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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Steve Boris
NOR'EASTER Online - September 2002

Isn't it strange how things work out? In the beginning I knew I was going to have to write a bunch of articles. So I searched my head and heart for an article theme that would be interesting as well as informative and also something that I could have fun with. As it started out my articles primarily delved into the psychological problems of average people with Porsches. In actuality I have probably started to psychoanalyze my own problems. At the end of my term as a board member you'll either think I am a very sensitive and caring person, a total flake or a self-absorbed jerk. If I were to pick one right now it would probably be the latter.

I sometimes confuse myself with my own psychological make-up. Maybe I am schizophrenic. One half Steve and one half Spider. I sometimes think Steve is a better friend. As soon as the spider helmet goes on, forget it, pass everyone. For the most part I am a good person. I help friends, I give away anything that isn't used and something's that are, I donate to charities, I help old people into the middle of the street, I pick up litter and I even mow a sidewalk for walkers near my home that isn't mowed by the town. But there is a side of me that is a total jerk. I am sarcastic, loud, selfish, jealous and a bit insecure. In business (as a package/graphic designer) I subject myself to a huge amount of criticism, which is perfect for building self-esteem and confidence.

Now, I will try to explain why I felt the need to bring this all up. One thing that I didn't mention above is that because I am a bit insecure I tend to be very competitive and I find myself trying to prove myself to the people that I want to like me. I used to use this technique to impress women too, but they were all to smart. Now I just beg. It has never been part of my make-up to not give 110% and try to win. I don't always win but when everything is going right I'm usually pretty close, there I go again trying to impress you too. Not that winning isn't a good thing to wish for but there are instances when it isn't.

This brings me to Club Racing. What do you do when you are part of a team of friends that are in the same class of racing. This would be Andy Jenks, Sean Houlihan, Steve Berry and myself. Right now Andy, Steve and myself are in F class and Sean is thinking of getting out of GT3S and coming to F. How do you wish to win at the expense of your friends losing. It's not easy!

This has been a tough year in that aspect. Having blown my motor in April at VIR, then just watching the race at Lime Rock, my OK performance at the Glen and the last race at Mosport.

After a couple of sessions of practice at Mosport I had high hopes because I found out why I was getting passed at the Glen as much as I did. Being new to a 944 turbo I am still not familiar with how they should feel. I found an unplugged vacuum line off of the intake that is supposed to be feeding intake pressure to the fuel pressure regulator. This means the fuel was not changing in accordance with the amount of air and boost that was being produced, not to mention an open vacuum line that is lousy for maintaining good boost. Anyway, I fixed it and the car was phenomenal during the first few runs at Mosport. It then started to develop a gremlin after 5 or 6 laps of perfection that we still haven't figured out yet. As the weekend progressed, with the help of friends and other mechanics at the track, we tried different things to fix it. The hopes of doing well were starting to fade. This was particularly frustrating because I also had gotten back into my old driving groove and was feeling really good. When I was running with the F class cars there were 5 of us that were in 3rd -8th place that were all within .5 seconds of each other. That's the kind of racing that means you can't mess-up even one braking zone or it will cost you 4 places.

Since Steve Berry was sitting Mosport out is was just Andy, Sean and I. Andy and I were running very similar times with Andy being about .2 second faster on the average which was just about a second off the real pace. At Sprint Race time my car still was not behaving longer than 6 or 7 laps. That's no good for an 18-lap race. Again I was watching from the side and a friend and teammate was racing and having a blast. I should have been psyched for him but I wasn't. I was whining, why me. Sean was also starting to pick up his pace in GT3S sprint race and really got his act together to win the GT3S 90 minute enduro by 2 laps. That's huge!

Meanwhile I was continuing to pester people at the track for their opinion of what could be wrong, I kept on hoping to get it sorted out before the enduro. But that was not to be. As with anything related to cars not running right everyone you ask have a different opinion of what could be causing the problem. You ask 5 people and you will get 5 different answers. So we still weren't sure if the problem was fuel related or heat related which was causing something to get hot and fail. So we proceeded to replace the fuel pump, fuel filter, DME, DME Relay, and the throttle position switch. I even had a dream Saturday night of what seemed like a good candidate for the culprit. In an effort to dress up the engine bay I put on the Mylar coated hood insulation. After waking from my dream (I happened to be sleeping in the race trailer at the track) I went outside to realize the insulation wasn't allowing any air to pass through the engine bay possibly causing the engine to get hotter than necessary. So off it came.

Hoping that this would help I headed out for my first practice before the enduro. The unfortunate thing was the session was only 9 laps long. The car had a slight hiccup once but never got bad. So I had a bit more hope for the enduro.

Now the bad part. The other set of tires that I had put on for Sunday were fine during the practice but when I checked pressures before I went out again the right rear tire was 30 lbs. Not typical for Hoosiers at race settings. In hindsight had I not been so concerned with the engine problem the low pressure would have set off a flare in my brain. It didn't, I just added a bit of air and started to rush around to get fuel and everything ready for my race, which included bringing stuff up to our pit stall for our pit stop. As we headed out for the pace lap of the enduro all I was thinking about is will the car run for more than 8 laps. Coming down the front straight we took the green flag. Being on the inside I was riding the turtles heading towards Turn 2. At the turn in point of Turn 2 I felt a little wobble from the right rear tire. Uh-oh, it was flat! For those of you who have never driven Mosport, Turn 2 is a high-speed, left-hand, downhill, off-camber turn that has 2 apexes and a big tire wall that takes a lot of abuse. What a perfect place to have a right rear tire go flat.

Well, I kept it out of the tire wall but the undulations in the grass relieved me of my splitter and the remaining 89-minute race. I have to say the worst part was having to drive home at the end of the day not knowing if we fixed the engine problem.

So, there I was sitting on the side of the hill before Turn 3 watching Andy race without me again. I eventually dragged my butt up to the paddock where I started to dismantle the Team Northeast area. Sean's enduro was right after lunch and we wanted to head out as soon as possible afterwards for the 9-hour ride home.

One other thing that happened this weekend was that I found out the brakes that I put on my car were illegal for F class (I got some bad information) and I had to spend Saturday and Sunday in D class. For those of you who have 944 Turbos (not Turbo S's) do not think the M030 upgrade includes the big black brakes. According to the scrutineers, the M030 upgrade was suspension only, not brakes. The only 944 that can be upgraded are the S2's and the Turbo S's. So with the help of a higher being and Jon Milledge be thy name, we set the car up to run in D. We borrowed a different DME with an AutoThority chip in it and we drained out the Ultra 94 and went straight for the Elf 100 unleaded. Boy, I thought the Gulf 100 smelled strong but that Elf fuel is really aromatic. The move to D didn't bother me because my lap times without the chip put me second in that class. The chip and fuel gave me about 13 mph faster on the back straight.

Now back to my psychological problems. Here I was again the odd man out. Andy ran all weekend without a hitch doing pretty well in what appears to be the closest racing I have ever been involved in. Then Sean goes and wins GT3S. I don't know if my moons were in retrograde or if I just need baggier shorts but something has to give soon. I felt like such a weenie driving home. The trip home usually is filled with CB talk of all the good time and cool moves made on the track. I didn't have any. So I just kept quiet.

After getting home I had to get the car to the chassis dyno to see if the car was still acting up. The dyno went well, we tweaked the air/fuel mixture a bit and got the car to put out some extraordinary horsepower and torque figures. Needless to say the new motor is making good power, if we can only get rid of the gremlin. After tweaking the mixture we started to run the car hard to try and make it hiccup. Well, we got it to do it and found that the car would run way too lean which means something is preventing fuel from making its way into the motor. Long story short, we still have no idea what is causing it. I proceeded to change the fuel pressure regulator, the fuel dampener, and the cycling valve that supplies vacuum to the wastegate. As I write this I am preparing to head to NHIS for a Thursday afternoon test day with the hope that the problem is gone. VIR race is in 2 weeks and I have to be running right by then. If the current changes haven't fixed it I don't know if I'll get it fixed by then.

Hopefully next article will tell of the great time I had at VIR and not another sideline story.

Well, my driver's window is always open even if it's in the grass off of Turn 2 at Mosport.

The Vent Window

You will probably not read this until after the one year anniversary of September 11th so I hope all went well and everyone is OK. As I write this I find myself worrying about certain things as well as the world's future. Because of these and other un-controllable problems lately I had to stop in for a stress test. This is when you ask your doctor what all these chest pains are. If any of you remember Robert DeNiro in Analyze This, his problem was that he had panic attacks. This was my problem too. The tests showed that everything is ship shape and I'm actually in pretty good shape (it's important all the chicks understand this).

Anyway back to September 11th. As you drive around nowadays you can't help but still see flags and bumper stickers announcing how great the USA is and how anyone thinking about messing with us better think twice. I think this is great. I love America and find the recent unification of us as well as other parts of the world fantastic. We as a country are great and as a country we have accomplished many great things and will accomplish many more in the future. However, there is a part of this country that I feel is not so great. Those are the people that think because they are American that they are better than everyone else in the world. Any person, from any country can be great. Being American is not a prerequisite to greatness. How can we, as Americans, be proud of having people that have bumper stickers that say, "Kill them all and let God sort them out!" This type of American is not great.

The other day I was listening to a radio station that acknowledged a survey on the ugliness of women in different countries and who rated the ugliest. For those of you wondering, the women of the USA were 3rd ugliest. How can things like this ever bring about anything good? People are people nothing more, nothing less. Why would anyone even think of doing such a survey? Can you imagine being from the 10th place country and hearing that you are from a country that produces the ugliest women on the face of the earth? Time to have a glass of champagne, buy that pretty little sundress and lace undies? I think not!

Being great is an awesome responsibility and it is a responsibility that I believe the majority of us can handle but just as other countries have it's jerks I guess we have to except that we have ours. Maybe God will sort them out!

Sorry for the non-automotive related Vent Window but it has been one year since a very serious event in this great country's history. Peace.

Porsche Club of America The Northeast Region

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region