Let the fun continue... - CH Crasy Ideas

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One thing with race cars is that you can never just get in the car and race it. It is almost like having an exotic pet. It needs constant care. With a race car, it is a similar situation. Before a race car goes to the track you need to go over every bolt and nut. If you don’t check something that is usually the part that will bite you.

The smaller series of race cars is already a lot of work but when you get to the big boys well it gets tough. When we got back from our first race we had a bit of work to do. The studs on the rear hub that snapped off needed replacing. That was an easy job, order, and fit. We were still fine-tuning the suspension setup but the steering was to heavy for my bosses arms. The Porsche was a lot like a go-cart. It had approximately 4 degrees of caster on the front wheel. This means when you turn the steering you wheel will sort of lean over. What this meant was you were turning against the weight of the car. When you steer you would lift the weight of the nose of the car plus the weight of you the driver.

Doing 2 to 3 laps is fine but after that, it was difficult to hold onto the steering wheel. We had to come up with a plan…

How to get the steering lighter

We came to a mutual agreement that we need power steering. The issue was that there is just no space to fit in a hydraulic pump and steering rack in the car. The steering rack was also a custom unit made for the 917. We did some research and came across a Uni steer Electro-Mechanical power steering unit. It was an electric motor that assists on the steering. There was a load sensor on the unit that measures the load and then the motor will assist where it is needed. What was nice about this unit, the steering feel stays the same from a slow speed to high speed, unlike the hydraulic steering that goes lighter.

How this works, this unit must be fitted in the steering column in the car. It reads the load input vs the load on the shaft going to the steering rack and then assists accordingly. I had to do some frame modification underneath the dash to make this work. It all worked out beautifully. You could almost steer the car with one hand.

917 Frame modified to take the **Uni Steer power steering** unit

The next race event

We got the care ready just in time for the next race event. We completed the Friday without any issues. The Saturday morning the Porsche 917 went out for race 1. This was very exciting. The Porsche was on lap 4 of the 10. Coming down the back straight of the track there was white smoke pumping out the back of the car. Suddenly the yellow flags went out. The Porsche jumped the banked turn at the end of the back straight.

After the car was towed back to the pits we loaded the car and took it back to the workshop. One of the rubber oil pipes blew off the fitting spraying the oil over the rear wheels and brakes. The car could not stop for the banked turn and that is by the car ended up in the dirt.

We thought the engine was gone as it lost all oil pressure under acceleration. I connected the rubber oil pipe back in its place and we washed everything off with a high-pressure washer. We put new oil into the dry-sump tank and tried to start the Porsche again. The engine came alive and revved clean. We pulled the car back into the workshop and went home.

Monday my boss called me in. He asked me if I still had the quote for the Goodridge fitting and braided pipe for the oil system. I got him a new quote and he sighed it off straight away. He said that was the word feeling ever driving down the back straight at speed and he couldn’t stop the car. I also put in some extra fitting to redo the fuel system as well. That is not something you want to play with.

Getting ready for the next race

We received all the Goodridge fitting and hose from the supplier. I also ordered a new pressure fuel pump as I wanted to replace the 2 pumps with 1 single unit. The pump I got was a Bosch 0 580 254 044 unit.

It took me a few days to get all the work done. In the end, it was all worth it, the engine bay started looking like a proper race car bay. Now we looked forward to the next race.