With only 2 weeks left until the SCCA NJ Championship Tour, it was important to get as much seat time as possible. I got to codrive the Tatis Motorsports FRS again after some recent changes, most notably a new alignment and a slightly quieter exhaust setup.
NNJR SCCA Autocross - 4-24-2021
I'm feeling much more confident in this car now. It definitely needs trail braking to get around sweepers at speed but the ability the thrash it through slaloms without really worrying about getting bent out of shape feels incredibly good. I actually don't think I've ever felt this comfortable slaloming any of my cars except maybe Bumblestook when she was in BSP trim.
Our fastest runs - NNJR SCCA
Rad got into some pretty bad cone trouble but was putting in good scratch times. We got a whopping 8 runs so we got plenty of seat time and managed to finish 2nd and 3rd respectively which isn't too bad. The car still had plenty of pace and we made enough mistakes that we left lots of time on the table. We've got one more weekend of practice before the big event so hopefully we can get our heads on straight and put on a good showing.
This season I'll be codriving the Tatis Motorsports FR-S with Rad. I've always loved the twins because of their great formula; low cost, low weight, rear-wheel drive, naturally aspirated setup. I've never actually autocrossed a twin before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was told they were easier to drive because they were quite forgiving at the limit.
Codriving the Tatis Motorsports FRS - 4-10-2021
On my first few runs I immediately noticed how different this drove to my other cars. For starters, it truly has no power at low RPM. I mean the S2000 is no power machine either but after driving to the event in the Cayman, waiting for it to accelerate was quite funny. You definitely had enough time to think about when you might want to shift. However, once the car got going, it was properly quick.
Rad getting ready to run
On major difference versus the S2000 was how early you could get on the throttle. Power on oversteer was very controllable. I felt that the car really like to use power to rotate and not once did I feel I had to catch it. This gave me quite a bit more confidence in subsequent runs to give it a little more beans in the corners which is a must in this car. This car in particular has the stock diff and one other thing I noticed was that lifting off the throttle didn't really cause the car to slow down much which then caused me to overcompensate with the brakes, making me slow down way too much for corner entry. This isn't the car's fault of course. I'm just used to cars setup a certain way so it was initially unnerving for me to not feel even a slight braking effect when I lift off the throttle.
Unfortunately, by the time I got comfortable pushing harder, the quick driver changes had pretty much cooked the tires and we were losing front grip so I couldn't find any more time. I had so much fun driving this car and I can't wait to drive it more and see what we can do in the SCCA NJ Champ Tour in less than a month.
STX Results
I only managed to get 4th but Rad did nicely placing in 2nd. This is pretty good considering the car hasn't had a ton of development time on it yet so there's tons of potential there. I can't wait for Rad to get the new midpipe though. It is comically loud and I blame at least some of my slowness on how embarassing it is to run this car at full throttle (true story bro).
After spending a year going back and forth with the shop to get all the mechanicals sorted on Scarlett, it was finally time to fix her paint. The body was always straight and rust-free but the paint left much to be desired. I actually would've loved some patina but something had me suspect that the car had previously had a relatively cheap respray done because of the way certain panels had faded or chipped over time differently from other panels.
First drive after paint - 4/3/2021
Pretty much every place I went to ask about doing this job wanted to do a full, strip down to bare chassis, chemical etch and paint. I get why they want to do that. It's the "right way" to do it if you want everything to be super fresh but that's not what I wanted to do. First, it's way too much money. Second, that would mean all the mechanical work just done would need to removed in order to do this leaving me back to some unknown/untested state after job completion. If I was going to do this, it would've made more sense when the engine was out of the car and the transmission was being rebuilt. The bottom line is I wasn't trying to make this a "new" car but just wanted it to look less beat up.
I really just wanted to get the exterior looking even and fresh but keep the rest of the car original paint because frankly there was nothing wrong with it. I took the car to Eric at K2 Auto Body in Edgewater since they had repainted Bumblestook for me and did a terrific job with that. Aside from their excellent paintwork, I knew they were going to work with me on doing this project the way I wanted. I dropped the car off in October last year so they could work on it over the winter. After speaking about what I wanted to achieve, we agreed that doing a window out respray would be the best course of action.
Windows coming out
Adhesive overload
Whoever previously installed the windows used a ton of adhesive which isn't the way Porsche actually specifies the windows should be installed. That definitely confirmed that the car had at least some portion repainted. They took the car down to bare metal to make sure that there were no issues with any of the panels. Thankfully, it was clear that it was just a bad paint job and all the panels were straight and not bondo filled. There was also no sign of rust anywhere.
Sanded down to bare metal
We wanted to replace all the seals with fresh ones and that added to the delays as some of the seals had to come from Germany and were back-ordered. Everything was primered then painted Guards Red and clear coated. The holes left behind by the rear bumperette delete were welded shut to keep the lines clean.
Panels getting painted
Rear bumperette holes welded
Chassis primered
Chassis painted
One of the interior issues was the rear shelf. It had warped due to heat over time and falling apart. They had an interior specialist recreate part of the panel in aluminum and then recovered in matching vinyl.
Rear shelf getting recreated
Rear shelf completed
The windows were then painstakingly re-installed the right way, with zero adhesive and all new trim and seals.
Windshield reinstalled
Rear quarter window with fresh seals and trim
After the car was reassembled and cleaned, I took the car home and started putting on some minor cosmetic mods that had been in my garage for months now. They were the "Human gimme food" fuel bib and the embossed leather Porsche horn button by Car-Bone in Poland.
Human Gimme Food
Replaced the plastic horn button with embossed leather
Today, I put the interior back in and the summer wheels/tires back on, filled her up with a full tank of fresh fuel, and took her out for a nice long 150-mile drive to really get the fluids going and make sure everything was working as it should. Obviously, I couldn't resist doing a little photo shoot to commemorate the moment.
Interior back in
Scarlett - 4/3/2021
Scarlett - 4/3/2021
Scarlett - 4/3/2021
Fresh hood emblem
Faithfully recreated option sticker under the hood by https://www.open-s.de/ in Germany
Faithfully recreated rear decals by Car-Bone in Poland
I really want to thank Eric for the great work. The car came out awesome and she's a real head turner now. We're not quite done with the build just yet. Over the winter, I ordered a Classic Retrofit electric AC conversion and Speedsport Tuning will be tackling that install for me this summer. For now, I'm just going to enjoy driving her.
