2004 Meeting pictures and reports

Saturday 4th December 928uk Annual meeting 2004

At the Merry Miller, nr Oxford, First Saturday in December. There is no agenda - because we eschew clubbiness. Its a tradition. See the pages about 928.org.uk for why. Th Merry Miller(external link)

Swoop

A 928 perspective on the Porsche Festival

The deal was to meet with Andrew Brierley, Chris Clark and a few others on the car park of the Travel Inn in Sevenoaks and to drive in convoy to Brands Hatch. Going by the number of Porsches that we encountered on the way to the hotel, this was going to be a great day. 

Upon arrival at the hotel car park, the sight of two GTs, a GTS and an S2 greeted us. The omens were good. A quick tactical chat on the hotel’s car park and off we were, a nice convoy of five 928s.  Driving a 928 is one of the pleasures in life but admiring one in action at the same time is even better! Even sitting in a queue behind a 928 is a pretty sight, as we were hitting some traffic jams of the M20. False alarm, as it proved to be queues for a local car boot sale. The closer we got to Brands Hatch, the more we were encircled by Porsches. By the time we had reached the A20, Porsches were outnumbering other car brands. A rather unique situation.

Andrew had secured a number of tickets for the register parking, which allowed the convoy to drive straight through. We were the first of the 928s to arrive and to our astonishment, the 928 marquee was gone. The marquee had somehow moved a few tens of yards, but this unauthorised move was quickly rectified… At first sight, the registry parking represented a good cross-section of the later cars including a red GTS manual (Jez), a dark blue GT (Dave Dooley), a light blue S2 (Chris Clark) and a black S2, a red GT (Andrew Brierley), and my red S4 manual. Later, upon returning to the parking, an early 928 and a dark brown 928S with teledials had joined, as well as a black SE (Adrian Clark), and a dark blue GTS (George Layton). This meant that all 928 models were present! For any 928 novice, it was a unique introduction to the various 928 models and their evolution over time. That’s what the register parking is all about, raising the 928 profile.

I was truly proud to have a parking spot on the register parking. I thought my 928 must be in a rather good condition to justify entry. But then again, always some bits to sort out to make it perfect…

Throughout the day, a continuation of activities took place, including 911 racing in several categories but unfortunately no 928 racing. Noteworthy was the ‘parade’ lap of a yellow Carrera GT, although the tail braking out on one corner was probably not part of the plan. Later in the day, two 917 models and a 959 amid 911s went for a lap on the circuit. The sound of the 917s was truly amazing.

It would be hard to imagine the absence of an OPC at an event like this. The OPC had a large stand with a full range on offer, including a 911 GT3. Upon asking whether the new 928 would eventually be built, as rumoured in the press, a raising eyebrow was the only answer.

Part of the attraction was the many Porsche-related shops at the circuit, ranging from car parts and Porsche literature to road assistance. Red Shark was the only shop dedicated to the 928, offering a range of 928-specific items.

As the Porsche Club GB had organised separate parking for Porsche, I thought it would be interesting to have a walk through the car park. I estimate that the Porsche parking counted approximately 600 cars, among them approximately 15 928’s.

Upon leaving the event, on the small country lane towards the main road, I noticed in my mirror an early 80's 911 and behind that the dark brown 928 S with teledials. This could have been a picture straight out of a Porsche brochure dating from the early eighties. My preference would have been quite clear but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder….

Diederik de Vilder (3rd Sep 2004)

June 19th

As a squall moved into lay a good layer of dusty rain over pristine polished paintwork - we moved indoors for refreshments and sustenance. Discussions moved onto the workings (and non-workings) of air conditioning in general and Don's drain plug in particular!

Mike Williams, 79 auto

Sunday 9th May York Dragway

Joe Farman

Porsche Club GB - FRONTRUNNER 2004

Cornbury House is HQ of Porsche Club GB. It is hosting this front-engine Porsche gathering featuring the 924, 924 Carrera GT, 944, 968, 928 and Cayenne Registers. The Speed Championship 2003 winning 924 racing car was on display inside Cornbury House.

The day will be open to Porsche Club Great Britain members as it is still a normal open day with a distinct 'front-engined' feel.

The organisers have asked me to extend an invite to 928uk and especially for a 928 to make up a display of all front engined models!

You have to be a member or a signed in guest to attend so I suggest you use the mail list to pair up with a member if you arent one and want to go. Cornbury House is worth a visit and its always good to support the other front engined models. I love 944's and 968's and I drove an old 4 speed 924 while my 928 was in repair. It was lovely - perfect balance and very definately a Porsche !

Essen Classic car show and Auto jumble 2004

The black 1978/79 928 was for sale for £8000!

Rolling Road Shoot Out - February 2004, - Scott Walker Reports

After a brief rallying of support amongst the 928 fraternity, nine 928's (and one 911) turned up at G-Force Motorsport in Aylesbury on a bright, crisp February morning for the 928UK "dyno shoot-out".

A good spread of 928 models were represented, from 1981 ‘S’ through to 1992 ‘GTS’.

G-Force specialise in Porsche and Subaru servicing and race preparation, and although more familiar with the 911, they do have a technician who worked on 928’s at Porsche GB for many years. They also have an 1800bhp and 4WD-capable dyno which produces very accurate power figures (within 1-2 bhp of actual power delivered at the wheels of the car on test).

For the uninitiated, a chassis dynamometer [‘dyno’] or ‘rolling road’ is a fairly clever piece of equipment that enables your car to be run up to maximum engine speed in any gear without actually going anywhere! The equipment measures the torque (ft lb) generated by your car at its wheels and translates this to power (bhp) using a straightforward equation. This is achieved by driving the car onto a set of rollers – similar to those seen at an MOT station when performing the brake tests. The similarity ends there however, as the “dyno cell” is a monitored atmospheric temperature/pressure room containing the rollers, measurement sensors, PC-based control/monitoring system and multi-fan cooling/air extraction network. The reason for this controlled environment is that temperature and pressure affect your engine's power output! Our dyno was of the accurate 'load cell type', as opposed to the slightly  less accurate 'inertia type' dyno.

Before going onto the dyno the cars are given a pre-check (oil, coolant, tyre pressure). Once on the rollers, the rear suspension is strapped onto the dyno and a large cooling fan is wheeled in front of the car. Then the car is driven on the rollers through the gears until the “test gear” (3^rd for the manuals, 2^nd/3^rd for the automatic cars) is reached. For this dyno, there is an optimum roller speed which produces maximum power transfer from the car. Once at low revs in the “test gear”, load is applied to the roller to absorb the car’s power – hence producing power measurements – and the car is accelerated hard up to maximum revs whilst an array of readings are taken by the equipment. A number of runs are performed like this until consistent readings are obtained.

Estimated flywheel power/torque plot            Actual roadwheel power/force plot

The power/torque graphs produced on the PC are printed out for posterity and later scrutiny! Actually, two sets of results are printed out – the actual power/tractive effort measured at the roadwheels, and an estimated power/torque graph for engine flywheel output. The flywheel results are not guaranteed to be accurate, but try to compensate for the power losses in the gearbox/drivetrain. In our dyno's case, the loss is estimated using a sophisticated method (from a difference in tractive effort measurements at the bottom and top end of the power range based on a knowledge of the rate of force application) to yield an under-load drivetrain loss. [Some dyno's only perform a 'coast-down' test to measure drag in the drivetrain after the power run, but this is under a no-engine-load condition, giving slightly optimistic results.] Additionally, the power loss is different between the automatic and manual cars (more power is lost through an automatic transmission, and it is harder to measure due to the fluid coupling), making the flywheel figures only an approximate guide when trying to compare different cars. The roadwheel figures are the ones to trust! However, the flywheel figures are clearly of interest, as manufacturers always quote engine (flywheel) power rather than power at the wheels/road.

Our set of 928’s produced impressive results, especially considering the age (12-23 years) and mileage (60K-150K) of the cars. The peak power readings for all the cars are shown below, ordered by car type:

And so the “shoot-out competition” results were (using [actual] wheel power):

So we all left feeling happy about our choice of “old” 928 instead of “new” 911! (although the racing 911 [“GTR600”] with 600bhp parked in the car park had an interesting rear wing if anyone wants to try it on a 928!!). Special congratulations go to Rupert though with his pretty much standard GT producing GTS-level outputs!

For interest (to check power readings didn't just increase as the dyno 'warmed-up'!), the running order was:

Afterwards at the pub we re-fuelled ourselves and discussed the results. The factory (engine) power/torque figures for the various 928 models are shown below, although it is felt that Porsche figures are a little on the conservative side when viewed across a cross-section of cars.

The most interesting fact when comparing the full plots of power/torque across the rev range was the difference in the average power/torque between models, regardless of the actual peak figure obtained. Similarly, there were marked differences in the shape of the power/torque curves, and the revs at which the peak was achieved - few of which lined up with the factory peak points.

All this means that the on-the-road driving experience is actually more to do with the graph shape than it is to do with the peak power figure achieved. At the end of the day, everyone’s power figures indicated at least “factory” figures for their car, and in some cases significantly more! Another testimony for Porsche’s “forgotten jewel” – the 928. Author Scott Walker February 2004

South west meeting - 21st February 2004

2 miles north of jct 18 M4, on the A46