BreakFAST with Porsches. PCA Parade in Keystone, CO

Played hooky from work this morning and blasted up to Keystone with a friend to check out the PCA concours. Beautiful, no traffic, drive up and over Loveland Pass. Really nice cars. A great morning and back in Denver in time for my 1:00 meeting.

Coal Miner or Bushing Remover.

The answer is bushing remover. More on that in a bit.

You can see from the pic that it is good I am replacing the bushings. Very worn.

I first tackled the front of the torsion tube carrier. This was simple. Cut off the rubber "ring", then get something metal that is the size of the inner metal portion of the OE bushing and whack away. Out in minutes.

Getting the old rubber off the spring plate bushings was just as miserable as everything I read said it would be. Razor blade. Wire wheel. Lots of rubber dust.

End result of the weekend. Exhaustion.

Torsion Bar Removal

Began the oft discussed, oft dreaded, oft reviled torsion bar and bushing replacement today. Solo.

My mechanic is in Australia. And by mechanic, I mean my only friend who knows how to wrench on cars.

I took it really slow. Got the unit out in about 7 hours. And I mean slow. But it did take 2 hours to clean all the gunk off the axles so they could be removed without worrying about stripping the bolts.

Also, another hour spent figuring out a way to stop the brake lines from leaking. What I wound up doing was epoxying shout a 10 x1.00 bleeder valve and stuck that in the end of the stainless line. No leaking. 

The unit looks massive with trailing arms attached but probably only weighs around 150 pounds. Not too bad to muscle around by ones self. The wife is preggers, so I can't even ask her for help anymore. 

I did decide to delete the e-brake. Just more stuff to worry about and the car is a dedicated track car now. As I type my hands and back are feeling a bit arthritic, so we'll see how it goes in the AM when I tackle removing the old bushings and installing the new.

Let me end with, this is not that hard of a job. Do it if you have been procrastinating.

Rocky Balboa is the Pontiac G8 GT

Indulge me here for a minute. I watched Rocky Balboa aka Rocky 6, last night. I enjoyed it. But, it got me thinking, what with all the GM static on the news, that Rocky 6 was not unlike say the new Pontiac G8 GT.

Rocky 6 was overlooked because Rocky 4 and 5 did so much damage to the franchise. Not unlike the 1985 Parisienne (the car that launched a thousand donks) or the 1993 Lemans. Cars that GM and especially Pontiac built had over the years made the brand irrelevant. So even when the they came out with a 360 horsepower rear wheel driver sedan that thrills the driver, no one cares. Like a tree falling in a forest, no one hears it if no one is around. 

So, buy a G8 GT if you are in the market, you can get a good deal. And, watch Rocky Balboa, its a sympathetic, fun, nostalgic film.  

High Plains Raceway Trackday

Did my first DE at High Plains Raceway. Wonderful track. 2.6 miles. Lots of blind curves and elevation changes. I drove the SC and loaned the Boxster to a friend. Both cars did well, nothing broke, so a successful outing.

Food and Car Film. And Weird

Finally watched Le Grand Bouffe. Funny. Odd. Weird. A dark satire on the excesses of the rich. 

Besides the non-stop gorging on Pates and Marrow there are a lot of scenes with a rather pretty Grand Prix Bugatti. In the scenes above, you can see the gentlemen gets down to work pretty fast. But this is 1973, so a bit more swinging then now.

Worth an instant watch on Netflix for sure. But watch after eating, if you plan to eat after count on your appetite being ruined. 

Free Mobil 1

Now that I have a mini "race program" I realize the importance of sponsorships and freebies. The consumables of running three, or even one, Porsche is a bit of a drain on the wallet.

So, I was very happy to find this Post on Porsche Purist for a chance to win some FREE MOBIL 1 oil.

The easiest way to win is to post on the site why you should win a case of oil. Easy enough.

I hope I win. And so does my dog, so I can continue to afford to feed him.

Rollcage Install & Misc. Items

Finally. A Saturday with no rain and no work so I was able to lean into the car and get quite a bit done.

First project, I don't have a pic, was cutting the 3" holes in the body so that the torsion bars can be adjusted without dropping the rear suspension. Why Porsche did not include access holes like on the 911 is beyond me. Seriously, it must have been to increase labor hours. Or, did they think no 944 would last long enough to require a torsion bar change? Anyway, that job went quickly.

Next, was getting the OG racing quick release to work right. For some reason, the nut they include makes it impossible to use the unit. I did not get a response from their customer service team. Which was anger inducing. So, I just trimmed the edges of the stock steering wheel bolt with a Dremel and voila, it works fine. Note, the new Dremel quick release and metal cutting wheels are a Brobdignagian(remember your Gulliver's?) leap forward from the fiber ones.

Then the Autopower rollcage. This was easy. Minus all the drilling. I broke two 1/4 titanium bits and almost my wrist when the bits would get caught up. And I did it myself in about 4 hours. In a stripped out car the job is easy. I will tighten it all up tomorrow. 

Steering Wheel. Getting Tactile

Was able to pick up an OMP Corsica wheel in the sale section of the OMP site. It is a solid match to my OMP TRS Plus seats. Once I get my OG racing quick release to work properly, I will install.

You will also note, it is a good size match for the OE wheel. This way, the manual steering rack will still be properly weighted. Porsche race cars from the factory always had stock, larger than the competition wheels. Undersized wheels is strictly rice.

The cover is suede and so soft and that I want to lick it. But I refrain.