mark kibort

I forgot one thing. get that cooling fan out of the front of the radiator. Pushers do not work espcially that kind that we use. it needs to be behind the radiator in puller mode. not only that, you have it on one side of the radiator as well. Scot, who has a stock radiator as well as the 5 liter and all the euro engine bits, runs perfectly at the track . however if that fan is not working, it will overheat as will most 928s unless you driving on the hyway and its not a hot day. In front, that style of fan stalls very easily and cant generate a pressure differntial to move any air. in the rear, the puller fan creates a lower pressure zone which generates substantially more air flow through the fan, ESPECIALLY if it is in the center of the radiator. most of the radiators air flow is in the center, as the ends are air flow deprived and thats not where you want the cooling fan. (especially if you are using the stock oil cooler lines on the other side)

by the way, if you couldnt get those video to to play, try this one. It from the S2000 supercharged

Go to 3:10 in the video to see the race start.

http://www.gofastvideo.com/video/164...008-ITE-Finale

mk

Pierre Martins

Mark, I watched the videos. Nice, you pedal good.

As for the fans, that pic was taken at the first shakedown earlier this year. I'm now running twin pullers from an S4 and an S4 oil cooler. The radiator is a new Behr unit, the waterpump's been replaced and the thermostat is new. The car still runs two thirds on the guage and almost touch the red when you push it hard on a hot day. It's alwas been like that, since the days when it was street only car. I've seen other 928s with the same problem. My thoughts are that the volume of coolant is not enough for track use, so I'm basically at the point now where I'm gonna have a dual core custom radiator made.

I'm racing the car this weekend in the final round of the local Porsche Challenge. In the off season I have a grocery list of changes and upgrades planned.

mark kibort

Thanks!

Glad you have the pullers, that is the way to go. as far as running hot, it is extremely unusual, and like i said, ive had a few of these on the race track.
one thing that i could mention, check radiator with your hand and see if it is really hot from top to bottom. usually when overheating, there is a warm spot not hot spot in the lower section meaing that flow is being impeded. (t-stat or clogged radiator or bad water pump). I was in a race at Laguna with temps in the 90s and it was below the center as all my 928s have been on hot days when working properly. bigger raditors are nice, but it could be a bandaid for another problem. Im putting out near 100 more hp and using the stock radiator. Anderson was using the stock radiator for 200more hp as well. So, it does work. Im just wondering what your issues are. Hate to say it, is that the last issue could be headgasket. are you loosing fluid , or noticing some is gone after a race?? when it is hot, get an IR reading of the radiator and let me know what it is. last issue could be a bad or high reading guage.
(quick check of this, is that when the temp is at the upper white line, and you turn the engine off, you should hear gurgling in the system . a centered white line reading, or normal temp will be quiet as a mouse.

best of luck and keep the stories coming.

mk

Pierre Martins

I couple of months ago I took part in a 48-Hour endurance record attempt in a ****-***** little 1300cc Chinese noddy car. I have a few funny stories to share about that experience. The weirdest random track experience I ever had.

I also had seat time in some local Detroit-style sledgehammer muscle. Very un-Porsche like, no finesse, just brute power and laying down rubber everywhere, but huge fun nevertheless.

I'll post the stories up soon.

Pierre Martins

Keith Rose’s cross-holes

At the start of the 2006 season I tested a 350hp pre-73 Porsche 911 RSR replica for initial shakedown and track setup. The car was built from the ground up by M&R Motors and belonged to Keith Rose, a movie producer from Cape Town. (That's him in the white top in the above pic) Mario told me that Keith was renowned for his work in the film industry, but in my experience he turned out to be a laugh a minute as a weekend racer. Not a bad driver at all, but a naturally funny character with no mechanical sense to boot.

Anyway, I agreed to help out at his first race meet when his lovely white RSR was ready for action. We were at Wesbank Raceway, a track that no longer exists. During Friday practice we were looking at a track map and discussing some areas where Keith was struggling. The track had two very tight ess-bends right on top of each other, almost like a kart track. Keith kept running out of track and over the grass on the exit of the second ess, so my advice was to steer it on throttle to bring the *** around. He just looked at me, disappeared and came back with a drum of race fuel. That became his modus operandi for the weekend. Every time someone said something that Keith had never heard of before, or didn’t understand, he’d disappear to buy more race fuel. By the end of the weekend we had drums and drums of unused race fuel stacked in our pit area! He-he-he…

But the funniest bit of the weekend happened when we were bleeding the brakes. The car developed some braking issues during Saturday morning warm-up, so we got the thing up on trestles and all of us pitched in for a quick maintenance session of the brake system. Mario dished out orders and put Keith at the right front to clean the cross-holes in the disc and me in the car to pump the brake pedal whilst he bled the system, starting at the right rear. The usual sequence ensued – “Okay pump, pump, pump…, okay hold…” So there I was with my foot pressing down on the brake pedal and unbeknown to me, Keith couldn’t figure out why the hell he couldn’t get the disc to turn so he could get to the area covered by the caliper. So what did he do? – He wedged the wheel spanner between the wheel studs and pushed down with all his might. Now, that’s definitely not something you wanna be doing when someone with an evil sense of humour like Mario is watching your every move. You know what’s coming, right?

Well, Mario timed it perfectly and told me to release the brakes at just the right moment when Keith had all his weight pushing down. Poor fella did a three-sixty sideways summersault and hit the deck hard, jumped straight back up and disappeared into nowhere without further ado. We were still laughing when he returned a short while later with, you guessed it, – another drum of fuel..! He-he-he…

What a laugh. It was one of those funny track moments that stays with you forever. Anyway, Keith went on to win that weekend in the Historic class against a bunch of local competitors and invitational drivers from Cape Town in some serious cars. I was so happy for him. And I must admit, I was also happy about the drums of free race fuel that Keith donated to us at the end of the weekend.

Cheers,
Pierre.

DJF1

Great stories Pierre! Keep them coming!

Pierre Martins

Will do. I'll keep it going as long as there's some interest.

Here's another little funny story -




Naughty Tyres…

Many moons ago a buddy of mine asked me to take a little ’76 1600 Alfa GT Junior off his hands, for free. He had the car for donkey’s years, but it was just sitting under a carport at his house. I didn’t know what the hell to do with it, so I followed that rule that says when you don’t know what to do with a car - you turn it into a track car, problem solved.

Olly was a track buddy. I got him involved and before we could wipe the **** from our eyes another track toy was born. The car turned out sweet. Dead slow, but GT Juniors are inherently good handling jobbies and we had BMW E12 528 four-pod front calipers fitted, so the little thing could stop on a dime. We ran it on and off in historic racing in a handicap category intended for old street-legal cars. Cars didn’t need roll cages and owners were encouraged to drive their cars to and from the track. Racing was conducted over two ten lap heats. For the starting procedure they had the cars line up in pit lane, slowest car first, fastest car last and released them one by one at intervals according to qualifying times. A breakout rule was in place to prevent drivers from sandbagging to improve starting positions. You were automatically disqualified if your lap times during a race were more than 2.5 percent quicker than qualifying. The theory was that all the cars would get bunched up during the closing stages of the race. In other words, it was anybody’s race and even the slowest car stood a chance of winning.

We were sharing the Alfa and not interested in championship points and whatnot, just wanted some track fun. Didn’t care much about their rules either, arrived for the first race with the Alfa on tyres that weren't strictly legal. Some geeky dude in a Lancia Beta saw the tyres and muttered something about “naughty tyres” and that’s how the car got its name. Anyway, Olly was always a tad slower than me, so I sandbagged in qualifying to give him a better starting position for race one. He had a fair race, finished somewhere midfield. And then it was my turn, he-he-he… I decided to hell with the breakout rule for the second race and carved through the field like a deranged axe murderer, crossed the line in first place when the flag dropped, only to be disqualified afterwards. Kinda dumb, yeah, I know. Who cares? I passed more cars than I care to remember and it was a hoot slicing past two or three cars under braking into some corners.

Naughty Tyres, he-he-he… It was a good stand-by track toy, not really all that ‘valuable’, so we could thrash it about at track days without having to worry too much about binning it. On one occasion we had the car at Zwartkops Raceway along with our Porsches. The plan was to do some back to back laps in the Alfa and compare notes. I went out first and stuck in four or five flying laps. Well to be honest, I’m not so sure whether “flying” is the operative word for such a slow car, he-he. Olly did a few laps and we got talking about sweet the car was under braking. We were both impressed by how late we were able to brake in the Alfa. The BMW 5-series brakes were designed for a much heavier car, so when you hit the clamps the little car slowed down very quickly.

The next session Olly went out in his Porsche and I followed suit a lap later in mine. Two laps into the session I arrived at the Table Top to see Olly’s cheeky black 911 parked in the run-off area with him standing looking at the car and scratching his head in confusion even though he still had his helmet on. He-he-he, too funny for words! Mind you, he actually spoiled my lap. I packed up laughing and almost stuffed up the next corner. It was one of those funny track moments you never forget, it sticks in your mind like a movie clip. Just as well the session got red-flagged a lap later. Some dude in a brand spanking new Nissan Skyline locked up all fours under braking into the Hairpin and pitched it into the corner anyway, but he carried way too much speed and went off sideways into the kitty litter. The car dug in and flipped onto its roof, poor bastard. It was all too obvious. The skid-marks told the story.

Back in the pit I questioned Olly about his mishap in the Table Top. He had no idea what happened, told me he hit brakes and the car just skidded straight off into the runoff. Gave me the proverbial Oil- on-the-track excuse, he-he. I didn’t swallow that. I was on the same line and would’ve joined him in the runoff if there was any fluid on the track. A few well-aimed questions later and I got behind the truth – He was braking at the fifty metre mark like he did in Naughty Tyres. In his Porsche he probably carried three times more speed there, a dumb mistake that became a good party story, he-he-he…

And that was that. Olly joined the emigrating gravy train to Australia a few years later ‘cause he got fed-up with the increasing violent crime in South Africa. I was too busy with other things to worry about Naughty Tyres for the next few years, so I parked it. And then one day I got to hear about a youngster who gave up his life in Cape Town and moved to Johannesburg simply because there were more opportunities to get involved in motorsport up here. His story kinda touched my heart and I gave him the car to race. I’m happy I did that, he put his heart and soul into Naughty Tyres and is still racing the car today and doing very well too, but that’s another story…

Cheers,
Pierre.

wlittleman

That's a great story! I enjoyed reading it.

cello

^ +1; plus that car is just beautiful.

Chaos

There are rules,alot of pictures and a few girlfriend pics go along way toward credibility !!!

Chaos

Every now and then you find a true diamond post on rennlist,this is it for 2008 !

TRT41

You do well with the petal and the pen, great stories. Keep posting them.

Pierre Martins

Thanks.

I got plenty more ribbon in my tripe writer. You guys like 'em - I'll keep 'em coming.

Cheers,
Pierre.

Pierre Martins

Got invited to a private test day yesterday. Schumi's '94 Benetton was there, two Formula Renaults, a Shelby CanAm sports prototype like the one I tested a few months ago and a newish BMW track/race tin top. Very interesting day, I've certainly learned a lot. I'll post more pics and a report shortly.

Cheers,
Pierre.

Pierre Martins

I figured it's time to update this threadn so here's the story about the F1 / Formula Renault test day -

On the 3rd of December last year On the Track Racing (the mag I write for) got invited to attend a private testing session at Phakisa Raceway. I was told there would be a couple of Formula Renaults, a Shelby Can-Am, a BMW group N car and last, but not least, Michael Schumacher’s old Benetton F1 car. I was also told to bring my helmet and race suit along, no promises, but you never know. So there’s the dilemma. - A 600km round trip in the middle of the week for an off chance of getting some seat time in something exciting. Besides that, I was already semi-switched off from track driving for what was left of 2008. Hey of course I went! Do you honestly think I would give up a chance behind the wheel of an F1 car, even if it was just a remote possibility? Best case scenario was I’d come back with the most awesome driving experience under the belt, worst scenario was I’d come back with that age old adage in the back of my mind that a bad day at the track beats a good day at work, anytime….

The day was arranged by Sunshine Testing, a new venture created in March 2008 by Alan Eve, Greg Canny and Neville Jordon with the acquisition of two Formula Renault race cars that were purchased from Antonio Ferrari, owner of the world renowned Team Euro International. (Euro International won the European 2004 Formula Renault V6 championship) The idea behind Sunshine Testing is to attract aspiring Formula One drivers and afford them the opportunity to test in South Africa and prepare themselves for the transition into a world class single seater race car. Quite a nifty concept methinks. It makes sense for Europeans to test here, given the favourable EUR/ZAR exchange rate, ideal South African weather and testing in proper race cars like the Formula Renaults in a professional environment with driver-to-pit radios, electronic display steering wheels, data loggers, pit stop simulations and whatnot.

I had a good look and I can tell you that up close the Formula Renaults are really proper world class single seaters in every detail. – 3.5litre Renault V6 making about 272kw and 378nm torque, coupled to a carbon fibre monocoque chassis with carbon fibre bodywork. Suspension uses torsion bars with adjustable shocks and coil-overs. They’ve got proper carbon brakes, semi-auto boxes with paddle shifts on the steering wheel, the whole shootin’ match. The package weighs in at +/- 590kg (sans driver) and I’m told they’re good for speeds up to about 290km/h and lap times in the high 1’28” to low 1’29”s around Phakisa in the hands of a good driver. Be that as it may, the car that had immediately grabbed my attention was the B194 Benetton, the car that Schumi scored his first F1 driver’s championship with in 1994. Nowadays the car is owned by one of the big honchos of SA Breweries and was bought from a US collection without an engine. The Cosworth V8 was sourced separately from the UK and is correct and authentic to this car, though it was not one of the engines used in the car during the ’94 season. Total package amounted to just over ZAR3mil. The owner is an A-class rookie track driver by his own admission and had not yet driven the car. It's only seen track time twice in the last two years. Once in 2007 in the hands of Gary Formato during a few demo laps at Kyalami during the Pro-Tour, lapping very slow in the 1'36"s if I remember right.

The Phakisa test day would be the second outing for the B194 in recent years and was arranged primarily so Alan vd Merwe could get some seat time behind the wheel of the Benetton, but my mouth was watering…

DAW Racing looks after the Sunshine Testing cars, as well as the Benetton and I was delighted to see Peter Jacquet when we walked in. I had met him a few months before when I tested the Shelby Can-Am, so my hopes of getting a drive suddenly went up a few notches and I joked that I’d offer up parts of my anatomy for a drive in the Benetton. But this wasn’t Peter’s show. He was just there to prep the cars and told me that even though he had no problems with me driving the Benetton, we would have to ask Alan Eve and/or the owner of the F1 car if we wanted a test in the F1 or Formula Renaults.

So that was that. I wasn’t about to walk up to a stranger who doesn’t know me from a bar of soap and say “Hi, I’m Joe Soap and I’d like a spin in your gazillion Rand single seater”.., so I decided on the next best thing – Look, listen and learn. I guess every Tom, Dick and Harry petrolhead have dreams of driving an F1 car one day, but if you had to think about it seriously, would you be able to actually drive the thing? That little pip-squeak Hammond from Top Gear made a big hoo-ha about how violent an F1 car is and whatnot. Hell, he couldn’t even pull off in the thing, or was that just showing off for the camera? See that’s what I don’t get about people’s blind belief in the opinions and statements made by the presenters of Top Gear. Don’t get me wrong, I really love the show, but to me it’s just car-comedy. It’s just a TV show and JC is not the messiah of the motoring world. I don’t take anything that comes out of Jeremy Clarkson’s mouth as gospel. Hell, I don’t even take The Stig’s lap times seriously. You can actually see him drive for the camera. When a car under-steers he’d induce more under-steer instead of driving around the problem as any good driver should do when hunting lap times…

But that’s an argument for another day. Peter Jacquet had the Benetton ready, Alan vd Merwe fired the thing up and I was all eyes and ears. Two things always hit you about F1 cars in action. They’re incredibly loud and incredibly fast. Words cannot describe the experience, but I was looking beyond the noise and sheer straight line speed of the thing. Van der Merwe wasn’t hanging about. This car had traction control and he hoofed it coming out of corners, car looked quite impressive. Down the pit straight I could see that the steering ratio was quite sharp. The slightest movement of his hand on the wheel and the car would dart to the side. Braking and turn-in looked pretty similar to what I’m used to in a 250 Superkart, but he was trailing the throttle into turn One. I would have wanted to be back on the throttle earlier. Sadly the car was geared too short and he kept bouncing off the limiter down the back straight, so he only did five or six laps and came in. I made sure I was nearby to hear his feedback after the session. First thing he mentioned was that it didn’t feel like an old car. With traction control and paddle shift on the sequential box it was surprisingly easy to drive, but he complained about being flung about inside the car due to incorrect seat and driving position. That’s understandable. It’s horrible driving a fast car with an incorrect driving position. Another thing he complained about was the pedal arrangement. It was set up for right-foot braking and the brake pedal was tiny. I don’t believe that Michael Schumacher didn’t left foot brake in this car, so the pedal arrangement must have been changed afterwards for someone who couldn’t left-foot brake. And that was that. It was time for us to hit the road back to Gauteng. Alan vd Merwe’s lap times were kinda slow for the first session, but that was to be expected with short gearing and all. He did manage to get the car into the low twenties the day after.

Do I think I can drive a car like the Benetton B194 properly? At the risk of sounding like Hamster - This is not a get-in-and-drive jobby. It's ridiculously fast. You first need to prepare yourself mentally and physically, but being brutally honest with myself, - Yes, I think I can punch it for ten to fifteen laps at a reasonably quick pace, but for now it remains just a dream. Nevertheless, the car’s owner has indicated that he would like to have the car featured in On the Track Racing sometime in the future, so who knows…?

Cheers,
Pierre.