Problems Found And Solved

GaryJonesMotorspor · 01-06-2008, 04:57 PM

If anyone has found a problem or solved a problem on a school or series car let's here it...
1)Car ran fine when it was shut down.Later tried to start it and it simpley would not fire up........Problem found to be the throttle position sensor.....A good way to check this is simpley crack the throttle open about a quarter of the way and the car should fire up....If it starts like this but wont start just by hitting the button ( like a fuel injected car should be started ) then this is most likley going to be the problem....
2) Another problem we have found...One of the school cars had just had the front wheel bearings repacked...After removing the dust caps we found that one of the spindles did not have a cotter key in it.
3)Noisey fuel pump....Fuel pump made a LOT of noise and did not deliver enough pressure....
4)Brake Rotors.....Almost all of the cars have worn out rotors on them in the front....Small check cracks in the center will not hurt anything but any cracks out twoards the outer edges and the rotor needs to be replaced...Also deep groves will cost you brake pad to rotor surface problems and will effect the operation of the brakes ( pulsating pedal or steering wheel shake simular to a warped rotor )...
5) If anyone is going to go the under-drive pully way you must use the pullys from the 94-95 mustang...

GaryJonesMotorspor · 01-07-2008, 07:01 PM

Another thing we have found at the shop is the poor mounting of the passanger seats.....They must not of thought a lot of there driving instructors up there because I would not get in one of those seats...Everyone check and make sure all the bolts are there and that ALL OF THE BOLTS go through the frame....WE found several cars that had the seat mount bolts just ran through the sheet metal floor pan...This coupled with the fact that the passanger seat has no rear support to the roll cage is very dangerous....
Problem two....Old seat belts....Everone check there belts and make sure there in good shape and are mounted corectley...We have found some problems in the mounting areas and some of the belts are just worn out....
Problem three.....( I think someone has already touched on this ) Deteriorated engine mounts...Several cars with the rubber in bad shape due to oil leaking on them.....

Hope this helps Gary

Cobra4B · 01-08-2008, 07:57 AM

^ Thanks Gary... I'm going to be removing both the corbeaus to install my ultrashileds. I too noticed that the passenger seat didn't have a back brace.

Some things I noticed last night from poking around:

1. Side pipes use rubber strip w/ multiple holes as a hanger, thse can rip/tear, check them if your pipes are not centered in the opening, you don't want to be burning your rockers.

2. For those that don't know the holes in the rockers lead to a metal tube that is a quick jack feature. You need to get or make an insert and you can quickly/easily jack up the side of the car. On mine the driver's side hole lines up fine, but on the passenger side the hole is lower and forward of the tube. At first I figured the car had been wrecked, but then a simple chek of the hole's location on the rocker showed that the right side hole was simply on the wrong place compared to the left side.... out comes the hole saw.

3. Check your body supports... in a few cases mine have been over tightened causing the plastic panels to crack. There are a few 2-part adhesive repairs for urethane panels.

4. Go over your PI dash and the owners manual... I found my wheel speed sensor and it's broken and not installed (no trigger and not mounted).

Cobra4B · 01-08-2008, 11:35 PM

Guys... check your springs. The memo from John Leverett (Director of Engineering/R&D Panoze Auto Development Co.) states the school cars have 550lb front springs and 350 rears while the GTS cars have 600 fronts and 350 rears.

Tonight I scanned through my service logs and saw that back in March '06 my car had new shocks (at 230ish hours, 350 on it now) and springs put on, the invoice stated 4 200# H&R springs for the front and rear. I checked the part number on H&Rs website and they came back as 200lbers.

I went out to check the car and found that I have a mismatched pair of 350lb springs in the front and the stated 200lbers in the rear.

LF - H&R R25100350 (350lb coil spring)
RF - Eibach 1000.250.0350 (350lb coil spring)
LR - H&R R25100200 (200lb coil spring)
RR - H&R R25100200 (200lb coil spring)

So Gary Jones was right... the cars has rather soft springs/schocks. Will be looking to upgrade them along w/ a GTS spec rear bar

Cobra4B · 01-09-2008, 10:11 AM

I got some great feedback from John Leverett @ Panoz. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it with the group.

Regarding rollbar material:

Quote:

The Sebring cars are the ones that are foggy in our memory and we haven't found the answer in any of our old paperwork. The Texas cars definitely have DOM cages. The Road Atlanta cars definitely have ERW. Originally it was a cost cutting move when the GT-RA's were first conceived and then when the GT-WC cars came up, IMSA required us to use DOM. Common sense prevailed that we didn't need to have two different specs of chassis material and we should just make them all out of DOM but I'm just not sure if we already had tubes bent for the Sebring cars or whether we started fresh with DOM tubing.

There is a way to check the metal, you will need to clean (with chemicals or a stripper - not with sandpaper or a grinder) the paint off of a section of the roll bar tubing all the way around its perimeter. When looking at the "cleaned" tubing you will see a line running along the axis of the tube that is the weld seam from the ERW process. There is generally about a 1/4" band of a different look to the metal from the rollers and the heat during the tube manufacturing process. The seam should always be to the inside on a bent part if it was done properly.

Regarding any of the school cars having the GTS chassis "bandaids":

Quote:

The Texas cars are definitely DOM but none of the school chassis have the
reinforcements we had to add to the GTS chassis when they converted to slicks.

Regarding spindle fatigue life and replacement:

Quote:

There is not a stronger spindle available that I am aware of.
. I believe you can comfortably get about two seasons out of new spindles (on slicks) before you have to worry about "life'ing" them. On the street tires it was 4 or 5 years into the program before they started having the random problem show up.

I hope this helps some of you guys figure out what you have and what you need to do with it

Thanks again to John for the detailed info.

~Brian

Blue Streak 21 · 01-09-2008, 05:58 PM

I wonder if John could be more specific on what additional structure was added to the GTS cars on slicks? I'd like to know and decide about making similar upgrades.

94_panoz_#7 · 01-09-2008, 06:39 PM

John and I are working on a list of the changes and on posting images of these changes. Hopefully we'll get that posted tomorrow. The Texas cars had most of the changes, though.

Jason

Gatorac · 01-09-2008, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 94_panoz_#7

John and I are working on a list of the changes and on posting images of these changes. Hopefully we'll get that posted tomorrow. The Texas cars had most of the changes, though.

Jason

Thanks for digging up all this information for us.

Pics on the bandaids or band aids can be found here. http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...ight=band+aids

cvgt3 · 01-09-2008, 08:07 PM

so all gtwc cars have dom tubing ??? they all have run slicks I had driven them on lapping days at panoz race prep...how about some info on these gtcw cars thanks cvgt3

Cobra4B · 01-09-2008, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 94_panoz_#7

John and I are working on a list of the changes and on posting images of these changes. Hopefully we'll get that posted tomorrow. The Texas cars had most of the changes, though.

Jason

Wierd... John specifically said that none of the school cars had the "bandaids". I'd love to know what all they are

eric1h · 04-02-2008, 09:03 AM

Sorry to drudge up an d old thread, but the cages made of ERW, are those legal to run in SCCA/NASA? I thought they all mandated DOM tubing?

Gatorac · 04-02-2008, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eric1h

Sorry to drudge up an d old thread, but the cages made of ERW, are those legal to run in SCCA/NASA? I thought they all mandated DOM tubing?

I believe both sanctioning bodies require DOM tubing. so the answer would be no, they would not be legal to run. Unless you are just doing time trials, that may be a different story. For W2W racing you need DOM.

eric1h · 04-02-2008, 09:17 AM

So that seems to be one more thing in the GTWC cars favor, I want to do w2w racing so I need a DOM cage. Thanks!

David Eastman · 04-19-2008, 06:44 PM

Problem found but I don't know if it is solved yet. The problem I found was the wiring harnes on the drivers side get hot. So hot the plastic wire loom is melted. The wires inside the loom were ok but I had to pull them out of the melted loom. The out side tape did not show any sign of what was on the inside. Like someone saw the loom had melted and retaded the harnes instead of repairing the problem. My fix was to replace the plastic loom with some heat resistant foil left over from another project.

David

hooked8 · 04-20-2008, 10:24 PM

In our chasing of problems with our cars (that ended up to be decaying cell foam) - Josh Huskins at Panoz Auto Development admitted to me that the school mechanics had been chasing wiring harness problems and were having to replace most...not looking forward to this...I'm sure PAD would love to sell us all new wiring harnesses...

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