Brands Hatch shakedown

Brands Hatch's Summer Wednesday's are back so I booked a taster session to give the 944 a good shakedown!

A good friend of mine came along as co-pilot and to enjoy his first track experience. We signed in, did the drivers briefing then had the noise level tested - and passed at 96 decibels. We even got a sticker! Each stage was building towards our time on the track and so were the excitement levels!

When the first round of cars hit the circuit for their sighting laps we rolled the TheHoff into one of the empty garages to wait our turn at 6pm...

Our chariot certainly looked at home!

Soon enough it was our turn so we fired up and burbled our way down the pit lane and joined the queue of other cars waiting behind the pace car for our 3 sighting laps after which the pace car would reel off and we'd continue for 20 minutes lapping the Indy circuit.

Exiting the pit lane and swinging into Paddock Bend and into the infamous hill was quite a moment - after 4 years off the road it had finally come to this - the first time I would drive my own car on a world famous circuit. I've drive at Brands Hatch before on track days with BMW M3's and single seater Audi Palmer's but this was new territory and I was feeling very excited although tentative - that's why I had purposely booked a taster session on a Novice track evening to test the 944 in a safe and controlled environment.

The game plan was to slowly build up heat in the brakes and tyres and get to know the car. From the off I was impressed by the handling, noise and exceleration - TheHoff was feeling right at home.

After roughly twenty minutes and approximately 17 miles of slowly building up confidence, overtaking some slower cars, mastering the corners and becoming more comfortable with higher speeds our outing came to a very satisfying end.

I'm happy to say that TheHoff performed flawlessly - which was a great relief. It's one thing driving your modern classic sports car on the roads - it's quite another thrill entirely doing it on a circuit such as Brands Hatch after you've rebuilt most of it yourself.

Happy days!

Comments

Engine out the top - Easy Peasy

After reading numerous posts, the Porsche workshop manual and Clarks Garage step-by-step engine removal guide - I felt confident enough to tackle the job. But I wanted to remove the engine from the top. As I discovered, it was pretty straight forward even for a novice! Result. I wanted to avoid removing the cross member and disturb the front suspension to do something I was convinced could be done easier from the top. Posts such as this one convinced me to give it a go at least. And I'm glad I did. In summary I was able to remove the engine from the top without needing to remove the bonnet/hood; torque tube; transaxle; bellhousing; clutch; clutch slave cylinder; cross member; front suspension; and radiator. Contrary to many so called internet experts opinions and many confusing threads this was painless and without dread. All that was necessary to remove was the starter; power steering pump and alternator (I figured to make the bottom of the engine narrower); intak...

Bellhousing & Clutch fork removal

Removing the bellhousing from the Porsche 944 engine is not as complicated as it may seem - such as in this situation with my replacement engine. When I removed the original engine I detached it from the bellhousing in the car and removed the clutch pressure plate bolts through the starter motor hole - see my other post for details . In this case I decided to remove the clutch fork pivot shaft bolt. Begin by removing the four 17mm bellhousing bolts - you'll find that the bellhousing doesn't detach completely from the engine. It'll feel like its hooking on something. That something is the clutch fork pivot shaft inside the bellhousing. The bellhousing will be loose enough to rotate - turn it 180 degrees and peek through the access port which is now on top - this is what you'll see: If the engine is still in car you'll be looking at this from underneath. The pivot shaft needs to be extracted from the clutch fork. It's held in place by a small bolt on the...

New Steering shaft bearing Nightmare removal

In my quest to tighten up the handling on the 944, I bought a new Needle Bearing from Porsche in an attempt to eliminate the fore-aft play in the steering at the top universal joint. The part number for the replacement is 477.419.059 and costs £88.86 posted from an OPC. Nothing like the effort required to actually remove the old one... I began the process by reading section 48 of Porsche Workshop manual. It appeared a simple enough process but two things bothered me: firstly, it required a chisel to remove a shear bolt (which in my limited experience never "shear"; and secondly a drill to remove two screws from the ignition lock. I was bothered because a quick look under the dashboard made it quite obvious that whoever had written the manual hadn't performed this task - well not without a dashboard in place that's for sure. I was bothered before I'd even started. Furthermore, the manual doesn't detail the replacement of this bearing at all - just the rem...

Living with a Porsche 944

Search This Blog