NMS Prepares for a Busy Month

October wasn't super busy at NMS, other than of course going to school, working, fixing up Project Infiniti, and gearing up for Halloween, but starting on that day, then things get busy. 

October 31-November 2nd we'll be driving at Carolina Motorsports Park with the fine folks from NASA. NMS-South will be working as an instructor and driving the Nissan 350Z either in some Time Trial competitions or just in the HPDE sessions. NMS-North will be back in the Porsche Cayman (with new tires and rear brakes) and looking to gain more lapping experience in the HPDE 3 group. While High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) is not meant to be about the timing, I just might happen to take a look at my lap times and see how they might compare to some hypthetical laps from earlier this year. 

On November 9th the Porsche Club will sponsor the next autocross event at our favorite place Michelin Proving Grounds (the BLACK LAKE with 14 acres of flat, smooth pavement.) After that Sunday event, it's a quick turn-around to Saturday the 15th with the final PCA autocross of 2025 up at a new location for us, the Hickory Motor Speedway in Hickory NC. This small, paved oval should be an interesting autocross layout, so the NMS team is curious to see how the course is set up. 

After those driving events, we're looking forward to attending a huge car show called AMERICARNA up in Davidson NC. Held on the grounds of the Trane Technologies (the AC people) company, this is a big show that we've visited before. Proceeds from this event go to charity, so you can look at tons of cars and do something good at the same time. You can read more about it at this website: 

AmeriCARna Show

Announcing PROJECT INFINITI!

Infiniti I35

The NMS squad has gained experience in driving cars, competing in autocross/racing/time trials, working on cars, and managed to meet a lot of great folks and have a lot of fun along the way. While we'd like to pretend we're signing for a big NASCAR team or going to drive the next Mars Rover (on Mars of course) the truth is that now we're taking on an entirely different car project. 

The oil pan is messy, and our first step was to change the valve cover gaskets above, since we're thinking that's where most of this oil is coming from. If we have a leaky oil pan here, we'll fix that too. 

Rumor has it that this project is code-named PROJECT INFINITI. What is this project INFINITI? Is is a mission to put another car into space? Is it top secret double probation classified? Will it put a man on the moon? To moon a man? To extend life to INFINITI? And if it goes to INFINITI, will it go BEYOND?

Rear suspension detail. 

With help from our automotive friends in South Carolina, we're fixing up a 2002 Infiniti I35. The car was having problems from an owner that just gave up on it and gave it to our friends Justin and Shelley (AKA: Shellie's House of Speed) down in Charleston. Around the same time, Brian Nixon decided he wanted to help out a young relative that is going to be getting their driver's license soon. Justin and Shelley donated the car to Brian's project, and brought the car up to NMS-South HQ. At that point, we had a car that needed some work; trouble steering, and it stalled out a lot. Time to get the car up on a lift and see what was what. Our diagnosis certainly confirmed all those issues, and a few more. 

Thanks to Adam Powlas for his help, and allowing us to use his shop. Like Brian, he also races a Nissan 350Z, and is familiar with the same 3.5 liter motor in this Infiniti. 

Thanks to Adam, he offered the use of his home shop with a lift, and one fine Saturday we congregated to inspect the Infiniti. Oh wait, before we got there, the car stalled about a quarter mile from Adam's house, so yes, we confirmed that complaint very easily. During the drive, Brian also noted that yes, the steering was terrible, so again, another complaint easily verified!

Valve cover removed, so while it's not brand new shiny, I've seen much worse. 

At first glance, the exterior of the car looks nice for a 2002, with no major body damage, it had all four wheels, and there were seats inside. OK, the front seats show a lot of wear, but probably average for a car with 160,000 miles or so. Cosmetic stuff is one thing, but our main concern was mechanical and safe operation, so we started looking around and under the rest of the car. 

New valve covers and new gaskets, done!

The biggest discovery was a right front wheel that was WAAAY loose, as in, no-more-rubber-in-the-control-arm-bushing LOOSE with a bad CV axle shaft. That explained the steering problem, and would be an easy fix with a new control arm and axle. All four struts were looking bad, so replacing those wouldn't be too hard either. Turning to the engine...

It might be missing the numeral "5" on the back, but it's a 2002 I35. 

There was a lot of oil and some coolant leaking all over, so we decided we'd have to clean most of it up, run the engine, and then see where the leaks were causing problems. As far as the stalling issue, this is a common issue with the Nissan/Infiniti 3.5 engines of this era, and luckily we have guys like Jason and Brian that own 350Z cars with the same engine, so they are familiar with some of the issues. The stalling produces codes pointing to the cam and crank sensors, so that's a good clue that we can start with replacing those sensors. 

This model Infiniti is basically a Nissan Maxima, and it's good to know you can find parts at the local Pick-N-Pull. Thanks to Pick-N-Pull Columbia SC for free admission for military! I went there to get a specific bolt and a windshield washer fluid reservoir cap, and they let me have them for free too!

Without going into ALL the details, we knew we'd also want to update all the engine fluids, replace the must-haves on the suspension, and then see how the car ran and find out more about the exact leak locations. Other cosmetic items like new seats or seat covers, polishing the car, or de-hazing the headlights could wait for a bit. 

New two-piece cabin air filter, (and the old one) done!

One weekend later we spent a good chunk of two days working on the car. We were glad to have another automotive friend on hand when Phillip jumped in and did a lot of work too. A couple of easy things we replaced were a new radiator cap (old one had torn rubber), new air and cabin air filters, new spark plugs (the six old spark plugs included at least 3 different brands), and topped off the coolant and oil before running the engine and checking for leaks. 

Four new struts, done!

At the end of the weekend, we had these new items on the car: four struts, cam sensors, various vacuum and coolant hoses, passenger front CV axle, two belts, six spark plugs, coil boots, radiator cap, washer fluid reservoir cap, valve covers, valve cover gaskets, air filter, cabin air filter, vacuum reservoir,  and we bled the brakes. We made a small adjustment where it looked like the parking brake cable was rubbing, and Brian had previously fixed a sticking sun roof motor. 

While most of our new parts came online from Rock Auto, we did visit our local Auto Zone and O'Reilly Auto Parts too. 

I'd say we're off to a good start, and big thanks to Justin and Shelly, Brian, Adam, and Phillip. Stay tuned for more on PROJECT INFINITI!

Working Grid with the Porsche Club of America

Porsche 962

Hi and Bye headlights!

On a recent Saturday I headed down to my favorite track, Carolina Motorsports Park, and assisted working in the grid. So while I wasn't driving on track, it was fun to be around a bunch of other people that were. 

Waiting for the next run group to form up in grid. 

One of the race groups was for older or historic Porsches that were at least 25 years old. That makes some of the early Boxsters old enough to be historic, so there was one of them racing. There were about 20 cars in this group, so they all had plenty of room on track. 

Two level car hauler!

The other racing group and both Driver Ed groups had more modern cars, which tended to be much quieter too! The driver education groups weren't very large, one session had only about 7 cars on track. 

Yes, some people tow their Porsche in a trailer with a Porsche. 

This day had two different race groups, and two other groups of Driver Education students out there practicing their craft on the track. Each group had multiple sessions, and the racers got one practice session, and then two races, all in one day. On Sunday they were going to do a similar format, so like most groups that sponsor track weekends, there's usually a good amount of time on track for all the drivers. Compared to an autocross event where you might get 8 runs of maybe a minute each, a track day gives a lot more driving time! 

Lined up in grid for a race

A McLaren on track. You don't have to drive a Porsche to attend the Porsche events. 

This made for a fun day, since once one group headed out on track we typically had 20 minutes or more until the next group had to line up for their session. Hey, we even got a free lunch AND a free t-shirt! During the lunch hour the Porsche Club sponsored charity track laps, which enabled anyone in any kind of car to drive on the track for a while. This session was just for fun, so no passing and no racing, just a fun event to help a charity. 

These three Caymans were all racing in Spec Cayman (SPC) class. 

Manual Transmission/Transaxle Class Update

Straight cut gear and helical gears

While most vehicles on the road have an automatic transmission, and a lot of them now have dual clutch transmissions, there are still some good old manual or "standard" transmissions, so it's been fun to take this class and learn how they work. The biggest project we've worked on in the shop is a big old 1981 GMC roll-back tow truck, and man it was a little dirty underneath! 

Part of the inside of a transmission. Here you can see two synchronizers, one would shift 1st and 2nd gear, the other 3rd and 4th gear. 

The transmission was fine on this truck, but the clutch needed replacing, and the flywheel needed to be resurfaced, so to get to those components we had to remove the transmission, disconnect the drive shaft, take off some of the cross members holding all that stuff in place, disconnect the Power Take Off connections,  and take off the gear shifter up in the cab. 

A shiny new flywheel on a Mustang. 

The new clutch you can buy from the store, but we had to send the flywheel out to be resurfaced by a machine shop. Once the new parts came back, we put it all back together too. 

Differential

One good tidbit of information we learned in the classroom is that a dual clutch transmission is really built like a a manual transmission that has the capability to be be shifted by the computer. The computer doesn't have a robot arm exactly, so it uses hydraulic fluid to operate the clutch, and then shift the gears. 

Inside one type of CV joint. 

Another fun tidbit is the Porsche name for their dual clutch system, which they've used since 2009, commonly called PDK. That's just an abbreviation for the German language Porsche Doppelkaplung, which I guess is double-coupling, but it just sounds cooler in German. Hey, and guess what? Since my Cayman is a 2009 model, it's from the first year of this transmission too!

Mazda truck and Ford Mustang on the lifts.

Right now we're studying drive shafts and differentials, so we've gradually worked our way from the front of the vehicle to the rear (for rear wheel drive systems.) Along with this class I've gotten used to calling a plain front wheel drive a trans-axle, since the transmission is directly connected to the front axles and differential. Go ahead, impress your friends, and make sure they know that your front wheel drive car has a trans-axle!

CV axles, with CV meaning Constant Velocity. The one on the right has a damper on it in the middle. 

Coming up after transmission class is my final automotive course, all about electrical fuel systems. Should get a charge out of that one!

What the HECK is a "Luftgekuhlt" and Why did I go to One?

NMS live at Luftgekuhlt 11 in Durham NC!

Bottom line up front: "Luftgekuhlt" is German for "Air Cooled." Specifically, Porsche cars built before 1999 were all air cooled, meaning they didn't have a radiator and coolant. Fast forward to today, and "Luftgekuhlt" is a special once a year showcase of air cooled Porsche automobiles. The Luftgekuhlt folks started these events in 2014, and they've all been held out on the west coast until this year, when they came to Durham NC. So, let's take a look around Luftgekuhlt 2025. 

There were Porsches all over the joint!

Unlike a museum exhibit, most of the cars did not have any signs or placards telling you what they were, so to be honest all I can say is that here's a bunch of air cooled Porsches! The location was also unique, the American Tobacco Campus, which judging by the huge chimney from the power plant building, was where they made Lucky Strikes. The industrial type of setting was huge, and it was still packed with people, and there were Porsches all over the place! 

They had something for everyone, like race cars!

From what I know about these events, car owners have to apply to be accepted to display their classic Porsches, and the event sponsors pick and choose what cars get put on display. 

World famous racecars, like the Porsche 906! If you've seen the Ford Vs. Ferrari movie, when Ford finally won LeMans in 1966 and took the top 3 places, Porsche 906s took the next 4 places. They only built 65 of these 1,300 pound cars. 

Cars all over the place!

Approved for all ages!

Porsche 917 Can Am racecar! Porsche 917s won at LeMans in 1970 and 1971, and had been introduced with a 12 cylinder flat engine. They have sold at auction for over 10 million dollars. 

The sign on the dash says "Mama I'm Goin Fast!"

Driven by Hurley Haywood. Mr. Haywood won at LeMans three times, five times at the 24 Hours of Daytona, twice at the 12 Hours of Sebring, as well as a Can Am title, two IMSA GT championships, and plenty more. 

The American Tobacco Campus, now an event center. 

Widow Maker license plate

Old conveyor belts leading to the power plant building.

Porsche 914 turned into an off-roader I guess. 

Now here's a design you don't see every day!

Thanks to the Pirelli Tire folks for handing out free event posters too!

IMSA racecar. I don't know what could be more German than a German racecar sponsored by Jägermeister. 

The classic Porsche "Pasha" interior. 

This indoor area featured cars that had driven in La Carrera Panamericana race. Display sponsored by watch maker TAG Heuer. 

Another Panamericana racer. 

Need a special color? Porsche offers a wide variety, and their Paint To Sample where you can get ANY color you want. For a price. 

The Luftgekuhlt was so large you needed a map to figure out where all the cars and exhibits were hiding! At the bottom of the map and right across the street from the Porsche event is the Durham Bulls baseball stadium. 

These crate-like platforms were a nice touch for the really cool cars. 

More Carrera Panamericana goodness. 

Porsche advertising. 

There were cars everywhere, and the brick buildings made a nice backdrop. 

Not to condone smoking, but it was a cool venue. 

The fine folks from Bilstein shocks had this small display. Sorry, no free shocks. 

Surprise, another racecar!

And another car driven by Hurley Haywood, and some young guys named Foyt and Unser. 

And there were dogs! Next to the classic "whale tail" 911. 

This old VW bus must have been used by a Porsche race team somewhere. 

Rally lighting anyone?

Singer interior. 

The Singer folks had several cars on display. If you're not familiar with them, picture a company in California that specializes in restoring and improving air cooled Porsches. For a price! These cars had a huge crowd all around them. 

A look back from my parking garage before heading home. This was a fun event, and I didn't have to go to California for Luftgekuhlt 11!