I kept busy on the car, but not the engine swap. After the coolant tank replacement I stripped a little more weight out of the car. The convertible top is out and its wearing a silver hard top. I have a scrapped (bad window) soft top that I am going to modify into a light weight sun-shade. I moved the window controls to the horse shoe and replaced the carpet with foam mats. New rear rotors (Meyle) and ceramic pads. Flushed the brakes, blue to gold. Got rid of the plastic bumper grill and riveted mesh in. I drove it hard on some back roads testing out the repair to the cooling system and it all looked good.
For MayFast, I thought of trailering it to the track, but figured the drive would be good as a final check and to finish breaking in the new pads. Almost a 2 hour drive and the temperature stayed on the '8', but after shutting down at the track I did notice the coolant had dropped about an inch below the min line. I topped it off, thinking it would be okay. During the first session I was flagged to the pits for fluid dripping from my car. I hoped that just topping it off and bleeding it again would get it fixed. Parked on a good hill, I ran about 20 minutes, then drove it around the access roads, high revs in low gear for a while. All seemed good.
(Rolling on my 'street' wheels and tires, not working on speed as much as basics.)
The next session I almost made the full 15 minutes. No flags, no spins, and the car was running well. ...Oh no, temp gauge going above the zero of 180. ...crap, it's still rising. ...blinking red light. ********************, end of track day. Momentarily the temp got to 250 as I pulled into parking. I nursed it back down running the fans and letting it run a few minutes at a time to circulate the coolant. I told my wife, "we are done with this 2.5. Next time this car comes to the track it will be the V8."
The car made the 2 hour drive home without trouble. Again the temp stayed right on the 8. At this point I don't know if there is a hot spot in the engine or just a little air trapped. I have ordered a vacuum/bleeder/tester for the cooling system. Maybe I'll find the problem, but my focus is going back to the swap rather than pampering this engine.
My other big distraction is another Porsche that showed up at my house. "Pepper II". I didn't mean to buy it, How was I to know the seller would take 1/2 of the reserve price? Just needs a little dent pulled out and a cardan shaft bushing.
