A lot has happened since
the February driver school. I could not attend, but Mark and another
trusted friend (Tom Welsh) took the car to the HSR event at Sebring in
March during the weekend of the 12 Hours of Sebring. Since I was
not there, I don't have any pictures. The car ran well and they had
a good time.
I planned to take some time off to for my big vacation this year. I could not budget racing and the vacation, so the vacation won. I planned to start running the car again in August at an SCCA event in Daytona. It was still awful hot, and I had not done anything with the car in months, so I blow that event off. We had a group of us from Orlando going to Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in September to instruct at a DE for the Mazda club. I figured a nice easy DE would be a good way to get back behind the wheel again after the long layoff. While prepping for this event, I found an engine problem.
The big pin that the chain tensioner pivots on had pushed about 1" out of the chain box. This would explain where all the oil was coming from under the motor. I made a few calls and determined there was no way to get this fixed in the couple of days I had before the event.
The plan was to replace the magnesium chain boxes with the stronger aluminum type. I pulled the motor and decided to go ahead and do the maintenance I had planned for the off season. (Raceware rod bolts, timeserts, etc.) I took the engine to Sid Collins. Sid has been a friend of mine for many years and he has started his own Porsche repair and race shop (Troysport). After Sid got in there, we found more work had to be done. We replaced the oil pump, one of the new valve guides broke loose, new bearings, new clutch, and a few other small items as a preventive measure since the motor was apart anyway. We got the motor repaired, back together, and installed a couple of weeks before the SCCA race at Sebring in November.