Yeah, the drain's just gonna be for a quick diag. Having a full time clear drain tube that could stand up to the heat would be really cool, but I don't know if there's anything clear out there that'll stand up to the heat. I just ordered some clear braided flexible PVC tubing and am only gonna run it with the car idling up in the air to see if the drain's backing up for some reason.

Now that I think about it, I adjusted my drain fitting all the way to one side for better clearance between it and the turbine housing to manifold v-band. Wonder if the fitting can partially block the outlet if it's slid over too far. I'm gonna check that too.

 

Transparent Aluminum!

 

Fixed the smoking issue. Both crankcase breather filters were saturated and impeding venting. I pulled one off today for sh*ts and giggles and blew through it to find that it was super restricted.

My venting setup is one 10AN hose going from the valve cover to a filter on the intake side of the engine bay, and an 8AN line from the block breather plate going to a catch can next to the intake manifold. I've been running this setup for north of four months and haven't ever cleaned or replaced the filters.

These engines create a semi-violent amount of internal windage due to their long stroke. Pulling the oil cap at idle to check for crankcase pressure is unadvisable as there's only messy endings in that scenario. I pulled the dipstick to check crankcase pressure with the engine idling this morning and didn't think much of it. Decent amount of pressure coming out the tube, but it didn't feel like more than normal to me. Still, after blowing through the breathers, I thought I had found my smoking gun. I didn't have any new filters on hand so I took the breather tube and catch can and dunked them in a container filled with injector cleaner for ten minutes, then blew them out with compressed air. Tons of gunk and oil came out of both, and after blowing through them a second time, there was basically no restriction in either.

I popped em back in, drove the car home, no more smoke. Let this be a lesson to check the easiest things first lol.

Obviously the crankcase pressure buildup was causing oil to back up in the drain tube at idle causing the smoking concern. What's kinda wild to me is that after cleaning out the breather filters, the difference in crankcase pressure that could be felt via the dipstick tube was almost imperceptible. Good knowledge going forward I guess.



Didn't take pics of any of this process so here's a pic from my diag yesterday. Pulled the drain tube and stuck a borescope up the turbo oil outlet to see if my drain fitting adjustment was partially blocking the exit. It wasn't. I also loosened the CHRA and rotated it a bit closer to vertical (it was maybe 5-7* off axis) to see if that would help. Unfortunately, the CHRA v-band nut was semi-frozen on the T-bolt and while loosening it, I snapped it. I wound up having to chop the collar that the T-bolt slides through and find another M6 fine thread nut (NOT EASY!) to get the turbo back together. And it still smoked after. Not a great lunch break

With the smoking issue taken care of and my to-do list on the car slowly shrinking, I signed up for a track day/TT with ProAutoSports at Firebird East in Phoenix next weekend. If the car holds together there, I'm also planning on signing up for the first MTTC race of the year at Buttonwillow the following weekend. The show goes on!

 

I'll be there in race group, stop by and say hi. Pink fastback NB, can't miss it. I tend to just lurk as everyone here knows more than me (literally) but its always great to meet MTers.

 

Ha, small world! I'll definitely stop by and say what's up. Won't know a single other person there lol. If I see your car out when I pull in Friday night I'll try to park close. Always stoked to link up with other MT-ers

Beat the **** out of the car this evening to make sure everything's ready for next weekend. It killed a wideband sensor, likely due to the oil previously in the exhaust, but otherwise everything's looking/feeling good. At one point, I thought I smelled burning oil again, but it ended up just being crankcase gases, because the breathers are actually breathing again.




Nature is beautiful.



Prep starts tomorrow. Gotta swap out brake pads, mount up the 255's, replace the standalone wideband sensor, and probably more other things than I currently realize...

 

I'll be there in some capacity too - my miata is in the shop getting a cage but I'll either be doing flag work or running the Plan B car. I'm really looking forward to seeing your car in person!! Your thread is the main reason I'm so obsessed with loctite-ing and safety wiring everything now.
Man, there are so many people from this forum I'd love to meet, yourself included!

 

Hell yeah man, car looks great. Glad the oil burning was a smaller issue. I noticed my VTA catchcan needs the filter cleaned with dawn soap between trackdays. It gets oil saturated and doesn't breath very well, which usually ends up with a fine splatter of oil in the bay due to the oil coated breather wicking oil vapors.

 

The pace at which you attack issues is mind-boggling. Big respect.

I won't be at MTTC round 1 but some others from the shop will be, hope you make it!

 

Ha, no way, sick! I think you might be getting me mixed up with Wingman, who is way gnarlier than I am but I appreciate it nonetheless! I'll be getting in late Friday night, and will shoot you a PM so I know what tow rig to look for in the morning. I'll probably try to park by Maple above ^^^ if there's space near him. Pink fastback seems like it should be easy to spot in the dark.

You and me both, man. I was not excited about diving into that if it was turbo or motor related. I'm gonna have to tear that page from your book and start cleaning the filters between track days as well. IIRC, those things got dirty quick even when the car was N/A.

Thanks man. Target fixation is a blessing and a curse hahaha.

Sounds good. I'm gonna wait to make sure the car survives this weekend before registering. Hopefully it doesn't fill up! If round 1 doesn't work out, I'll aim to make round 3 at Chuck. I need to shoot the sh*t with the whole gang again haha.

 

Hope it holds together, we will definitely be at round 3, and all the cabins are sold out so.... paddock party.

 

You're speaking my langauage, Ed.

255's are installed. Meaty. Finished the rest of my weekend prep, too. Track pads installed, swapped in my less-worn front rotors, various fasteners tightened, buncha other small things that took a bunch of time but I can't remember what they were...

The bigger tires were just barely making contact with the outer portion of the rear inner fenders. I beat them into submission with a hammer on my lunch break today then laid down a coat of spray paint on both inner fenders so I can see if they make contact again while at the track.


Contact marks. Not too bad TBH









Everything else is looking pretty good, knock on wood. I replaced my dead standalone wideband sensor yesterday with another dead sensor (d'oh), but otherwise I got my checklist done. This weekend should be fun. Looks like I'll be hanging out with Maple and JohnnyOTS on Saturday, and will have six sessions on track total. Stoked to see what the car runs at Firebird East. Last time I was there in June, it ran a 1:03.96. 1:01's or 1-flat's in the tube if all goes well?

 

Impressive work as always. The tires look awesome and definitely looking forward to some videos.

Good luck out there, and have fun!

 

It was great to finally meet Zak and John @JohnnyOTS at Wildhorse East yesterday!

Car looked fast... looking forward to hearing some lap times.

 

Heck yeah, man! Great hanging with you guys yesterday. Great to finally match faces to names and appreciate you pulling the 6-hour round trip to come see us rip around in circles

Yesterday went pretty damn stellar!






It didn't quite start that way though lol. I left work at 4:30 on Friday, hit the usual traffic, and estimated I could make it to the track at around 1:30AM local time, losing an hour due to the time zone change. Gates would open at 6:30, driver's meeting was at 7:40, and my first session would be at 8:20 the next morning. Not optimal from a sleep perspective, but survivable As the night progressed, I kept checking my ETA and decided I was better off stopping in the desert about an hour short of Phoenix at 12:30, knocking out there, and getting up at 6am to complete the drive.

I pulled off onto a random frontage road in the desert, set my alarm for 6:00, and fell asleep at around 1am. Woke up in the morning before my alarm went off, and proceeded to roll around in bed for a bit since it obviously wasn't 6 yet. Finally, I rolled over and grabbed my phone. It was 7:30. My alarm never went off. F*CK! I jumped out of bed right into the driver's seat and took off down the freeway. Pulling out my phone a second time, I saw a text from Roda from fifteen minutes earlier. "Hey Zak, are you at the track? Can't find you?". Double f*ck! @Roda, sorry I was late again


Hauling *** (63mph) to Firebird in the morning.

I pulled up to the track at 8:30am, just in time to watch everyone in my session start lapping. Luckily missing the first session wouldn't be the end of the world, as I still had five more sessions for the day. Still, sessions 1 and 2 would be much cooler out than later in the day, so I'm using that as my excuse for not getting a 1:00-flat

After getting inside the gates, Roda guided me in to my spot and I finally got to meet him and @JohnnyOTS Great guys as expected! It was honestly super rad to travel 350 miles away and have some guys from the forum to shoot the sh*t with. John even brought me a racing bear as a "welcome to AZ" present. What a guy!



We hung out and talked cars, racing, and all the things you'd expect until my first (second) session came up. I got the car warmed up, pulled it on grid, and went to work trying to remember as much of this track as possible from when I was last here in June. Despite being a minute and change, I feel like FB East gives you a lot of bang for your buck, and can be pretty unforgiving if you go off. The road surface is rough, there's constantly gravel on the track which seems to shift every lap, and the track has some serious high speed sections and a couple brutal braking zones. I got stuck in traffic, which was fine for a warmup session, then pulled a couple fliers at the end of the session, ending with a 1:02.16. Not bad! Pre-turbo I ran a 1:03.96 here so the extra power was making itself known.


@JohnnyOTS about to go out for a session in his 996. Traitor. Can't wait to see his NA once the cage is done!

Session two would be the first of two ten-minute competition sessions for the TT. Truth be told, I didn't know ProAutoSports had such a serious TT group. I just saw the box when registering that said "Participate in Saturday or Sunday TT? Two 10-minute sessions" -$30. Ok, well twenty minutes of extra track time for thirty bucks is a no-brainer, and maybe I'll get to race one or two other guys. I classed my car using their sheet, and found that my car was basically maxed out in their HL1 class. Cool coincidence! I messaged the organizer with a couple questions and asked how many people would be in HL1 Satuday. Organizer said they didn't have a total head count yet. No biggie at all, We'll see on Saturday.

Fast forward to session two on Saturday. TT is split into two groups, Small Bore and Big Bore. HL1 class is part of the Big Bore session. I get to grid fairly early and pop myself pretty close to the front. This is only relevant because I effectively wasn't able to see how many HL1-class cars were gridded further back. We go out for the session, I run a 1:01.04, which would be my fastest time of the day, and pull back in. After I finish checking over the car, John comes over and gives me the good news that I'm in first place. No way, sick! I go over to registration to check the standings, figuring theres probably three or four guys in my class.

Nope. Ten. And second place is less than a quarter second off of me. Holy hell, we're racing racing, boys! I ended up running into the dude in P2 shortly thereafter, a super cool guy named Dave piloting a stripped, cammed, S197 Mustang. Dave was super cool and welcoming to the ProAutoSport scene, and knew his stuff as well. He and his wife were both ripping on track this weekend, with her driving an S2K that sadly threw a rod through the block at the end of the day Saturday.


Dave's car. It was just rocking the standard 4.6L 3V with upgraded cams and bolt ons, but he said he pulled almost 500 pounds out of it. 315 width (I think) Hoosier TAP's all around. Our cars were literally neck and neck both in the straights and in the corners. He said it runs 1:56's at Chuckwalla, which checks out with how evenly matched we were running. I couldn't have asked for a better adversary to rip around the track with for the rest of the day haha.

For the second and final timed TT session, Dave pulled up right behind me in grid, and we proceeded to run four or five neck and neck laps with him right on my tail. It was as close to cinema as I think I'd be able to get. So damn cool haha. After lap five, he held back to get a cooldown in and I pulled off track to give him space in case he was about to crack my time. We finished the session in first and second again, with a 1:01.10 and 1:01.3x respectively, both within 0.1 seconds of our morning session times! Great stuff.


Shaved my facial hair last week for the first time in five years. Jarring. But here's me claiming my trophy, a kick *** pint glass with the FMP track and ProAutoSport logos. There were also chips, salsa, and beers after. Sick!


There were also a bunch of hot air balloons flying around all day and apparently this one attempted to land inside the track fencing during an active session and had to be waved off by officials lol.



All in all, it was a pretty dang good day. Got five sessions in, a tight TT race, and the car just f*cking boogied. No rub at all with the 255's, no weird hiccups, it just did what it was told. I tightened the lug nuts and turbo V-bands, checked the oil a couple times, and checked tire pressures. Also my wideband sensor started working again first thing Saturday morning for some reason and is still functioning so I'm going to leave that alone and not ask any questions. I did note some oil vapor smell from the exhaust while pulling the car off the trailer today, and found the crankcase breathers slightly restricted again, so those'll be getting cleaned out this week.

Signing up for MTTC Buttonwillow next weekend, assuming there's still spots available. I should check that. More updates coming

 

It was nice to meet you, hopefully next time the weekend goes a bit more my way! I always thought driving to the track was more dangerous than driving at the track, just didn't expect to experience it first hand.

Car was sick, I've seen quite a few NCs at the track but yours was wayyy faster! Congrats on the win with a surprising full class.

 

Congrats Zak! I was hoping to see a 1:00, but you got the class win so good enough!



Glad you're OK, and sorry I didn't get to meet you at the track. Your NB looks super clean. I hope to see you at another ProAuto event later this year.

 

Congrats man, you and the car look fast! Well deserved on the W, it seems. I'm glad to hear the car is kicking ***.

 

Congrats dude, epic weekend.

 

Takeaways from this past weekend:
Zak is Awesome
Roda is Awesome
Maplewood is Awesome (and his car is freaking gorgeous)
Zak is Faaaaaast. Like, he should have sponsors Fast. Seriously.

Oh, and I am slow.
Also fewer people mistake your 996 for a Cayman when you put a giant 996 on the side.

Here are the videos I took of Zak going Slow, then Fast, Fast, Fast, Fast.

 

Yo dude, likewise! Hopefully we can link up at another ProAuto events this year. Super bummed you had to deal with that Saturday morning, but glad you’re unscathed.

Also, thanks again for blocking a section in the paddock off for me, that spot was prime lol.

Hahaha when you said sub-1 earlier my first thought was that was pretty f*ckin lofty A 1:00 flat is definitely there, I just need to put it together. On the two last sessions, I pulled a 1:01.10 then a 1:01.08. Started finding time in some places but made up for it by making mistakes in others lol. Next time.

John, I’ve never heard someone dislike their Porsche more than you. It’s actually hilarious to me haha. Glad the sticker cleared things up for some people, and thanks for the shots!

Maybe one day I’ll get some sponsors and one of them will provide a mechanic so I can spend less time wrenching on this thing

Signed up for MTTC Buttonwillow this Saturday. Preparations hath already commenced. Took the car to work today, rotated the tires and gave the drivetrain and suspension a quick bolt check.

My ghetto-rigged CHRA V-band (just the clamp, not the CHRA itself) rotated about 15 degrees over the course of the weekend. The threads on the T-bolt were mildly boogered up and I didn’t feel comfortable cranking down on it any harder. Luckily I had a spare arrive on Friday night, so I swapped that in tonight before it could become a problem. Checked the turbo bearing while everything was apart and it still feels great, so a little win there.



I swapped the upper portion of the turbo oil drain line while I was at it. The drain on this thing has about 3mm of clearance from the manifold V-band and gets crusty rather quickly. I have an extended aluminum drain tube on order but until then, I just popped a brass coupler in the drain line so I can swap the top three inches of it every couple events lol.





I’ve got update training tomorrow and Wednesday about an hour away, ten minutes from the local LKQ. Lord have mercy, I’m probably coming home with another engine…