911 Carrera RallyCross Project

10 minute(s) of a 245 minute read

We had a very interesting weekend with the car, racing and making a movie!

Firstly Ryan Symancek arrived Thursday as guest driver and filmmaker for the weekend. Ryan is famous for his film series he made for /DRIVE about his experiences building his first car for RallyCross and driving a Group B Lancia 034 in New Zealand among other things. After those exploits were were hoping he wouldn't be underwhelmed by our little 911. We needn't worried.

Friday was spent prepping the car, loading the van and shooting some moving footage from the back of our Audi. It was an interesting process and the car was a star performer. Here are some iPhone shots we took of the proceedings.








One interesting result of all this was that the oil temperature reached 195F. It was 46F outside and mostly were were making passes at around 50mph so that was somewhat encouraging especially as this somewhat replicated the conditions we expected Saturday at the event. Consequently we decided to remove the plastic tape blocking of half the whale tail slots.



Race day morning we were greeted by thick fog and freezing temperatures. We were happy we had left the winter tires on the car and that the venue was only an hour away. The temperature kept going down the closer we got till it was only 24F when we unloaded and set up camp!




By the time the runs got underway the sun had emerged and burnt off most of the fog. It even climbed above freezing, barely. Ryan managed to spin the car on his first practice lap but after that he got it down. The thing is so easy to drive anyway, once you figure out not to lift mid corner. After 8 runs each and much filming Ryan finished 2nd and I was fifth, after I demolished a bunch of cones on my sixth run. I'm rusty, what can I say?








Video:






The car ran flawlessly, almost. After my debacle with the wall of cones I suffered a stuck throttle at wide open and shut the car down mid-run. It fired right back up at idle so we are not too sure what happened. One theory is that broken pieces of cone got jammed up in the throttle linkage as it runs almost under the transmission. At these temperatures cones just shatter when you hit them! Another is that, due to the deep ruts that were forming we were jamming frozen mud into the linkage and jamming it up that way. Either way it is a bit worrying and something we may need to address if we decide to RallyCross the car again.

Oil temperature-wise we got some good results. whale tail fully open but engine oiler cooler still shrouded we saw 195F again during the runs. This was in temperatures in the mid- thirties so quite encouraging. We drove the car home below freezing but only got 140F at highway speeds, not surprisingly.

So we can't wait for Ryan's film to be done now and released to YouTube. Expect it in about a month. Oh, and our new mascot, RALLIDOG was a big hit too.

1-21-2016

We think we have the oil temperature concerns addressed now. With some 5W40 oil in there and a cover over the engine oil cooler I think we should be fine. Time to move on to other issues: poor running and "popping" noises at idle!

We read on the forums that the popping noises are probably due to intake leaks; either from aging vacuum lines, oil filler gasket or, more than likely, intake manifold. It seems the bolts come loose and they can suck in the paper gaskets! These issues might also account for the rough idle. Of course there are other possible causes for the idling so we decided to look at plugs and ignition too.

So off with the distributor cap. Doesn't look pristine in there.




Neither does the rotor arm




We found these loose wires in front of the engine too. Can't believe after how many times we've had the engine out we haven't noticed them before. We must have forgotten what they were previously for, surely.




Plugs all look OK though the gaps were a little tight.




Uh Oh, another oil leak. Put it on the list.




So we gapped the plugs, cleaned up the cap and rotor, checked the oil cap gasket, looked around for deteriorating vacuum lines and checked the intake manifold bolts. Every bolt was loose! Not hand tight loose but almost. We torqued them back down and fired it back up, hoping that would be sufficient to sort it out for now.

It was Runs like a champ again. I think we'll plan on removing the intake manifold and replacing the gaskets and vacuum lines next time the engine is out. Which, judging by the proliferation of oil leaks recently will be quite soon.

Next we are off to Sno*Drift rally with the car to do some spectating and sell some wheels! Stay warm.

One more project on our to do list before we head to Sno*Drift was to relocate the battery to the smuggler's den, the recessed box in the trunk that used to house the AC blower. Weight distribution is the oft touted reason for doing this and there may well be some benefit in that regard but to us it felt necessary because we could never get jumper cables on the terminals in the stock location behind the front left headlight and that seemed important, especially as we head into the depth of winter.

The RENNLINE relocation kit is a well designed beauty that comes with everything you need to bolt the battery securly in place. We opted for the clamp with space for a disconnect switch but did not order the switch, yet. The main pieces are anodized aluminium and all the fasteners are stainless steel. The instructions are very clear too.




Here it is fully assembled but without the battery.




This particular kit is designed for the Odyssey PC925 battery and as we have had good luck with these batteries in the past had no hesitation to go with one of these again.





And this is where it's all headed.




It drops right in and rests on the lip of the aperture. It is then clamped to the lip with two small plates and srews.




Now for the tricky bit: wiring it up. The idea is to cut the terminal off the existing battery cable and pull it through the firewall into the passenger compartment and fish it into the smuggles box through the hole in the central tunnel that used to flow air to the AC blower. It's a bit fiddle espaecially as the cable is quite big and stiff but it was quite manageable. Once in we soldered and new ring connector on the end.











With the main battery cable now in the smuggler's box this left a bunch of wires in the old location without a positive feed. We ran a new fat cable from the battery back to this area and temporarily bolted them all together while we figured out how best to connect them. We also had to include two more wires for our rally lights into this configuration.





Then we had a brilliant idea: use a radiator isolator mount from our Audi Quattro

and a Tupperware box!








Worked perfectly