Porsches really fly

[260BC]

just for my background how old are we talking for the 996? 5 years? 10 years?

not very good form if a critical safety feature fails due to old age...

Yeh, dodgy, no wonder car manufacturers are getting sued. In this case I'd be putting it on Porsche to replace the car.

[walkie]

Yeh, dodgy, no wonder car manufacturers are getting sued. In this case I'd be putting it on Porsche to replace the car.

with the first 997 Turbo to come here

[Nedwob]

With the Turbo's the car becomes a task and a half to drive when the ABS does fail, we had it happen twice in that rally, so we did recieve a warning bell, the first time it failed the brakes locked up under just minor braking (very slow corner where an accident was). On second and the major corner we went off on, Scott slowed well in advance for the corner as I did let him know it was a major caution (exact text was "CAUTION ENOURMOUS DROP", one of about half a dozen such corners in the rally.). We were going between 80 to 100kph, which is the normal cornering speed for the car. The the pedal went rock hard on him. He tried to back off and use it again but it did not respond and by then it was all over, as we were in the gravel. I am no expert on the system, but Quinns Mechanic and Tony both said you cannot not race the car if the system fails.. Funnily I do agree with him!! haha. Tony's story of his crashes when the same thing has happened to him are quite colourful to say the least! He was the first one to find out about the looms breaking with age. (Our car was a MY2001 so it was not that old.) Porsche now make a "replacement ABS wheels sensor loom" so they are aware of a problem.. The brake pedal just goes rock hard, as it did for us in both situations. Apparently something to do with the Bosch system and its failsafe mechanism, it is made for road cars, not race cars...

As for asking Porsche to replace a car that was a bit modified and used for racing when it is clearly marketed as a road car.. chances would not be good!!

Next car... really not sure, the car is Scott's and he is looking at maybe getting another Turbo shell and just using it for circuit racing. As long as all the sensors and looms are intact the cars are a pretty good thing. Apart from Tony, most the other drivers go back to 996 GT3's,GT2's or GTR nissans. I am just going to continue running in sprints, hillclimbs etc with the 73 911 RS or the 67' Shelby Mustang, no computer systems or other throw away systems to stuff up in those!!

Dan

[edo]

Haha, yeah, Tonys stories are funnier cause of the accent...I reckon yours was better told.

Interesting you should describe those symptoms. I ran a Honda type R in GTP & at Rally tas a few years back. First time out at a circuit, it did exactly the same thing...rock hard pedal & no slowing down. It appeared to do it only after it had picked up a wheel in the previous corner. I put this down to the poor ABS computer getting awfully confused when 1 rear wheel was locked but the car was accelerating...of course you didnt notice anything untoward until the next corner (which was turn 1 at calder with a nice long run off road...lucky for me). My solution was to just pull the fuse on the ABS & drive without it.
I wasnt too worried because my car was basically a trumped up shopping car & perhaps I was expecting a bit much...but a 911 turbo should allow for these things. Id be interested to know if that might have been likely, ie is it possible that you locked a single wheel (either off the deck or close to) the corner before? In other words is he a left foot trail braking type dude?

Im making a miserable (so far) attempt at building a classic tarmac rally car...the modern stuff just goes too fast for me (I really really want to avoid a crash like yours). Also, a car with power assisted nothing at all & a grand total of 3 wires does have some appeal.
Hook yourself up in the stang & I'll be your competition...well some of it anyway

[260BC]

Racing should have nothing to do with any Porsche liability for such a problem, unless it has been fiddled with or physically damaged.

It sounds very much like the manufacturer failed to build a fail safe or even sufficiently reliable system. Items like steering and brakes should, subject to normal maintenance requirements, be 99.99% reliable or something like that.

Anyone for drive by wire?

[gxxr]

Got to wonder what is going on at Porsche if they are still getting ABS failures.

Wasn't it Terry Bosnjak who climbed the wall on his roof at Stop-Go corner(Amaroo Park)in the early 90's in a virtually brand new RSCS. I remember him being vehement in claiming the brakes failed ~ and Porsche being equally so in claiming quality German engineering nevar fails.

IIRC Cameron Mclean was another to suffer the same problem but without the disasterous outcome.

The fix was to disable the system.

[Nedwob]

I agree that a fix is to disable the system!! But it is all integral with the Turbo computer package so we did not have that option, and neither does anyone else unless they swap to something else like motronic. Which i do not think is looked upon by Targa officials to favourably for that class...

Yes Edo, what you described is what the best have guessed did happen, one wheel in full movement and one in the air that was stopped. There was a small bridge that we got slightly airborne on about 200M before that corner. It was a full Murphys Law incident as it could not have happened in a place for us.

I have to admit that I far prefer the classic section of the Targa's to the modern group. I had a hell of a lot more fun driving the old rally 356 than I have had in the modern 911. Just love the way it moved and slid around in such a controlled and readable fashion. I also prefer a lot of the people! The TT just sticks and sticks with hardly any movement at all, but has awesome speed through the corners and not to mention pretty good under brakes! Acceleration was amazing with both me and another navigator in a similar car noticing that you almost black out if you happen to be looking down when you take off in the TT. It truely is/was an amazing car, pity about the situation we found ourselves in last month..

The Terry Bosnjak incident and others was very much in my mind when I was in the ambulance going to hospital.

[intehnet]

Nedwob: do you have any pictures of the 73 RS in question? I love those things!

[brickonboost]

I have to admit that I far prefer the classic section of the Targa's to the modern group. I had a hell of a lot more fun driving the old rally 356 than I have had in the modern 911. Just love the way it moved and slid around in such a controlled and readable fashion. I also prefer a lot of the people!

Good to see someone else sees it that way too (the part about the classic competition and the people, can't relate to the porsche part unfortunately.)

[Fatboy]

Hey Dan, i gotta ask, were you wearing a HANS device ??

I race Improved Production (you know, on real race tracks :p ) and a few guys are starting to wear HANS devices but i've heard conflicting reports on whether they are beneficial or make things worse ??

Cheers,
Paul....

[The Pupat]

I was watching doco on Discovery on Car Racing crashes and after watching that when they talked about the HANS device and run through what happens during the crash and how strong they I'd definitely use one.

[260BC]

................................................. I am just going to continue running in sprints, hillclimbs etc with the 73 911 RS or the 67' Shelby Mustang, no computer systems or other throw away systems to stuff up in those!!

Dan

QR sprints? See you there

[itsnotagsr]

Hey Dan, i gotta ask, were you wearing a HANS device ??

I race Improved Production (you know, on real race tracks :p ) and a few guys are starting to wear HANS devices but i've heard conflicting reports on whether they are beneficial or make things worse ??

Cheers,
Paul....

Paul
My mate wears one for Prod Sports. They're supposed to be great in an accident, but severly restrict the sideways movement of the head. This is bad if you've had an "off-track excursion" and cant see whether there is another car coming when you're reentering the track. I've asked the question to a V8 super driver and he said the same thing. In the end, he said his neck was worth more than a few panel's in the team owner's repair budget!

[The Pupat]

Paul
My mate wears one for Prod Sports. They're supposed to be great in an accident, but severly restrict the sideways movement of the head. This is bad if you've had an "off-track excursion" and cant see whether there is another car coming when you're reentering the track. I've asked the question to a V8 super driver and he said the same thing. In the end, he said his neck was worth more than a few panel's in the team owner's repair budget!

More likely life, not a pleasant thought when most whiplash deaths occur much like would happen if you were swinging around Singapore.

[Nedwob]

I was not wearing a Hans device and I had no whiplash... which is pretty amazing really. I think a combination of the Cobra evolution seats at the light weight helmets helped with this. Scott hardly had any either....