PCA Tech Day at MaxRPM

The local speed shop (owner is one of the founding members of our PCA region.. most of you guys know or heard of him.. Alex at 'MaxRPM'.

He really put on a heck of a great tech day for us at his shop. 3 hours with a number different companies including Remus, Brembo, JIC, Fikse, plus our local club detailer (Jeff). In addition, Alex had demos of the shops dynos (bike and car) along with a live DME re-map of one of the guys sweet Carrera (it belonged to Kanute - not sure about the spelling - the Austrain guy that sells Remus exhaust for the US, more on him later).

As always I took a bunch of pictures, can can be seen here on my FotoVeloce Smugmug pages.

There was a great turnout from both of the local PCA regions (PNWR and OPR).


The most informative was the talk given by Brembo. They explained the differences between their OEM and performace (GT) brake packages. They also sent into why cross-drilled rotors are the best for street application but NOT for track, and slotted rotors are great for track but really a poor choice for street apps.

They also talked about the reason the GT packages had aluminum rotor hats. On a Corvette they can save 7 lb. PER ROTOR by going with the two-piece aluminum hats. That's 28 lb. of rotating mass. That is a lot, just for rotors. They are also full-floaters. This was something I did not know. On the race applications the rotors ratter just like on high-perf bike brakes. For the street apps that add anti-rattle preload clips to them so they do not make so much noise. Lots of good info dispensed.

Remus showed us photos of thier rolling road digital sound stage they use for design of OEM exhaust systems so they can get the best sound both inside and out. So there is no drone. Often they can make the aftermarket performance system quieter inside the car but with excellent tone and performane outside. The system is supposed to very accurage at locating the source of resonance and vibration that add to exhaust noise. He also said it's great for tracking down a rattle inside the car, since it can pin-point the location to about a 1 cm square area within the cabin.

Fikse showed us how they make 3 piece wheels from big aluminum billet slugs (for the center forging) and big disks that are rolled out then heat treated for the inside/outside halves. They are also working on new 1-piece forged wheels and should have them soon. They also brought along the wheel that ALMS prototype cars are running (well, the ones that win anyway). Amazing details in the CNC machining. They back-cut the spokes to make an I-beam shape for lower weight and added stregnth. Cool stuff. They are all custom built, serial numbered (takes about 3-5 weeks) etc. So if there is a material problem down the road they know exactly who has the wheels with a specific run of forgings, as well as being able to tool up to replace bent/broken rim halves with an identical replacement part, re-assemble and send it back.

Jeff was quite detailed (pardon the pun), regarding his detailing busienss. He quite his job writting software to start a detailing business. Says he makes a lot less money and is 10x happier. Hm.. He does seem happy. It was great to the detailed run down on how to properly clay-bar your car, why you do it, and tips on not wasting the product. I thought the detailing section would be the most boring but it turned out to be one of the most interesting.

To add icing on the cake, MaxRPM hosted a BBQ, followed by dyno runs for those that signed up in advance. 10 cars signed up (mine was #8) to make the runs after lunch. 2nd to last one on the Dyno was a Viper, which laid down on really wicked run!



Last car on the dyno was a pumped out SS Camero. It was a big fuel puking pig.. laying down just 360 rear-wheel HP. Everyone's eyes were watering even with the shops exhaust fans running. It made a great deal of sound. Lots of show, not much go. The Viper on the other hand pulled a 512 at the rears. Sweet. It even shot flame out on decel (camera battery was dead at that point so I didn't capture that).

The highlight for the day, for me, was my 993 on the dyno. With 107,000 on the clock and only a minor exhaust mod, I did not expect much, and I thought I had A/F mixture issues.

Turns out my A/F ratio was just about flat from start to finish, PLUS it pulled 257 HP at the rear wheels! Calculated out to crankshaft HP that should be right around it's rated 280. Not bad for a 12 year old car with over 100,000 on the clock. Just for reference (you'll see it in the pictures) the 97 Carrera Cab (which is supposed to have 15 more HP than my early motor '95) only pulled down 202 at the wheels! Comparing dyno to dyno is just about useless but car to car. 50+ HP is a pretty big difference from the two 993's!

Well.. it was a good day. Great weather, lots of fun.

Later that day I picked up A.J. to head into the City for round 14 of the AMA Supercross. It was one HELL of a show. Coolest part was Kanute (still not sure how to spell his name) and his other Austrain buddy were on the ferry so we got to talk about KTM's, riding around the Bay Area etc. I'll ahve to look those dudes up when I get down there. He's got one bad-ass Porsche. Oh, and he's also a private pilot. Seems to me that dirt bikes, Porsches and flying planes all seem to attract the same type of people, GOOD people!