Member postings for Peter Seymour-Howell

thank you, IMHO a garage queen is only good for one thing, sitting in a garage. Start driving it and it will soon break down. I love the E-type, perhaps the most beautiful car in the world, I put the 951 right behind it in looks. A good friend/old work colleague of mine has an E type which he fully restored, it was he who got me into Porsche when he persuaded me to drive his own 951. Up until then, I had been a fast Ford man. Today he builds Bugatti's, not replica's per se but real cars built to the original drawings, the coachwork has been a challenge as no drawings exist. Last time I visited he was building a Bugatti Royale, an enormous car which IIRC has a locomotive type Bugatti engine in it? I recall seeing the engine castings sitting on a pallet ready to be shipped to holland for machining... no cylinder head, all built-in one with the block.

Thanks, Dave

I know what you mean about getting in and out, I also find it difficult these days. No problem with the cockpit being tight though, lots of room in these cars with their fairly modern design. The earlier 944 was more difficult as its steering wheel sat much lower making it difficult for taller gents. This was corrected for the 86 model year when what's known as the 'oval dash' model first appeared.

I used to also believe that the 944 engine was basically half of a 928, recent reading has changed that view a little but the jury is still out.. There are a lot of similar parts though, IIRC they have the same stroke too. I've had 5 adults in my car, the result of giving 3 girls a lift home from a night club late one night, with my mate sitting on the tunnel in the rear with his head through the roof... he didn't complain, he had two beautiful girls to sit between.

Having been in the back of a 944 I would say it's only for very short people, I say that as someone who's under 5' 8"... This was while at Le Mans when a group of us decided to go to the pub in one car, never again....

Pete

No apology needed Roy, I didn't realise that this thread existed until recently either..

Pete

thank you,

Pete

Ok, so that's the 368bhp covered, now onto the beast.

Block: bored/skimmed out to 101mm *
Con-rods to remain unchanged although will be checked for balance, whilst researching the options the general consensus is that you can't beat the original Porsche forged items as used for the Turbo cup cars.
Pistons: IASA 101mm full race spec forged pistons with extra machined grove below the first ring, this allows a far higher boost without risk of blow by past the rings.*
IASA gudgeon pins*
Crankshaft machined undersize 0.25mm , both main and rod journals*
Raceware Head stud kit*
Raceware Main stud kit*
Raceware rod stud kit*
Genuine Porsche 0.25mm oversize Main/rod bearings*
Crankshaft scraper*
replaced water pump/belts/tensioners/pulley's
Lindsey Turbo super 61 rebuilt
Vitesse + V-flex MAF for ignition timing
3" custom made Magnaflow free-flow exhaust including the all-important turbo downpipe*

Of course, a lot of what was already on the car was reused after a good clean or rebuild where needed.

Recently I have also added...

80lb injectors

race-spec high temp fuel lines

map adjusted and the Vitesse chipboard now switched to a more aggressive ignition profile, I still have one more setting for what the creator describes as an extreme setting... Basically, the chipboard has 8 jumper switches, some are written to run the smaller 55lb injectors which I used when running in the freshly rebuilt engine. The other setting gives a more aggressive ignition of for when running on race fuel. Everything is controlled through the piggyback via laptop.

The air filter has now been moved to just behind the lower front apron, it's the biggest filter that K'N produces. The last 6" cone which had been fitted higher up inside the wing was sucked too hard and collapsed a number of times so clearly couldn't handle the amount of intake force being produced. Not the first time as the earlier Piper ram air intake had it's bonded foam filet within sucked out and damaged the turbo and destroyed the intercooler. Porsche originally designed the intake to run via a snorkel which takes cold air from the passenger wing, this hole is 3-inch dia and so I have now run 3-inch reinforced ducting throughout the intake system. down to the air filter. produces a lovely roar which when added to the burble from the exhaust on overrun and the whoosh when changing gear from the dump valve makes it a real head-turner long before they actually see the car.

Well, I think that covers most of the details, there is bound to be something that I have forgotten, will it now stay at this level? now there's a question, I'm over 60 now and too old for boy racer antics, even my wife says that I drive like an old man these days. This is a very fast car, not much out there to bother it, it will fly past 180 mph with ease and who knows where it stops when finally restricted by the wind. In the USA with similar power levels, they have seen 200+mph. The fastest that I have driven her is a recorded 174mph on one of my trips to Le Mans, back then she only had 282 bhp...recorded by sat nav, not my speedo which at the time was bouncing off its 170 mph pin and still accelerating hard until the column of cars backed off a little...

She is a beast, I would guess the 0-60 time is safely under 4 secs, in standard form auto road tests of the day cars managed 5.9 secs, and according to one auto mag the fastest speed at that time of any car roadtested on the autobahn in 1986 at 159 mph. The best thing about these cars, is they are just as planted on the road at 140mph as they are at 40mph, I can attest to this having driven much faster and never feeling light at the wheel.

Ok, I think that covers it, you can perhaps see now why I still have this car after so many years of ownership, it would be a very hard act to follow and it's 35 years old?...

Pete

Some details on the engine, luckily most of this was already written on the PCGB forum so I could copy/paste most of this. Part 1 as the forum won't let me post in one go.

First mod (1999) was a Lindsey boost Enhancer, not a real power gain but it felt quicker

Next (2000) was a Lindsey dual port wastegate with a manual boost controller, this was then mapped on a dyno by Wayne Scofield, resulting in power 282bhp/282torque.

Followed by (2007) 368bhp/382torque

So what do you need to make a reliable 368 bhp from a 220bhp engine?

Block remained standard, it's an 86 car which means forged internals and originally designed for over 500bhp, ( under the 924 GTP guise an engine based on this raced at Le Mans coming in at 7th overall and having spent less time in the pits than any other car in the field, IIRC this engine was detuned down to 420bhp for longevity in the race. later cars used the same crank but not forged components.
Lindsey Stage 2 Head with ceramic exhaust coating and machined valves for greater flow, all ports polished and map flowed.
Cometic head gasket
Lindsey Super 61 Turbo
Siemens 55lb injectors
Lindsey Dual Port wastegate
New standard Hydraulic Tappets
Manual boost controller
NGK Iridium Plugs
Magnecor 8.5mm Red Leads
150mm K&N cone filter
Vitesse MAF with piggyback system
Intercooler: standard
Bailey Motorsport DV30 re-circulating valve
Exhaust: standard
silicone vac lines
Innovate Air Fuel Ratio meter/gauge
Adjustable fuel regulator
8 Hours mapping on a dyno at Chip Wizards Rochdale by the maestro himself Wayne Scofield. The car was set to run on 95 RON ( for safety) at 17psi. For those not in the know for every extra RON grade used you can safely increase the boost by 2 psi, so if I had requested the car set for 98 RON the boost could have been safely increased to 21psi and be just as safe, or so the theory goes, of course, the power would have been a lot higher, Back then I was a little scared of going too far, so played safe, today I'm far more confident in the capabilities of the engine although I still do not intend to use all of the boost available.
Note: If I've forgotten anything I'll add it later

Now before I get started on the new build some things were added to the old spec but never put on a dyno to remap.

Janspeed twin rear exhaust section
Piper Ram intake system, custom install
Apex-i AVC-R electronic boost controller
Engine loom fully rewired using Lindsey components and covered in 1200 degree sheaving.
All sensors renewed
Dump to atmosphere Cosworth type dump valve
Stepper motor boost gauge with record
89' Turbo gearbox with LSD

I think that's covered most of it, I haven't gone into brakes and suspension, I think this intro is long enough I don't want to bore you guy's on the first page now do I... I will add though that as far as bodywork is concerned the car remains standard.

Part 2 coming up

Thank you Peter.. a Porsche as a company car??.. it's I who is envious, all I got was a VW golf...

Thank's Henry, she's an early '86' model year, the only year that was homologated as a Group B race car, IIRC there are currently 5 left on the road with a few SORN.. They are approx 100kg lighter than the last in the range.

Pete

Thank you.. I thought I was losing the plot for a minute there...

yes, the engine even in standard form is more or less bulletproof if serviced correctly.. The car now has nearly 220k miles on the clock, since engine rebuild it's covered approx 25k so I must have got something right during the process..

Original output was 220bhp, the first round of mods back in 2000 saw this rise to 280 bhp, next round in 2007 bumped it up again to 368 bhp (she was then the 5th most powerful 951 in the country) , today she is close to double the original 220. A lot was changed during the last round and it cost me a pretty penny in parts alone, substantially more than the original cost of the car back in 1999.

I'll write an update soon to give more details for those interested, it could be a long write-up though..

Thanks for the kind words on the car, I hope that you do get the chance to own one in the future, they are something very special and it's getting more difficult to find a good one these days.

Pete

Is ithis not the 'vehicle restoration page?

This car has been an ongoing development, in both power and general maintenance for the over 22 years of my ownership. Power has been steadily increased to twice what it was today. Being an '86' model year it's light, very light when compared to today's models, and the lightest of the range. I have driven many powerful cars in my lifetime, none have impressed me as much as this and it brings a big smile to my face each time I drive it.

This car is my daily driver for the simple reason that I am a car fan and no other car delivers what the 951 does and thus feels boring in comparison, it's ultra-reliable too even when highly modified. 951 is the factory model number which is used in Porsche circles to easily identify the model, it's also much easier to type than 944 turbo.. the true number is 952 which means it's an R/H drive variant but in general, we just settle with 951 for both.

I have created a new album for the car to show more images but will add more to this page as things change.

Currently, I have been working on the interior, this included a retrim to the dash and centre console, the dash had developed a few cracks which is common for these cars, I had got away with it for a long time so wasn't really surprised when cracks began to show a couple of years ago.

I have now covered the dash and console in stitched black leather replacing the original vinyl. This picture gives some idea of the cracks that had developed on the top of the dash near the windscreen. The cracks here have been cleaned up and opened before filling

Here we see the dash after being filled and sanded, for this job I used a flexible plastic bumper filler which does this particular job very well.

The dash now covered in a stitched black leather kit which I purchased some 6 years ago, only now finally getting around to fitting. 6 years ago is when the car went through it's last round of mods which this time involved removing the engine and doing a complete rebuild, I'll give more details on this at a later date.

And the last picture for the dash showing it refitted to the car.

Lastly for now a couple more general views of the car

engine bay

And those sexy hips which fill the door mirrors when driving

Parked at the famous Ace Cafe for one of the monthly Porsche meets, pre lockdown of course

Some of the images seem to have distorted a little, sorry about that, I have no idea why?

Hopefully, she will be going in for a full respray this June, the second respray in my ownership, the first was over 20 years ago. This time she will have modern paint and a good few coats of ceramic clear coating which means she should still be looking good long after I've fallen off my perch.

Next time I'll give some details on the engine.

Pete

Oh, I best add that the photo above although it has the same lubricating system and crosshead, it's from a different class. This is a picture of a V2, the drop arm is different to the A1 and this also has the later grease nipple for the union link rather than the oil reservoir found on the A1..

Pete

Morning Nigel, thank you for your kind comment on my build and mag articles. The castle nut will be held the traditional way with a pin, I just haven't got around to it yet, one of those many 'to do' jobs on a very long list, I have done the middle cylinder though, just because it's more difficult to get too as more bits get added.

As for the lubricating, I don't have a detailed drawing of this part and so have done something close to the prototype but also easy to maintain. The picture you see above was an early version of me seeing what's what. I have since added a screwed on end cap which the oil pipe slides into but not fixed. It's an easy job to just pull the pipe out a little to unscrew the cap and thus have access to the nut. I have also halved the OD of the oil pipe to be closer to scale.

Hopefully, this picture explains things better than my words.

Kind regards

Pete

Evening all

A few of the more interesting parts made which will be covered in the mag in due course...

Gresley's 2:1 conjugated lever

Piston valve bobbins (adjustable)

L/H crosshead and drop link ( i have since found a closer to scale copper pipe which will replace the one seen here, the smaller pipe also allows me to make the two missing brass elbows close to scale too)

The crosshead is to the LNER 1934 pattern with the latter fitted copper gudgeon pin feed pipe which afaik was fitted after 1936, not sure of the exact date but it is seen in 1938 photos of 4472.

BTW, making the crossheads (from solid), drop links and their mounting plates took 5 weeks of hard labour..

Regards

Pete.

Good questions Greensands and yes I agree fully about the smoke deflectors although I wouldn't take away anything from those who love FS no matter from which era. For me, a Gresley A1 is/was the most beautiful steam locomotive ever built, more so than the A3 or A4, the form just has everything that I think makes a fine-looking locomotive.

To answer your questions, I have used an industry trick for burnishing the cylinder bores which involved the final cut in reverse using a bit that was shaped to burnish the bore on it's return stroke. It worked very well, in fact I couldn't ask for better, this will all be covered in detail.

For the piston valves, I am using bobbins following Jim Erwin's adjustable design with a few changes. These have a floating bobbin on a central bolt. The material for the seal is fluorosint, each being machined to match don's original solid bronze dimensions. Fluorosint has a similar expansion rate to bronze and higher temp range than other Glass reinforced PTFE materials.

Thanks for the kind words

Pete

Thank you Jon, hope you find it of interest...

Kind regards

Pete

Hi Phil

All models are just a 'sum of their parts', Rob Roy being no different, admittedly the larger the longer they take to build.

I bought the drawings in 1998, spent some time researching the subject, in fact, I still spend a few hours each week researching material for the part currently being made. I guess the true start date is 2010 and most days since I have worked on the model. There was a 2-year gap where I completed a part built Heilan Lassie and also some time taken when building my highly modified car engine. I use laser cut parts where I can, most are so cut but the traditional saw and file has been used when required. I'm not a CAD man so I get most of this done by those more experienced for which I owe them a great dept.

The boiler is very much a one-off, it was built for me by Paul Tompkins of Southern Boiler Works ltd, IMHO he is the best boilermaker today. It's not fully to the DY design, in fact, in many ways, it follows the stronger designed Australian boiler code. This has allowed the working pressure to be increased from 90 to 100 PSI. It is very much a 'scale' boiler in as far as it's profile, including a proper barrel taper with no step as normally seen and backhead layout are concerned. The main backhead difference being the water gauge mounting points which are a little further apart than 'true scale' to give a larger glass area. The manifold turret and steam valves will be true scale and still able to use the correct steam/water bore size for the required injectors. As is the Firehole door and general layout. The boiler is a mixture of tig and silver solder, the tubes are bigger than DY's too, giving a better tube to grate ratio, a live blower tube is used as per full-size practice.

Hope that helps to answer your questions, Phil.

Kind regards

Pete

Hi everyone

This thread is really in response to another topic where it was pointed out about the lack of threads on locomotive builds and so I thought that I would do my bit for the forum in helping to add more content. However, I'm not going to start a build log here. Some may have seen or even be following my articles currently running in ME and thus don't want to take away from the editors hard work.

I did think though that what I could do is to start this thread for people who wish to know more about my quest to build a highly detailed model of 4472 or have a specific question about the build. feel free to ask ask here and get a quick and honest response directly from thehorse's mouth' so to speak. This is perhaps something a little different, whether it's of interest to other members here? well, only time will tell..

This image was taken two years ago at an event to commemorate the late Bob Todd, held at my home club track, NLSME. The model has moved on a very long way since 2018 but this was the last time that she was assembled (only for that day) and so perhaps the best picture to post to see her true form. She is being built to show her as she would have been seen in 1938 although there is a little modellers license which has already been detailed in the magazine. Everything is being built either to scale or as close as humanly possible and most parts are planned to be working. Well except for carriage heating, the gauge will work though..

Anyway, as I say, I'll try to answer any questions that may arise during the series here asap.

Regards

Pete