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MARCH NEWSIt's hard to believe it's March already. It seems like just a couple weeks ago we were ringing in the New Year. The closer to Spring it gets, the busier we seem to get. We're running flat out now, so it's hard to imagine taking on more. But past experience tells us to get ready, it's coming.We know our customers are working feverishly as well by looking at our weekly UPS shipping invoice. Our next day and second day air shipments are double to triple the normal ratio of air to ground shipments. Since it's practically impossible to work on shop projects during the week, we are limited to Saturdays. Mike has been making progress on our Engine Dyno changes and additions. When we first set it up, we under estimated the size and needs of the water pump. This supplies water to the water brake. If it is too small, you run the risk of cavitating and allowing the engine to over rev. Until we did some pulls and measured the water pressure, we didn't realize the mistake in calculation. Based on the water pressure, we would have been limited to 400 crank HP and it would be risky business approaching that. Well, 400 just wasn't going to cut it around here. We're not too far from doing that on a stock turbo'd 2.5L 951 engine. Here is the original water pump set-up we installed. As you can see in this recent picture below, we have switched it out to a much more capable pump and added a filtration system to cleanse the water coming from our 500 gallon outside water storage tank.
To keep the engine room cool during pulls, we added a 24" diameter 2500 CFM overhead fan system. This will allow us to do continuous dyno pulls and engine break in runs without making toast out of us, the engine or the room.
The fresh air entering the engines intake comes from outside the room being fed down through the ceiling and will be whatever temperature it happens to be in our shop that day. We can somewhat control that by the A/C and furnace systems in our shop if needed. Final connection not pictured.
We hope that by next month, we will start discussing dyno charts and parts comparisons and findings in the Shop Talk section of this letter. It's going to start getting more interesting for both us and you the reader. MARCH SPECIALSFor the Month of March, we will be offering the following special pricing for our retail customers only. Other discounts and programs do not apply and cannot be combined. You must request the special pricing at time of ordering. The shopping cart does not recognize our specials and will NOT automatically give you the special pricing. You MUST either send us a follow up e-mail immediately after ordering through the shopping cart or International Order Form, or give us a telephone call and ask for your special pricing. If you order by phone, you MUST mention the special pricing at time of order. If you contact us after the order is shipped and request the special pricing, it will be too late to receive it.
Our Fuel Injector Harness has not only been popular, but we're often asked when it's going to be on sale again. We think it's something most of the 951s out there could use. To get more out there on cars that need them, we are putting them back on sale at 20% off this March. Depending on how many we sell this month, you may not see it on here again until the Fall, so if you need one, now is the time.
We are just finishing up another production run of our beautiful Short Shift Levers. Mentioning Horsepower Talk discount this March will save you 10%.
To kick off the introduction of Joe Gibbs Racing Oil to our product line-up, this March you can receive FREE ground shipping when buying a "case or more" of this oil. You can mix up the case if you like. For example, you can order six quarts of BR, and six quarts of XP4 to qualify. Then if you like, you can add another case of XP4 and get free shipping as well.
Need a new silicone connector, reducer, hump hose, elbow or just a length of tubing? Do you have a hose in need of replacement and think an upgrade to silicone would be beneficial? All Silicone Hose is 15% off for the month of March. This does "not" include hose in our pre-packaged kits.
CUSTOMER CAR OF THE MONTHJeff DiCicco's Beautiful Baltic Blue 89 Turbo
The engine has since been fitted in the car. Jeff has been working on the finishing touches and should be firing this monster up soon. Look for this car to be in our Customer Car section soon with dyno charts that should make all 951 owners proud. ENGINE:
Lindsey Racing Knife-edged Crankshaft EXHAUST:
Lindsey Racing 3" T4 turbo down pipe SUSPENSION: Bilstein Escort Cur Car Kit TRANS & DRIVETRAIN: SPEC Stage 3 clutch kit
SHOP TALKEngine oil has been much of the internal topic around Lindsey Racing lately and for good reason, we're excited. About a year ago, we decided to quit running synthetic oil in our engines all together. Valve train failure was the main reason behind that decision. Although we can't be 100% certain, how could you be, there just seemed to be too high a relationship between those types of oils and pre-mature engine breakdown and failure.For a while, the only thing we felt comfortable running was a petroleum based oil and we chose Valvoline VR1 20w-50 Racing Oil. But maybe it wasn't just the tag "synthetic" that was the problem. Maybe it was just oil in general and some were showing problems earlier than others. Now we have changed our position on oil once again. Not just because we found another oil to try, but because we believe we found what will be the end of our search. Something that has really impressed us and feel confident enough with to push based on how all the pieces of the "oil puzzle" have been coming together. Enter.... Joe Gibbs Racing Oils. A name you are familiar with if you follow NASCAR. The place where extreme engines turn over 9500 RPM for up to 600 miles, making over 800 Horse Power with oil temperatures at 240 degrees. A local engine builder whom we admire and bounce many ideas off of has also recently switched. Up until two years ago when he discoverd Joe Gibbs Racing Oils at the PRI show, he had been seeing premature valvetrain wear and failure. Solid tappet engines were going from .004" lash clearance to .040" within a hour on his engine dyno. Cam lobes, push rods tips and valve lifters were failing left and right. He recalled losing 5 cams back to back on two separate engines. Although the cam and lifter companies hadn't changed anything in many years, something was happening that nobody had an explanation or a fix for. Quite scarey when you think about it. No matter what they thought may be the problem with the components, and no matter what corrective measures or changes were made to attempt to correct it, it was getting worse. I'm sure there was quite a bit of hair loss during this period. Since they started using Joe Gibbs Racing Oil, they tell us the problems they had been seeing simply vanished! No more! Gone! They are 100% convinced that the only thing that corrected the problem is the switch to this brand of engine oil. It's now the only oil they would even consider putting in an engine. They assemble and in-house engine dyno the engines they build for their customers. And it's a bunch! 9000 RPM Chevys and Fords for circle track and drag racing. When the engine leaves their shop, it has Joe Gibbs Racing Oil in it, and the customer gets a explanation of why they should take a few cases of oil with them and run nothing else. He stated that he currently has about 35 local customers running this oil exclusively in the track cars. To date, he cannot think of any oil related failures in any of them. Sure, you can break a rocker arm or bend a push rod, he stated, but as for wear on the moving and contacting parts, it's to a bare minimum and in most cases non existant. Switching to this oil was like flipping a light switch. Problem there, problem gone! This got us at Lindsey Racing rather excited since we have been tracking valve train failure on the 944s for almost 3 years. The more people we talk to that specialize in camshaft and valvetrain components the more it all seems to make sense. Everything is now pointing to the oil. Things that have been working well for years and years are failing with no smoking gun until perhaps now. Many of the key ingredients required to sustain a high performance engine have been greatly decreased or removed over the last few years due to tightening environmental regulations. The EPA, car manufacturers, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have legislated the wear protection right out of the over the counter oils for the public. The reduction in Zinc and Phosphorus, which are key to reducing engine wear, has meant we have less protection in our high performance engines. Lindsey Racing will no longer put anything in our or a customer's engine but this product. It has been said that this oil will pay for itself and I think that is a gross understatement when you consider what we spend on our Porsche engines. Lose one valve lifter and you're looking at new lifters, most likely another camshaft, and labor to switch things out plus down time and inconvenience. We are so excited about this engine oil and what it can do for our engines, or should we say not do to our engines, that we now stock and sell it. For now, we feel the XP4 is best suited for our projects (944 turbos mainly) and a good value for most budgets. If you're seeing high engine oil temperatures then you may want to switch to a synthetic after a break in period running BR or XP4. We only sell by the quart or case. This isn't a product you can buy at the local auto parts store so you will want to have a few extra bottles handy. We suggest you visit Joe Gibbs Racing Oil's web site and read through the information. Here is a link to their site. It's worth your time and may save your engine some day. This racing oil is for high performance race engines and should not be used in a street car used as a daily driver. The oil does not contain detergent additives that conventional oils do. Having said that, the engine builder above has several customers running it in their daily drivers with no problems. You should also be told that you may not pass an emissions test while running this oil. The ingrediants that make this oil so good for your performance engine, also aren't all that environmentally friendly. We have added several J&E pistons to our line for the 951 engine. We now stock and offer 100mm, 100mm +.020", 100.5mm and 104mm sizes. We have pistons for both Nikasil and Alusil bores.
FINAL THOUGHTSWe just cannot thank our customers enough for their support and patronage. Our continual commitment to the Porsche community should show you we appreciate everything you do, and we will continue to work hard to earn your business.Until next month, we wish you many safe and quick laps. - The Lindsey Racing Crew
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