Endurance racing requirements?

[rsportvolvo]

I am considering participating in some endurance races in the future. What do I need to do to my car aside from standard preps for IT races? What are the requirements? What are the suggestions?



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David Russell
'80 ITB Volvo 242 under construction
[email protected]

[JohnRW]

It depends on what you mean by "endurance races". Are you thinking about shorter 1-3 hour events, or the 8-10-12-24 hour stuff ?

How to prep a car ? Don't build it to be fast, build it to be reliable. Set up the suspension so it's easy on tires, as you'll want to avoid unnecessary stops for rubber sneakers. Put some kind of muffler on it, just to keep your brain from scrambling. There are limits in the GCR (and in individual enduro Supps) to fuel capacity, so don't think that the 33 gallon cell you've got in the attic will be the hot ticket.
Make the car comfortable to drive. If you're doing enduros that require a driver change, better consider mounting your race seat on sliders (the stock ones work great and don't require any re-engineering) and use a quick-pin adjuster for the seat-back brace.

Are your jack points well-marked ? Can you get the whole front or rear or a whole side off the ground with one jack ?

Is part of the event in the dark ? If so, build a removable quick-mount light bar. No point in crashing $500 in lights at 2pm in the afternoon...wait till it's dark. Is your electrical system up to snuff to run all the extra stuff ?

How do you plan on communicating with the pits ? Radios ? Signal lights ? You can spend a little...or a lot...but neither guarantees that you'll have a workable system. Most racers gasp when they see how simple and cheap our radio system is...but it works for us and we're not changing it.

There are cars that I wouldn't touch for an enduro, based on a whole lot of experience watching wrenches fly, while we happily continued to lap. I will offend many if I list them all, but I'll take a crack at my favorite "enduro albatross": Porsche 944's, any variety. What junk for endurance racing. Haven't seen more than 3 finish a 10-12-24 hour race in 5 years (and watched 10+ start, at least), don't think we've even been beaten by one (and we're in an SSC car...). You'd be better off in a Gremlin.

I'll save offending other "brand-fans" for later posts.

[dickita15]

ahh come on john. i would be interested in how you rate different it cars for enduro use.
dick

[DAVID KICAK]

The level of preparation of any car determines if it will finish a race ? any race 20 minutes or 24 hrs. Maybe those Porsche 944's just didn't have the proper people working on them. I would prep a car for a 24 hr race the same as a 20 minute race. How does the car know how long the race is ? Turn your motor timing back a niche readjust the valves and go. Watch your tach and be prepared to have fun.

[Knestis]

Mike Quan and RNR Racing finished second OVERALL in the 12 hours of Thunderhill in what amounts to an IT2 Civic EX, at least as far as I know about its specs.

Endurance racing is a big part of the reason I am probably going this route...

Kirk

[Edwin Robinson]

Originally posted by DAVID KICAK:
The level of preparation of any car determines if it will finish a race ? any race 20 minutes or 24 hrs. Maybe those Porsche 944's just didn't have the proper people working on them. I would prep a car for a 24 hr race the same as a 20 minute race. How does the car know how long the race is ? Turn your motor timing back a niche readjust the valves and go. Watch your tach and be prepared to have fun.

Dave- that's not really fair!
The way you prepare for a 20 minute race is the way most of us prepare for a 24 hour!

I'll have to stop by and keep getting pointers!

~Edwin.

[civicrr]

Kirk,
I am pretty sure that my car is 'IT2' legal. It is definitely legal according to the NASA CCR. Car prep is everything, for a sprint race or a long enduro. Since the goals our a little different, there might be some compromises made. eg I used a adjustable fuel pressure regulator to make sure that the a/f ratio never went leaner than 13.0/1. I gave up some power to make the engine last. We also went to the trouble to put in new uprights (knuckles) with new bearing/hubs f & r. The points about prep by JohnRW are good. I did blow it on the lights, though. We ran our light setup for the whole race. When my friend asked @ what point we would install the lights....duh. I didn't have time to change it to a quick mount system. Stradegy will be different. Risky passes just don't make sense. You must first finish to do well. Our goal for the race was to bring home the season championship. When it became apparent that we would, we actually started short shifting. Believe it or not, this happened around hour 4 of 12. Other cars were pushing hard. They broke.

I think as far as the 944 goes, it depends on the team. Peter Smith finished 3rd overall this year in a 968. He would have finished 2nd overall, or possibly 1st, if not for a accident late in the race. A car spun in front of him which he could not avoid. The resulting damage required him to pull his car into the paddock to repair the damage. The year before last, he ran a 944. Even though his tranny blew up, he replaced it in less than 45 min. They ended up finishing 1st or 2nd in class (can't remember). He had a failure, but he had the spare. That is also a big part of preparation. I brought 8 boxes of spare stuff for 12 Hour. Of course, we didn't have one mechanical, 'cuz...we have a Honda.

[dave parker]

Dave
The first rule to sucessful endurance racing is "Ignore all confrontations with common sense."
Second rule"Ignore your budget as well."
Third rule "It ain't over until WE say its over."
Most importantly have fun and enjoy lots of track time.
Happy Holidays
dave parker