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Any updates on the car Mark? Interested in how everything turned out! With pics! (especially of your new wing). I was at Watkins recently with NASA HPDE hoping to see the car.
Any updates on the car Mark? Interested in how everything turned out! With pics! (especially of your new wing). I was at Watkins recently with NASA HPDE hoping to see the car.
I'll update this today. You going to NJMP with NASA next week? I'll be racing.
Well the car was on track at NJMP about 2 weeks ago and everything went fairly well. However since the last update I had some serious headaches with the car. I brought the car to a shop in New Jersey to work on the tune. He got the car on the dyno and told me the clutch was slipping. "Nonsense," I replied. "That whole clutch assembly has 2 hours on it." Sure enough it was slipping. Long story short I had the car trailered over to Julio at Cartek, who went through the clutch, and found the Porsche shop that installed the clutch put all mismatched parts in my car. Wrong slave, wrong clutch kit, and the fingers were all bent. I was pissed. So yet another new OE clutch went in the car, this time with the correct parts. Julio dyno'd the car and tuned it for a flat 380whp. Also have an unlimited tune which only bumped it to 400whp. I was little bummed since I was hoping the Fast 102 would add some power just in case I wanted to run TTU from time to time, but the engine was built with the camshaft limiting horsepower, and that's definitely the case. Maybe someday I'll throw a bigger cam in just for a big TTU number, but at least the motor is built like a brick **** house and thusly should last forever at 380whp (knock on some wood).
After I got the car back from Julio I had 4 days to squeeze in the remaining work I had to do before the car was track ready. The list was long, but the main points were aero and cooling. I finished boxing in the radiator with a little help from some Gorilla tape to seal the gaps. I told myself this was going to be the season that my car didn't need tape to run, but maybe next season. When I got the car on track in the morning water temps were at 160. I thought my gauge was broken. Sho' nuff the boxing in of the (huge) radiator and leaning it forward made all the difference it was supposed to. Water never got over 180 during the 84 degree days at NJMP. It was routinely at 220 last season so that was a welcome change.
Next I added my 1/2'' wood splitter just like the last one I had. I was able to salvage most of the supports from my car after it hit the wall, but the main center support was too bent to re-use and I didn't order a replacement in time. So I tied the splitter to the frame without the front support in place. Will try to get that sorted before the coming weekend at NJMP, but it might not happen. The front of the bumper was wide open at testing so front downforce certainly wasn't optimized. Aero balance felt great on the car, but I'm really looking forward to sealing up the front so no air is getting into the engine bay at all.
I was so pressed for time that I couldn't paint the whole splitter. Just the part that anyone would see!
I didn't do anything too fancy with the swan neck mount. Just had to crap something out to get the car on track. At some point this season I'll do something much sexier and aero-profile a new mount. Also want it a couple inches higher, but this works for now. This is another product we'll have available should someone not want to spend $1000 plus on AJs carbon fiber swan neck mounts. Yes the shop is a mess at the moment - don't judge me.
Car was mostly good on track at NJMP. I didn't have any ABS, so I definitely lit up my used Pirellis a couple of times and squared them off pretty good. I was checking wires all over the car to make sure there was good power and grounds going to the ABS computer and there were. Perplexed, I just lived without ABS for the two days. Car also started to run like **** Monday night. Tuesday morning same thing. I got under the car getting ready to put it on the trailer, and Lo a sparkplug wire was falling off. Plugged it back in and suddenly the car ran great again on 8 cylinders. I've since replaced them all with MSDs. Also sent the ABS computer to Brandon at ABS Fixer. Power supply was indeed fried. Sent it back, plugged it, and all seems well on the OE dash as well as my Racetech Dash so hopefully that's all sorted.
Car was ugly, but it worked. You can see I added some rather large endplates of my own design to the wing. I was running way more angle in the back then I had originally thought, which I didn't realize til end of Day 2. I was at something like 12 degrees of angle, which might as well be an air brake. Dialed it back to 6 degrees and I went 2 seconds faster. I'll probably run it at 3-4 degrees next weekend and see how it feels.
Final business before this next race was fitting the rear big fenders and painting the car. Went with a Red Carbon Gloss from plastdip. Results are OK. Car will look great from 5 feet out, but she won't win any prizes at Pebble Beach. I learned alot in the painting process, and it if I hate it I can peel it off and start over. But she should look pretty sharp in the light.
Final order of business this week is to seal up the front bumper, install the AJ Hartman canards, swap in some new harnesses, and then go racing! Racing with NASA at NJMP Lightning next weekend and we have 9 cars signed up for ST2. Can't wait!
Last edited by Mark@AMT Motorsport; 04-30-2017 at 04:04 PM.
I'll update this today. You going to NJMP with NASA next week? I'll be racing.
Thanks for the update. Wing looks great and glad she is staying cool now. I'm down at the Glen right now with the BMW club. It is a mob scene. I am going to try to get to your race at NJMP. Good luck either way.
03-20-2017, 06:16 PM
