Mikelly

Well I'm a bit confused about the numbers I just got... I just had my car scaled at a race shop and the total weight with a 180# driver in the driver's seat was 2909 and 12 gallons of fuel in the tank. Here are the weights per corner: Total: 2909lbs W/180# driver and 12 gallons fuel LF 710 RF 690 LR 777 RR 732 My car is a 1976 280Z with zero sound deadening materials in it, Zero door hardware/ Glass, rear Lexan Hatch window, lexan 1/4 windows, Kirkey and Ultrashield aluminum seats, a sheet aluminum dash, no hvac system, and a Chevy V8 with all aluminum heads/intake/waterpump. I don't have any smog or emissions stuff. I have a 15 Gallon fuel cell in the car. The Battery, an optima Red Top sits behind the passenger seat in the rear floor. I do have a significant cage (1.5 inch DOM SCCA legal thickness tubing) in the car, along with Pete Paraska's 2X3 inch steel subframes. I have an aluminum radiator. I also have a Q45 rear diff/axles which are contributing to the weight. The wheel/tire combo is pretty head, as is the Mcleod Bellhousing on the setup. The V8 isn't picking up much weight if any over the L6 (We've seen 42# used as the number difference given my configuration). I do have an oil cooler/lines, and an accusump/lines, and a return line on the fuel system with a surge tank. But based on what my guy told me, without anyone in the car, it's still well over 2700#. I questioned the weights, but he scales PCA club race cars, specmiatas, Spec944s... and other race cars... He seems to know what he is doing, and has set up my miata and Porsche for me without any issues or questions of his abilities in the past. The guy services and maintains all of CDOC's racecars/employee cars, and anyone who knows those folks knows they don't half-ass anything. So although I don't want to believe him... There's no reason not to. Is this car really that heavy? Ugh... Mike

I wanted to touch base on something here... My Porsche 911 Turbo has cross drilled rotors... It's considered an exotic, of sorts... OEM you can't buy slotted rotors for this car unless you go to an aftermarket race parts source and have them made. The 2001-2005 cars don't have the option of running the GT2/GT3 parts without converting to those suspension pieces due to rotor hat offset differences... So wha'ts all this mean? Everyone I know who ones one of these cars HATES the cross drilled rotors because the holes clog with pad material and end up causing pulsing in the pedal and shudder in the steering wheel during hard driving or on track at DEs. Pad selection is limited to less aggressive pads that don't compound the issue. Why SOME manufacturers are using cross drilled rotors is due to their perception of the buyer. Also, many of these "cars and coffee" posers will never put the miles on their show queens to have these issues crop up. However, anyone who wants to drive their car hard and doesn't want to deal with the issues above, or the associated cracks that DO happan ends up going to someone like Coleman Racing, RSS or upgrading to a full Brembo race kit to get away from the dreaded drilled rotors...4.5 years dealing with Porsches now, and this issue still remains a hot topic on those community boards. Now, Carbon Ceramic rotor/pad combos are another issue... I priced them for my Turbo and found that the ROTOR and Pad combo ALONE was the better part of $16K! http://www.suncoastparts.com/product/CERAMICS.html?Category_Code=gt2PCCBs And that whole myth of them lasting longer than others is just that, at least when used on track... They don't fade, and they weigh so much less than traditional two piece rotors. However, everyone I know tracking a car that came equipped with Ceramics swaps them out for steel. Race teams with endless budgets run ceramics... Nobody I'm aware of at the club level or DE level of racing/performance driving runs them... They simply can't afford to... On the street, for cars and coffee, or just being a swinging dik with a fatt wallet, yea, they'll last 300K miles. Take them to the track and watch them degrade rapidly in less than 10 track days, just like any other performance rotor. Mike

It's been a month since I placed my order and I'm leaving on Monday for Watkins Glen... Probably gonna cancel this order and regroup after I get back from NY. Guess I'll be ordering some CCWs... Mike

Dropped it off at the Shop for an alignment and cornerweighting today... Not before I snapped this: And going thru some old photos I found these: Mike

Did a little more clean up in preparation for the glen... Re-painted the black stripe that runs along the bottom of the car, and did some clean up on the engine bay. I'll do a full "cleaning" of the car when I've got it back from the alignment. Still need to rivet the vent ducts to my seat so I can get more fresh air to me. This car has cleaned up so well, and come together with the vision I had years ago. I'm truly inspired by what I've created in this one, and can't wait until I get it on track... It's giving me the motivation to start on the red one in my driveway. Mike

Made a mistake... I ordered 8.75 and 9.75s in width... 18 inch diameter... Still awaiting them. MIke

Got that already...Also found an issue with the dipstick pushing up slightly after the dyno sessions... Mike

The shortblock consists of a Scat crank, Eagle H-beam rods, Weisco 10.5:1 compression... Dished... Zero Gap rings... ARP hardware. The heads are Dart Conquest with 2.05/1.60 valves. Roller Hydraulic valve train, isky 530/550 cam with 112LSA and Harland Sharp 1.5 rockers. Intake is a Victor Jr. with a holley 4150 750 carb, MSD Ignition. Desktop dyno claimed 532BHP. The motor is probably 50-60 less...Based on what the owner of the other shop that was present during the pulls stated, this car should be very stout! Mike

Attached is the graph from the dyno session... Best of the runs... Run 9 and Run 8 are identical, so I chose number 8. Remember, this dyno doesn't produce the "big numbers" we'd see on a dynojet... I'll try to get the spreadsheet numbers up later. Mike

You might want to talk to Tom Harris about the coil overs. He went another route for similar setup and the coil overs were some of the nicest and most adjustable I've seen for the money... Mike

So on my 383 stroker I have a set of nice machined aluminum valve covers. I also have a K&N breather. The issue is that there is no baffle in the valve cover... And the smell oil fumes is heavy and comes into the cockpit. I'm not running a pump for crank ventalation, but I need to do something to mitigate the fumes... Any ideas would be great guys... Mike

Track videos will be coming up in September. Car goes to Paul Overstreet on Tuesday to be aligned and scaled. After that it'll go into the car trailer and wait until we leave on Labor day for the Glen. Mike

Pretty sure we're going to just shelve the LS1 motor for now... The 383 stroker is making very healthy power and should meet the requirement for power in this car. We're getting it corner balanced and aligned next Wednesday so I'll know what the actual weights are. If I can get this car in at approximately 5 pounds per HP, I think it'll be more than sufficient to meet my goals. I'm going to re-instal the fuel injection system I have over the winter, along with a FAST computer and harness and see what we can do about a little broader power along with traction control. Mike

Thanks Nelson. I wanted to clear something up on the dyno we used... The owners have dyno'ed multiple 2006-2010 Z06 Vettes that supposedly make 505 brake HP, spin their dyno at 378-384 WHP. Their dyno allows them to put a load on the drivetrain for tuning purposes. They put a 5% load on my car during the sessions. We expected the car to make somewhere between 280-320HP on this particular dyno. Had a number of people elsewhere question why the numbers were so low and not understand the setup we used and why. I could jump on a "regular" dynojet and spin 415-420 WHP if the goal was racing dyno numbers... That wasn't the goal. Tuning the car to maximum safe HP was. Mike

So today was the "big day"... We got the car over to EB3 Motorsports in Manassas Va. and got it on their dyno first thing this morning. We did 9 passes total on their Superflow AutoDyn30 Eddy Current flow dyno, which I realize is bad on numbers... Ev, the owner told me that if I wanted to compare the numbers from his dyno to say a dynojet, that I should add about 28-30% to the numbers... Based on the tests, the changes, which I'll get to in a minute, he said my motor was probably a 450-460 BHP 383 stroker and he was impressed with the car and the potential. Ev had a pretty decent process of tuning. He'd make changes, do a pull, then do a second pull back to back to make sure the readings were repeatable. Every time we saw within one HP or one Torque reading of the previous pull. So we started off with the car rolling 314HP and 318#ft. of torque. However, the AFRs were the big story. We were into the 11s from 2800-3900 and then back into the 11s from 4800-5300... Then it was in the low 12s. The motor wasn't rich enough, and under inspection, the timing was dancing around a lot once it was "all in". So first we played with the jetting on the primaries, which helped with a part throttle stumble (down from 73 to 70) and we also changed the squirter down a size. After runs 2-3, the squirter was re-installed. After runs 4-5 we pulled the distributor appart and took out the 25 degree advance stop (smallest stop) and put a larger stop in. What we were seeing with the timing light was the timing bounce around between 31-38 degrees timing. A simple $.90 cent part fixed it and the timing was advanced to an initial timing of 16 degrees with 38 total in by 3500. We played with the timing a little to see if we could get the car to run more power with less time and found that was not the case. runs 6-9 found us zero-ing in on a safe and consistant back to back tune. The car is making a solid 325# ft. of torque and 323HP. When you apply his calculation of 28%, the car is making about 413WHP and 415#ft. torque. The power curves are nice and the torque spread is very nice... I'm very happy with this tune and the car seems to make plenty of power and very quickly... This car is gonna be a lot of fun! Unfortunately we had an earthquake here in Virginia today and I came home to a bit of a mess... After further inspection of the window that had fallen out of its frame and hit my Porsche twin turbo, it appears I had no damage to the car, and other than a few broken items inside the house, we made out OK. Mike

Nope, Have a set on order... still waiting... Mike

I've instructed a number of well piloted and well sorted 944s. They're just like any other sports car. You get out of it what you put into it. Joining the PCA gets you into a very large group of car nuts and a very good resource for everything and anything Porsche ever made... Mike

This is my car... Mike

I'm running Hawk Blacks with my Mustang GT Cobra Rotor/caliper combo. Mike

Mark, I'll be there on Sept. 26 with First Settlers! Thanks Bob! Mike

Loaded up and ready to go to the Dyno tomorrow... Mike

I pulled the fiberglass fender flares and MSA Type3 bumper off and painted them this weekend... Cleaning up everything for the trip in two weeks... Mike

The car hasn't been aligned and corner balanced just yet. There is no door hardware, or door window glass. The rear 1/4 windows and rear hatch are lexan. There is no stock interior in the car. The dash is a sheet aluminum dash and the switch panel and console are Kydex. They don't weigh much. The motor is a V8, but has all the aluminum treatments so we're talking maybe 40# more than the L6. The rear diff and axles are heavier than the R200, but I'm thinking this car should be sub-2500# and Hoping for sub-2400#! Mike

Back in 2007 when we did the wind tunnel testing, I was so impressed with Roddy Sugg's car and how well the numbers blew on it, and then how fast it ran at VIR that I planned to bring some of that to my car when it was developed. Over time I picked up a few other things while developing my 996TT in a GT2 car. So here are some of the pics from the build with the front end blocked off, the air box, the other bits and pieces... The sheetmetal airbox now ties into the front of the MSA type3 bumper. I have Kydex that makes a "male" duct that slides into the sheetmetal radiator box that is hard mounted to the chassis and framework for the radiator. Tha front end is closed off with Kydex and has two openings for the carburetor inlets. I closed in the opening for the radiator with some aluminum framework and mesh, along with more kydex for the parking light housings. Eventually I may play with closing off the bottom all the way back to the front subframe. Moving on to the rest of the car... The naca ducts are my idea (the car gets stupid hot) and the air foils leading the frame are from Roddy's car. The Vortex Generators really did a great job in the wind tunnel, so I figured I'd add them... Along with the rear wing. The wing mounts weren't tall enough to get into clean air, so I made some uprights out of T6061 aluminum. The car is very stable at high speeds and I'm very pleased overall... However, the real test will come at VIR in September... Mike

Well those words come from experience. I have a 670HP monster that I'm not "fast" in. So why bother making this thing undrivable as well? If I can crack a 2:10 on VIR full in this car, I will be happy. Anything more will be icing on the cake. Mike