Family Fun Car - What is it?

My lack of posting as of late has been a result me being completely and utterly sucked into looking for a replacement for my sold 911SC. Not a replacement actually, but a family car.

And after several weeks of probably four hours a day trolling the US and UK for a car, I have come to the conclusion that a parent with sporting persuasions and a $20k budget does not have too many options. 

There are the beautiful Rolls Royce Mulliner Coupes from the late 60's but they are a bit slow. Then there are the Astons, too expensive. Bristol's, too elusive. Interceptor's, too fussy. 

Really, there are Jaguars. They kind of sum it up with the maxim, "grace, space and pace.' No other cars fit the bill.

So, I think I found my car. It is a Jaguar. 4.2 litre. Four speed with overdrive. Four doors. Wire Wheels. Lots of leather and wood. My brother will go look at in a couple of weeks and if as advertised, it will be mine. I already put a small down payment on it to hold it.

A hearty harrumph to anyone who can guess what model it is from the above interior shot.

Memorial Day Race Weekend Recap

Sorry, this took so long, but I was waiting for pictures. Am still waiting. I will add them when one of the photogs from the race posts them up. 

Now, on to the recap. First, on Saturday during the warm-up I ran a 2:21 lap. Not bad, and not pushing too hard. So I decide on a goal of 2:17 for the weekend.

In the qualifying race. I ran a 2:19 and this put me in 9th out of 18 cars. I finished the main race in the same place with a time of 2:17.

Goal reached. So set new goal. A 2:16.

Hit that on Sunday qualifying and the ran a 2:15:02 in the main race. Sweet. This was the fifth fastest lap time even though I finished the race 8th. 

It was great to be really in the mix. Lots of banging. Three of the four corners of the car got some other color paint on them. That is how close this racing is. It is incredible. Sure there are faster cars, but none that run as close as us.

Finally, on Monday in the enduro, my co-driver Chris Mosera of Garage Films and I managed to finish 9th out of 21 cars. And third out of the six or seven 944s. What a weekend. 

The only carnage was a set of wheel bearings from having a grease seal fail. But after a total of 5 and a half hours of hard racing to only need $40 in repairs was great. Engine was solid, brakes, suspension all doing well.

And for the next race, my RA-1s are just coming into the sweet spot, so they should be fast when we head to PPIR over July 4th.

Death Creates Life

To bring a new classic into the house, I had to sell one.

And what I sold was the Porsche I owned the longest. My 83SC with only 63k miles. Totally original and well-preserved. I looked after it for 6 years. I felt as if I was its caretaker the car was so nice.

Pictured is the new owner. From a Porsche loving family in SoCal. I am sure the car will be loved. He drove it from Denver to SoCal over a blazing hot weekend. The car ran fine. He said he ran a bit hot though.

I miss you White Chocolate.

But, now I have the funds to buy something older, and gasp, not a Porsche. Stay tuned. The Hunt is on....

V8 influenced Wheels on the SC

As the son of a Hot Rodder, I was around a lot of classic Fords during my formative years. As such, I have a love of the Ford Engine Blue color. Just something about it. Just a bit softer than Gulf blue, more grayish.

It brings me back to the 1970 F250 I owned for a couple years as we restored our home. With a 390 V8 and only two wheel drive, it was the best vehicle I ever owned for laying strips. And under the hood was always pleasant to look at because of that blue color.

So, I painted my very tired Fuchs with it. I used the 500 degree engine paint, primer and clear. The 2000 degree stuff requires a heating period so it is not good for wheels. I have painted other wheels with this engine paint and it was durable.

I spent an open lapping day at High Plains Raceway breaking in my new motor. 

Glad to report it was uneventful.

With my old Hankooks aired up, don't want to was the RA-1s, I trailered the 901 out to HPR. I did not hook up the oil cooler as the ambient temps were low and incase something went kablamo I did not want to also replace that. 

But with a brand new radiator, the car barely got above the first temperature mark on the original water temperature gauge and struggled to break 170 on the new oil temperature gauge. Granted, I was hardly pushing the engine at race levels.

I did three 30-minute sessions. The first session kept it under 4,500 RPMS, just basically make sure the car ran and did not have a huge leak or something.

Second session did a few pulls in third up to about 5,000 RPMs on each lap. 

The third session, basically alternated fast laps with cooling laps, revving up to 6,000 RPMs.

I was expecting the biggest difference to be felt at the top end. So I was surprised when the biggest difference I felt was in the mid-range torque. I could fell the car pull out of those third and fourth gear turns much better.

But the proof will be in the racing on Memorial Day Weekend. In the meantime, I still need to cure some oversteer.

 

Shedding Weight Like Biggest Loser Contestants

I was looking to still drop about 25 pounds from my 944 so that I could adjust my weight with fuel. And, after having Hanksville Hotrods, a 944 SPEC sponsor, remove my stock muffler, I got almost all the way there.

It weighed 21 pounds. Who knows how much junk was inside of it, but dang. That was a lot of weight, especially as it hung way out the back of the car. Past the rear axle. Not an ideal place to have weight. Unless you own a 911.

You'll see in the above pick, that I still have the chrome exhaust tip. That was not a move out of vanity. That was because I was able to use the stock hanger by keeping the tip and very end part.

Report on how it functions soon.

I am sure it will be loud.

Car Fail Day.

While not as epic of a fail as the above, I did have a car miserable day. Some days your the hammer, some your the nail. Today I was the nail.

It began when I opened my garage door. A couple of days ago I had drained the oil form my race car and had set the drain pan, filled with oil, on my garage floor. I did this so that I could put thread sealant on the temperature sensor.

Anyway. I open the garage door and I almost fell over because it looked like I my 911 had dumped all its oil on my garage floor. At closer inspection, I noticed the oil drain pan was empty. How the F did the oil get out? Well, it had a small crack in the bottom. Simple. Luckily I have a rubber floor in my garage so thought I could get away with just a messy cleanup. And it was messy. Ever try cleaning up 5 quarts of oil? It took two bags of oil absorbent. And a bunch of towels and rags. I thought I was done. Until I picked up the edge of the mat and saw that the oil had crept under the mat and covered a good 3x4 area. UUUUUUUGGGGHHHH.

When that was done. Went for a drive in the Wagoneer and noticed a drip. Smelled it, it was gas. Saw that the line connecting the hardline from the gas tank to the fuel pump was dry rotted. So, went and bought a couple of feet of house and went to replace it. I somehow was hamfisted and wound up getting about a quart of gasoline dumped on me when I swapped out the lines. I just threw those clothes away. MISERABLE.

Finally. I wanted to remove the end piece of the exhaust on my race car so that I could get a straightpipe welded in-place of the stock muffler to save about 15 pounds. Guess what. One of the three bolts was cross-threaded. NOOOOOOOOOO.

I wanted to do a couple of other jobs but decided to call it a day and enjoy a Colorado Native lager.

For Sale July 1963 356C Porsche Tourist Package + Owners Manuals

I am putting up for sale a very unique piece of Porsche literature. A complete, immaculate July 1963 printed owners manual. Included also is the options booklet, repair facility booklet and what makes this super rare, the original owner's European Driver's license. It comes in the original clear plastic cover.

A neighbor who bought an old service station to work on his hotrods in(he races a vintage flathead dragster) knows I like Porsches so gave this to me. I've pretty much given up on getting a 356. At least for the next decade, so am putting it up for sale. Perfect for a concours person or just someone fascinated with Porsche literature. 

$500 or near offers.

The owner's manual is unmarred. The spiral binder is perfect. printed in Germany, July 1963

The options booklet has a date of November 1962 printed on it and a few pen check marks inside next to options selected.

The repair facility booklet has a Marz 1963 printed in Germany date. 

And the French Issued, European Driver's license is in the name of, Michael Stedham from Chehalis, Washington was issued on February 28th, 1963.

Odd Green Porsche 911SC

I am the biggest fan of odd, factory-color Porsches. The odder, the better. Browns, Greens, even the Pink I saw on a 964 once. With matching pink interior.

So, I flipped a U-turn when I saw this SC parked near University Park in Denver. I had never seen this color green before. The car looked well-maintained too. Nice Fuchs. Good interior with Sheepskin seatcovers. The interior was caramel. Even a classic plate on it so the owner seems to be an enthusiast. Top it all off with the rad ski-rack and this SC has a lot going for it.

So, anyone know the name of this color green?

Installing 88 Engine in 83 944. Solving Wiring Issues.

Chuck Taylor(national director of SPEC 944), Chris Venturini(SPEC racer) and a couple of other folks helped me install my new 944 Motorwerks engine over the weekend. The old engine was unbolted and new engine bolted in within four hours. Then it took another six or so to get the wiring worked out. Hopefully the below will help anyone in the future to do this swap. Especially as it combines the benefits of an early chassis(light weight, steel control arms, manual rack) with the benefits of the late 88 motor(higher rev limit, tad higher compression).

Mating the harness of an early (1983) car and late (1988) engine and ECU is pretty straightforward. The biggest challenge being connecting the new engine harness to the old chassis harness because they have different connectors. The early car has a 9-pin square shaped connector, the later car has a rectangular 14 pin connector.

Luckily, 90% of the wire colors and functions are the same.

Before hooking up the wiring, it is beneficial to take the old 9-pin connector from the engine harness and use that as a base so that in the future you can easily disconnect the harness. So, what happens next is you permanently splice the pigtails from the old harness' connector onto the clipped wires from the new harness.

As your splicing them It is pretty much straight forward Pin to Pin ie Pin #1 to pin #1. all the way to 9/9.

All the colors match up directly except for a few. There are 2 wires on the 14 pin connector We did not use. Those are: pin #10 and pin #13.

Pin #10 (blue/green) wire on the new harness. This is for the water temperature dummy light, a feature non-existent on the early chassis. So, just cap this wire, and pin # 13 red/green, is used for the air conditioner.

There are now two plain black wires on the old chassis harness that we need to take care of. These emerge from the #2 and #4 positions on the connector.

The number 4 black wire goes to the tach. So, a jumper wire needs to go from this wire to the black/yellow + black two wire connector that is part of the new engine harness. It is a lone split from the main engine harness and it is pretty obvious from its position that it is a dash wire.

The lone remaining black wire off the old #2 connector is for the O2 sensor warmer. On a race car this is not needed. So, this wire can be capped. Or, as it is hot with ignition, used to power additional gauges, which is what I did. I used this to power the low oil pressure light and oil temperature gauge.

That's it!