Blue Group. We started the day arbitrarily classed, surrounded by Porsche GT3's, Batmobile Vettes, and such. This means Barret has to keep more of his mind on dodging rather than driving.
07Jul19; Sun. We are lucky to have Barber as our hometown track. It's a classy, world-class facility. We race both LeMons and Historic Sportscar events here, as well as track days like today. Better to discover a problem in testing than actual racing.
Barret attends the 7:15 AM driver's meeting, while Jamrod rolls the Ghia out of the trailer and sets up camp. Barret is placed in Blue class, entirely the wrong place for us. There is a short cool morning period on the tiered paddocks, a false hope, before the sun gets high. We breakfast on snack bar bacon & egg biscuits and tinker with the Ghia's idle as we warm up the 2.2 engine. The day promises to quickly be "July in Alabama" hot.
Our Ghia and a New Beetle (Green Group), both numbered 53, parade in front of the troops. Barber is home to the Porsche Factory driving school.
Barret's first run is from 0900 to 0930. No Nomex required, just helmets. We still have the cherry bomb style muffler (made for a 1.6) we ran at the Historics, and it is highly restrictive on the 2.2 engine. Barret cannot develop enough power. Barber has strict noise policies, and we did bring a stinger with us, but we decide not to change it and just live with the power loss.
The cam is an Engle 140, with a power band of 4000-7500, compression two points low for the cam at 9:01, an exhaust that chokes at 6000, and a 3.88 final drive that won't keep us in the power band in 4th gear. A mess to test. The ambient temp is now close to 99° F. in the direct sun. Oil temps are above 240° going to 260° F, way too high. A plug check after Barret came in shows lean running, and we have 170's (our largest main jets!) installed in the 44IDF Webers.
Our nose-mounted 24-plate oil cooler works great for 1.6 to 1.7 engines, but is obviously not enough for our 2.2 today.
On his next session, Barret is occupied with constant point-by passing hand signals to keep from being run over, and to make matters worse, the oil temp is now reaching 280° F. At this extreme, the Lucas Classic Hot Rod Oil is overwhelmed and even at high RPM, we are flashing the red oil pressure warning light. We presume we have found the limits of Lucas Classic, which to be fair is not advertised as racing oil, but more for keeping solid lifters healthy. I instruct Jamrod to remove his custom-design ABS plastic oil cooler ducting between the air dam and bodywork in case it is acting like an air trap.
Adding a new problem, the steering has suddenly developed way too much play. When Barret comes in at end of session, we are all hot, and aggravated.
Jamrod refits the left front tire after checking the TRW steering box to see if it was going to fall off. The box was installed in 2004, and for all its service life, worked a quick steer kit. These kits increase the load on the box by changing the leverage point of the Pittman arm and over time, increased wear. Our box was lubed by grease, not oil.
Green Group Cars. Barret dices with a GTI in the infield hairpin.
After lunch, We have the steering (over) adjusted, and the fuel cell topped up. Barret goes back out, driving so hard the Hoosier Speedster tires begin to melt and get greasy, and the steering is so heavy after adjustment that Barret wears a big blister on his palm. And of course the oil temp doesn't drop.
Just after lunch, the 99° F heat gave way to a Biblical rain.
Then amidst all this, the skies go from blue glare to dark cloud cover, and we are hit with heavy, blinding rain. The cars are flagged off the track, Barret driving directly up into the trailer as he returns to our tier.
Honestly, we are glad to be done. We were not fast today, allowing too many variables in the engine, but we learned a lot. That's what track days are for.
FJC