Hey, that's great. Always nice to make progress.

It's about time....

I had an epiphany last week regarding timing on the race car and finally had a chance to check it out last night. Sure enough the timing was way, way out. A quick and easy correction, a little tune up, and I hit the road.

http://vimeo.com/14062651

btw, if you can see it, 12 o'clock on the speedo is 80mph and it is calibrated :)

All I can say is holy sh*t! She's fast and only making about 10psi until I hit detonation from having way too much timing. She's also running pig rich but that's a little less of a problem. Seat of the pants dyno says 275-ish and there's still a lot on tap.

SWEET Driving Man.. that does look Scary fast lol
can't wait to see it on the track :)

Chris.

The car looks to handle very well and reving to fast!!!

Nice video; looks like a lot of fun to drive such a car on that road!

Nice stretch of road. Thanks for the video.

Small update...

Getting ready for the dyno day on wed. by swapping out the plugs for colder ones. While I was doing that I pulled an oil hose loose :P I decided to swap the fitting out to help relieve some stress on the line, went from a -8 straight fitting to a -8 45* which is a bit longer but at least angled in the right direction. While I was at it I did a valve adjustment but most of them didn't need any adjustment.

Getting anxious, will definitely get video :D

:thumbup:

After a long day the results are in!

Even though the graph says crank hp, there's no correction factor so this is actual wheel horsepower. 240hp/225trq and 21psi @ 7000rpm The turbo comes on a lot like a supercharger very smooth and linear, not at all what I was expecting.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...3.jpg~original

Jei at blacktrax tuned the car in about 2 hours, nearly 2 dozen pulls, head temps never hit 325 and it was over 90 degrees outside. I'd say those are pretty respectable numbers and 240whp is still pretty damn fast in an 1800 lb car.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...3.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...0.jpg~original

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y-e5y-fAoo

I was really hoping for 300-350hp and I know it's there for sure but I don't think it'll last 5 minutes on the track without over heating, it sure as hell wouldn't last in the desert. I'll feel out the car and dial in the suspension next, but I'll still dream about adding more power :)

nice, curious about that intake pipe though, it doesnt seem to be mounted to anything much, shakes alot in the video roughly 1/2 way thru the pulls

ooh, get some exhaust wrap or something for the piping around it too! - assuming its all steel? (looks like it is)

Hi ,
DO u have an intercooler on your engine? I can't quite see one unless it's in the rear parcel tray? 21psi of boost without an intercooler is pretty huge! I only run 8psi with a WAIC setup, the other day on the way to pick up the kids from school, I noticed that my air intake temp guage on my dash started rising. Turned out to be nothing more than a bit of faulty wiring on the water pump for the intercooler, BUT, the intake temps rose 15degrees higher than where they normally sit & it's winter over here at the moment! I also kept my foot out of it all the way home, I'm just a bit pedantic. Just something to think about, thinking about 21psi with no intercooler scares me.
If u do have an intercooler, ignore all of the above. LOL
regards
jak

STIDUB: The intake pipe wasn't really secured on the dyno but normally it's tied to the oil filler neck. All the piping (exhaust and intake) has been ceramic coated. It was all wrapped up before but constant oil leaks soaked the wrap in oil causing it to smoke badly so I removed it. I'll probably wrap it again before the rainy season hits.

jakriz: This is no intercooler but I am using 50/50 water/alcohol injection which keeps the intake temps reasonable. The last logs I had said 150F-170F under boost and the motor was poorly tuned. I want to grab new logs to see what kind of temps I'm hitting post dyno. I do know that I have 16* advance/21lbs boost @ 6000 rpm without detonation on a 90F day so it can't be too wild.

WOW, thats pretty high mate. Are those temps with the water/alcohol injection on? Do u have ceramic coated pistons? how long does the water/alcohol injection last for before u have to fill it up?

Mine only gets up to 113F max on a 95F day on the track 6 laps , roughly 12 minutes flat out. i wouldn't feel comfortable with mine going anymore than 86F above ambient for any length of time.

is there any particular reason u don't have an intercooler? Since your car is so wild looking an air to air unit wouldn't look out of place under the wing maybe?

really interesting thread
regards
jak

Nice numbers! I'm starting to wonder why I went to a subaru! haha.

Just for interests sake in my subaru at 90-95F ambient, anything over 14 psi will give intake temps 150F + (post intercooler) fairly quickly, and anything near 150F it will start to detonate. Although I don't have any injection and my intercooler sucks because of packaging restraints (going to air to water this winter).

I'm with Jak, on your setup it just seems like it would be very easy to mount a huge air/air intercooler that could make big horsepower with a lot less worry?

Sweet ride though, that thing is going to be FUN.

Mike

I was hoping the water/alcohol injection would be enough to keep the air temps down but that may not be the case. I have most of the parts for a very robust air/water setup which may find it's way into the car after the paint is done. I've considered a large air/air like wally has done but the wing scrapes off a lot of the air flow that would make it work effectively. The other option was to use E85 fuel which would cool everything significantly but the mileage is so bad I would drain a 12 gal tank in 20-30min of track time.

I'll do some more logging and fine tuning this weekend to get a better idea of actual temps. The shop that tuned the bug also offered to fab up a water/air core for me so I may take them up on that offer. Once I have some real numbers to work with it might change how soon I get something built.

Went for a quick jaunt this morning with a friend manning the laptop from the passenger seat and got some good logs (scary logs too). I'm still sifting through it but suffice to say 65F ambient, 130F-170F under moderate (10-15 psi) 180F-200F under heavy boost (15-24psi). I see a water/air intercooler in my very near future. The good news is that even at 24psi/6.5k rpm injector duty cycle was around 84% so I think the 750cc were perfectly sized. I'm really impressed that the water injection keeps detonation at bay and cools the heads effectively with intake temps like these.

Got a little work in this weekend even though I intended to relax. Funny how that works out. I pulled the bumper out of storage to see how it would fit, then made a few measurements and next this you know I've got a cutting disc on the grinder... Then this happened :)

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...3.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...1.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...7.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...6.jpg~original

This is a very preliminary setup but I think it gets the point across. I went with the ronal spoiler because I has a flat bottom and a good clean profile. I feel bad for cutting it up but I hadn't seen anything else that would do. I widened the bumper 10" and the ronal spoiler by 13" to get the perfect fitment. I'll fill in most of the hole in the spoiler leaving an opening for the air/water radiator. Next it will get a splitter/front under tray which will support the air dam and give it a lot more strength. Eventually I want to use this setup to make a master to pull a one piece bumper/air dam from so spares are easy to make.

Hi

I thought you were showing a photo of your car with a roof rack at 1st. When I read further I realized my mistake

Steve

I thought he was going to talk about the no headlight ring look
:D

Putting the FAT back in "Fat Chick"!:D

Looking good and functional there!
I do hope your ground clearence is enough; it does work better that low otot ;)
Let us know how the difference feels with/without the air dam when you have finished it. I have an idea already tho :D

I'm not sure if the headlights will stay or not since this is a race car first and foremost. I may just put aluminum discs in place to eliminate a couple pounds of glass.

I will definitely need to raise her up in the front at least 1-1.5" because the down force from the air dam and splitter will pull it back down at least that much. Talking to a few US touring car teams, I might need to swap in heavier springs to compensate as well.

I've learned a few more aero tricks that I'm going to try and implement on the car before the race season kicks off next year. I've also got a friend who's willing to do some paint/body work for me so hopefully that happens in the next month or so.

First race in the race car! She's fast, but had grip problems up front and I didn't realize why until I got home. I was trying to chase down the buggies and got within 2 seconds of them on a short technical course. I think 1 second of that is suspension (it wasn't anywhere near dialed in) and 1 second of that is tires (they are on real slicks and I'm on grooved semi-slicks).

I spent the entire autox run in first gear, topping out at 52mph when bouncing on the rev limiter. During the 4th run I hit 24psi max but built so much case pressure it blew out the 1-2 valve cover gasket. Even though there was no rear sway bar there was much more body roll than I expected. I may do some more trimming down (doors especially) and corner weigh the car again, to make sure my springs aren't too soft.

On the way home, about a half mile from my house, the rear passenger lower shock mount broke with a loud bang. The bolt just sheered in half. I know of dozens of 944 track cars using these racers edge bolts so I didn't expect mine to fail. After looking at the pics I'm pretty sure I was bottomed out on the rear coilovers, which would explain the excessive understeer I saw, and all that force went into the bolt.

Now for the good stuff :)

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...o.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...o.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...o.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...o.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...o.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...0.jpg~original

I was only able to get 1 video, because I thought the camera was on during the other runs and it wasn't :P This was my quickest run, finishing in 58.5.

http://vimeo.com/15360537

hi love the car :)


cheers andy

Wow,

Never seen any of those Racer's Edge bolts break..

Looking good BTW..
VR
ALex

Cool report! Thanks!
Good pics, but they do show you need more sway bar and/or more spring for a racer imo. I agree, it must have bottomend out and hammering the bolt. Can't you get some snubbers mounted somehow (inside the shock or in the original location)?

What rear coil-overs did you use there in the rear again?
Tnx,
Walter

The biggest front bar I've found is a 7/8" I'm not sure if there is anything larger. I have an 18mm rear 944 bar to go in but I didn't want to add it until the springs were close to final. I honestly didn't expect the rears to bottom out because the general consensus was the rear springs were much to stiff. Looking at the pics I thought even the fronts were overkill but they're a bit too soft as well.

Right now the springs are 300# front and 550# rear and I think I might add 50% to that and run 450# front and slightly more 900# rear. I talked to a porsche racer at a track day and his car weighed in at 2200# and he was using 1000# front and 1350# rear! The same porsche was also on 17x11 front and 17x13 rear wheels w/ slicks.

The rear shocks are QA1 single adjustables, which I'll swap out for double adjustables, and put the singles on the street bug. I'll have to find some snubbers that fit in the shocks to hopefully prevent them from bottoming out.

I agree I haven't seen ever more then 7/8" front sway bar.
The spring upgrade steps you plan are very large! I think I have 300 front too and they could be more too, but I was more thinking of 350 as a first upgrade... you made me doubt, so very curious what your experience will be as I am not ready for that yet.
Maybe the porche guy had 1000 front for both springs together haha!

Tnx for the infos.

I can't believe that you need such high spring poundages!? The video and the pictures don't give the impression of a soft suspension. Have you checked the tyre temps? If so, are they fairly even across the tread? From the temps you should be able to see if the suspension s working correctly. How much stroke do you have on the QA1s? They should be set for approx 40% up and 60% down and the springs should be coil bound (without bumpstops) before you hit the top of the stroke.
You can get poly bumpstops in all configurations and I would invest in those because relying on coil binding is not to be encouraged.
The roll does not look exaggerated but are you losing traction anywhere?
As you go higher with the spring rates you will need to valve the dampers to match. I much prefer softer springs/stiffer dampers rather than the otherway around.

As I recall QA1 actually sells snubbers that go onto the shaft. That's what I've got up front on mine.

Jason

the understeer you are getting is it slow or high speed? is it happerning under power or on first turn in? mine suffered from understeer on the exit of slow corners under power and until i had some video of the car i could not work out why. under full power coming out of slow corners it was almost pulling wheelies and i have a lot less power than you, raising the rear helped this. In high speed corners i was getting turn in problems, some toe out on the rear helped a bit but putting the front spolier/splitter on cured most of it.
looking at your car it seems very low on the suspension although the ride hieght is not bad due to the wheel size. going up on ride hieght might help as it will let the suspension do its job, allowing more travel thus letting the tyre grip, when you go from a spring to solid [ethier on the bum,p stop or coil bind] the wheel rate goes through the roof and kills grip no matter what tyres you are running.
i see your running coil overs on the rear, is this with the torsion bars as well?
i would try and go up on the front anti roll bar, kercher do a 22mm one. once thats on get a 944 20mm rear bar, in fact get as many rear bars as you can get hold of and test test test. tyre temps will let know when your getting close and then it getting it right for your style of driving. if your just sticking it in to corners and planting the throttle i dont think any suspension set up is going to help as a light rear engined car with your sort of power is allways going to understeer.
dont take this the wrong way but take a look at how your driving the car, might be a case of tweeking your driving style to match the car rather than trying to set the car up to match your driving stlye.
Hhave fun.
cheers rob

Turn in was fantastic, trail braking into a corner planted the nose and she dove right in, but when the weight transferred back I'm pretty sure i was on the stops on the outside rear. I could just breathe on the throttle and she would plow coming out of high and low speed corners, but it was easier to see on the low speed. The ride height is actually too low, I knew that going in but I thought the springs had enough travel and poundage to cope, but that wasn't the case. The rear coilovers are the only rear spring, there's no torsion bars in this setup. I'll have to keep my eyes open for different rear bars. I want it to be slightly softer in the rear for grip and stability coming out of corners, so I'll probably try a few different rear bars like you said. I noticed the problem on my first run and had to drive around it the rest of the morning. I was anticipating problems though and didn't expect it to be perfect. The last few events this year are all test sessions to prepare for next years point race :)

As it was I placed 3rd in my target class, and 22nd of 105 in raw time with a shake down weekend. I'd say that's not a bad start :)

deffo sounds sound like going solid on the outside rear, increase in ride hieght and a rear anti roll bar will help. i would try not to go too hard on the spring rate, try and reduce the roll with anti roll bars. be carefull with going to hard on the anti roll bars as you can turn it in to a drift car all to esay.

Got a little work done on the car this weekend. Crawled under there and tried to get the bolt out but it's too hard for the bolt extractor. I've got another pair of trailing arms on order so I'll swap it out to get to the next race. That should make getting the bolt out a bit easier as well.

Since I was under the car I swapped out the rear springs for some longer (9" vs 7") 550# springs so I can dial in some more ride height. I had some tell tale o-rings on the shock shaft and sure enough both sides had bottomed out. When the new racer's edge bolts come in I'll probably replace the driver's side for good measure. I also noticed that the new inner cv boots on both axles are toast, cracked and torn all the way through. I'm half tempted to drop the car off at the shop to take care of the fiddly stuff. :P

We've had these inconvenient weather cycles lately, nice during the week but raining on the weekend. I finally got a break this weekend and got a chance to replace the trailing arm.

Old arm comes out easy enough
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...4.jpg~original

Close up of the shock bolt, I wasn't able to drill very far into in
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...5.jpg~original

the new set of aluminum arms came from a '90 944 S2. The casting is a bit different, no bump stop pads, lightly trimmed, the abs ports are drilled out, and it's 1-2 lbs lighter than the turbo trailing arm.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...6.jpg~original

Abs stub axle is slightly different
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...8.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...7.jpg~original

Finally back together, waiting on new cv boots since the new set I just put on disintegrated
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...0.jpg~original

Lastly updated engine pics, I replaced the oil cap with a filter breather to relieve case pressure under boost, and rerouted the oil out line to get it away from the exhaust

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...1.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...2.jpg~original

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...3.jpg~original

Due to weather and life in general the bug's been parked since the end of September. I finally got the new trailing arm in, replaced the ripped CV boots, and put it all back together. Yesterday, since it was so nice, I raised the front suspension 1.5" and took the bug out for a quick spin to test the new mods.

The filter that replaced the oil cap is now oiled, I plan to put a white towel around it to see how much oil is blowing out. I hit 23psi or so a few times and the valve cover gaskets stayed put so we'll see how it does at the autox on sunday. Just need to get an alignment done on saturday and get the wipers working.

It's been too long since I last drove the bug and I totally forgot how ridiculously fast it is. I'm used to going quick but I was shaking with adrenaline after I hopped out of the car... 4 hours later! Can't wait for sunday now :D

Glad to hear that it has a pulse again.

very nice can't wait to See the pics ;)


Chris.

Last couple of events had to be run in my DD unfortunately. Rained out in Jan and Frozen out in Feb. It was too cold to start the bug (28F, needs cold start adjustments) and I had thought about using a heat gun in the intake to get it going but ran out of time. I really wish I had got it started because the day warmed up beautifully and not a cloud in the sky.

Recently, I've been trying to get the suspension aligned but have had a couple of non-starts. I'll call an alignment shop, ask if they do custom alignments and describe the bug. When I pick up the bug, no work was done because they were afraid to change anything. They didn't think I meant "Custom" alignment :P This has happened a couple times now. I have an appointment with another shop next week who has aligned actual race cars, and custom built specials, so if weather holds up it'll finally get done.

Roger Krause Racing in Castro Valley, they race and have good prices too. I know it's a bit of a drive, but it might be worth it if the place you've selected doesn't work out for you. They can do corner weighting and alignment at the same time.

510-582-5031