6 months to live build thread

[The Radium King]

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2000-chevrolet-corvette-20/

[steved0x]

You'll like the Hankook R-S4 I bet

We have a Corvette like that down here that runs autocross and some track at The FIRM, it is pretty fast and light. I don't know if i would want to be blasting at 150 down the front straight at a track like Roebling with it...

[Smallblock454]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

i'll disagree with that. regarding rigidity of the boxster chassis, you have two concerns - (a) rigidity of the front subframe, and (b) rigidity of the front subframe relative to the rear subframe.

in the front sub-frame, the only opportunity for relative movement of the various components is at the strut top mounts. specifically, they may try to spread apart when subject to cornering loads. this is where a strut brace comes into play - it stops that from happening (which is why they can be made of carbon fiber - they don't need to deal with compression, only tension). they may also try to move a bit forward/backward if subject to caster loads, but note that there are already triangulation braces in the car. to support those braces i would also note the quality of steel used in that area as per the following:



regarding relative motion of the front and rear subframes (typically a torsion or twisting force - that creaking you get when you drive over a driveway lip unevenly for example) is not going to be impacted by your windshield or the presence of any strengthening along the upper forward cowl. to address this, look to reinforcing that big flat open space between the front and rear wheels - which is why you keep your door structure in place unless adding a cage.

rollover protection, front impact protection? yeah, keep your windshield. and your airbags. and your factory seats. and seatbelts. not certain that's what this is about, however. do check your regs; the broomstick test looks different without a windshield - oem rollbar probably not high enough.

Well, i think you have looked to long on that technical drawing. You should also take into consideration that your chassis has also doors, windshields and side windows. Especially the closed doors with closed side windows in combination with the front window frame and front windscreen add a lot of rigidity. That was what i'm talking about. If you remove the windscreen under that aspect, you have a lot more torsion and a less rigid chassis. If you want a fast and stable car, you need a ridgit chassis. I think we both agree on that.

Regards, Markus

[itsnotanova]

Here's a shot of me smoking one Hankook R-S4 tire for about 100 feet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRFV_rATtF8

Another thing to remember is that I'll have at least 1000lbs less weight to be moving around. less weight = less structure stiffness needed. I've taken so much weight off the front end that the car under steers like crazy. I might be taking the front sway bar off because of it being so light.

I moved the battery and used a much smaller Miata battery. The Miata battery was in my other boxster for about a year. I took it out because I kept burning through them. Not so good on a street car but seems to work fine for the beater boxster.

[Anker]

That's so frigging cool, Woody! I'd love to do something similar. 1000lbs is HUGE!

[Smallblock454]

Originally Posted by itsnotanova

Here's a shot of me smoking one Hankook R-S4 tire for about 100 feet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRFV_rATtF8

100 thumbs up!

I think you need a locking differential.

Regards, Markus

[itsnotanova]

Originally Posted by Anker

That's so frigging cool, Woody! I'd love to do something similar. 1000lbs is HUGE!

Originally Posted by Smallblock454

100 thumbs up!

I think you need a locking differential.

Regards, Markus

Thanks guys. I'm hoping for a total weight of 1500-1600 lbs. I'm going to go get it weighed next week to see. I'm half tempted to throw a Lincoln locker in it. I'm too cheap for a real LSD.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get to take it to a real track, but if I do I threw on some tow hooks in case. As you can see, one is a nice manufactured tow hook specifically made for a Porsche, and the other is Woody engineered from scrap. I took the factory bumper shock and cut off both ends of the shock. I then welded the mounting bracket to what was left of the shock tube and then welded a clevis shackle to the tube.


I also decided to throw a quick $10 paint job on it. I liked the blue but there are areas that are not painted at the factory. I figured it would look less ugly if it was one color everywhere. Plus flat black adds 15 horsepower.


As you can see I painted everywhere and almost everything. Besides looks, the paint will protect items from the elements. Mostly the sun! You'd be amazed at how quickly the sun will destroy plastics and wiring on these cars. The brake reservoir turns to dust and the wiring gets brittle in only a few months. I also changed the radiator mounting up a little bit also. I wanted it off the bottom because I'm sure the front area will be get a little abuse.

[BIGJake111]

Thank you for this thread! I’ll be keeping up with this one!

[itsnotanova]

Originally Posted by BIGJake111

Thank you for this thread! I’ll be keeping up with this one!

Thanks and thanks to those in the past or future who are entertained by this build

So the AOS went out on the motor. There's a little trick that I've seen a race team do. They cap off the tube that goes into the intake and run a hose from the aos to a catch can in the trunk. The guy I got the idea off of says he doesn't even put the tube into a bottle but his dad does. These are spec guys and somewhat successful. I told another spec friend of mine about that and he said he tried that once. He said his bottle started filling up with oil and he believes you lose a little power. I'm cheap, so I'm going to try it and see what happens. I don't feel any power loss and my catch can has no oily residue. I'll see how i feel about it later but for right now I give the idea two thumbs up. Also in the picture below you can see I removed the secondary air injection and made my own plates out of scrap aluminum. I now have a 3.2 ROW tune too.





Now the big news. I had a friend send me a link to a local rally cross track not too far from my house. We've been joking about driving this boxster off-roading and he kind of sent me the link as a joke. Today I had some free time and was going to stop by two tracks so they could see/hear my car before I commit to any races. I stopped by the rally track first because the road course track wasn't open until 10. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, everyone came out and wanted to talk to me. They don't get too many people showing up in Porsches. They were very excited to see what it would do. I hung out all day until everyone was done racing and then let the owners take it out on the track. The car performed amazingly well! In fact, with the right tires it might have been the fastest car all day. That's not saying a whole lot but it's still pretty impressive. Most of the cars there were complete beaters. Mostly Subaru's but there was a STI and EVO there. After they were done having fun with it, I took it for a few laps myself. I couldn't believe how well the boxster rode in such rough terrain. I was expecting to get my filling rattled out of my teeth. It was quite the opposite. It handled bumps and ruts without a sweat. The boxster makes a great rally car! It worked so great that I've decided not to kill the car in six months. I'm keeping it and racing next year in the little race series they have here. Another bonus about racing in this series is that it's only $50 to race at a one day event they have once a month. Real hard to beat that anywhere else. Here's a video of it on the track and a video of it doing drifting donuts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bTZCBbA2h4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI-Ow75qo_g

[BruceH]

That video is crazy! Looks fun

[Smallblock454]

Think the 986 can be a real good dirt car. Mid engine, RWD.

50 bucks a day sounds really good.

And be careful: too much paint means too much weight.

I think it could be interesting to get more cleareance to the ground. So maybe with different, higher profile tyres or a kind of a lift kit.

Maybe you can get old Cayenne or Touareg rims and tyres / wheels with all terrain tyres. They have 5x130.

So you can get something like that:



Regards, Markus

[itsnotanova]

Lol, i only put one coat down.
From talking to the people who were there, huge ground clearance isn't needed. It's all about the tires. I was running the R-S4's and definitely needed more grip. They did say that on some days where the ground is really packed that the R-S4's actually do pretty good. I'm going to switch to some 18 turbo twist with some more aggressive tires I have. I was worried about bending the rims I have on now. Those 17's are very hard to find but 18 TT's are dime a dozen. I have three sets of those.

[itsnotanova]

Got the boxster weighed and it came in at 2150. Needless to say I was disappointed. I was hoping for under 1900. That was with the hood, trunk and doors. I'm guessing those together might weigh 100-125 LBS. The car sure feels lighter. I'm hoping the scale was off as it was a scale meant for large trucks.

[Smallblock454]

Hm, i'm not shure about that clearance thing. You have the engine and the drivetrain in the rear. So if you accelerate the nose of the car is up and the rear is down. If you hit a "rock" that could be a problem.

Weight: don't think that it's that important. Traction and HP seems more important to me. Especially if you want to use it as a dirt car. Who cares about 200 lbs if you can have fun on a dirt track all day long?

Do you need a roll cage or other "heavy weight" safety features to attend the dirt track events?

Regards, Markus

[Smallblock454]

Hi Woody,

because you've removed the soft top, how about the idea to replace the intake hoses with something that comes directly out of the engine cover. I think the long intake hose with the corners to the intake filter cut hp. If you go directly up out to the cover and add a good air filter with a good air flow, this might gain some hp.

Also it would be an interesting idea to use 2 throttle bodies instead of one. So using an additional throttle body instead of the connection hose. Because now you have space above the engine, i think this could be an option. I know this also would need an individual remap and i know that is not cheap. Also this might need a modification of the fuel system / injectors. And maybe other cams could be useful. Maybe an interesting approach to get more hp out of the engine. But in the end not cheap for shure.

Regards, Markus

[itsnotanova]

I have thought about adding an intake system that forces more air into it. Not sure what yet.

As for the dual throttle body. I've been thinking about something like that for years. I was thinking of using the 97-99 intake manifolds but instead switch the two sides so the two intake tubes stick outward. From there connect a throttle body on each side with their own individual air filters. Each side would then lead to the side air intakes of the car. The engine compartment fan would either have to be moved or eliminated. I think the intake manifold could be modified easily but wiring up the MAF sensor and individual TB's to work might be the biggest challenge.

[78F350]

Awesome project. The Texas Gambler 500 is in your neighborhood. Have you considered it?

https://www.facebook.com/TexasGambler500Rally/

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/feel-lucky-the-2018-texas-gambler-500/136980/page1/

[itsnotanova]

Originally Posted by 78F350

Awesome project. The Texas Gambler 500 is in your neighborhood. Have you considered it?

Thanks. Looks like fun but converting back to a street legal car would be a hassle.

In preparation for my first race, I switched to some Yokohama tires I had thinking they would grip better than the Hankook rs4's I had on at the previous test&tune. I also added some down turns to the exhaust in attempt to quiet it down some. Everyone at the test&tune said it was fine, but I thought it couldn't hurt.
This past weekend was my first official race with the boxster. My friend who races autocross decided to join me as I told him how fun it is. He's been racing on payment for years and has had no experience on dirt before. He was excited to try it out but was apprehensive about driving a car he had no knowledge about on a surface that was just as foreign to him. He went out first and did badly. I went out and was horrible. The car couldn't get any power down. As soon as you touched the throttle, the back end would try to swing out. It was like drag racing on ice with bald tires. I had the air pressure set at 50. I was told at the T&T that you typically want to run high so you don't lose a bead. I believed it too because I saw a car lose a bead at T&T and it really sucks. Not only does it mess your run up, you have to get out of rotation to fix it. Hopefully you can make it to a place to fix it before ruining the tire. Another bad thing about losing a bead is that dirt gets crammed up in there and can keep the tire from forming another seal. I won't say it ruins your day, but losing a bead sucks. Well it turns out that too high sucks too. It took us three runs each before we had the tires low enough to where we got decent grip. By his 4th run, my friend was at the top of the pack and had the fastest round of the day if he didn't hit the last cone. My 4th round was embarrassing. I was at the bottom of the pack in the same car my friend was kicking butt in. In my defense, this was the first time I've officially raced a car. For the last run we had the rear tires down to 28psi. Again my friend went out and nailed it. Now it was my last run. With nothing to lose, I went out and slung the car around like I didn't care if I spun it. I rode every corner like I should have. On my last run I went from the being in the back of the pack to being in the top and it felt great. Run 1-4 I was the second slowest car in in modified 2wd and 4wd. I'm no alpha male who has to be at the top but I'm definitely not comfortable with being on the bottom either. By lap 4 I was very disappointed in myself. Something clicked because I killed it in run 5. Needless to say I was happy that I vindicated my driving ability to myself and others. It kind of sucked that it took us 3 runs to even get competitive.
Because of issues with timing, the track could only let one car race at a time. On a normal event you get 10 runs. The track decided that because people got shorted some runs that at the end of the day people could go run a few unsupervised/timed runs. Basically open practice. If you wanted it timed someone would have to operate the timer for you. I told my friend that I thought I had better grip at the T&T with the rs4's. My friend and I then switched back to the rs4's on the rear to see if there was a difference. With the rs4's my friend would have beat every car there. Even 4wd! The boxster is amazing at rallycross. It soaks up bumps and ruts like they're not even there. Next time I'll get video of other vehicles vs the boxster. Some cars look like they're about to go air born from the bumps, but the boxster makes it look like a paved road.
So my friend had so much fun and was blown away by the car that he wants in on the car. We're going to start racing the car as a team and elevating it back up from it's "Hold my beer" roots. First on the list is wider rear tires. Getting power to the ground is the biggest problem. My friend is more concerned about looks and wants to put fenders and bumpers back on it. We also want to participate at real sanctioned SCCA rally events so I'm not opposed to putting them back on. There's some other plans we have so stayed tuned.
Below is my friend's car to give you an idea of where rally boxster might be going

[Smallblock454]

Some air intake inspiration.

[itsnotanova]

Originally Posted by Smallblock454

Some air intake inspiration.

It's getting close to looking like that. My racing partner, his employee and I spent the day working on the rally boxster and making it look like a boxster again. We started by putting fenders and a bumper cover back on it. The single radiator inside the frunk works great, so we made the center hole bigger.


I threw on some S rear uprights and brakes. The S rear hubs are much larger than the base hubs and I figured it should help with the durability. Those rear hubs get a lot of abuse. The brake calipers have slightly larger pistons. Braking isn't as important with rallycross though

We're throwing some 18x11 wheels with 275 tread width to hopefully help with traction. We experimented with the rear wing. I got it for free so I thought I would see if we liked it. It's not needed on most of the tracks we'll be at, so we decided to yank it