Early in the second run session at Fontana, I picked off a succesion of cones coming out of the last turn onto the straight. Not thinking it had done any damage, I continued around the course, pretty well tapped out in 5th. When I braked to turn into turn 3 I was getting some smoke in the cockpit. I thought I had picked up a traffic cone, so I kept running all the way around the back side of the track between turns 3 and 4. At that point, I found out I had a small oil fire and shut down.
After being towed back to the pit area, I checked out the damage and found that the cones had pushed in the splitter and pushed the lower radiator hose off, dumping all the water probably instantly. As I had turned the boost up, I had been watching the boost gauge for a reading, and not looking at the water or oil temp.
Consequently I cracked the head, so I was done for the weekend for sure. Also, I could not find the source of the oil, so that was a major worry.
I wound up taking the car back to the previous owner as he had built the engine originally and I was confident that he could do a good job on a rebuild. We went down to Huntington Beach yesterday to pick up the car, minus engine. Steve had the engine out and torn down. What we found was: main bearings and crank, perfect condition. Pistons, rods, bearings, virtually perfect. I had recently had a compression test done and at that time all cylinders were 125lbs. One sleeve had a very minor scratch up the side. The # 2 sleeve which is the trouble spot on 944's, was perfect. The interior of the engine was in amazingly good shape. So the extent of the repairs minus some upgrades will be a new head with porting and machining costs.
Now keep in mind, Steve had last had the bottom end apart when he first purchased the car in 1992. He figures that he had at least 15k race miles on the engine, prior to my purchase. Most of his race miles he ran with 20lbs of boost, which equates to 365hp at the rear wheels on this car on a 2.5ltr 4 banger. The original engine had 50K on it. I guess that I have probably 4-5K miles on the car since I purchased it, lately runnig 15lbs boost. Included in that have been a number of over rev's on missed and too early down shift's ( I am getting better).
So, is the cost of replacing the oil after every run weekend with Mobil 1 worth it. I would have to say yes. Also, is the 944 2.5 lter engine a solid engineering achievement. I would also have to say yes!