Auto news on Youtube Sep 29 2018

okay day two of rennes sport reunion will be a little different today as you

mentioned in the comments you were interested in sort of more deep down

deep dive into what some of these cars are so I was able to stop in to the our

group area and track down a few owners and really talk to them about their car

and see what modifications they've done and why they did them and you know

what's good what's bad so I hope you like it if you're not here you're

missing out harvey Weidman or Weidman sorry Harvey if a name's wrong he owns

this car and he also runs a Porsche fook restoration service and he was nice

enough to explain to me what the our group is and what some of these cars are

all about and introduced me to a few few of the owners so thank you Harvey

I'll come back to Harvey's car in a minute but he introduced me to Paul who

owns this car Paul is not the current owner so we were unable to kind of open

some of the the hatches but he spent I think it was seven years building this

car and he's super detail-oriented he's also an engineer to chose every

component very carefully with a purpose did a lot of research and it really gave

me the lowdown of what the specs are of this car Harvey told me this is the car

to look at because out of the group this is the one who has done the most

extensive prep and research for what they constitute as an r-group car

something that drives a lot or group cars typically do rallies or

get-togethers you know 200 miles 1,200 miles type driving and so that was some

good information to get it's not always about the sexy shiny parts it's really

about you know driving these cars sorry I wasn't able to you know interview this

live it was just too noisy in the pits there's a lot of people today here a

transport the most exciting part of this car for Paul was the engine I mean

that's the first thing he wanted to describe it's a 1978 engine from an SC a

3.0 liter he was he very strongly recommending the aluminum

case over the magnesium case just for the the thermal cycling and the

stability of the aluminum I'm saying with the transaxle he much prefers the

aluminum the heads are also 1978 1978 has the biggest valves the engine was I

think the ports were tuned by Jerry wood to just improve the velocity at the

lower end minor modifications to the to the port plenums to get the widest power

band as well the camshafts are web 21 slightly more radical than the s cams

apparently the carburetors are triple 40s and they were tuned and customized

by Abbott I think they're in Texas the exhaust is a dansk stainless exhaust but

it was re-signed read chamber the chamber was resized to optimize the

engine output for this particular setup with Cam and carburation also the

manifold lengths or the exhaust tube lengths were updated to give it the

maximum power Paul thought the muffler modifications alone were good for 12

horsepower this car he said makes 240 horsepower at the wheels

which is pretty impressive and mostly something that is fun to drive on the

street he said you know cautioned against going with the biggest valves

possible said that you just don't get enough and the same thing with

carburation don't don't over carburetor and don't oversize the valves it's it's

really difficult to drive a street car when there's just not enough atomization

of the fuel they said there's just not enough velocity with those with those

big big diameter valves in carburation to to really have low speed drivability

so he really said he wouldn't change a single thing on this car especially when

it comes to the engine he did recommend the gt3 oil pump over the stock pump it

has akin to scavenging stages and one pump stage just a higher volume more

durability seemed like that was something that he insisted on as well

will cooling is done with a 21 it was twenty one row oil cooler you can see

here it's it's a I think it's an aftermarket oil cooler I could have that

wrong but he said one of the key elements of cooling the oil is these

elephant racing brass finned coolant lines so you can see him here they the

cool the oil as well as let it flow there's a thermostat of course kind of

near the engine but this setup he said was was very stable where we live

there's the the grapevine which is a very strong grade very high elevation

change he said 100 degree weather the max temperature this this system got to

was was 190 it typically runs at 180 but pushing a heavy hill and I think third

or fourth year I can't remember was 190 was the maximum he's ever seen this this

engine run oh the other thing is it has a recurved mechanical advance

distributor I don't believe this car has twin plugs wheels are wheels of course

bye-bye Harvey there RS are finished no paint the rears are eight inch in the

front or seven-inch the brakes are from a Boxster late-model Boxster with

adapters to make them make them fit but they're Brembo brakes and the

mercedes-benz master cylinder so the combination between the the ratio of the

master cylinder to brake caliper piston size is he said perfect for great feel

it said it feel feels like power brakes but they're purely purely mechanical

hydraulic so he really really recommended the brake setup of course

like I said he's done all the research so everything he's done to the car he

said he wouldn't do it any other way the suspension is somewhat modified the

front torsion bars are slightly stiffer the front torsion bars

in 19 and a half millimeters he didn't remember the exact size of the torsion

bars but they're from a turbo so he said they're just stiff enough without being

too bouncy the suspension bushings are all new rubber he believes that the

factory rubber if it's new works perfectly if you go with something too

engineered or too stiff like Delrin or any of the bronze bushings he said that

it's just it's just too harsh and it's really not needed just use you know good

rubber parts and also the same in the rear he modified the torsion bars to a

hollow torsion bar setup slightly stiffer than stock but nothing too crazy

also rubber suspension in the rear Harvey had the same thing to say about

the suspension bushings although his car does have the silicon bronze elephant

Racing bushings at least in the in the rear and and he said that the rubber

wasn't available at the time and he installed his but if he were to do it

again you'd probably just choose rubber bushings for the kind of driving that he

does so that was really important for me to hear just the the different you know

what I would do different type advice so his engine is they he has a 2.4 liter in

his in his car we didn't go over all the build specifics on his car other than

you know he feels like it's suits him just fine so so so there you have it

that was something very very similar to what I'm thinking on my car also looking

at a 3 liter for 4 for mine and I'm a little undecided about how modern to do

the ignition system and induction system so Paul's method I really thinks you

know I really like Paul's Paul's method and mechanical advanced carburation I

think that's a pride tried and trued method nothing wrong with it but you

know a more modern approach would be to go with something like individual

throttle bodies with potentially a distributor less

timing control system so you can the advantage of that is you have a lot more

control over the timing for every rpm you have more precise fuel metering and

just better tune ability better drivability so to speak the disadvantage

of that method is you know it really kind of gets away from a vintage car so

the motor Paul has is vintage and it's you know turning knobs and and something

easy to tune versus the other system definitely requires a computer and a lot

of know-how so both are very intriguing to me leave a comment below and let me

know what your thoughts are about induction systems and what what you've

used I mean my my decisions are not made on how to go about the engine in this

car or my car but yeah I just want to keep getting input from from everybody

that's like I said my approach is to do research research research and then make

the best choice so today was really helpful thanks again for reminding me to

literally dive deep into one of these cars it's a lot of fun thanks again and

we'll see you again tomorrow