisions have actually increased my business and on a certain level I consider the fact that they consider my 14 employee company a direct competitor to their $100 Million operation is quite flattering. There are plenty of ponds where fishers using my lures can attempt to catch the big one. For example, keep an eye in Chris Musante's new GTA class car. He used to run our dog box parts in Old Yeller, his air cooled car that was a terror, setting a track record or two up and down the East Coast. Now he's in a modern Cup Car with a custom ratio gearbox that we worked with on him and I suspect we'll see another record or two fall before the snow falls. It's not for lack of business that I engage in this discussion.
Old 05-24-2012, 03:37 AM
  #45  
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I reread my comments re Pirelli and GT3 challenge, and I wasn't clear. Most of the cases I've seen have been on non-shared weekends. A couple of folks ran both at Miller, one of them (John Baker) was to get a second race in, as he couldn't be there Sunday.

At a couple of events last year there were a pile of GT3 Challenge cars, as the IMSA weekend was coming up shortly, and they used it to get extra track time, even though as you say not all of it is 100% transferable because of tire differences. Some Pirelli drivers did try IMSA events, and based on their experience decided to move from Pirelli to IMSA for this year.

As I said before, I'd be happy to have some cost reduction and reliability improvement rules, I just want them to be clearly stated and enforced, so that the same rules apply to all. But I'll live without them also and it won't prevent me from running the series. I know that not everyone can (literally) afford this attitude. I've had discussions with Greg and others in the series, they know my thoughts on this.

I'd have no problem at all if the rules were updated to allow aftermarket gears of allowed ratios, ring and pinion, etc. I (luckily) haven't had my box apart yet, when I do I'd of course love for it to last as long as possible before I have to touch it again.

GT, my rules interpretation was a reply to Surfbum's message that Pirelli doesn't require PMNA parts. I've clarified this, and a number of other areas of the rules, in the past to ensure that my reading of the rules matches the series' meaning and interpretation.

The regulations are expanded from last year, a lot of language has changed or been added, I wouldn't be surprised if it's updated to make some potentially ambiguous sections more clear. The sporting regs in particular are a major update, even more so than the technical regs.


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