It began with a call from Mike at Spyder. He had just finished rebuilding an engine for a “production sports” 911 race car and was going to have to run it in and tune it. Did I want to come on one of the drives while he was doing it? He didn’t have to ask twice! :wink:
There were a few minor problems to get out of the way – there was no passenger seat for a start. Then Christmas holidays got in the way. Finally after all of those issues were sorted, and he had taken it for a couple of solo runs, we settled on a date to take it for a run but there was a twist – Mike wanted to be fine tuning the engine management system while we drove, which meant that he needed someone else to drive – ME!
Mike is going to write an article with lots of pictures for the magazine detailing the whole project, including the engine rebuild in detail etc, so I am not going to cover any of that. However the drive the other night raised a couple of fascinating issues that I thought I should share them now (and put pressure on Mike to do the full article) :twisted: .
There were three major thoughts I wanted to share now:
:arrow: the sheer power of the engine and the handling of the car compared to a road car
:arrow: the massive difference a good seat makes, and
:arrow: just how unbelievable the experience is when someone is altering the tuning characteristics of an engine while you are driving and you can instantly feel the difference!
I don’t know how much power and torque the new engine is making – perhaps Mike will share that information when he does his article and after it’s been on the dyno. Suffice to say that it is probably at least 50% more than my car (and it is not a slouch with 2.7RS barrels and pistons and E cams).
However the difference on the road is massive – to the extent it is almost impossible to convey in words. It just feels so strong – more so than some big (road going) V8’s I have been in. Also given its head it felt like it would pull straight up to the cut off without hesitation in any gear, which of course we did not do given it was a fresh engine being run in and we were on a public road.
The most amazing thing was after the fettling Mike had been doing to it while we were driving it was probably more tractable and easy to drive than my car! Indeed as Mike was driving it back up the highway to Melbourne in 5th he remarked it was like driving an auto – he could just keep it there in 5th right down to under 2000rpm and run it back up again without any hesitation or “snatching”.
The suspension was set up for the wide slicks the car normally runs and the track. Mike had it on much narrower wheels and road tyres and had adjusted it a bit to compensate but it was certainly not dialled in for the road or the wheel/tyre combination. As we were leaving Melbourne Mike was driving and I was in the passenger seat he had put in as a temporary measure – a standard “lounge” seat from an early 911. :roll:
The only difference from any road car with standard seats is that I had a harness holding me tight into the (soft) seat. My first impression was the suspension was absolute c.r.a.p! :shock: It was hard as expected but the rebound control seemed bad and it seemed to be very choppy and poorly controlled at relatively low speeds on main outer suburban roads– not at all what I expected! I thought that it might be the totally different tyres and wheels and that it was really set up for a smooth race track. I could feel that the seat was not helping either but had no idea how much that was the case until we reached the edge of the city and it was my turn to drive. 8)
What a difference a good seat makes! The driver’s seat was a modern competition Recaro bucket. It was firmer than my factory sports seats and hugged me a bit more and of course the harness made a lot of difference holding me in firmly.
I realised then, that for at least the last 25 years all of my cars had had firm seats, from competition Recaro buckets in my old Lancia (I wish I still had them as they were period correct for my current car) to firm Recaro like seats in an Audi and the very firm seats in the various Mercedes my wife has had. I hadn’t been in a soft “normal” seat, with the possible exception of short stints in a hire car (and cabs which don’t count), for a long time.
Suddenly the suspension that had felt crappy to say the least felt completely different. Yes it still was a bit hard for normal road use but it felt like it was controlling the car, not the other way around. 8)
The lack of rebound control and choppiness that I had felt as a passenger had actually been the seat – not the car! :roll: A big lesson to be leaned – before you do too much work on your suspension to improve your ride and feel, get some good seats! Driving the car the suspension felt similar to my old Lancia albeit a bit firmer. The Lancia was set up for fast highway driving (when you could still do it) with very firm Bilsteins (although I changed to softer KONI sports after I bent a front strut on the Hume Highway!)
The car was a bit “taily” as set up because it was set up for 11 inch rear slicks but I could certainly live with the setup on the car as a road car, provided it was adjusted to suit the narrower wheel/tyre combination– but only in the driver seat not with the soft passenger seat.
The last, and most amazing thing, was the tuning of the car via the laptop as we were driving. You could instantly feel the changes as Mike punched them into the laptop and adjusted timing, air/fuel mixtures etc at various engine rev bands and under different condition (acceleration, steady throttle etc). As I drove Mike was constantly adjusting the engine management via the laptop.
The end result was an engine that felt very smooth and tractable to drive – more so than mine – and this is in a race car! :shock: Small changes to timing at various places could be instantly felt in the behavior of the car as could adjustments to the fuel delivery and air/fuel mixture under different conditions. We spent a couple of fun (for me ) hours driving around doing this and adding much needed running in miles to the car. It was not as fun for Mike – apart from having his head down operating the laptop he was trying to brace himself in the passenger seat to the extent that he ended up getting a leg cramp from bracing himself despite the fact he was wearing a harness. It really emphasised the difference the seat made.
All in all it was a fantastic experience – thanks Mike for thinking of me – and a real eye opener as to how fantastic these programmable engine management systems are and how tractable and user friendly they can make even a powerful race engine feel for normal road use. The way the race car was driving the other night I could even see myself using it as a daily driver 8) although I am sure the neighbors would complain every time I started it up – :twisted:
The exhaust pipes when we finished the drive were a beautiful grey colour (on pump petrol!) unlike my MFI one. I wonder how I can put such a system into my car and still leave it looking MFI stock?:twisted: :twisted:
There were a few minor problems to get out of the way – there was no passenger seat for a start. Then Christmas holidays got in the way. Finally after all of those issues were sorted, and he had taken it for a couple of solo runs, we settled on a date to take it for a run but there was a twist – Mike wanted to be fine tuning the engine management system while we drove, which meant that he needed someone else to drive – ME!
Mike is going to write an article with lots of pictures for the magazine detailing the whole project, including the engine rebuild in detail etc, so I am not going to cover any of that. However the drive the other night raised a couple of fascinating issues that I thought I should share them now (and put pressure on Mike to do the full article) :twisted: .
There were three major thoughts I wanted to share now:
:arrow: the sheer power of the engine and the handling of the car compared to a road car
:arrow: the massive difference a good seat makes, and
:arrow: just how unbelievable the experience is when someone is altering the tuning characteristics of an engine while you are driving and you can instantly feel the difference!
I don’t know how much power and torque the new engine is making – perhaps Mike will share that information when he does his article and after it’s been on the dyno. Suffice to say that it is probably at least 50% more than my car (and it is not a slouch with 2.7RS barrels and pistons and E cams).
However the difference on the road is massive – to the extent it is almost impossible to convey in words. It just feels so strong – more so than some big (road going) V8’s I have been in. Also given its head it felt like it would pull straight up to the cut off without hesitation in any gear, which of course we did not do given it was a fresh engine being run in and we were on a public road.
The most amazing thing was after the fettling Mike had been doing to it while we were driving it was probably more tractable and easy to drive than my car! Indeed as Mike was driving it back up the highway to Melbourne in 5th he remarked it was like driving an auto – he could just keep it there in 5th right down to under 2000rpm and run it back up again without any hesitation or “snatching”.
The suspension was set up for the wide slicks the car normally runs and the track. Mike had it on much narrower wheels and road tyres and had adjusted it a bit to compensate but it was certainly not dialled in for the road or the wheel/tyre combination. As we were leaving Melbourne Mike was driving and I was in the passenger seat he had put in as a temporary measure – a standard “lounge” seat from an early 911. :roll:
The only difference from any road car with standard seats is that I had a harness holding me tight into the (soft) seat. My first impression was the suspension was absolute c.r.a.p! :shock: It was hard as expected but the rebound control seemed bad and it seemed to be very choppy and poorly controlled at relatively low speeds on main outer suburban roads– not at all what I expected! I thought that it might be the totally different tyres and wheels and that it was really set up for a smooth race track. I could feel that the seat was not helping either but had no idea how much that was the case until we reached the edge of the city and it was my turn to drive.
8) What a difference a good seat makes! The driver’s seat was a modern competition Recaro bucket. It was firmer than my factory sports seats and hugged me a bit more and of course the harness made a lot of difference holding me in firmly.
I realised then, that for at least the last 25 years all of my cars had had firm seats, from competition Recaro buckets in my old Lancia (I wish I still had them as they were period correct for my current car) to firm Recaro like seats in an Audi and the very firm seats in the various Mercedes my wife has had. I hadn’t been in a soft “normal” seat, with the possible exception of short stints in a hire car (and cabs which don’t count), for a long time.
Suddenly the suspension that had felt crappy to say the least felt completely different. Yes it still was a bit hard for normal road use but it felt like it was controlling the car, not the other way around. 8)
The lack of rebound control and choppiness that I had felt as a passenger had actually been the seat – not the car! :roll: A big lesson to be leaned – before you do too much work on your suspension to improve your ride and feel, get some good seats! Driving the car the suspension felt similar to my old Lancia albeit a bit firmer. The Lancia was set up for fast highway driving (when you could still do it) with very firm Bilsteins (although I changed to softer KONI sports after I bent a front strut on the Hume Highway!)
The car was a bit “taily” as set up because it was set up for 11 inch rear slicks but I could certainly live with the setup on the car as a road car, provided it was adjusted to suit the narrower wheel/tyre combination– but only in the driver seat not with the soft passenger seat.
The last, and most amazing thing, was the tuning of the car via the laptop as we were driving. You could instantly feel the changes as Mike punched them into the laptop and adjusted timing, air/fuel mixtures etc at various engine rev bands and under different condition (acceleration, steady throttle etc). As I drove Mike was constantly adjusting the engine management via the laptop.
The end result was an engine that felt very smooth and tractable to drive – more so than mine – and this is in a race car! :shock: Small changes to timing at various places could be instantly felt in the behavior of the car as could adjustments to the fuel delivery and air/fuel mixture under different conditions. We spent a couple of fun (for me
) hours driving around doing this and adding much needed running in miles to the car. It was not as fun for Mike – apart from having his head down operating the laptop he was trying to brace himself in the passenger seat to the extent that he ended up getting a leg cramp from bracing himself despite the fact he was wearing a harness. It really emphasised the difference the seat made.All in all it was a fantastic experience – thanks Mike for thinking of me – and a real eye opener as to how fantastic these programmable engine management systems are and how tractable and user friendly they can make even a powerful race engine feel for normal road use. The way the race car was driving the other night I could even see myself using it as a daily driver 8) although I am sure the neighbors would complain every time I started it up – :twisted:
The exhaust pipes when we finished the drive were a beautiful grey colour (on pump petrol!) unlike my MFI one. I wonder how I can put such a system into my car and still leave it looking MFI stock?:twisted: :twisted:
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