Diver944
Active member
Just recently got in from an excellent day out at Oulton Park with Hartechs 3 litre creation and a number of Front engined fans. The morning started out very damp, misty and cold and there were several red flag stoppages early on due to people not minding the conditions. Paul F (who drives a 968 in the Porsche Club Champoinship) took to the wheel first thing and the rest of us waited whilst he warmed up the tyres and started to clear a dry line for us
When my turn came round, I could instantly feel just how smooth this engine is. A standard 2.5 Turbo can often get bogged down if you take off too leisurely, but the low down grunt from an extra 500cc removes that entirely and yields a more accomplished drive. Once used to the slippy track and able to push on a little more you can really feel the low down 'shove' that this engine gives you. Slow corners that would normally be taken in 2nd gear can easily be taken in third, giving you much more control, much less gear changing and I believe a much faster drive onto the next straight. Yes the huge power does not increase further in the higher reaches of the rev range but that could be addressed if the owner wanted to exploit this setup further.
Boost was a totally standard 0.8 bar and in 3rd and 4th gear it was hitting that well below the 3500rpm of a standard 2.5 but the most remarkable thing is the smooth way in which the boost arrives. No bang, crash, on/off wallop like the car that Porsche built back in the 80's. If you like your turbo cars to behave like that then Barry Harts 3 litre creation is not for you . This car is more like the effortless way that an S2 performs, but has 50% more power almost everywhere with no obvious lag.
Well done Baz, and thanks for a great day out. Others may now be very interested to hear that he has already tentatively started thinking about machining liners to turn any 2.5 Turbo into a 3 litre like this. I appplaud any effort to keep these wonderfully balanced cars going as long as possible, and if it brings more power at the same time as low boost relaibility then who can complain? I've taken a few photo's of the day and also have some in car footage which I'll hopefully post at the weekend when I've had a chance to edit it down and upload to the web.
Nice to also meet up with Stuart Cookson-Smith in his gorgeous red 968 and James with his slightly less gorgeous [
] and pretty much standard 944T
When my turn came round, I could instantly feel just how smooth this engine is. A standard 2.5 Turbo can often get bogged down if you take off too leisurely, but the low down grunt from an extra 500cc removes that entirely and yields a more accomplished drive. Once used to the slippy track and able to push on a little more you can really feel the low down 'shove' that this engine gives you. Slow corners that would normally be taken in 2nd gear can easily be taken in third, giving you much more control, much less gear changing and I believe a much faster drive onto the next straight. Yes the huge power does not increase further in the higher reaches of the rev range but that could be addressed if the owner wanted to exploit this setup further.
Boost was a totally standard 0.8 bar and in 3rd and 4th gear it was hitting that well below the 3500rpm of a standard 2.5 but the most remarkable thing is the smooth way in which the boost arrives. No bang, crash, on/off wallop like the car that Porsche built back in the 80's. If you like your turbo cars to behave like that then Barry Harts 3 litre creation is not for you . This car is more like the effortless way that an S2 performs, but has 50% more power almost everywhere with no obvious lag.
Well done Baz, and thanks for a great day out. Others may now be very interested to hear that he has already tentatively started thinking about machining liners to turn any 2.5 Turbo into a 3 litre like this. I appplaud any effort to keep these wonderfully balanced cars going as long as possible, and if it brings more power at the same time as low boost relaibility then who can complain? I've taken a few photo's of the day and also have some in car footage which I'll hopefully post at the weekend when I've had a chance to edit it down and upload to the web.
Nice to also meet up with Stuart Cookson-Smith in his gorgeous red 968 and James with his slightly less gorgeous [
] and pretty much standard 944T
