kiwi 911

Doug's car should be called "the terrier" - coz it has a nice bark and likes to **** its leg on corners.....
.

Maxem

That looks like a titanium bmx I had once. Is it Ti?
I picked up a scruffy old BMX which had a cracked frame. I went to it with a welder and blew big holes in it. Got the pro's onto it and they found it to be a Ti frame. Bonus. I sand blasted it and clear coated the frame. Choice aye?

O2GO

Really interesting to watch your videos. Gives a real feel for it. It looked pretty challenging running without 3rd gear. Thanks for sharing! And well done to you and your team. Like others have said, every time we saw you you had huge smiles :-)

O2GO

Swapped out my track wheels for road wheels tonight and found a nail embedded in one of the rear track wheels. Still running at the right pressure so lucky it didn't develop into more. Of course I could have picked it up anywhere over the event or the last couple of days between here and work.

Glad we didn't get a flat Paul.

Ridgeline911

Thanks Doug was certainly quite an adventure. We both had a blast.

The tour and race are very separate, it's a shame we couldn't connect more often.

gt38088

wow that's lucky Doug, could have been a bit sticky if you had a slow puncture on stage, but no harm resulted so all good.

gt38088

Macca I suppose the good news is relative. I had no idea gear sets were that expensive! I suppose pdk will be even more expensive if that had to be rebuilt. The Nissan GTR's always seem to have some gearbox issues on Targa but often that's because they are 700-800hp whereas Porsche pdk seems much more reliable at least at standard HP. In your circumstances I think I would just use one car for motorsport not both!

Macca

Graeme. What I learned is nothing about Porsche ownership comes cheap!
No idea about the cost of rebuilding a PDk box as reading the forums they seem pretty reliable but there are a few benefits with a box like that in the GT3. Firstly it's new with 4 years warranty. Second it rev matches so no chance of repeated botched heel & toe. Lastly you can't money shift it so the valve train should stay intact.
The issue with the g50 is that although it's hardy ( mine is showing wear early at 90 k km) generally they are good for 150k km even with a bit of track work. Most of the hard core track enthusiasts are rebuilding them every 3-4 years tho. Unfortunately the zf g50 was well built but expensive compared to G15. I priced up a full set of 993 cup gears today put of the states g50/30 and they were 8400 usd. With steel synchros 13500 used and that's without the sleeve guides which if needed run 800 used each! Basically it's no longer viable to regear a g50 box a real shame as they did factory exchange units up until 2006 which were only 6000 used plus core!

Macca

Paul my waste line has expanded further since SITT so I know what you mean! Will start the exercise regime next week!

I like the bike fetish. Have a couple of vintage mRNA in storage shed including Porsche FS full suspension (unriddin) and my favourite an old canon dale 3.0 pound frame (when they made them in USA).

I'm not sure what your rear suspension problem is but I'm guessing all your critical rear toe arms are exhibiting play since you started tracking that car which was basically mothballed 10 years. Have stu check them for play. Maybe after that try rear shims.

John. I think a gearbox job is unavoidable in this hobby. Nigel just done one Paul has done one Matts needs doing probably this year and yours and dougs are showing the early signs. You have rebuilt an engine Paul has and peter M all in last 15 months. Let's face it - it comes with the territory!

John McM

Macca, I can't speak for Doug, but mine only does it when the red mist descends on the track. The synchros are without a doubt worn, but can cope with normal shifts without a problem.

At HD we are talking about 2 shifts per lap coming out of the slower corners. I can short shift or pause between shifts and save myself many $000s in rebuild costs. I doubt it will change my times much either. Mind you, first up I need to take out 1.19.50....

gt38088

John, seems to be some divergence here - take it easy on some shifts but .... grrr gonna take out 19.5....for sure taking out that objective is gonna make the box worse.

Macca at that price maybe you should just go the whole hog and ring up Tuthills and see if their dog box will fit and what price? Then you can shift as fast as your hand will move...... Then use gt3 for touring since its better for that anyway. There you go easy.

Macca

John. My box never played up once on the road until after Levels. Actually thats a lie on the longer Targa Tour stages in 2012 it played up a little. Maybe only a dozen times over 34 stages. The only time I really noticed it in every day driving was after Levels. As you know form the in car footage by this time I was having real trouble with the shifts and by Ruapuna it was basically impossible on track. On the drive from CHCH to Auckland Joanna took over the wheel for a few hours and found it very hard to get into 2nd even on teh road. Ive since learned its all to do with heat and the fact I thought it was loads on the track was irrelevant - once you have wear in the synchros you are causing heat on the the gear collar and the guide sleeve and will have to replace both almost certainly if you have been running like this for a while. The gear sleeve is $1400+ GST ex EMD and the synchro around $300 NZD so you can see how quickly it builds up if a few gears are affected. Unfortunately when you have a problem between two gears if yo dont address it fairly quickly (within say a year or so depending on usage) it will affect more than one gear set components eventually. I am no gearbox expert I have learnt more on the subject this week than I knew before from a number of long calls with Dean and email exchange with Steve. It makes no difference to me what folk do but Im just saying - after what Ive learned if you are already having the symptoms for a year on the track start thinking about doing it in the near future and save yourself further expense - only if its a keeper I guess.

Sean. An oil cooler is a good idea and would certainly reduce the onset of such issues because as I said its largely about heat in there once something isnt functioning 100% perfect. Ill look into it for one day (first would like to do a aux oil cooler for the engine because if I spend large on that donk in the future I will want to protect it. For teh gearbox in truth a properly functioning G50 should be find even run hard at the track for the work we are doing (15 min sessions). However long term it would be a useful addition I guess.

Graeme. Just the mention of Tuthill makes the box you speak of a 20K NZD+++ exercise LOL!. The G50 is the strongest manual box porsche designed for road use and Im sure it will hold together just fine once I have it rebuilt and exercise more caution rev matching (or abandon that idea on track altogether). We will see how the GT3 goes at Taupo & HD. My decision to hold back using it as a regular track car will be determined only my my experience on track with it and in truth I want to crack a few personal goals on the track in the 993 first. I reckon there is 2s at least improvement on most of the tracks Ive driven in the 993 so far - at the moment the driver is probably over half that difference and I hope by the NITT the car compoent of that will have been addressed finally with the gearbox and some fine tweaking/development of teh suspension, bigger brakes with better pads etc. By the end of 2014 the car should be a fairly developed and reliable touring/targatour/track platform for a few years (new bearings all round, CVs front and rear, drive shafts x 2, gearbox, brake system, tyres, wheels, suspension arms all round top and bottom etc). There will be no hardware excuses any longer. It will all be on the drivers head after that!

kiwi 911

What ever.............

I'm laughing so hard it hurts..........

John McM

Point taken Macca. I suspect we're all learning the hard way that hard running on the track is expensive and likely points towards running dedicated race cars as a better long term option. Not sure I have the financial stomach for that otherwise I'll never be able to downshift or retire.

gt38088

Can certainly run a dedicated msport car on the budget that many here are already spending just not Pcar that's all.