September 8th, 2009
Got to get some track time yesterday. The car was a bear to start, taking a good dose of ether, just the magical amount of throttle, and a little bit of luck. Next time I’ll try to have the starter working, and see if some larger pilot jets help (42.5’s?).
While it was hard to start, once started it ran great. Took a few laps to clean up the brakes to get much out of them, and a little running to bleed the cooling system. The current tires are worthless though.
I did get to do a nice 15-lap stint though, without any issues except my upper body strength.
Posted in Formula 440 | 2 Comments »
September 5th, 2009
No pics or anything, but actually got the car running today well enough to take it for a drive. We’ve got a track reserved for Monday, and that will be the first real teat for it.
Posted in Formula 440, My Cars | No Comments »
August 9th, 2009
Just a quick progress update: both radiators (and associated ductwork) are done.
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July 28th, 2009
Just a quick progress update:
A few weeks ago Jeff Colegrove and his brother Stephen stopped by to help me move forward with the car. They were a big help, and we were able to get the jack shaft, rear axle and clutches setup. There still is a bit to go (need a few small parts), but progress is progress.
Then, life pretty much got in the way. Between getting a new puppy, and playing 6 softball games a week, the project got pushed back.
This week I was able to move forward a bit more though. I now have the left radiator fully mounted, and just need to duplicate on the right. This should be easier as all the design and measurement work is done.
I’ve also did a little more work tonight, nearly finishing the drivetrain. Unfortunately I need one more bearing to finish. I have a ton of spares, but they all have either the wrong OD or ID.
Posted in Formula 440, Motorsports, My Cars | No Comments »
June 20th, 2009
I’ve made some more progress on the car. Not too much as I’ve been busy with other projects, but I’ve got the radiator ducts figured out. I just need to do some additional fab work to get them into place, and also need to figure out how to attach the radiators at the lower mount points. Digging through the boxes of spares I have, I think I found all the hoses and misc. items that I need to finish out the cooling system.
I’ve also got the sidepods on the car – well mostly. I’ve gotta source some short bolts to attach them at a few more points.
I also found a small 8″ tall 1-gallon fuel cell for really cheap, and should have it here in a few days.
Here’s some more pictures of the current state of the car
Posted in Formula 440, Motorsports, My Cars | No Comments »
June 20th, 2009
Last weekend Garrison and I campaigned the Porsche in the SCCA National Tour event at the Seneca Army Depot. Despite typically running in CSP, I decided to run the car in FP (for which it is also legal). This turned out to be a great idea as all of us in FP had a great time. We were all off the “pace” relative to other classes, yet we were all within a second of each other going into our last runs.
Garrison picked up pace VERY quickly in the Porsche, taking off several seconds on each of his first three runs. Unfortunately he only had three runs on the first day, which wasn’t quite enough for him to “come up to pace” in the car. By the end of the first day he was within 0.5 seconds of me however. He improved even more the second day, and took home 2nd in the class.
My Saturday runs were much more consistent, but not astonishing. I coned my last two runs, effectively making my first “bank” run my best run of the day. On the second day I had two solid first runs, which were very close to each other on times (and also very close to Garrison). However, on my last run of the second day, I was able to take off a solid 3 seconds! This was enough to secure 1st place within the class, taking my first national-level win.
Also a big thank you to Jeff Blumenthal and Brian Ciarlei (and crew) who were very helpful in letting me “poke around” their cars. I hoped to come home with a better understanding of how to put together my F440, and I feel I did. I’ve still got plenty of things to figure out, but I feel more confident now. I can’t wait to get my car on the road!!
Here’s some links to photo galleries:
My Photos
Rich Hutchinson’s Photos
FLR Region Photos
Mageep (?)’s Photos
Posted in Autocross, Motorsports, Porsche 944 | No Comments »
June 10th, 2009
Here’s a copy of my event report on the CNY Subies message boards:
First off, big thanks to Garrison for letting me borrow his chase cam setup for the weekend. I’ve got some great videos up on YouTube showing a dry and very wet run around Watkins Glen. The g-sensor data is what I was really looking for. It looks as though the Porsche will do ~1.2G peak and about ~.9G sustained in the corners. However, in the wet I couldn’t get much above .7G without spinning (check out the wet #1 video for some excitement).
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any data on g-loading under braking. I ran into brake issues pretty early in the first day (my pads are nearly done, and I was overcooking them pretty easily), so you’ll see that my braking points are VERY early.
They did do some passing exercises in the first day, which was pretty fun. They basically paired us off with “similar lap time” cars, and had us pass and re-pass every corner – with a focus on trying to do late passes under braking. I was paired up with with a 968 (basically my car + 100hp) the first time, an ‘09 Evo the second time, and finally a ‘06? 997 Turbo the last time. The run with the Turbo was interesting, I had to stop & wait for him in the 5/6/7 section of the track, while he couldn’t hit the gas on the two main straights. I have some good video of this (including flames out the Evo’s exhaust), but it won’t be up for another few days as I had to upload the card to a friends laptop to free up some space.
The two videos here are of just a “normal” session in the dry, and then from our final session on the last day (where it decided to rain). I was running my RA-1’s for the dry sessions, but I switched to my street tires (Kuhmo MX’s) for the wet session.
Pictures (Mine): https://home.scootin159.com/gallery/ind … 2009-05-25
Pictures (Rutch’s): http://www.flickr.com/photos/rutch/sets … 843411670/
Video (Dry 1 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbuKgGH6IuY
Video (Dry 2 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U1nNhrHWA8
Video (Dry 3 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5EuTlpInBQ
Video (Wet 1 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsvHAadt00 (watch @ 2:33)
Video (Wet 2 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9FtJtQhmbE
Video (Wet 3 of 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-d3itR_krw
Tags: event report, pca, watkins glen
Posted in Motorsports, Porsche 944, Track Days | No Comments »
June 10th, 2009
While I’ve had it for a while now, here’s some pictures of the F440 “as it arrived”:
More pictures at: https://home.scootin159.com/gallery/index.php?album=F440%2F2009-05-17
For the record, the side panel you see on there, isn’t actually attached yet (notice there’s no rivets in it). At the time of this picture, I was jus trying to make sense of all of the various aluminum panels which came with the car.
As it sits now, I’ve now gotten all of the aluminum panels riveted to the frame. For the most part, they were a simple “bolt-on”, although a few (such as the firewall) have required some cutting to fit. I’ve also got the new motor bolted into the car. I should be reattaching the side pods either tonight, or some time soon.
This leaves the remaining major components as:
1) Installing the radiators and cooling system. I’ve got two radiators for the car, but am not quite sure on the mounting of them yet, nor the routing of the coolant lines or an overflow tank.
2) Installing a fuel system. The car came with two small fuel cells which would be perfect, except they’re both very aged and very cracked. I’m looking for a small fuel tank which I can fit under one of the side pods (~8″ vertical height). I’m currently winning an ebay auction for a 1 gallon 6″x6″x6″ fuel cell for a very reasonable price. Being that the car is carbureted, it should be pretty easy to hook up the tank once I get it.
3) Wiring: yeah – all of it needs to be done. I also need to source a battery (although I can run it without one)
4) Driveline misc – I plan on running pre-mix in the car, which means I can disable the oil injection system. I just need to figure out how to do that. I’ll also need to install and properly tension drive belts.
Once the above is done, I should be able to “test drive” the car 
.
Posted in Formula 440, Motorsports, My Cars | No Comments »
June 3rd, 2009
I’ve decided to start a blog to record my motorsports related progress. This will be mostly for my own records, but may also be interesting for anyone who wishes to follow along.
I decided to specifically start it now to coincide with the start of my F440 build project. I’m a little late in this goal, as the car was actually delivered nearly a month ago (it was delivered May 8th), but as always: “better late than never”. This blog won’t just be for the new F440 though, as I will also be posting about all motorsports-related things I enter.
To coincide with this, I’ve also created a new personal online web gallery, available here: https://home.scootin159.com/gallery/
Posted in Formula 440, Generic, Motorsports | No Comments »