I hope over the 2008 season this thread will be of interest to some of you.
It will be a simple account of the thrills and (few) spills of hillclimbing my 911T and a few pics along the way, nothing fancy.
As a re-cap:
The Bitza is a '73 911T I bought as a real 'see-through-the-floor' basket case that I restored and started to sprint/hillclimb in 1988/91.
It took 8 months of welding and has had a 2.2 on webers, a 2.4E on MFI, and has had the current 3.2 with Bob Watson ecu chip for the last 10 years or so. All home done and painted in a one car garage.
Suspension is turbo 3 litre torsion bars in the rear, 2.7 sway bars, all rubber bushes out, 3.2 alloy arms and stock brakes. The dampers are Watson valved Bilsteins.
The front is standard, Watson Bilstiens, turbo rack, through the body sway bar.
A 6 point roll cage is re-assuring and has been tested in the real world in the past, and the car has a lot of patina everywhere. This is NO show time beauty, but a road/racer from the outset.
5 years ago it was obviously too slow in the class, so I bought an Impreza, now with a meager 370 bhp, and this is again too slow...(it is for sale!)
For 2008 I felt I wanted a rest from chasing 30 year olds in 500 bhp full race Impreza's so the 911 has been tidied-up and we hit the hillclimb running this last weekend. The tidy-up was just some Cookie Cutters, a set of soft Kumho V70's and some Green Stuff pads.
The venue was my motor club's own hillclimb, Loton Park (www.hdlcc.com) which I know really well.
It was a 2 day 'event' for members only, a true practice weekend.
Once all the car stuff was in the 911 I drove off to the track from home, tools scattered everywhere and cruised with zero probs on open pipes. Glorious.
The scrutineering was easy, no probs and lots of comments from competitors pleased to see the car back in action.
The first runs were tentative and in the dry, but at 1 deg above freezing!
I had forgotten that you have to drive a 911! God, it's flippin' hard to do after the Impreza that does it for you bar pay for the fuel.
Right, so a far more focused approach was needed, but the seat was too far back. Fixed that, and we started to get the times down over the 5 runs of the day, finishing 2 seconds behind my very best in the past of 61.99sec, but the starts were bad. (fresh tyres) and the engine/transmission nearly shook itself out of the shell. Forgot it did that.
Second day was warmer, a full 4 deg above, but was it ever wet. This really was a challenge as I 'competed' against my target running mates, esp the Impreza that was there. He got me by 0.4 sec on the last dry run. Rats.( 280 bhp and 4 x 4)
It is so good to be back in a real car, having to drive it to get a result rather than to be simply brave as you need to be in the Impreza.
First real race is Prescott where the car goes well (well, it did when I was 5 years younger).
Race report then.
It will be a simple account of the thrills and (few) spills of hillclimbing my 911T and a few pics along the way, nothing fancy.
As a re-cap:
The Bitza is a '73 911T I bought as a real 'see-through-the-floor' basket case that I restored and started to sprint/hillclimb in 1988/91.
It took 8 months of welding and has had a 2.2 on webers, a 2.4E on MFI, and has had the current 3.2 with Bob Watson ecu chip for the last 10 years or so. All home done and painted in a one car garage.
Suspension is turbo 3 litre torsion bars in the rear, 2.7 sway bars, all rubber bushes out, 3.2 alloy arms and stock brakes. The dampers are Watson valved Bilsteins.
The front is standard, Watson Bilstiens, turbo rack, through the body sway bar.
A 6 point roll cage is re-assuring and has been tested in the real world in the past, and the car has a lot of patina everywhere. This is NO show time beauty, but a road/racer from the outset.
5 years ago it was obviously too slow in the class, so I bought an Impreza, now with a meager 370 bhp, and this is again too slow...(it is for sale!)
For 2008 I felt I wanted a rest from chasing 30 year olds in 500 bhp full race Impreza's so the 911 has been tidied-up and we hit the hillclimb running this last weekend. The tidy-up was just some Cookie Cutters, a set of soft Kumho V70's and some Green Stuff pads.
The venue was my motor club's own hillclimb, Loton Park (www.hdlcc.com) which I know really well.
It was a 2 day 'event' for members only, a true practice weekend.
Once all the car stuff was in the 911 I drove off to the track from home, tools scattered everywhere and cruised with zero probs on open pipes. Glorious.
The scrutineering was easy, no probs and lots of comments from competitors pleased to see the car back in action.
The first runs were tentative and in the dry, but at 1 deg above freezing!
I had forgotten that you have to drive a 911! God, it's flippin' hard to do after the Impreza that does it for you bar pay for the fuel.
Right, so a far more focused approach was needed, but the seat was too far back. Fixed that, and we started to get the times down over the 5 runs of the day, finishing 2 seconds behind my very best in the past of 61.99sec, but the starts were bad. (fresh tyres) and the engine/transmission nearly shook itself out of the shell. Forgot it did that.
Second day was warmer, a full 4 deg above, but was it ever wet. This really was a challenge as I 'competed' against my target running mates, esp the Impreza that was there. He got me by 0.4 sec on the last dry run. Rats.( 280 bhp and 4 x 4)
It is so good to be back in a real car, having to drive it to get a result rather than to be simply brave as you need to be in the Impreza.
First real race is Prescott where the car goes well (well, it did when I was 5 years younger).
Race report then.
