Non-Volvo car chat megathread

Post by **BlackBart** » 28 Jan 2021, 20:24

Yeah! The Chaparrals and Lolas and McLarens and BIG block screamers, and the “sucker car,” and then along came the 1000hp 917-30, which was so dominant the class essentially fizzled. Mark Donohue.

Post by **matthew1** » 28 Jan 2021, 20:34

Can-Am was so bonkers. I love it. Not unlike the Super B rally cars that were so fast the whole class was retired.

I remember watching NASCAR in the early 80s, with Petty and his beautiful STP car. All the cars were different, even then.

Post by **BlackBart** » 28 Jan 2021, 20:48

Addendum!

The 917-30 could produce....”1600 horsepower at 40psi in qualifying trim.” Jeesh. Just imagine that.

My understanding is that Porsche was still a very small company in the 60’s, despite all their racing triumphs. They came within a couple hundred yards of beating the GT40 with the 908 at Le Mans, but the brake pads failed. They gambled most of the money they had on the 917 program and dominated Le Mans in ‘70 and ‘71. The rules were changed for 1972, restricting engine displacement to 3 liters and essentially banning this car.

The CanAm series was a way for them to spread out the costs of that development over several more years, as well as learn about turbocharging. So they took that big flat 12, enlarged the displacement, and twin turbocharged it, and it became a monster.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cultur ... der-sound/

Post by **BlackBart** » 29 Jan 2021, 09:20

The Lola T70 Spyder was a sweet one. The early days before all the wings and flaps.

Penske - Donohue

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Dan Gurney

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Bardahls - genuine Ballard oils, ya sure!

Post by **BlackBart** » 29 Jan 2021, 10:42

Porsche 917-30. Penske and Donohue helped Porsche develop this car.

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Good shot of the chassis. Intake air comes through the bodywork into the inlets just behind the rear tires. Turbos and blowoff valve inboard of that. Big intercoolers at the tail and blue plumbing to the intake logs on the engine. The non-turbo 917 had fiberglass intake trumpets there.

Enormous fuel tanks both sides - there were no fuel stops in Can Am.

Up to 1600 hp...and still air-cooled....imagine. But air-cooled meant oil-cooled, and there's a large oil cooler in the nose where other cars had radiators. Mechanical fuel injection pump at the upper left with the gold drive belt. Note twin plug ignition - that's two distributers and 24 spark plug wires.

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Magnesium block. Central gear-driven cams , oil pump, and cooling fan off the crankshaft.

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Exhaust out the bottom of the heads.

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In 1975, after Can Am was canceled, Penske and Donohue took this 917-30 to Talladega and set the world closed-course speed record.
Lap average of 221mph, with a top speed of 240.

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Sadly, Mark Donohue was killed 10 days later at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Post by **Sveedy** » 30 Jan 2021, 09:50

Thanks for sharing this. Very cool engine in that 917-30. But I think the Lola looks nicer

Closest I ever got was sitting in an open wheel formula 1 car when I was a kid. Probably sealed my fate right then.

Post by **BlackBart** » 30 Jan 2021, 21:09

^^^ That’s a pretty cool memory!

Yeah, that Lola is a beauty.
Thinking about that 917 engine - how did they push 40 psi into that thing and not blow it up?!

Post by **volvolugnut** » 31 Jan 2021, 09:31

Beautiful chassis and engine.

How did they do it? ($$$)^3!

volvolugnut

Post by **BlackBart** » 31 Jan 2021, 13:27

And Porsche developed a flat 16 (SIXTEEN!) to take to Can Am and beat the big block V-8s. Early 70s. Imagine the crankshaft length! They added 270mm to the prototype chassis to accommodate it, which made it less stiff than the 917 and a bit of a handful to drive.

I read that they tricked Ferrari as rumors of the 16 leaked out, by shrinking the photo of the 16 so that it looked the same length side-by-side with the 12, making Ferrari essentially give up on their 512.

SEVEN POINT SIX LITERS(!), 180º V-16 (technically). Designed by the great Hans Mezger. Horsepower in the 800-850 range.
It was tested but soon the writing was on the wall that turbocharging was going to product bigger results for racing.

Interesting to note that Ferdinand Porsche developed the supercharged V-16 for the Auto Union cars in the 30s.

I just read that the heads were redesigned with canted valves for the 16, which is why the intake trumpets have a tilted angle compared to the 12.

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Here is the 16 surrounded by the red #23, entered by the Porsche family from Austria and winner of Le Mans 1970, yellow and blue Can Am 917-30s, the Brumos #59 917-10 Can Am entry, and the #22 Martini 917 that won Le Mans 1971. The rules were changed to restrict displacement to 3 liters for 1972, making the 917 instantly obsolete. Manufacturers (like Matra) went to 3 liter Formula 1 engines.

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Post by **BlackBart** » 31 Jan 2021, 14:46

Did some digging to learn more about Porsche in Can Am and how it took over from McLaren leading the series. Can Am was a "Formula Libre" class, meaning "Run-what-you-brung" and unlimited displacement. That class is always fun to watch, but inevitably eats itself as manufacturers outspend each other and one becomes dominant and it gets very expensive and boring.

Lola was the early leader, then McLaren. Porsche arrived in the late 60's with the flat 8, 3-liter 908 (I love this car BTW). At 3 liters, it was outrun by 427 (7 liter) big block Chevys.

Here's an early McLaren.....good looking car...

There were different variations of the 908 Spyder over the years......

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Here's a 917 PA - essentially a variation on the 917K from Le Mans with the top cut off.

Then came the 917-10, the first turbocharged flat 12. My understanding is that this engine was not intercooled, and was still outpowered by the big block V-8s.

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The white 917-10 below was entered by the Vasek Polak Porsche dealer and driven by Jody Scheckter. He was sometime called "sideways Schecter" because that's how he drove through corners. These guys had to go against their survival instincts and go full throttle halfway through the corner because of the incredible turbo lag.

It looks short, which would make the handling more twitchy with that much power, and was quite a packaging exercise.

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Non-Volvo car chat megathread

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