Cars of Technology

Is Historic racing about racing vehicles as they existed when they were contemporary or is it just an opportunity to race old cars? Vintage racing has been a great example of technological creep. At one time a 1969 Porsche 2.0 911 was limited by 1969 technology. Today that 1969 Porsche 911 is reaching speeds never imagined by the original designers. It didn’t happen all at once. It evolved over the years. First it was the adjustable shocks, and then came the MSD ignition box followed by wider wheels. Each one of those items was insignificant. But as the technological creep moved on the cars got faster, the costs got higher and the car count got smaller.   The FIA, or Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, has a set of rules for historic racing cars and these rules don’t change every year. Historic racing cars in most of the world must have FIA papers in order to compete at larger events (plus some selected smaller ones too). These rules provide an internationally accepted set ...

  Why install turbo tie-rod ends on your street car? You can’t see them. Your friends at the Porsche Club of America will never notice them but they do make a difference. They’re called tie-rod assemblies and every time your turn the steering wheels you’ll use them. Howard Adams of Porsche Vintage Parts feels that they’re a natural upgrade for any non-turbo Porsche. You can now purchase a kit that includes everything you'll need The 911 was designed with rubber bushings in the tie rod assemblies. These kept the steering wheel kickback isolated. The rubber bushings in the tire rod ends insulate the steering wheel from the front wheels. A very nice idea for a street car but just the opposite of what we want in a high performance application. Porsche reached the same conclusion when they released the 911 Turbo. When the 930 was designed the rubber bushings were eliminated in favor of a ball and socket. The performance of the turbo was so impressive that Porsche decided to make the st...

Project 911 Goes to a Weight Clinic There’s more speed in the chassis than there is in the motor. If that doesn’t make immediate sense remember that the only thing a motor does is push the car down the road. If you want your car to go down the road faster there are two ways to do it. First, you can increase the amount of power that propels the car. The second (and perhaps more effective) way to make your car faster is to make it roll down the road with less effort. Either way you’re going faster than before. Motors though have a lot of very expensive parts and take a lot of skill to properly assemble. A chassis, on the other hand, is a fairly simple mechanical device and responds to very basic logic, which is not always true of motors. The best part is that it usually costs a lot less money to properly align a car than it does to build a mega-horsepower motor. Generally speaking the motor should be about the last place to spend your money if you want a faster car. The first place to be...