924Board.org

[Cedric]

Oh wow, thas very unfortunate, i guess he didnt see you coming on the outside, its always a risk in racing.

The 1960s safety "barrier" is a bit scary, it stops really hard. didnt know that kind of stuff was still around on circuits.
_________________
1980 924 Turbo
www.instagram.com/garagecedric/

[Britain]

[Karlio]

Having been twa**ed up the ar*e at 115mph, side impact to barrier etc etc at Thruxton last year I feel your pain. Matey boy in the red car should really have known you were there as you were on his tail through those turns, poor race craft on his part.
Keep your pecker up, the next car will be even better as you can now do all those little bits that you wanted to do on that car.

[Britain]

Well...it has been just under 4 months since the "racing incident" that took out UBoot...now it is time for an update.

Before we get into the new car...some more details of the old one.


12 sawzall blades, 6 cutoff wheels, and a plasma cutter to get the cage stripped out, the center tunnel cut out, and just about everything usable off the old chassis. Leaving a few bits here and there to reference the location before cutting off. This chassis has been put to rest.

[Britain]

The first step of building a new car is getting a chassis stripped to nothing. This is the last remaining '80 931 that I had stashed away. I had purchased this car for the G31 transmission and because of the Corvette swap, I never ended up needing this one. This was a really nice chassis with ~60,000 original miles. The drivetrain was junk, but that wasn't a problem for my purposes. I took off a bit of sheetmetal that I wouldn't need and removed the interior sound deadening. As it sits here, the baseline weight is only 380lbs.







The chassis was then sent off to be chemically stripped and WOW! it came back clean. The floorboards look great, there is no rust anywhere, and you can tell that this car has never been repainted or wrecked. This process removed over 40lbs from the chassis...final weight as it sits was 338lbs.

[Britain]

Spent a week getting unnecessary metal cut out of the new chassis and cleaning up the various bits that I cut out of the old chassis...which was a whole lot more work that I had anticipated. Either way, in the end it is a whole lot faster to move over what I had already fabricated than reinvent the wheel.

Cut out the entire center tunnel and the bellhousing area, mounted the spare engine to get the torque tube located in the correct place and welded in the swapped tunnel covers and mounts. This reinforces the floor area and let me get started on mounts for the torsion tube (also removed from the old chassis) after cutting away the rest of the floor section. Also was able to move over the rear trans cooler mount and the rear mount for the fuel tank. If you look closely, you will also notice that the sunroof has been cut out...got something special to go there when it is time.









The new chassis will have power steering courtesy of an electric unit from a Saturn Vu. Took quite a bit of work to get it the column sorted and the pump mounted. We fabricated an upper bearing assembly and now the assembly retains the same Porsche hub on the steering wheel side. This setup is also interchangeable with a stock setup if needed.

[Britain]

Something that was scheduled to do over the summer was to pull apart the fuel cell and go thru the components. I pulled the bladder and added some scab plates to the shell to reinforce the edges.







The introduction of the power steering assembly and the desire to eliminate the brake booster assembly unit forced the move to a Tilton underfloor pedal assembly. Due to space constraints, I fabricated a recessed box in the floor to lower the unit down and it feels right on point now.

[Britain]

Here are the details on the cage. The main hoop was transferred out of the old chassis which saved a lot of time. This chassis now has the front strut towers triangulated on the horizontal plain and has a vertical bar down to the lower a-piller cage mount.













Cage "taco" plates done for the doors and front strut bars, firewall all closed up.

[Britain]

The previous chassis had issues with flexing in the front frame rails and we had done significant reinforcing...so similar work was done here, although a whole lot cleaner. This also adds some strength to the engine mounts and provides mounts for the removable front clip. I also built front control arm mounts and custom "removable" cross-member/steering rack mount.







To get to all of those hard to reach areas, we build a quick rotisserie to flip the chassis over.

[Britain]

To aid in quick work during pit stops, this chassis got air jacks...where are really not that expensive these days. Also added the rally jack mounts that will be use once the bodywork is back on.









I came across a very good deal on a set of Ohlins that were made to fit a 991 GT3RS over the winter and as typical with me, I figure I could find a way to make them fit. I wanted to put these on earier but ran out of time. Glad I didn't (for obvious reason), but this new chassis gave me more degrees of freedom to make them fit like I wanted.

Starting with the rear, the shock was slightly longer than the stock shocks and the body was slightly larger diameter. I "could" of made them fit in the stock orientation, but what is the fun with that. As shown in a previous post, I made a set of rocker assemblies and mounted the shocks in-board. This set-up improves the motion ratio, keeps in out of the airflow underneath, and allows easier adjustment (would have to remove diffuser to get to knobs). Took quite a bit of measuring, 3D printed prototypes, an order of custom hardware from McMasterCarr, and misc parts made on a CNC lathe. Need to add a few additional supports, but I am happy how it turned out.







It wasn't easy, but here is the evolution of the rockers for the rear shocks. It took 4 revisions off the 3d printer, 3 revisions of steel parts off the waterjet, 2 rounds of revalving the shocks, 2 sets of spring...but I finally landed on the final design.

[Britain]

Lots of work put into the engine bay and it was ready for paint. Modified brake fluid reservoir, fuel system, braces, strut bar, steering system, modified wiper motor, IAC valve, etc.





We made a makeshift "paint booth" in the shop, cranked up the heat, and laid some paint. The interior is a white/light grey tone and exterior was epoxy sealed and then painted our signature body color. It was so nice working with a clean, bare metal chassis.

[Britain]

As soon as the paint dried, we stuck the engine in the car to get it off the cherry picker and out of the way. We got the fuel cell installed, the fuel system components bolted in place, and the fuel lines ran front to back. The electric power steering column is now bolted in and the pedal box is all together with its spaghetti of AN lines and fittings.









Rear paneling was all put back together. The center two panels were pulled right out of the old chassis, the upper two parts were modified from old chassis, and the bottom unpainted vertical panels are new.

[Britain]

Virtually everything going back on this car is lighter than the previous car. This includes every bracket and wiring. The car now has a AIM PDM32, 12 button programmable keypad, and 6" display. It also have a higher resolution rear view camera and digital brake bias adjuster. Brackets designed, waterjet cut and fabbed up to mount everything in place. We also tackled the wiring with a pre-made wiring harness from Matt Romanowski which made things go much faster.







For those who said the dash looked too heavy...here it is in raw carbon. Also finished 99% of the wiring, got the dash and keypad programmed, and the back-up camera working.

[Britain]

And now on to the carbon bits. A local 944 guy saved this 944 slick top roof for the project and you know what that means...make a mold and lay up some carbon. This was a pretty big mold...but man the final product is light! We inlaid some 1/4" foam to give it a little structure and added a 9" steel plate to act as a ground plain for the radio antenna. Not going to lie, it hurt a little to poke a hole for the antenna after it was bonded and clear coated.









We also made a carbon version of the front headlight panel.







We made new molds of both the front bumper and valance. The bumper was straight forward. The valance has to be one of my hardest layups yet. The funky shape of the mold, the sheer size, and the tricky brake duct inlets took me way longer than I had expected. Both parts came out nice and will look great with a coat of clear. Oh, they weight less than 2lbs each...feather weight.

[Britain]

Finished the car mechanically enough to go testing at The Ridge (PacNW track). It was damn cold outside (~40degs), but the track was dry and the sun was shinning. Other than a loose boost tube that came off (I forgot to tighten a hose clamp), the car ran flawlessly. We made a few runs and were very impressed with how the car ran and handled out of the box. You could really feel the difference in the stiffness of the car and the reduced weight. We were making fairly small shock adjustments and could feel the effect on the handling characteristics...it was great.



The car was working so great in fact, that we decided to enter the 2nd day of the Luckydog race at PIR. Arrived at the track early to go full bore on preparing the last remaining items to make the car race ready. Installing radio, cool suit box, stickers, number plates, a little dash programming, etc. We made it thru tech successfully and headed to the grid.







We are in position for a podium finish at about 6hrs into the race and then we lost oil pressure on the engine. Unfortunately we shattered the oil pump gear and toasted the engine. Time to get it all fixed up for the next race at Thunderhill in a few weeks.