KS's hillclimbing odyssey

[hashman]

Your engine is looking very nice Keith and I cant wait to hear
about how it performs up the hills.
Hope the rest of the build goes smoothly.

Karl

[RobFrost]

I was reading recently about a 915 Mike Bainbridge built which locks ham-fisted drivers out of changing down to first gear at 7,000 revs. Assuming I interpreted your story correctly.

[KS]

I was reading recently about a 915 Mike Bainbridge built which locks ham-fisted drivers out of changing down to first gear at 7,000 revs. Assuming I interpreted your story correctly.

No, I wasn't that bad... I missed getting into third and ended up in neutral.

[911hillclimber]

The Bainbridge re-built 915 in my Lola will go into first from flat out in second. Resulted in my 3.2 going BANG in a big way 5 years ago.

I now take my time going from 2nd to third.

[KS]

OK, so two weeks on and it was a return to Wiscombe Park for the Wildlife Motorsports event, for which jwhillracer had kindly (foolishly?) offered me the opportunity to share a drive in his well-known 1972 911S (well, it began life as a 1972 911S – JW can fill you in on its history!).

The weather forecast looked good up until a couple of days before the weekend when suddenly the promise of rain on Saturday night and early Sunday morning changed my perspective on things. JW's car is a lot more powerful than mine (c.250bhp) and is basically an all-out race car in every respect - right down to slicks, track conditions permitting. JW had driven the car to a class win on Saturday's event in the dry on slicks and that was what was waiting for me when I arrived on a slightly damp Sunday.

The first run was very cautious (in fact, they all were) and a slow mid-56 second time reflected that. The car was clearly quicker than anything else I'd driven up a hill, or had the potential to be, shall we say. I bogged it off the line, having ignored JW's advice to hold the rpm at about 4K and dump the clutch. The combination of race clutch and tall first gear meant that it didn't suffer fools gladly (well, not this fool) and it took a second dip of the clutch pedal and another stab of the throttle to get the car moving. The second run was fairly dry as the air temp increased. I was careful with gear changes (still not a fan of 915 boxes... Give me a sweet 901/914 box any day!) and the result was a 52-something which was as good as I'd got from the 914 at its best, so was quite happy. I did have a slightly unnerving moment tackling the infamous Bunny's Leap (slight left-hand kink over a 'hump') where I'd failed to select third at the wrong moment, unsettling the car and having it wag its tail in admonishment. Now time for lunch.

And then it started to rain. Anxious looks at the sky from JW, anxious looks at the slicks from me. 'What do you reckon?' asked JW. Why ask me? You're the expert! Eventually, as the rain showed no signs of abating, we made the decision to swap to wets, with the warning from JW that there would be a lot less grip available. He wasn't wrong. Exiting Martini - the final hairpin left hander – saw the tail wag the dog once more but we survived, although the time was about three seconds down. Here's a video of that run. Try not to laugh, OK?

https://youtu.be/mbS5zI44rec

And so to the final run. The weather had started to clear up a little and the rain had stopped, but the track was still damp. I managed to shave a second and a half off the previous run, ending the day 8th in class out of 10 (I'd have been 7th but was pipped by 1/100th of a second...). JW finished third in class, with a best of 48.03, but then he has done this sort of thing once or twice before...

TBH, I found the day exhausting and can't wait to get my own car back in action. But I enjoyed the experience of driving such a well-known and well-sorted car, and can't thank JW enough for the opportunity.

[rhd racer]

Excellent Keith. If you can compete in the rain at Wiscombe in an unfamiliar car, you can compete anywhere in anything! One tip I learned about the wet a few years ago is to overwipe your screen, ie. Have the wipers on full even if you need interval. Seeing rain on the screen gets in your head, and makes you build in reserves that you don’t need. Obviously best not to apply that logic in someone else’s car, but you get my drift for when you get yours back!

You can see how well the car goes on the straight up to Martini. Love the exit of Martini

[jwhillracer]

Well done Keith, I know that there was a degree of fear and trepidation at the start of the day, and unfortunately it wasn't the beautiful spring sunshine that we had on Saturday.
I'm really glad that you enjoyed it, despite the weather it worked out a good day.

It's surprising the things that you see and hear on the GoPro, never having used one before.

All the little German elves trying to beat their way out of the 915 gearbox housing with a hammer in each hand as we waited on tickover, solid mounts make the whole shell a sounding board.........

........ and I always thought that I was quite relaxed and laid back as I wait in the queue for my run, but the evidence doesn't show that!

It was a long weekend by the time I had worked with the WIMPS to set it up on Friday, and then finished clearing up and putting things away with them this morning until the British Championship meeting in July, so the car just went into the garage dirty today.
Hopefully it gets cleaned up after the must-do jobs tomorrow.

JW

[KS]

Just received these pics from Nigel Cole. Cheers for the drive JW!





Meanwhile, back at Rawspeed, the engine is now complete. Tomorrow fit the throttle bodies and sort out the throttle linkage then on the floor to bolt up the transmission and (probably Friday) install in the car, sort the ECU wiring and fuel lines...then (maybe) start the beast. Gulp. It's only been five months.

[911hillclimber]

I can feel those nerves!
Good luck with the lot, big step.

[KS]

Productive day spent finally installing the external 'tinware' and setting up the throttle linkage, etc, ahead of getting the engine and trans in position ready to install tomorrow.
Fingers crossed all goes to plan...

[KS]

Six months between the photos, all bar four days. Half a year since I last drove my car. Sigh...



Well yesterday we finally got the engine and box into the car without too much drama (well, apart from that generated by two grumpy old men, wrestling with three trolley jacks and plenty of swearing about Porsche engineers).
Some unexpected pleasures included discovering that the throttle linkage won't have to be modified to suit the throttle bodies and that the SSI stainless headers fitted far easier than new (presumably as they've taken on a 'set' through numerous heat cycles). Less amusing was having to relocate the new breather box for the third time when I discovered it jammed against the top of the engine cooling fan shroud as we lifted the engine into place. Put that down to inaccurate measuring on my part!

All that remains to do is wire up the ecu to the temp sensors, TPS, coil pack and injectors, and plumb in the fuel system. Oh, fill with oil and start praying...

And here's a reminder of why we love working on cars so much...

[KS]

Well, the engine and gearbox installation went reasonably painlessly and the lengthy process of wiring the ECU proved to be relatively straightforward thanks to taking things one input/output at a time.
The throttle bodies fitted OK – cutting and rewelding the manifolds meant the ITBs were placed wider apart than usual, but they didn't hit anything. The fuel lines took a bit longer than hoped as I'd ordered
the wrong type of fittings in a couple of instances, but I got there in the end. So, "all" that remained to do was see if it would run...

Graham Rawlings plugged in his trusty laptop only to discover the DTA had updated the firmware without telling anybody, so he had to wait for that to get sorted by allowing them remote access of his laptop.
Then when we went to set fuel pressure, there was none... Guess who'd wired the pump backwards? Hint: it wasn't Graham. That sorted out, set the fuel pressure to 3 bar and turned the key for the first time.

It would be great to say that the engine burst into life and ran like a top, but the reality of such a project is that it takes a long time to go through all the fuel and ignition settings at numerous throttle positions
and engine rpm before you can establish an idle, or smooth transition from low to mid-range to high rpm. But the engine now runs, and idles, and revs like a revvy thing. It is very loud with open ram pipes and
big throttle bodies and feels 'alive' in a way the old engine didn't.

Tomorrow will see the car on the rolling road so we can map it properly – and then the first road test. Gulp.

Here's a brief video of an early run – a long way from being perfect but getting there...

https://youtu.be/_9aL8SGeYX8

[rhd racer]

Sounds good Keith, good luck tomorrow

[911hillclimber]

It will be great when all tweeked-in!

[KS]

180bhp on the nose!