March 20th 2010 marked the 58th running of the Sebring 12 hour race, for me it was only the 7th time at the event.

For a half day of racing, it has a gruesome reputation as being the event that really tests whether or not you have a “race car”, or “project”. For the Risi Competizione team, the victorious 62 car, winner in 2009 and now in 2010 demonstrates the maturity of a fully developed GT endurance racer. In fact the total of 6 consecutive wins, covers all the significant global GT2 endurance races since the 24hr race, Le Mans, June 2008. No other GT2 car or team has won since then!

The Risi version of the F430 is a carefully honed version of the product delivered by Michelotto on behalf of Ferrari. Risi then add their own select refined components (some of which are designed and manufactured by WEVO) and apply a veil of race preparation that includes some very secret attention to detail that sets their F430’s above all others.

Jaime Melo has partnered with a selection of world class drivers to sit in every one of the 6 consecutive endurance race wins. The blazing fast young Brazilian has learned the skill of bringing a fast car (often not the fastest) to the finish in first place - he does so with the support of the team who give him well engineered cars, good race strategy, quick and accurate pit stops and unbeatable green flag averages that are key to Endurance racing success.

It was a pleasure for me to be part of Risi Competizione, both in 2009 and 2010 at Sebring for the 12 hour race. I was responsible for Engineering on the 61 car, a familiar green F430 in the livery of Krohn Racing,  regulars in Gran Am DP racing. Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson and Eric van de Poele are partners in both the DP car and the F430 and as a team we will race the green car at Laguna for the 6hr race in May and then the Jewel in the Crown,  a career long ambition for me - the Le Mans 24 hr race on June 12th 2010.

This snap taken as the cars were rolled back to the transporter after the race shows what kind of wear and tear half a track day can take on a pristine racer. The bumps of Sebring are unforgiving, the 61 completed the race with a damaged RR damper, 7th place in GT2. The 62 car, even though victorious - finished with cracked and damaged parts that would never have survived another few hours. However, put that in perspective, the BMW’s that pushed the 62 for over 11 hours finally capitulated towards the chequered flag as the brakes on the BMW’s were completely spent….

The 6 hours at Laguna is a relative sprint in the sunshine of the California Spring time and the fantastic racing surface that comes from the Moto GP  demands of the raceway. It will be the final warm up for the 24 hour at Le Sarthe in June, a final opportunity for Risi Competizione to polish the details of their remarkably successful Ferrari F430 GT racers.

Last week - March 8 - 12, I enjoyed what is best described as pure good luck.
Although I could make an effort to deceive and pretend that it was a solution derived from hard work and investigation, that would not be true.
The result of a simple mis-strike on the keyboard delivered me with a perfect solution in a way that I can only attribute to good luck. Good luck not only for me, but also for Pete vB and the ongoing development of PVX, the rocket 912 with the GT3 Cup motor.

PVX has devoured two starter ring gears (SRG) in a total of about 200 engine starts. The installation uses a shortened 993 6-speed transmission, which precludes the use of the original 993 starter with the starter pinion head supported in double shear by a mount cast into the bellhousing (this mount is lost when 26mm was cut from the bellhousing length)

Like all parts of PVX, we started with the lightest solution we could obtain or manufacture. The lightweight IMI starter was a significant weight saving over a 911 starter. When initial starting and running of PVX lead to damage of the starter ring gear, we suspected that the cantilever pinion design of the early 911 starter was at fault, with the lightweight starter having even greater deflections that allowed the pinion gear to “climb”  out of mesh as the burden of the 13:1 compression ratio in the GT3 Cup motor was encountered.

Before totally destroying the starter or the SRG we switched to an early 911 starter and seemed to have the issue under control, but not beaten. Thinking the wounded SRG was destined to fail after the initial damage - when it did, we installed a 2nd unit, which lasted about another 100 starts…..

I was / am still of the impression that the cantilever design is at fault, with the pinion head free to deflect. What we needed was some system that had a double shear pinion head, one that could behave like the original 993 installation, after all, a 993 3.6 litre motor is 11.5:1 compression and that installation is designed to last 200,000 miles +

So my challenge last Monday on the 8th, was to find a way to emulate that design, within the constraints of the short bellhousing on PVX and execute the work quickly while we complete other tuning and preparations for a serious national event in May.

I had prepared Pete for the fact that we were looking at creating the starter system as a whole new configuration, a combination of OE parts, WEVO parts and derivatives of both to create a pinion head in double shear. Many cars use a simple shrouded pinion head, Chevy’s, VW’s all sorts of Japanese cars. A shrouded starter has the second bearing for the pinion head in the end of the “shroud” thereby needing no other pilot or bracket to support the pinion shaft.

I resigned myself to designing and drawing the 4 or 5 parts that would be needed to mount a shrouded starter. Then went to our Bosch supplier SSF to buy a 993 starter (that should work right?) as the core for the adaptation. The SSF website is great, quick to navigate and they carry huge inventory for cars like the 993 that are in the 10 - 20 years old bracket (plus many much older models too). You navigate to the product by selecting manufacturer - Porsche, Year - 1995, Model - Carrera C2, Section - Electrical, starter, alternator. From the drop down menu I select “Starter” expecting a single starter option to appear. As the screen fills, I am already clicking on the part number and the photo….

I am confronted with a thumbnail image of a shrouded starter?? - not a 993 starter as I know it?!? There in a single rushed keystroke I swept away days of design and a couple of weeks delay while expensive custom parts were made. It turned out to be a 993 Tiptronic starter. We obtained our no-core-refund part for under $300 and then crossed our fingers as we tried it into the packaging envelope for PVX, still expectant of some revision albeit reduced.

Within a few minutes we established that the 993 Tiptronic starter was a direct interchange for the early 911 starter - all the physical aspects were the same, the mount pattern, pinion projection, pinion design - all the same.

So with another new SRG installed, Brian had PVX running again 48 hours later. Fingers crossed we have now solved the starting issues for PVX, which has been the only element of unreliability since this amazing car started to accumulate test mileage in December.

Pete has started to attend Bay Area AutoX events and learn the style of driving needed to deploy the power and utilize the grip of massive tires. No doubt it is a science project and we are happy that the car has the versatility to be tuned and adjusted.

More rewarding was the unexpected gift from the Porsche parts catalogue, when by pure accident I discovered the compatibility of the 993 Tiptronic starter (have you ever looked at a 993 tip transmission? - barely looks like a Porsche product at all!) with the starter from a 1972 911.

Oh, did I mention it is just over 3 lbs lighter too?…… fantastic

In a landscape filled with wireless, mobile, handheld and remote gadgets - I did wonder, can I log onto my blog and contribute anything valuable from the console of my i-phone.
Sitting in a Fish Restuarant in Houston airport, this test is hardly a challenge like the back roads of Uzbekestan, but none the less - if a success, a hint of things to come.
So far no luck in trying to post from my phone camera to the blog……

Back in December 2009 I covered the exploits of my friend Duffy Sheardown and his pursuit of a new career beyond motorsports - as a Chocolatier.

I expounded the values of niche marketing and the parallels between what we started at WEVO in 1996 and what Duffy initiated in 2009.

On the first steps to fame, Duffy has cracked a nice mention he on the 70% website, headlining above Raymond Blanc no less!

A visit to Redstarchocolate.co.uk will leave you slightly underwhelmed today (march 8th 2010), although I would encourage you all to inundate Duffy with orders and help his niche business gain the momentum that any purveyor of fine chocolates deserves - especially the 2nd largest in the UK!?!?

Well done to Duffy for bringing glorious flavor chocolates to the market, doing so in a sustainable manner and with a social conscience of how the real cost of the product is rationalized for all concerned from bean to bar…..

It will now be interesting to see if the oak that grows from Duffy’s acorn can ever provide the building materials for his windmill to grind the beans.

Many of you know how the plans of Steven Harris and I to participate in the 2009 London to Casablanca Rally were scuppered by the logistic incompetence of the freight company who failed to deliver Mexicar to the start of the event in London.

As we executed a series of Hail Mary attempts to intercept Mexicar and make all efforts to start or join (late) the Rally, it eventually became clear that 2009 would pass without the enduro Rally experience that Steven and I had prepared ourselves for.

As Steven and I parted, miserable in Amsterdam Schipol airport on November 9th 2009, he closed by suggesting we would find a way to make it right…….

This was Steven’s second false start on major Classic Rally events, as his 2008 La Carrera Pan Americana efforts to race the roads of Mexico were foiled by a last minute change of circumstance for his co-driver, resulting in withdrawal just days before the event. His appetite for a world class event had now gone twice unfed.

So now, just 115 days later, “make it right” has been conjured into an entry in the 2010 Peking to Paris Marathon. What was an 8 day hi speed run in Europe and North Africa in a 1967 911S, has been converted to a 38 day marathon across Asia, the Middle East and Europe in a 1964 356C. In terms of adventure and commitment, this is a huge step up and Steven and I are suitably nervous and excited by the challenge.

 We have acquired the 356 and set about converting a charming little well preserved classic street car into the pack horse and tractor that we will need to cross the high deserts of Mongolia, the mountains of Kazakhstan, highways of Persia and the valleys of France. If ever a vehicle needed to be a swiss-army-knife of versatility, the Peking to Paris event is the test of that capability. Attempting to do all this in a car with little space and load carrying capacity is an added challenge.

We are only a couple of weeks into the event preparation -so far mostly research and dis-assembly. Some decisions have been driven by the stern recommendations from the event organizers, some by the necessities of packaging, component scale and weight.

The very poor fuel we will be able to buy in central Asia demands that the engine have a low compression ratio, therefore less power, add to that the Altitude often over 3000m and I know we are in for some slow and patient motoring in what is likely to be a 65hp drivetrain in a 1150kg (fully laden) package.

As we resolve the design and execution of the car build, I will cover some of the details in this blog. Many will be 356 centric translations of systems we built into Mexicar in 2008 and can trust to perform reliably in all the conditions we have been able to imagine.

This is not only a technical event, the travel planning, logistics, provisioning and navigation are also major aspects of the event, needing no fewer than 11 different currencies to purchase fuel and acquisition of visas to allow for 10 controlled border crossings.

We have already discovered the support of scores of 356 enthusiasts and other Porsche enthusiasts, plus suppliers and vendors providing or manufacturing special parts for “Lola” as the 2010 Peking to Paris 356 has been christened.