Here is a recap of the 2014 season from the TrackheavyTT.

FEBRUARY
2014 got off to a hot start with 2 wins and a new lap record at Barber (1:31.8). Best part about it is that I was well worn A6's. I think they started off around 12 or 15 HC that weekend and my fastest lap was in traffic. There is definitely a 1:28-1:29 on some fresh rubber there. This continued a streak of wins in TT that covered almost 3 years and several sets of tires won (20k+ in tires) 2014 would however come with many trials.

MARCH
Determined to get more out of the car, I tried a new suspension setup. The goal was to reduce unsettling of the car over bumps without adding too much complexity to setup. The end result however was on track wheelies (literally) and inability to maximize braking, costing me a victory at the first Road Atlanta event of 2014 (March). Think I lost by .4 which due to only being able to brake at 70% or bouncing almost completely through the braking zone, I could not make up. Literally had people asking me what was wrong with my car after watching it bounce up and down the track. Add to that being almost a second off my usual times and it was especially frustrating.

APRIL
FF to April 2014 and the NARRA TT at Road Atlanta. I not only had my eyes on winning my class but also the overall fastest time of the weekend. I knew I would have to beat my personal best to do so though. However the ace up my sleeve is that I've never run sticker slicks all out at my home track. On an 8/10th's break in lap first time out I did an unofficial PB at 1:26.2, but a car breaking down and then a subsequent monsoon ended that weekend in 2013. Spent the time between the March event and this one removing the suspension and sending it off to have it even further calibrated. Got it back just in time to get it ready for the track. Went out the first session on Saturday to warm the car up. Car begins to lose power on the back straight. Rapidly gets worse until I barely roll into pit in before it stops and shuts off. I have no idea whats going on. I get out of the car to find my brakes on fire......... YES FIRE!!!!!!!!!!! It was a very small flame at the left rear caliper, but fire nonetheless. Get the flames out and get it back to pit lane and after spending the whole day trying to figure out what happened we figure the master cylinder failed in spectacular fashion causing no fluid to go to the calipers and them to overheat and heat weld themselves to the rotors. Zero hot laps completed on Saturday.

Managed to patch work and borrow a buddies C2 front calipers and master cylinder. My front calipers were ok but the rears were toast, put the front C2 calipers on my rear. Oh man let me tell you that was an adventure. Car was all over the place under braking. The piston sizes caused too much rear bias under braking. Still with this issue and a light field, managed to win my class on Sunday even though almost 4 seconds off my pace on an easy lap.


JUNE
Knowing NASA nationals was coming up that August I knew I needed to find a resolution and quickly. I decided to go back to my old setup to give myself time to get ready for the big event. Got the other setup done in time for the next competition in June at Road Atlanta. However my mechanics incessant whining about one of my aero pieces convinced me to leave it off. Nestled neatly in their closed on the weekends shop I would find how valuable that piece would be. First hot lap (and setup for my full aero), sideways through turn 12 at Road Atlanta. There was so much tire smoke it looked like a drift competition. This is the turn where most cars that go off shoot across the track, hit the inside wall and flip several times before stopping. I knew at that very moment I was non setup for the aero I had on the car. I took herculean effort just to run 2 seconds slower than my fastest laps. Placed second that weekend as well.

JULY/EARLY AUGUST
At this point I'm completely lost on setup, have somewhat lost my confidence in the car and am just blindly searching for answers. At the beginning of june I decided I had enough time to get my cage welded in. Managed to get that done in time for some testing in July. And sure enough, my next big decision would cost me too. My cage builder dealt mostly with NASCAR cages so he really knew his stuff but did not know the intricacies of caging a Porsche, I.E. the vacuum lines for the booster pump right beneath the cage plates. So while welding the cage, much of that was melted which I would not find out until my next test day and hitting the brakes with no assistance. Fortunately figured out the problem early and got going again only to have the dreaded ABS fail come out on me the next day. Spent that weekend and the next in early august trying to find the source of the leak. That killed 2 more weekends in which I’d only get a total of about 10 laps at 6/10ths and no real setup time. This problem also killed two good sets of hoosiers. I don’t know if everyone knows this but when the ABS PSM light is on, your ABS actually does no work properly. It will randomly not work. So a boost leak actually can cause complete loss of function from your ABS. I burned a hole in or corded 2 full sets of hoosiers depleting my stock. And the next event was nationals.

Sent the car to my mechanic who found that my drop link bolt had rubbed a hole into my aluminum inlet pipes and was causing the loss of air. Found this after replacing wheel speed sensors and a MAF and many hrs of Labor. DOH!!! Anyways the plus side was I put the car on the dyno and it made 432 WHP, the most that it’s ever made, on base K24’s. It was stronger than ever. I still was completely lost on my setup going into nationals.

 

NASA CHAMPIONSHIPS
Sooo, the championships have arrived, I’ve been planning for them all year. The idea was to finally uncork the beast and run the times the car was truly capable of, however the events of the year left me doubting if I could be competitive at all. The Z06 I had lost to in a couple of event was there and even though the guy is a bonafied cheater, I still wanted to AT LEAST beat him. Our field shrunk as one guy crashed out on Friday, another two just didn’t bother to show. That left 5 of us in the class, but it was a pretty heavy hitting class. A prior national championship winning Corvette, the cheater, another championship winning Viper myself and another C5 decked out with full ALMS level aero. Car was tricked out. Moved up from the lesser class after some beef with other competitors.

Seeing as we would have pretty good weather for the weekend for an August day in Georgia, I decided to dedicate Saturday to only setting up the car. I have to set the car up on old tires because new ones hide handling deficiencies. Unfortunately after burning all of mine up I had to get some scrubs. The scrubs were 1 inch shorter in front from my usual setup so it caused all kinds of oversteer. I decided to stick with it and approximate how much difference there would be once I went to my fresh tires. Needless to say it was still a frustrating day. Lingering 2.5 seconds off of my usual pace (high 1:28’s) I was still in third about 1.5 seconds behind the tricked out C5 and the cheater. All day I tried different things and worked on only making the car less scary at the limit. By the end of the day I was still a solid 3rd at 1:28.8 while the cheater was winning at 1:27.2 and the tricked out C5 in second at 1:27.3. Both were on fresher tires so I knew if they stayed where they were I could at least get in the ballpark.

Sunday morning I put on my sticker A6’s and scrubbed them in in the first session. The newer tires breathed life into the car and I improved to a 1:27.4, but was still in third behind a 1:27.1 from the cheater and a 1:27.2 from the C5. I knew there was time in it, but being summer time in the SE, A6’s are no good over 75-80 degrees ambient. So I had to go for it. I stepped on it for a hot lap and saw by predictive that I was well ahead (.5) of my pace for the weekend. I knew if I held on I would at least break into the 1:26’s. I went too hot into turn 6 and could not get back on the throttle until late, this brought me back to .3 ahead of where I was. I had to block that out and drive. Went deep into 10a, and caught some understeer out of 10b causing me to feather the throttle a bit. I had passed the cheater broke down on the side of the track exiting 7 so I figured he was out for the day, plus he was on his second set of stickers so I knew he had blew his window. Came across the line…….. 1:26.86!!!!!!

Was still a sloppy lap, so I tried a cool down lap to cool the tires off but a second try only confirmed that they didn’t have another left in temps that were approaching 80*. I pulled into impound just in time to catch the C5 run a 1:26.0……. DOH!!!!! He had gotten a brand new set of the Hoosier S100’s before the session and it took him until the last lap to get them up to temp.

I was elated to have run a semblance of a decent time. I also still had my ace up my sleeve. I generally run at 6.0 weight to whp and had been all weekend (3190/528). The limits for the class are 5.5. I could add 50 whp or drop 220 lbs and stay in class. There was no way I could lose that weight or add the power. My car dyno’d 528 on the nationals dyno, and with that slicks with NASA carry a penalty that would require me to run at about 3273. So I needed to add about 80 lbs to run with slicks. I happened to have a sticker set of Pirellis slicks on my trailer for exactly this moment. I was also running about 1/2 tank fuel so some of the weight would come from that. I put a passenger seat (35) spare tire (30) filled the tank. 3315. I left some room for the amount of laps it would take to get the slicks up to temp. I thought surely I could get a second out of sticker slicks, which have significantly more grip than my A6’s.I mounted the slicks up on my spare set of wheels and got ready for the next session. I got scales for my birthday so I knew exactly how much I weighed without having to go to impound first.

Set about for the next session with my eyes on the prize. The Pirellis are down right dangerous off the bat so I knew I had to be careful going out on them. Did the customary out lap under double yellow, then set off on a warmup lap to start feeling the tires out. Very easy 1:39 at 5/10ths. Upped it to 7/10ths on the second lap rounded turn one and hear a loud POP!!!!!! I thought to myself (as I was facing the wall sliding up the hill), “how could a sticker slick tire pop in one lap”? I manage to save the car and keep it on track. But could not drive at all, engine was running, but car would not budge. I thought I must have broken an axle or the LSD. Tow truck arrives and I get out to find one wheel completely sheered off it’s spokes. Gave in under the loads of the slicks. I was very blessed that the barrel and tire stayed under the car despite not being attached to anything. Got the car back to pits and saw that the trailing arm was damaged, boost hose destroyed and toe out. Weekend over. Disappointing end to the weekend, but I lost to a formidable opponent and I beat the cheater. From where I was entering the weekend, I call that a success.

 

October…..

After nationals had an equally intense weekend at VIR. I had a setup day with my mechanic and got the car more dialed in. Felt more comfortable with the handling than I had in almost a year. Got to VIR with some stiff competition lined up. The local hotshoe was in a C6Z and was the lap record holder at a 1:54.8. It had been 2013 since I had been to VIR. They repaved and widened the track in areas leading to a 2-3 second improvement in lap times. I decided to cut some weight from the car so I could no longer run slicks without undoing a bunch of stuff. I decided to run it out on my A6’s. I had run a 1:55.1 on slicks on the old configuration so that meant I should be at a 1:52-1:53 only I wasn’t on slicks. I was on the same A6’s used at the nationals, and still had to learn the track. My fastest time on A6’s on the old configuration was a 1:58.2 (they were old tires). After an intense battle I was in the lead with a 1:55.7 but had not come to terms with the lap yet. Lined up head to head with the hotshoe we battled it out for the last session of the day. End result I ran a 1:55.16 and he ran a 1:55.14. Lost by .02 seconds.

Thoroughly pissed with another second place, I came back the next day ready for action. I still had the A6’s which were on their 7th heat cycle by now and falling off quickly. Plus there was oil dry on the track from the day before. And I left my memory card for my data in my computer in the car so no data assistance or knowledge of my time while in the car. I said screw everything, just drive the car. There was a lot of commotion on the steering wheel, and I nearly spun out at the top of the esses from hitting a curb too close. I had absolutely no idea what my time would be. Still pissed I got back to my truck and pulled up the live timing. 1:54.4!!! A new lap record and a win for the day. I don’t have any data, but I lost a second after hitting that curb and having to opposite lock as the effects killed momentum through the next 4 turns throwing my timing off. I’m pretty excited about going back. 2015 Nasa Championships are at VIR, so I will be there a few times next year.

So that’s the season. I may do another event in December, but not sure yet. It’s always on my wife’s birthday weekend, so I have to do major kissing up and making up to make that work. Not that I mind, but just haven’t decided yet. Plus I have a blown Turbo to fix. I had some reliability issues this year, but most issues were self inflicted. Lesson learned, time to get ready for 2015.

 

Brilliant stuff and a great read, thank you very much.

My plan is to finish my car by the end of next year and then do some track events and str8 line 1 mile and 1/2 mile runs.

Your efforts this year are nothing short of outstanding, congrats, you must be proud !

 

Thank you!

I'm proud of the car constantly proving it can run with the latest technology. I've had the car for 8 years as of December and it continues to amaze. And I haven't even tapped it's true potential yet. I've been saying for years that this car is potent. And my car is fairly grassroots compared to other Porsche builds and even most of the Corvette builds.

 

Amazing accomplishment!


You make us proud!


I was wondering with a name like Heavy Chevy I figured you would be running a Z06 or you must have before?


I know those Vipers and Vettes can be killer machines on the track, but you show the strength of the 911 pedigree!!


Are you RWD or AWD (Figuring you are RWD)?


Congrats again!! Well deserved!!

 

Interesting and very well written. You should be proud on effort alone lol= well done..

 

Thanks Bobby,RMC

Car is RWD. I took the AWD out because NASA penalizes 50 whp for it. Ours is not good enough to warrant that.

Yep, joined almost all of the forums when I had a built C5 Corvette and before I had my TT so I kept the name the same. C5 kept breaking so I got rid of it.

Mod list:

Safety/Weight (3140 with driver/full tank)
Full Cage
Fiberglass dash replica
Gutted
No AC
CF Hood
Lightweight Doors
1 race seat

Aero
Getty Wing/Decklid
Homemade front splitter
Cup front undertray
Joe toth Canards

Drivetrain (528-532 rwhp)
RWD
OS Giken LSD
Tilton 5.5" Cup Clutch
Inlet Pipes
Straight Pipes
Forge DV's
Forge Boost Hoses
Factory K24's
Tune

Suspension:
Stock Uprights
Stock Trailing Arms
Subframe Bushings
Wevo Motor Mounts
Monoball Non Adjustable Dog Bones
Adjustable LCA front and rear
Tarret Rear Toe Arms with bump steer
JIC Coilovers

Brakes:
Stock calipers
PFC 01 pads
Sebro Slotted rotors

 

Great read.

That is some serious speed at VIR. Congrats

 

Good stuff man.. You ever make it out west or stick to the east coast mainly?

 

I was going to come to Nationals at Sonoma, but couldn't find transport and just didn't feel like driving for 4 days round trip when NASA didn't present the championships as more than a typical regional weekend and there are only 3 people in my class.

Will be working on trying to get to Laguna for Nationals next year. Would love to do Thunderhill/Sonoma while I'm over there. The Laguna event is end of July. I'm planning on doing the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge and then trying to get to Laguna. Would like to find an August or September event at Thunderhill.

 

Well done Heavy! great recap, It is time to get ready for next year I'm hoping for a better year for myself. So are they going to split nationals again?

 

Great read. I'll have to live vicariously through your stories as my 996TT has seen nothing but commuting chores as of lates.

One thing I do find interesting about your setup is that you use Forge DV's. Only because in all my research when my EVOMS DV's failed, various research showed the stock style diaphram DV's to be more responsive than aftermarket billet style valves - meaning faster boost recovery.

Ever consider perhaps replacing those with some 710N's? Might be worth a few 10ths.

http://www.s4biturbo.com/art-dvtests.php

 

Yep. VIR and Laguna.

Never heard of 710n , please enlightem me.

 

I'm a fan bro. got the same feelin with the 996 tt first time on the track fully stock just felt right the car is made for it right from the factory and you took it to the limit. Congrats to your great season next year you'll be the champ.