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| 1987 Porsche 944S: Problems |
It was after my first track event that I noticed a loss of coolant that I just couldn't nail down, and still haven't. I took it into the shop, I watched frantically for any signs of "mixing", where coolant gets into the oiling system or vice versa. Not uncommon for the 944 series, but this definitely wasn't happening in this case.
Seems that if the coolant level isn't kept up, more and more will get out somehow. As more coolant goes, the system develops more heat, and under the higher pressure more coolant will be forced out through the resevior pressure cap. How the ball gets rolling with an initial coolant loss, I still don't know.
This coolant loss was a cause for great alarm on my part. I was not happy with the amount of money I'd spent on the car, only to have more problems showing up. With all the little things going on I put the car in the shop several times and missed the following few DE events I'd signed up for with NER and North Country Region.
While getting the car inspected for NER's NHIS #3 event, I discovered that my rambunctious street driving - or New York's appalling street conditions - had cost me a control arm ball joint. In addition, my clutch was just about shot and would likely not stand up to a track session. I'd known I was close on the clutch, but not how close it'd gotten. I wasn't going to make it to NHIS, but if I started right away I could have the car ready for the Glen at the end of the week.
On my second trip to Watkin's Glen this year, and my second time ever driving on a track at a Driver's Ed event, I managed to throw a rod. For details you'll have to check the page I wrote up about that weekend (click here). The upshot is that she's in the shop having a new motor installed from a donor car somebody somehow managed to roll. I'm lucky to have found a recent wreck with an intact 16-valve engine within a week of the incident, all things considered.
Another thing, good but disappointing, is being done while the car's in the shop. The donor car is an '88 model year with some uprated suspension components that I'll be taking. My car was stock for the '87 model year with no rear sway bar. New components being installed are a bigger front sway bar and a modest rear sway bar. This is one of the things I had felt I could do myself over the winter now that I'll have a garage (see here). But, it's in the shop and being taken apart anyway, so why not do it all at once.
