Patrick's 1973 Martini RSR recreation Project

[patrick911]

Short update.
The chassis is still being primed, sanded and primed again, readying it for paint in the next couple of months.
Main news is that I ran into a set of NOS 2.8 RSR High Butterfly Injection stacks that are now proudly waiting to be installed in my car!
I also received the Zuffenhaus 917/RSR brakes - only took them 16 months or so - and they do look fantastic!

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Finally, KJ has come thru and has completed the housing for the works 120L FT3 fuel cell, but he's not able/willing to do the whole thing so I'm looking for partners in the US & locally to finish that job. It's coming together pretty nicely at this stage, but with the situation and job-insecurity at this stage I will put a few of these things on hold for now, reserving a bit of savings for if I need it....

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[Terminator]

you just have to buy and original MFI pump now Patrick and no one will know it's not the original car

[epilot]

Those calipers and injection stuff is just beautiful

[marcus_cottrill]

they are works of art

[reedminor]

those calipers and injection stuff is just beautiful

i second that

jr

[patrick911]

The more you research, the more you'll find and learn.
The restored R6 car had a strange bracket in the engine bay, and it turned out R2 did too. A bit of a search on the web turned up a picture of R2 that could be blown up and it seems to be a light, which sort of makes sense seeing R2 and R6 both appeared in Le Mans (as did R7 btw).
So I now need to find if that light would have been on at the Targa Florio or if I just add it as a nice touch.

I'm also working with ATL on the fuel cell for which Kevin Jeanette made me the housing. When researching how that works, I noticed that it had different fuel pumps than the standard dual Bosch setup all the other RSRs have. On pictures you can see they're mounted on the sides, just in front of the strut brace brackets. Google turned up this was known as a 'Messerschmitt' pump, but a further search and some help from the earlyS forum & Tuthill in the UK identified this to be a Bosch pump that was used in a few Mercedes' cars at the time, and also by Porsche in its 908 & 917 race cars. (code F 026 TX3 006, Porsche item number 912.608.101.00.)
Funnily enough Tuthill said it was OK for a road & rallye car, but not so much for race cars, as it struggles to keep pressure on on long straights.... ??? weird.

So the search for special parts continues. One can find these pumps alright, but most ask a fortune (no I'm not surprised) and a core to be refurbished.
The search on what light Porsche exactly used for that engine bay bracket also remains, but knowing they'd often use what they had in the parts bin, I think this may be a 914 interior light they used. At least that looks very close to the picture.

I do need to hurry up a bit with these details, because in the mean time Jason has not been sitting idle; the car is primed, sanded, primed again, wet sanded and nearly ready for paint. It's just those last few brackets and details we need to get right before it gets its color. The lockdown is obviously not helping, as i did spend a few days in Bayswater but no chance of that in the coming 6 weeks.

Finally, I may have mentioned that I researched Gijs van Lennep's helmet and wanted - as a nice touch - to spray my modern Bell helmet as a tribute to the great driver.
It took John Kral a couple of months to finish it, only for me to discover he got the name wrong.... I know 'GIJS' is a weird Dutch name, but 'GUS' is not quite right.
And kind of mandatory if the whole idea is to have a tribute to the driver. So back to the drawing board it was. He has done a great job though, so I'll better only show the completed, fixed helmet once its ready.

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[patrick911]

I bit the bullet and scored a Bosch fuelpump on Ebay, but it's been stuck in Chicago (USPS) for at least 12 days now.... hope it's Covid related and not that it's lost.

In Melbourne, in Stage 4 for the last 4 weeks, means there's not much happening with the car.

ATL in New Jersey have completed the custom fuel-bladder and it arrived today with the GRP casing Kevin Jeanette @Gunnar Racing put together.
There's still quite a bit of work to do to finish the thing, and we can't do that obviously until I can place the combo in the car and measure where the filler-necks, brackets, fuel-sender, etc, need to go.
Seeing only a handful of 2.8 RSRs were ever fitted with these FT3 120L safety cells, and after begging KJ for over a year to do this job, then him making the shell as per original, finding a company that would do the custom bladder, shipping the casing from Florida to Jersey, and now having the cell here, it does feel like a huge accomplishment & milestone for the project.

So other than this, the fuel pumps (or more specifically: their custom brackets), the engine compartment light and the metal-ring around the rev-counter (to fit a 100mm dial in the 110mm hole), the holes in the hood for the fuel-filler, the 3 lightweight balsa wood strips under the hood, the car is now very close to paint.

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[Terminator]

still waiting to see you hit buy on that NOS RSR distributor on early S

[patrick911]

Hey Clyde,

Yes I've been following that one, but it is a Bosch 3.0 distributor and I believe that I, as I want to make mine a 2.8, need the Magnetti Marelli variant with the smaller diameter neck.
I'll remove the original one from my 2.7 case over the weekend to have a look. It is a pretty special part he's selling...

But then there's also the 'genuine RSR Transmission OilPump with 915 tail-Housing and spray bar' for sale, advertised by Tom in QLD.

Decisions, decisions....

[Terminator]

Just buy a genuine car the way your going you will have that much in it

[patrick911]

My Bosch fuel pump has finally arrived, so I can take measurements and start fabricating the custom brackets they used, whilst searching for the second one I need on Ebay.

Being in Melbourne I still can't get to the car to test the fuel-cell fitting and work on the fillers and hood changes, but I have been doing a bit of research.
Although job-uncertainty still lingers, and I feel I should keep my money in the bank, it is also a fact that a rolling chassis is easier to sell - if it comes to that, so I've really been getting into the suspension parts I will need,

The 2.8 RSR still used its torsion bars in 1973, and for the Targa R6 was fitted 19mm torsion bars in the front and 26mm at the back.
The RS had its front spindle raised by 26mm to lower the car, and was fitted with shortened trailing arms, its mounting points shifted in order to increase negative camber and improve its cornering behaviour.
I already bought these shortened arms a couple of years ago from Ben Coles in the UK, but all the other stuff still needs to be sourced.

The question was though: did the Martini Works cars have only torsion bars & bilstein shocks (V8 & H8 at the time) or were they fitted with coilovers.
There's a guy in the UK (Darren) who's building an accurate 3.0RS replica, and I did discuss the enlarged (or widened) rear turrets with hime recently.
We concluded they were required to make room for the coilovers and were on the 1974 3.0RS (which was largely a 1973 RSR body wise) but they weren't on the 1973 RSRs.
Then there's the recent restoration of the real R6 Martini RSR back to Targa Florio running look, and those guys decided R6 apparently didn't have coilovers.
Mike Moore however, who built an accurate replica of the #107 Martini car a couple of years ago, did use them.

Amongst the hundreds of pictures of the various Martini RSRs, there was one that - according to the filename - was taken at the Targa Florio of the initial #107 car (R8).
As you may know, count Pucci crashed R8 during practice and a 1972 chassis was upgraded to run the race in the group4 category using number #107; ie: there's 2 different #107s.
This picture shows a 1973 car (see the indicator surrounds) with its left wheel removed, clearly sporting coilovers.



And if both R6 & R8 were entered in the group 5 prototype category, allowing them to use whatever change was homologated, why would only R8 benefit of the improved setup?
Surely R6 would then also have run coilover springs.
I'm sure we all heard this before, but the reason Barth decided to run the cars in grp5 was that a couple of weeks before, during the scrutineering for the Monza world championship of makes race, a racer with a grp 4 customer RSR noticed a suspension change at one of the works entries and complained, resulting in the works RSRs being defected. Without the quick and smart decision to run them in group 5 in stead, which would no longer have the factory compete against customers, Porsche would not have won the Targa or the championship that year.

Anyway, it was only when I had a closer look at this Targa Florio entry documents, that i noticed what looked like 'schraubenfedern' (coilovers) on the second line.
So the cars DID run with coilovers during that race, and as per Barth's book (thanks Hugh for your research!), we now even think they ran the full season with them, as the book indicates they did tests on the Paul Ricard circuit in late 1972 with this suspension setup.
It also explains why the 2.8RSRs had the reinforcements around the turrets and the mounting for the spring plate, that Jason so masterfully welded on my car, as the stresses of using coilovers would (or could) have caused cracks in the chassis.



So, with that confirmed, I put my wish list together and am talking now to the experts at Elephant Racing to get the bits I need.

@Clyde: this one is better researched now than a genuine car

[e72phil]

So after all this work, you may be forced to sell it if your job goes ??

[patrick911]

Hi Phil,
hope you're doing well.
I expect to learn next week if my job remains or not and we'll just take it from there.
To be honest, selling the car(s) is a worst case scenario if I don't manage to find something else in 6-9 months or so.

[e72phil]

OK Patrick, you had me worried with a comment you made above. Hope you stayed employed and safe.

[Terminator]

Oh god please let him finish this car