Author: Alex Rosenthal

Podium for Porsche Penske Motorsport, victory in the GTD class

Porsche 963, Porsche Penske Motorsport (#6), Nick Tandy (UK), Mathieu Jaminet (F)
  • Tandy and Jaminet defend championship lead with second place
  • JDC-Miller MotorSports customer team finish debut in seventh
  • Victory and third for the Porsche 911 GT3 in the GTD category
  • Pfaff Motorsports’ impressive battle rewarded with GTD-Pro podium
  • Next round: 24 Hours of Le Mans on 10/11 June
Porsche Penske Motorsport has achieved another podium result in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. At the wheel of the No. 6 Porsche 963, Nick Tandy from the UK and Frenchman Mathieu Jaminet secured second place at round four in Laguna Seca. In the GTD class, the customer team Kellymoss with Riley put in an inspired drive to clinch victory and third place. The Porsche 911 GT3 R fielded by Pfaff Motorsports brought home third in the GTD-Pro category.

Stuttgart. Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet were successful in defending their lead in the drivers’ championship. In the two consecutive IMSA races in California, the British-French works driver duo earned more points than any other driver pairing: They followed up their victory in Long Beach with second place in Laguna Seca. In the manufacturers’ classification, Porsche has advanced to second place. Porsche Penske Motorsport also ranks second in the team championship. On the way to scoring a podium result on the track close to the harbour of Monterey at the Pacific, the works squad had to overcome numerous hurdles.

In sunshine and cool temperatures, the two hybrid prototypes fielded by Porsche Penske Motorsport tackled the race over 2:40 hours from the first grid row. The first setback came right after the start: Matt Campbell missed the braking point at the wheel of the No. 7 pole-setting car and fell back to sixth place. His teammate Jaminet dropped to third place in the early stages of the race. After 20 minutes, misfortune returned for Campbell. After making contact with a GT car, the Australian was handed a drive-through penalty, which relegated him to the back of the GTP field. During a full course yellow, he handed the No. 7 car to his teammate Felipe Nasr. Bad luck also plagued the Brazilian. After a restart, he slid off the track and crashed into the barriers with the 500+ kW (680 PS) prototype. The repairs cost him eight laps to the top. As a result, Campbell/Nasr were out of contention.

Meanwhile, from the halfway point in the race, the sister car of the Long Beach winners ploughed its way up the order. Nick Tandy gave an impressive performance putting in a spirited drive, particularly during the last stint. In the final phase, the UK driver and 2015 outright Le Mans winner with Porsche attempted some bold overtaking moves, which catapulted him from fourth to second place with 20 minutes remaining. At the flag, the No. 6 car was just 3.882 seconds shy of clinching its second victory of the season.

“We had both cars on the front grid row. So, second place in the race is not what we had hoped for,” says Urs Kuratle, Director Factory Motorsport LMDh, summing up the situation. “We fought our way back well with car number 6. We need to learn from the things that happened to us today with the sister car. The team did a great job. Our strategy was promising. We did well at Laguna Seca this weekend. Our success is thanks to consistent progress. The Porsche Penske Motorsport crews on both sides of the Atlantic and all the employees at the Development Centre in Weissach played a part in this. It was also great to see how JDC-Miller MotorSports performed at its first outing with the Porsche 963. The team is learning rapidly and making good progress. Congratulations as well to Porsche’s successful GT customer teams.”

JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Porsche 963 wraps up its strong debut in seventh
The Porsche 963 campaigned by the customer team JDC-Miller MotorSports made a convincing debut in the GTP class. The American squad arrived in Laguna Seca without a single kilometre of testing and experienced a steep learning curve during the weekend in California. The 19-year-old Dutchman Tijmen van der Helm and the seasoned specialist from Germany Mike Rockenfeller gained momentum as the race progressed and ultimately finished in a respectable seventh place with the No. 5 car. “That was eventful. We learned a lot about the car, the tyres, the brakes and much more,” says team co-owner John Church. “We’re not yet matching the pace of the competition but we’ve steadily improved. We made it over the distance and there’s not a single scratch on the car.”

Porsche 911 GT3 R wins the GTD class, Pfaff Motorsports finishes on podium
Porsche’s customer teams took full advantage of the new 911 GT3 R’s strengths in Laguna Seca. In the GTD class, amateur driver Alan Metni and the talented youngster Kay van Berlo drove to victory. The Dutchman, who is supported by Porsche Motorsport North America, laid the foundation for his win with the No. 91 car in the final stint. At the same time, the former Porsche Junior Julien Andlauer achieved third place in the sister car fielded by Kellymoss with Riley. The Frenchman shared the cockpit with Alec Udell from America. Wright Motorsports’s No. 77 entry finished sixth, with AO Racing’s 911 GT3 R “Rexy” decked out in a dinosaur livery crossing the finish line in eleventh place. In the GTD-Pro category, Pfaff Motorsports once again demonstrated its prowess. Despite receiving two penalties, Austria’s Klaus Bachler and Frenchman Patrick Pilet worked their way up to third place.

Porsche Penske Motorsport gains ground in the overall classification of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. In the manufacturer and team championship, Porsche ranks second. In the drivers’ classification, Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy have now built a 25-point advantage over their closest rivals. Round five of the North American IMSA series will be contested on 25 June at Watkins Glen in the US state of New York. Two weeks before that, the Porsche Penske Motorsport works squad will field three Porsche 963 at Le Mans sporting an anniversary livery on the occasion of the 75th celebration of the Stuttgart sports car brand. On 10/11 June, the 24-hour classic celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Drivers’ comments after the race
Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #6): “It was an exciting race; I thoroughly enjoyed it and we scored a lot of points. It was interesting that the different GTP cars had very different paces after the restarts. That made for some spectacular action. I would’ve preferred a more uneventful race, but it was still a lot of fun. We got the most out of it. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, because we certainly won’t be able to win every race. Now we’ve been on the podium three times in four races – that’s something to be proud of!”

Felipe Nasr (Porsche 963 #7): “Obviously, that wasn’t what we had hoped for. Our number 7 crew deserved better. We had the pace to fight for victory. That was obvious in the qualifying and race. I’m sorry that I crashed. After the restart, I saw the chance to grab two positions at once. I gave it everything, the rear of my car got away from me – that was it. I had no chance of catching the car. Now I’m looking ahead to Le Mans and the next IMSA race at Watkins Glen.”

Mike Rockenfeller (Porsche 963 #5): “Our first outing with the Porsche 963 went really well. The car wasn’t easy to drive, but I’m sure everyone struggled with a lack of grip. Seventh place is obviously not our goal. We want to get on the podium, but we also have to be realistic. We learned a lot. For example, I experimented with the brake balance during the race. It feels like there are 500 different configuration options. You first have to try them all out. Jokes aside, it was a good start for us. Thanks to the team, they worked very well.”

Patrick Pilet (Porsche 911 GT3 R #9): “First, we were given a 60-second penalty, then another drive-through penalty – all in all, it wasn’t easy. Nevertheless, we didn’t give up. The team did everything right strategically and got us back into the leading group. At one point I thought we might even have a chance of winning, but then the tyres deteriorated surprisingly quickly. Overall, we’re satisfied, although we weren’t quite as fast as we’d have liked. We’ll continue to work on improvements.”

Kay van Berlo (Porsche 911 GT3 R #91): “What a great day for our team! After the difficult first races of the season, we never gave up and kept working hard on improving. We reaped the rewards here. My teammate Alan drove a first-class race and I was able to wrap up the success in the end. The Porsche 911 GT3 R was great to drive today. It was an absolute pleasure. I’m so happy that our team finally achieved such a strong result with first and third place.”

Julien Andlauer (Porsche 911 GT3 R #92): “After the difficulties we’ve had since the start of the season at Daytona, this result feels great. We were very strong throughout the weekend; the car ran perfectly. Of course, I would have liked to be at the top of the podium, but the sister car was a touch better. My colleagues deserve this victory. I’m delighted for our team Kellymoss with Riley, who worked incredibly hard for this success.”

Race result
GTP class:
1. Bourdais/van der Zande (F/NL), Cadillac #01, 102 laps
2. Tandy/Jaminet (UK/F), Porsche 963 #6, 102 laps
3. Derani/Sims (BR/UK), Cadillac #31, 102 laps
7. Rockenfeller/van der Helm (D/NL), Porsche 963 #5, 102 laps
9. Campbell/Nasr (AUS/BR), Porsche 963 #7, 94 laps

GTD-Pro class:
1. Juncadella/Gounon (E/F), Mercedes-AMG #79, 97 laps
2. Hawksworth/Barnicoat (UK/UK), Lexus #14, 97 laps
3. Bachler/Pilet (A/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R #9, 97 laps

GTD class:
1. Metni/van Berlo (USA/NL), Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, 97 laps
2. Auberlen/Hull (USA/USA), BMW #97, 97 laps
3. Udell/Andlauer (USA/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R #92, 97 laps
6. Brynjolfsson/Hindman (USA/USA), Porsche 911 GT3 R #77, 97 laps
11. Jeannette/Priaulx (USA/UK), Porsche 911 GT3 R #80, 97 laps

Full results on http://imsa.alkamelsystems.com.

Further information, film and photo material in the Porsche Newsroom: newsroom.porsche.com

The Twitter channel @PorscheRaces and Instagram @porsche.motorsport as well as @porschepenskemotorsport provide live updates from Porsche Penske Motorsport with the latest information from racetracks around the world.

 

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

Hot Cross Buns and Boxsters

JZM did not disappoint the Porsche GB Boxster Club who arrived ready for coffee and hot cross buns early on Saturday morning.  The estate was littered with Spyder’s, GTS’s, 718’s and 981’s.  Members arrived from all over the UK to meet like minded people and look at the chocolate box of GT’s in the showroom.  The Service manager was on hand to speak to  all the members about our workshop menus as we see Boxster’s for servicing and geometry on a weekly basis.

Thank you to Tracy from Porsche Boxster Club GB for pulling the event together.  http://www.porscheclubgb.com

 

 

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Author: Alex Rosenthal

What Rain?

Despite the horrendous weather our Breakfast Meet with Prestige Performance Car Club was a great success.  The members relished the opportunity in having a nose round the workshop whilst our technicians demonstrated their skills working on rectifying a 911 SC engine.  The surface Transform Team were also on hand to give advice on their outstanding products. Click on the photos to take a look at the day by click on this link :-  Prestige Super Car Club Photos by Craig

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

JZM Celebrates 40 Years!

 

JZM Celebrates 40 Years!

 

For those of you are not aware JZM Porsche first evolved in the late 70’s when founder Steve Mchale started working with Porsche’s in a family run business.

Here he developed his passion for Porsche and formed Machtech in 1983.

 

JZM Porsche was born out of JZ Machtech in 1999 setting up an independent garage to rival the main dealers and offer honest and friendly customer service with sensible pricing.

 

The company expanded further in 2009 setting up the sales arm by Russ Rosenthal and then once again in 2018 introducing JZM Storage. For more information about the JZM story visit www.jzmporsche/about 

 

Over the next few months JZM will be hosting a selection of events to celebrate this milestone and thank our loyal customers.

 

We will keep you post on these dates through our Social Media Posts.

 

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

Record numbers arrive for our 10th Cars and Coffee Meet

Our Cars and Coffee has become an ever growing phenomenon and  this Sunday was no exception as we welcomed over 500 people coming  together to share their appreciation of super cars .  Our car parks were mobbed by Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s and Porsches old and new which gleamed in the beautiful sunshine.

The guests had the opportunity to put to test their driving skills with Mobil 1’s  race simulator, it was Jacob @ JCR who owned the fastest lap.

Max Protect were on hand to give tips, tricks and demonstrations of detailing cars along with http://www.ineedatracker.com advising people how best to secure their vehicles.

The event was made complete by the mouthwatering menu from Le Swine and Coffee’s and Croissants by the JZM crew.

To say it was a success was an understatement. We would like to thank all our guests who attended especially to those who kindly entered our Road Race Rally Raffle and donated to our Autism charity raising £385.00.  The winner of the custom print of JZM’s GT3 RS MR will be announced on Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday 10th of May.

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Author: Alex Rosenthal

Going Back to Track

This Month a Manthey prepared  991.2 GT3 RS  was supported by the team at JZM. 

This took place as part of an unofficial lap record attempt at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit.  The car was driven at a blistering pace by Johnny Cocker

He set the lap time at an astounding 2.07.33.

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

Gen 2 Bore Scoring: The Smoking Gun?

Everyone loves a ‘whodunnit’. And in automotive terms they surely don’t get much better than the cylinder-bore scoring that seems to have bedevilled so many of Porsche’s flat-sixes these last 20-odd years, since they famously adopted liquid cooling in the mid-1990s. (With IMS-bearing failure a very close second, of course.) We present, then, the latest nerve-jangling, edge-of-your- seat episode: further graphic evidence that even the gen 2 997 is by no means immune to this distressingly expensive condition – albeit for probably rather different reasons than in earlier instances.

Previously – as they say in all the best TV dramas: two years ago, in the July 2016 edition of 911 & Porsche World, I reported on what then appeared to be an isolated and certainly rather odd case of cylinder-bore scoring in a 2009-model 997 Carrera ‘S’ at Porsche-Torque in Uxbridge, Middlesex. It was a gen 2 car, and thus equipped with the largely redesigned (and by inference significantly improved) type MA1 engine, with its so-called closed-deck cylinder design. (Which pretty massive change to the engine architecture tells its own story about the earlier iteration. Porsche would not have made such a radical and costly alteration without a very good reason.) Remarkably, the story elicited only a deafening silence from the wider Porsche community, although as I recorded almost a year later, in the May 2017 edition, I was soon having a long correspondence about it with Barry Hart at Hartech, who I still believe to be one of the most knowledgeable and experienced specialists in the molecular-level metallurgy of these engines outside of the Porsche factory. My own view of that Porsche-Torque case, based on empirical experience of other engines over many years, and the precise location and nature of the damage to the bore and piston – and cautiously endorsed by Barry Hart – was that this particular problem was caused not by the chronic but essentially very localised overheating that was (and I suspect remains) the most likely culprit in the earlier M96 and M97 units, but by good, old-fashioned partial seizure. Back in the 1970s I ran a 650cc BSA Lightning that suffered pretty much identical damage to both (air-cooled) cylinders, probably due to overheating caused by excessively retarded ignition timing. (I got it running again and then sold it, in case you were wondering…) Initially, Barry Hart believed that this seizure might have been the result of the owner driving his car too hard before the engine had reached full operating temperature, with piston profiles and necessarily minuscule piston-to-bore clearances as significant contributing factors. (And a management system that necessarily insulates the modern driver from the way an older, lower-tech engine would naturally behave during that warm-up process. Think 356, 911S, perhaps even 944.They all have an innate resistance to being ‘woken up’ first thing in the morning, such that it is almost impossible to drive them too hard, too soon.) The pistons were expanding faster than the cylinder bores, basically. Eventually, though, and having forensically examined several other similarly failed gen 2 engines, Barry concluded that it was probably due to stresses almost unavoidably formed within the cylinder-block castings during manufacture, and which eventually caused them microscopically to distort and shrink across the bores in the thrust direction. Whatever, as they say. The jury is still very much out on that one, and with no further reports coming in from anguished gen2 997 (and later Boxster and Cayman) owners, out there in the harsh testing ground of the real world, it seemed reasonable to suppose that any problems of this nature were relatively few and far between; just one of those things. No news is good news, and all that.

Meanwhile I was having conversations with both Steve McHale at JZM Porsche in Kings Langley and Phil Ellis down at Watford-based ASNU about the different problems that were likely to a rise in these later engines (and in the V8s, as well), thanks in part to the natural characteristics of their ultra – lean-burn direct fuel injection, or DFI, but also to the fact that –absurdly–so many high performance cars now spend so much of their time in stop start urban traffic, with their massively powerful engines running at little more than idle. And not least because there appears to be absolutely no provision for their necessarily hard-working fuel injectors ever to be serviced. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is a particular concern of Phil Ellisdon.) The result was my five-page Danger in the city story in the June 2017 edition of the magazine. I am pretty sure that you will understand, then, my immediate interest in a batch of photos e-mailed to me by Phil Ellisdon in early May this year. They show the inside of the MA1 engine from a 2010 997 Turbo: one careful owner from new, 23,000miles, full service history, and apparently used mostly for long journeys after being warmed up from cold with all due care and consideration. It ended up at JZM for investigation into a loud knocking sound from the engine, especially after a cold start, and at which point there were found to have been more than 60,000 misfires on cylinder number four. Inspection with a borescope showed the unmistakable signs of scoring inside that same cylinder, and so the engine was removed and partially stripped for further examination. And, by the time you read this, for replacement with a new ‘short’ engine from Porsche. Curiously, there was no obvious sign of any oil smoke in the exhaust. ‘The short block costs around£10,500plusVAT,’ says JZ’s Steve McHale. ‘But we priced up our usual alternative–completely stripping the old engine, sending it away to Capricorn for machining and pistons, and then rebuilding it with all them any other new parts that would be needed – and there was so little difference that it would have been a false economy not to use a brand new one. And although Porsche Cars GB told us that it knows of no other failures of this nature, the fact is that the new block and pistons may well have been superseded by subtly improved components. You just never know with something like that.’ Indeed.

But precisely what caused the problem in the first place? And, no less crucially, what is to stop it happening again, perhaps after just another 23,000 miles? For Phil Ellisdon the classic smoking gun has to be the injectors, combined with the relatively poor lubricity of modern ethanol-based petrol (which also contains a not insignificant amount of water, in part for its anti-detonation properties). ‘When we tested them, we found the flow rates and spray patterns were far from ideal– and you can clearly see that from the different witness marks on the piston crowns. And I believe this is due in no small measure to overheating that has affected their electrical resistance. There is a tiny Teflon seal at the lower end of each injector stem, where it enters the combustion chamber. All six from this engine were showing signs of blow-by, with two particularly bad examples, and I think it is inevitable that the very high temperatures will have travelled up the stems to the delicate electronics inside the body of each unit. ‘That, together with a carbon build-upon the six nozzles themselves–the natural product of the exhaust-gas recirculation system, and the engine stop-start function in traffic–will have adversely affected the spray pattern, and the management system, the so-called fuel trim, will have pushed more fuel through them to compensate for what the oxygen sensor tells it is too weak a mixture. That washes the necessarily thin film of oil off the cylinder walls, and there you have it. The perfect storm. Metal-to-metal contact and, very soon after that, bore scoring. It can surely be no coincidence that replacement injectors now have dark-grey, graphite-based seals, presumably better able to withstand combustion-chamber gases, instead of the original off-white Teflon jobs.’
It’s fair to say that Steve McHale is less certain about the bore-wash theory–the scoring is not in quite the right place for that, he argues–but he agrees that the injectors are probably the underlying source of the problem, and with the situation exacerbated by those supposedly high-tech modern fuels.‘ DFI injectors work in a completely different way to the older Motronic-style units,’ he says. ‘Fuel pressures in these later engines can be anything up to 150 bar, and so while the injectors need only five volts to pulse them on and off as rapidly as necessary at anything up to 7000 rpm, they need 60 volts to open them in the first place. So their electrical resistance is, indeed, critical – and the one from cylinder four in this engine was in effect short-circuited. ’

Quite what might be the longer-term answer to this seemingly new and disturbing scenario is difficult to say. Careful, more considered use of your car, perhaps – not using it for a two-mile trip to the shops or the station, for a start, despite its ability to cope with that in the short term– and certainly constant, eagle eyed vigilance. Turning off the stop-start function – while you are still allowed to, anyway. Regular testing of the injectors’ resistance (which can be done by a specialist such as JZM without any mechanical interference), and possibly a full fuel-injector service (and stem-seal replacement) every 20,000 miles – although since that might by definition require the removal of the engine from the car, and then the removal of the induction system from the engine, it’s hard to see that happening too often. Perhaps even–at the obvious risk of contaminating the catalytic converter – giving the engine an occasional dose of upper cylinder lubricant, just like we used to way back in the 1960s. Plus ça change… Either way, cylinder-bores coring seems to have become an unfortunately random fact of 21st-century Porsche life, an unintended consequence of the industry’s frankly misguided drive toward ever more ‘performance’ from ever smaller quantities of fuel (as a nation, perhaps even as a species, we should surely be looking at more sensible ways of using any of our cars than, say, the twice-daily, perhaps 100-mile commute), and I can’t help feeling that we shall soon be hearing about 991s with the same issues, and in time even the still-to-be-launched 992. Perhaps the all-electric 911 won’t be too heavy a cross to bear, after all.

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

JZM Porsche: the only UK specialist with Porsche PIWIS III

Our new Porsche PIWIS III diagnostics systems and PIWIS III tester arrived at the end of December. We’ve been enjoying the huge increase in speed and agility offered by the latest Porsche systems and reaping the benefits of our Porsche PXN access and daily software updates.

“PXN stands for Porsche (e)Xternal Network,” says JZM technical director, Steve McHale. “This means that our new machines log in to the main Porsche factory network and have access to all the latest technical updates and coding capabilities. It is impossible to work on Porsche’s very latest cars without this technology.”

JZM has invested in factory training and official diagnostic technology since 1973, when Steve did his first official Bosch training course. Since then, we have maintained a close relationship with the technical team at Reading and regularly attend the manufacturer’s courses. Two of our team went for training on the new PIWIS III system.

“Porsche tell us that JZM is the only specialist on the UK mainland using PIWIS III. That’s not a huge surprise when you consider the costs involved,” says Steve. “It’s easy to buy some second-hand manuals, watch a few DIY videos online and start selling yourself as a Porsche specialist, dealing only with air-cooled and early 996s, but the newer cars are so technically sophisticated that it is impossible to do anything without having the proper technology to talk to every ECU. This costs money that small operations simply do not have. Our technical partnership with Porsche goes back decades, so it is something we have always factored into our business.”

 

A good example of how important this is to JZM was a recent repair to a 991 Turbo. These cars have active rear wheel steering, which is controlled by an ECU: one for each side. A bodyshop repairing damage to a 991 Turbo had changed a damaged rear steering arm, but there was no way to tell the car what had happened, so the car was showing all kinds of errors. We had to recode the entire car to let it know that something had been replaced.

PIWIS III brings serious computing power to Porsche diagnostics, so much so that the older cars including late 997s simply do not talk to the system quickly enough and have to be reset manually. Newer cars have a lightning-fast onboard network, saving valuable hours in diagnostics when problems arise. This new system is incredibly quick and automatically downloads daily software updates from the factory. If something pops up that we’ve not seen before, we can send the data to Reading and on to the factory until we get a solution. We also see at a glance whether a car has had all of its recall campaign updates applied.

We’re delighted with the new systems and are pleased to offer the Porsche PXN service to all of our customers at no extra charge above our regular fixed-price servicing. Contact service@jzm.south.co.uk to discuss your Porsche maintenance needs.

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal

JZM Porsche Pre-Purchase Inspection Service

It’s a big mistake to buy any Porsche without first inspecting it thoroughly, to be assured of proper condition. That’s why you should talk to JZM Porsche about our PPI service (pre-purchase inspection).

JZM Porsche Pre-Purchase Inspections

We carry out many pre-purchase inspections for prospective Porsche buyers every year. Inspection is reasonably priced at standard workshop rates. Cars can be brought to our workshop, where the inspection will be completed by a trained JZM technician while you wait. The technican will compile a report and discuss his findings with you afterwards. The results will either confirm the car as a good one or offer some areas for improvement, which could be a help in price negotiations.

In the most extreme cases, we may advise against purchase, but the final decision rests with the buyer. Whatever happens, you will have the best information at your disposal, to help with the decision and avoid losing money on a bad car. Email the JZM Porsche service department to enquire about our Porsche pre-purchase inspections or call us on 01923 269788.

Date:
Author: Alex Rosenthal
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