2003 Porsche 911 Turb-OOOOH

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. 

Let's gooooooooooh!

Track day yesterday went well in that I had fun and the car performed flawlessly.  No issues with cooling, as I suspected the mesh made zero difference. 

Power was definitely there, I gained +8-9mph on the back straight.  However I couldn't match my best time from last season, let alone beat it.  I came within 1/2 second of it, but I just wasn't consistent at all.  I'd do a fairly quick lap, then the next 3 laps couldn't come within 2 seconds of what I just did.  I was playing around with different gears in different corners but figured that out pretty quickly, so at that point should've been consistent.  I need to check my corner speeds on the Catalyst yesterday vs the fast lap last year.  Obviously I changed a lot and I need to get used to it.  It's very possible I'm over braking since I've got so much more power now and my brain hasn't adjusted yet, so I'm over slowing on corner entry.

I'm also wondering if my rear tires have aged out.  I stored them in bags in my heated basement over the winter, but they are ~2-3 seasons old with probably 20+ heat cycles on them.  I also think I'm getting close to cording them and previous experience has shown me they drop off ~2 seconds a lap once they're about done.  I've got another set of used (but in better shape) rear tires in my basement, so I might just swap those on before the next event in June.

I'll review my data and post up a video later....

Reviewing the data led to an earth shattering conclusion, you guys will never figure this one out...

I was slower because....wait for it.... my corner entry speeds were slower.  In other words, I was over braking.  Yeah, I know, a total revelation.  As far as I can tell, since the car is so much quicker, it's scrambled my head as far as figuring out braking points and braking pressure.  What is interesting is my corner exit speeds were the same as before, so all I really need to do is handle the corner entry part and I should be fine.  Well, and start doing that with consistency...

So when I took my track wheels off, which are 12" wide in the rear, with 315 NT01's, I noticed that they were barely kissing the wheel liner on the drivers side.  The body shop had heat molded them for me, but not enough in that one spot. So today I fixed it.

Started here, and yes, all those holes were made by the body shop, not me.  They did buy me another wheel liner but I figured I'd run this one till it gets destroyed

Used a heat gun to warm up that area, then the head of my rubber mallet to push it in.  I then used my plastic welder to fill in the groove, as well as close up the extra holes the body shop made in the liner.  Turned out pretty well...

Checked out the passenger side liner, no tire rub there but since I had the plastic welder out, I closed up an extra hole the body shop made in it too

Car is pretty well set up now.  Hopefully just track prep stuff for the rest of the season now.

I've been waiting for Rennfix to release two products, air box clips and the 3rd brake light gasket.  They just did, so I ordered both and received and installed them today. The airbox clips are plastic and tend to snap off, I've had one broken one for awhile now and it was bugging me.  The 3rd brake light gasket was flopping in the breeze, so it was nice to finally replace it.  Removing the old one was a PITA, had to cut it off and scrap out the remnants, then glue the new one in place.

All done tho, hitting the track tomorrow!  Hopefully I can get my head wrapped around corner entry speeds this time and put up a decent time.  I'll probably only have the morning to do it, supposed to rain in the afternoon.  Again, it's been raining here nonstop for weeks now!

So I knew better, but I backed the 911 into the driveway and hooked the tire trailer up and pulled out.  Heard the C4S lip scrap on the way out but didn't think anything of it.  Well, that is until it popped off and I ran it over on the freeway!  Argh!!!!  I pulled over and checked the bumper cover and thankfully the tabs that hold the lip on weren't damaged.  Did the track day and had fun, definitely could feel a bit of an aero imbalance tho.

Came close to my PB from last season but had a tank slapper and then spun the left side of the track coming out of turn 11, up the hill.  First time I've ever put 4 off that track on my own, I got punted off by another car some years ago.  Sadly the Garmin Catalyst didn't capture it as I hot pitted to get the car looked at and stopped the video before I cross the start/finish.  Doh!  I was really looking forward to seeing it too.

So I need to get another lip onto the front of the car.  My choices are the C4S lip for $165+$75 shipping, Turbo lip for $325+$75 shipping or the Joe Toth 3 piece lip/splitter for $350+$35 shipping.  The Joe Toth lip is fiberglass, which is good and bad.  Good because I can repair it easily, bad in that it's gonna crack really easily.  It is a 3 piece part tho and the pieces can be bought separately, so if one gets totally destroyed I don't have to pay the whole $350 again.  I'm leaning towards the Joe Toth one...

Friend who's more tech savvy than me (which isn't hard!) said that the Catalyst actually captures everything, just need to get to the raw video file.  He's going to help me do that this Friday, so should be able to get the video of my spin!

Friend was able to get to the raw video of my Catalyst and grab the footage of my tank slapper!  Once I saw it, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  In fact, I almost caught and recovered it...

It looks like you caught it and then drove off track to get out of everyones way/collect yourself.

I'll go with that, sounds good to me!

Of the ways to lose it and go off track...that's a good one!  Glad there wasn't any serious damage.

So I ripped the C4S lip off the car last weekend, which stinks!  It was also an OEM one, which makes it that much worse.  Ugh.  Decided to try the 3 piece Joe Toth splitter.  That way if I destroy a piece, I can replace just that one piece.  It's made out of fiberglass and when I asked him on fitment, he assured me it was OEM fitment.  So it showed up Friday evening and I promptly went out to mock it up.

OEM fitment?  Yeah, not so much.  You're supposed to use small nuts/bolts to hold the three pieces together in the middle, however, here's one of the gaps.  Plus see the flaw in the piece on the left?

Hole in the piece...

Gaps in the other side...

I just don't think the nuts/bolts are pulling it together, it's not like fiberglass flexes all that much.  Plus the gaps aren't consistent and there's a hole in it.  So I emailed these pics as well as called the company to tell them I want to return this for a refund.  So I then went into my basement and dug up my collection of eBay lips.  The aero lip that's damaged on the side attachment, a turbo lip that was all sorts of messed up and another turbo lip a friend gave me.  I attempted to plastic weld the screwed up turbo lip but that didn't turn out well, so I just threw it away.  Ended up using a heat gun and getting the other turbo lip on the car.  Looks good, we'll see how long I can keep this one intact.

Then I had On Site Tires come and swap on the other used rear NT01 tires I have, plus install some metal valve stems into the race wheels.  They had some in them but somehow they got swapped out for rubber ones.  On Site was also installing tpms sensors into the summer wheels of my wife's cayenne.  Happy to say they worked!  They're aftermarket ones, so you never know.  Anyways, these NT01's are in much better shape than my old ones, they actually have tread on them still.

Realized it's been five years since I bought this!  Wow....  Doesn't seem that long.  Might as well do an update on the car.  I bought it 5 years ago with 29k miles on it.  It now has 39k miles and will probably end the season with closer to 41k miles on it.  I do wish I was using it more and I have a litany of excuses for why I don't, like I bring my dog to work and I'm not putting him in it, etc, etc, etc. 

I bought it needing a little work, a microswitch was out on the rear wing and it needed a clutch slave accumulator.  Since then it's needed nothing beyond normal maintenance, like oil and brake fluid changes.  I have upgraded a good amount of parts but none of them were worn out or broken.  Most everything I've done I got from other Porsche models, like GT3's, GT2's, GT2RS's, etc. 

It still remains the most reliable car I've ever run on track, yet is totally docile and civilized on the road.  AC and stereo work great, it can carry 3 people no sweat and honestly the only cars that out perform it, even today, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

It was a dream car for me and it makes me happy every time I see it in the garage.  Really the only thing I'd replace it with would be a 996 Turbo S in a color that I really like.

Washed it, used NuFinish to remove the rubber marks from the paint then put it on the rack.  When I was swapping over from my race wheels to the street setup I noticed that two of my LF wheel studs were loose.  So I checked all of them on all the wheels and found that basically 4 out of 5 on each hub were loose.  Not super loose, I needed to double nut to take them off, but not much effort with the wrench.  So more loctite and put them all back in.

Friend had a bad accident at the track with his 996 turbo last weekend.  Thankfully he's fine but I think I need to be spending the money on track insurance going forward...

Picked up a brand new set of Tarrett caliper studs off Rennlist for a smoking price.  Car has developed a shimmy at highway speeds, so I removed the wheels to get them rebalanced and then installed the caliper studs on the rear.  So studs all around.  I knew my tires were pretty close to being done, but Discount Tire refused to even balance the rears since they're at the wear bars.

They did rebalance the front and the LF was off a bunch.  Drove the car today and it was much better but still felt skittish at times.  Decided to just bite the bullet and buy new tires.  I've been running 245/315's but those are only available in the auto-x cheater tires.  I don't really need those anymore since I've got race wheels/tires so I went back to the factory 225/295 sizing so I could get Michelin PS4S'.  Shop should have them this Monday, I'll bring the wheels to them Thursday afternoon.

Next weekend is my favorite event, the PCA Club Race/Solo DE.  Get to see all the cool race cars and there are only 2 DE run groups, filled with the most experienced drivers, so good times!

Was at the track again yesterday.  Ran tech, which meant I had to wake up at seriously oh dark to get there, set my car up and put it on grid, then go over to tech.  Ended up failing a miata because the drivers helmet was over the rollbar.  Ironically that's exactly what happens to me in those cars.  I hate failing cars at the track, sucks for everyone involved. 

Anyways, for whatever reason my first session, which should've been 25 minutes long started 15 minutes late and was shortened to 10 minutes of track time.  Out lap was under yellow, then I was stuck in traffic, then they threw the checker.  Bummer!  Second session 2/3's of the group didn't grid up, so I had to deal with traffic merging onto the track and only got 1 clean lap.  Session after lunch it was HOT, sweat was running down my face with my helmet on in grid.  Track was significantly slower than in the morning, by 2 seconds.

Oh and the right Piloti shoe sole decided to unglue itself and I had to Gorilla Tape it back on.  Second set of Piloti's this has happened to, so I'm not planning on buying them again.

Anyways, about the car, the tires felt great, plenty of traction.  On the advice of a friend, I moved the rear sway bar from the middle setting to full soft and it made a huge difference.  Before the car would oversteer on corner turn in, now it's super stable.  However I'm not on top of the setup like I was last season.  I'm just not driving aggressively enough to take advantage of my changes.  I'm over slowing on corner entry due to the large power increase and I'm not tossing the car into the corner hard enough, nor fast enough to take advantage of the softer rear sway bar.  So I'm feeling a little discouraged at my performance this season.

That, combined with the high heat yesterday, traffic and short 1st session (which is when I would've gotten my fastest times of the day) meant that I once again didn't PB, nor really even match my old PB.  There isn't an event in August and I have a schedule conflict with the September date, which means I won't get on track again until October, which will be my last event of the season. 

So I swapped over to street brake pads last night, the track pads are almost done, I'll need a new set front/rear for next season.  I also need to rebuild my front calipers, the boots/seals are totally crusty.  I'll probably just send them to PMB Motorsports to have the calipers refinished at the same time.  Found a ding on my drivers front fender too!  Hopefully paintless dent/ding removal will work.

I got the PS4S' mounted Thursday afternoon.  Tire noise is significantly lower, they balanced out perfectly and the ride is better because the tire sidewall feels softer.  Overall a total win!

My buddy was there in his Cayman and sent me a picture of your car. :)

Nice!  It's hard for me to hide with my name on the number panel!  Hope he had fun...

Washed the car yesterday late afternoon once it'd cooled off some, used NuFinish to take off all the rubber marks.  Need to get the car over to PDR to see if they can pop out the ding on the drivers front fender...

In reply to docwyte :

I used to use a fine polish for rubber but switched to Mothers race rubber remover. I spray it on when I'm washing the car and use my wash mitt to get the rubber off. It works as good as polish but saves time. Sometimes a few are stubborn and I'll use polish for that.

In reply to hoffmaw1 :

I have that stuff too but it takes everything off.  So the ceramic coating/wax too, plus you need to be extremely careful not to get it on any of the plastics, as it'll damage those...

I have several pairs of pilotis and the old ones all delaminated.  I used barge's cement and they have held up great.  I'd suggest it as a permanent repair. 
 

called piloti about it recently and was told that because of the age they don't consider it a defect or problem.  They did send me a new pair of shoes though which I thought was cool.   They're a completely different design and have held up well so far. 
 

so don't throw them away before you try and glue them!

In reply to jfryjfry :

Sadly too late.  Already tossed them out and garbage has been collected...  I suppose I could call Piloti and see if they'd send me a new set too...

So even though I don't drive the car that much, it somehow got a door ding.  But not on the door, on the drivers front fender.  Don't ask me how that can even happen, but it did.  Luckily the neighbor up the street from me owns a PDR shop and graciously brought his tools home so he could fix it in my garage.

Start here, doh!

And like magic, it's gone!

In other news it looks like my track season is done.  No event in August, September event is over a holiday for me, October event (last one of the season) is over my daughters college Parents weekend.  Sigh.  Mission 2:00 was a resounding failure this season, guess there's always next season.  Off season work will be rebuilding the front brake calipers, as the boots and seals are totally crispy from the track.  I'll buy some titanium shields to put between the pistons and pads for next year, hopefully that helps some.  Other than that, just an oil change and then a brake fluid flush early next Spring.

What about some spindle ducts to get air into the middle of the hat?