The off season was dominated by a frustrating problem with the car which took us several months to identify and resolve.
We raced at Snetterton at the end of July 2022 and it was such a disaster we didn't even post a race report on here!
Last minute wet weather combined with using worn tyres with a dry suspension setup meant we couldn't keep the car on track, qualified poorly (15th / 23 cars) and to cap off the weekend the engine kept cutting out during the 2nd stint of the race causing our first DNF for a long time.
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| wet snetterton |
In qualifying the weather changed dramatically to the point visibiltiy was so poor and there was standing water everywhere. We spun several times unable to register a decent lap time - despite knowing the track well and having driven and raced many wet lap before.
In the race it started raining as cars lined up on the grid, and when they arrived at he back of the circuit on the green flag lap it had been raining heavily and almost caught some drivers out. We started ok and tip-toed round but the car spun with the gentlest push on the throttle in the in field section. It was ridiculous!
By the driver change point it was drying out and we set after the posistions we'd lost making good ground until the engine kept cutting out. We hard to park as it wasn't safe with cars in close proximity at the speeds we race.
Back home the car would run for a few minutes then stop. We went round in circles for months looking at air, spark, fuel - the core ingredients for any engine to run but to no avail. No Porsche error codes showed up and everything checked out.
We eventually found a loose earth bolt to the knock and flywheel sensors and assumed this was the problem. Having observed slightly low fuel pressure we had also ordered a replacement VDO fuel pump as well. On changing this found the old one clogged with gunge in the bottom of the tank and not even strong enough to empty the tank of fuel. Bingo we have our culprit!
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| new pump fitted in clean tank |
With that solved we completed the usual winter maintenance of new brake discs (Pagid) and pads (Mintex), oil (Millers Motorsport) and filter change and a brake fluid flush (Castrol SRF).
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| Bleeding brakes using tyre pressure bleeder |
New tyres were a must and we shed the old Toyo 888s for a set of Nangkang AR-1 (from the motorosort approved list 1b) which have a stronger sidewall and are less prone to overheating in the longer 40 minute races. Thier wet performance is worse than the Toyo though and given our experience at Snetterton last year and with potential trips to Anglesey (wet) and Spa (very wet) we opted for a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 (list 1a) tyres as a better all round tyre to use in the the wet.
We had a new power test done which confirmed the engine is running well and making good power and torque through the rev range. We should clock in around the 170 rear wheel bhp / ton mark for the Calm All Porsche series.
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| power testing |
A pre season shakedown track day was completed successfully. The car ran faultlessly and we got plenty of wet driving practice With the weather ranging from monsoon to just wet we have a good idea of the cross over between the two tyres and when to use the different sets based on track conditions.
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| wet track |
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| dirty car follwing a day of wet running |
We are racing for the first time at Anglesey in May and the car just needs a clean and the series sponsor stickers fitting and we are ready to race.
