911 Carrera RallyCross Project

6 minute(s) of a 245 minute read

Went tailless today in an effort to see if the whale tail is contributing to keeping the oil temperatures a bit low in colder weather. It's clear to see how much less restrictive the whale tail and open deck lid combination might be when compared to the deck lid grill.












Now for some cold weather testing just as it's warming up again

11-24-2015

Tailless test drive tonight. 37F; the coldest it's going to be for about a week. Not liking the look




A 20 minute drive at 55mph to a restaurant for a business meeting prduced this:




I'd say that was 180F. I was hoping for more, after all, it wasn't that cold and the oil cooler is still covered. The exterior thermostat didn't open and it didn't overheat. Maybe I'll try restricying the deck lid grill a bit.

11-29-2015

The oil temperature issue continues to frustrate us.

The standard decklid grill is about 101 square inches while the whale tail is about 162 square inches in area. This is just measuring the individual slots and doesn't take into account the sizes of the relative mesh and slats but let's assume they are at least "similar" So it seems plausible that the whale tail would be a) less restrictive and b) capture more air when in motion. So we reinstalled the whale tail but covered half the slots with packaging tape in an attempt to restrict cold air flow to some extent but, alas, with 37F outside temperature and the engine oil cooler still covered with cardboard we only achieved what appears to be 160F. Is this a good enough oil temperature to be thrashing the engine at redline and wide open throttle? It makes us very uncomfortable. We are going to try blocking off 50% of what's left open and see if that helps but at that point we are concerned about restricting air intake for the engine itself. Temperature outside is only going to get lower.

Perhaps driven by the need to score a victory over the car, however small, we decided it was time to install the LED gauge lamps/bulbs we have had on the parts shelf for some time. This is not for bling but for practical reasons as it is very difficult to see the odometer at night; a fact that came to light during a recent TSD rally.

So we had to pull all the gauges out one at a time, locate the illumination lamps and replace them. Actually quite easy once you figure out how to get them out of the back of the gauge.




The effect is quite illuminating.




You can't see the volt meter hidden behind the steering wheel which is fortuitous as it still has it's old yellow incandescent lamp in there. We will need to source a 194 LED replacement to finish the project. And yes, we also fixed the offset steering wheel position, and not by just moving the yellow tape either.

12-1-2015

Mixed bag of progress today but no oil temperature posts; not cold enough to do any meaningful testing.

First off, to make sure we win this weekends RallyCross we added some stickers/power.







Ralph Thayer Automotive is the series sponsor in case you were wondering.


Then we installed the last of our LED gauge illumination lamps: the aftermarket voltmeter. It cost nearly as much as the bloody voltmeter!




Then the postman arrived with a spare transmission. OK, it was a big truck. We are now practising round the clock so we can do transmission swaps between runs at the next RallyCross.