2003 Porsche 911 Turb-OOOOH

Bought three quarts of Ate Typ200 at Wine Country, figured I need to flush the brakes on the Xterra tomorrow when I swap it over to 3 season wheels/tires and do an oil change on it.

Finished flushing the brakes, which still comes out slightly green from the ATE Super Blue that'd been left in the system for 6+ years.  Seriously, WTF, I've run something like 8 QUARTS of fluid through this thing.  At this point I think the lines are tattooed and it's always going to come out green.  I have 2 quarts of brand new Super Blue in my garage cabinet but I'm loath to use it now because of this.

Grabbed some gorilla tape and "fixed" the holes in the fender liners.  My friend did this on his 996 Turbo some years ago and it's held up surprisingly well.  I'll see, at least I won't be shooting road debris and water into the engine bay now.

I also finally mounted up my refinished BBS wheels.  Gold centers with polished lips/barrels that are clear coated.  I think they look awesome, a nice old school look

All that's left to do is mount the camera for the Garmin Catalyst and set it up.

Man. Gold wheels on that silver paint look stunning!!

In reply to dyintorace :

Thanks!  I really like how it looks now.  With the anthracite wheel centers they just sorta blended into the car, not enough contrast.

So, shockingly those fender liners are cheap, like $38 each.  Which is a stunningly low price for a Porsche part, sourced from the dealer no less.  So I think I'm going to buy a set...

Snapped a better pic of it with the wheels since I had to take it off the lift to work on my daughters Xterra

As a child of the 80's gold BBS wheels warm my heart.  Excellent work sir.

I love the attention to detail and love the gold bbs. 

This thread makes me want a 996 turbo pretty bad. The car looks great!

Thanks guys!  I'm really pleased that the wheels look as good in person as I'd hoped. 

I'm glad you bought this car when you did.  Prices are headed to the moon.

What shop did the wheels?  I'd like to have something similar done to my BBS sport classic IIs on the Boxster.  

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

I've been seeing 996 C4S asking prices heading up to close to the purchase price of my turbo.  Not sure where that puts my turbo... 

The shop did a good job on the wheels but it took them 5 months to complete them.  Because of that I don't feel like I can recommend them, it was a very frustrating experience, to say the least.

First event of the season done yesterday, PCA auto-x.  Was blessed with nice weather, best weather of the week and we're getting rain tomorrow and snow Wednesday.  Awesome.  I'm ready for Spring to get here for real.

Anyways, the car did great, I made a rookie error and took too much air out of my tires after my second run and never went faster the rest of the day.  Had trouble going slow in the slow parts.  Still ended up with a close to top 20 finish out of 80 people and the top ten were all seriously fast SCCA auto-x guys.  So I'm feeling pretty good about it.

No issues with the car, wheels still look fantastic!  Trying to decide whether to sign up for a PCA track day at Pueblo Motorsports Park or another PCA auto-x next month.  Really want to do both, know I won't get a hall pass to do both...

Finally got around to installing the camera for the Garmin Catalyst.  Which is as easy as figuring out where to mount it, cleaning that spot on the windshield and sticking it on. 

I mounted it just to the right side of rear view mirror, in front of the mirror so I can't see it from the drivers seat.  I debated running the power cord along the windshield, down the A pillar etc.  Then I realized I'd always have the tail of that cord hanging out on the dashboard.

Since I'm just going to leave the camera installed and not the rest of the stuff, I decided to use the shorter cable Garmin supplied to plug the camera in only when I have the Catalyst itself in the car with its suction mount. 

I also got a set of Nitto NT01 tires mounted on the stock turbo twist wheels yesterday.  Tomorrow I'll pull out the tire trailer, figure out if my 5 gallon fuel jugs will fit in the box, put the license plate registration sticker on it, etc, etc.

Well, today was the day I moved the tire trailer for the first time since I bought it over 2 years ago.  I'd stashed it in the corner of my garage and as I was trying to move it I remembered I had to move my air compressor to get the tire trailer out.  Which is a gigantic pita. 

Hmm.  I wonder if it'll fit under the stairs where I have all the snow tires/wheels/tools piled up?  Some quick measuring and it will.  That'll make it much easier to get at, especially to hook up and go to a track event.  All I'll need to do is attach the tongue, back the car up, hook up and drive away.

However that created a TON of work for me as I had to sawzall some drywall/2x4's out of the way in the corner, clean everything, move everything and then deal with the trailer.

I put the new registration sticker on, put air in the tires (they're 12" trailer tires, I set them to 50 psi.  That too much?  Too little?  Just right?)  I checked to see if my 5 gallon race fuel jugs will fit in the tool box.  They will but not well.  I did notice there's enough space between the tires and the tool box to hold my 5 gallon military jerry cans but getting fuel out of those is a PITA.  I also no longer have the mounting plates for them and a quick google search shows those are $55-65 each now.  Damn!

I do have a two race fuel jug holder, I mocked it up on the front of the trailer tongue and it looks like it'll fit perfectly there.  2 4" U bolts/brackets to secure it and I'd be in business.  Any reason not to do that?  If I run it with the jugs full that'd add maybe 65 lbs of tongue weight.

Anyways, here's the trailer tucked away in it's new home. 

I unbolt the tongue so I can fit the 911 in it's parking space.  It just fits....

First track day is in 2 weeks, can't wait!  Will be the first time I've run race tires on this car too, heading to Pueblo Motorsports Park, which is one of my favorite tracks in the state.

Yesterday I figured out how to mount the bracket for the two 5 gallon fuel jugs onto the tire trailer.  A couple of U bolts and some metal and away I went.

I mounted them as close to the trailer as possible to minimize tongue weight.  I won't be filling the jugs until the last gas station before the track.  That's maybe 10 minutes away at Pueblo Motorsports Park and 25 minutes away at High Plains.

This is a much better solution vs carrying them in the frunk of the car.  Auto-x with the car tomorrow, track day at PMP next weekend so I'll get to try out the tire trailer for the first time.

docwyte said:

 

MEATY!!!

In reply to CAinCA :

Yeah, the 315 NT01's are huge!

Is the AC Hydraulics jack everything I've ever dreamed it would be? 

In reply to adam525i :

Yes and then some.  Super low profile and long reach so it gets to just about any jack point, then it can lift 39".  It's the mac daddiest of mac daddy jacks.  I scored it used off Craigslist something like 13 years ago.  I don't use it much since I have a 4 post lift now but it still comes in handy...

Auto-x today!  For both my run groups, it was cold and cloudy, which effected the grip dramatically.  Like almost 2 seconds a run delta between our run group and the other one, which got the sunny weather!

As such I had a really hard time hooking up and the course was tight and technical.  I was able to drop 2 seconds off my time for the day but felt I should've been able to drop another 1-2 off.  Oh well, had fun!

Next weekend, track day at Pueblo Motorsports Park!

Swapped the PFC track brake pads on this morning.  Figured might as well do it now when I have the entire day off vs rushing to get it done Tursday afternoon after work. 

This way I can load the tire trailer up, get the tongue and fuel jug bracket bolted together and pack up the car.

Got some pics from the autox!

Hit the track this Friday/Saturday!  Friday was an open day and it was awesome!!  I was out on track with maybe 2-3 other cars at a time.  It'd been awhile since I'd been to Pueblo, so it was nice to reacquaint myself to the track.  Super chill group, no traffic at all, I went out for 15 minutes at a time every hour and was done at 3:15 or so.

Next day was the AMR PCA day, I was put in the Orange group, which has expanded passing.  That means you can pass anywhere with a point by.  I gridded in the middle, where I usually do with RMR, figuring there were going to be very fast people ahead of me.  Not so much.  The first run session I was held up continually, not given point bys etc.  I actually asked the lead organizer to bump me to Black, or sit down with the group and ask them to watch their mirrors and give point bys.  Neither happened.

Second session I made sure I was the lead car out.  I hit my goal, which was do to under 1:50.  I ended up doing a 1:49:41 with a predicted best lap of about a second faster.  Nobody caught me until 2/3rds of the way through, when my tires got too hot and I let a cayman past.  Third session I caught the tail of the group inside of 2 laps and had to work my way through traffic, getting stuck behind a 996 C4S that was really clueless that I was there.  Not good. Last session I did 4-5 laps, then came in, called it a day.

Here's my best lap courtesy of the Garmin Catalyst.  I've got lots of places to improve, I need to push the car far more in the corners and A: Trust the grip and B: Don't be such a sissy.  I give away Turn 10 leading onto the front straight on purpose.  You cross over multiple types of pavement, the plate for the Drag Race tree and the burn out box.  Then there's a concrete wall on the outside of the straight.

The Catalyst is awesome!  Sets up really easily, does a great job of lap times, coaching, easily intrepreted opportunities and video review.

The tire trailer worked out fabulously!  I got the fuel jugs mounted and that worked out really well. 

Towed really nicely, very smooth.  You can hardly see it behind the car, doesn't block visibility at all!

It hitches up the car easily, although I want to buy one of those fold down wheels for the trailer from Harbor Freight.

I managed to beat the rain home and today I unloaded the car, washed it, swapped the street brake pads back on, unloaded the tire trailer and tucked it away too.  Looking forward to my next track day at High Plains on July 24th.

Well, despite being as careful as I can be, I cracked/broke another front lip/splitter thing.  Luckily they're $104 shipped from eBay, so this time I bought two.  Now I have an extra one sitting in my basement.

Broken vs new

There's a phillips head screw on either side in the wheel well holding it on, then it just clips in place, so pull it right out

Reverse the process and the new one is on

Got the car ready for my PCA track day at High Plains this Saturday. Swapped on the PFC track pads, bolted the tongue back onto the trailer hitch and installed the fold down leg/wheel onto the tongue.  Annoyingly I had to go to the hardware store to get shorter bolts, would've been nice if the Hammer Store had included bolts that were threaded more, than I could've just cut them to length instead of replacing them.

You get track insurance when you do these events?

I saw a $75K GT350 pack the wall at PPIR a few months ago.  Looked like a bad day.