Jump to content

The #25 goes to Watkins Glen and survives


s4racing06

Recommended Posts

Peugeot_005.jpg

Peugeot_006.jpg

This is the sister car to the #45 that the Cota's own (or did own). I purchased the car several months ago in running, but only fair condition. The car was painted, graphics restored and with the help of Arlo and his team the mechanicals were put back into race spec.

Last Wednesday the car was loaded in the trailer and went to Watkins Glen for the US Vintage Grand Prix. Despite some ugly weather the car performed very well all weekend. The only issue, was with the shift linkage that came apart in the middle of the race on Saturday that left me to finish the race with only 3rd and 4th gears. In the one pic you can see Vince Gladfelter (my co-driver for the enduro) under the car safety wiring it back together. The engine temp stayed at 170 F and the oil pressure at 60lbs all weekend. In fact, we didn’t even ad any oil even after completing the 1 hour endurance race. It was a really fun car to drive and created a lot of attention.

I would like to thank Arlo and his crew for taking all of my calls and Tim and Todd Sprinkle from Mechanicsburg Sports Car Center for doing the prep work on the car.

I will post better pics from the weekend when I have them.

Bill III

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic to have you on the forums Bill!

Also VERY impressed with the restoration and the fact that the car has returned to the track!

I hope you can find the time to comment more on the driving experience as well as I've read your website and your tails of your track experiences in the S4 race car - so curious what your thoughts are of the 50 on the track.

I have a white 86 505 GL turbo - the car that was built for SCCA racing by Peugeot, so seeing your car in full race trim is great.

Also - feel free to post LOTS of pics - car looks fantastic. If interested in your own gallery on this site let me know and I can set one up for you.

This really made my day... :)

Rabin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thumbs up, glad you made it to the fourm. Glad you finished the race in one piece and are having fun with her coming from the S4. I haven't been to the Glen since I was a kid and we had both #45 and #53 there. #45 is done and sitting out back and she is stripped waiting for the cage to get cut out and then she's going to the scrapper. I wanted to get the two together again since you've bought and are racing a piece of Peugoet member bella. Will get the new car looking like the old #45 did, it already has most of the #45 parts in it now. Hopefully we meet soon in the future, should think about coming up to VT and do a hillclimb up here next year, or trying to get down for Duryea, or I know Weatherly is also this weekend aswell, alot of people from the club don't like the NH Sports Car Club and how they run they're events so there will be some people from are club that will be there this weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

untitled15.jpg

Some friend that we race with sent me the pic.

Your selling it? :)

And the car is an 87' that was orginally was NA 2.2L that was wrecked on the LF, Woodner and my father turned it into a turbo racecar... Which Janet Guthrie raced in #45, not this car, 2 years before my dad bought #45 from Woodner and Farrell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess my only questions about the 505 revolve around it's on track performance.

How does it compare to the Escort Audi?

How does it compare to a modern road race sedan? (from your experiences anyway)

I realise it's an old car, but I've always felt that it's track potential was VERY under rated. It'd be neat to hear how well they still do after all these years.

I also noticed the for sale in your signature as well. Please feel free to put an advert up in the for sale section - I'm curious as to the details for sure. Sadly I won't be in a position to purchase for a while yet with all the other projects - but it sure is on the wish list! (Actually - I mostly want the wheels!)

Rabin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thumbs up, glad you made it to the fourm. Glad you finished the race in one piece and are having fun with her coming from the S4. I haven't been to the Glen since I was a kid and we had both #45 and #53 there. #45 is done and sitting out back and she is stripped waiting for the cage to get cut out and then she's going to the scrapper. I wanted to get the two together again since you've bought and are racing a piece of Peugoet member bella. Will get the new car looking like the old #45 did, it already has most of the #45 parts in it now. Hopefully we meet soon in the future, should think about coming up to VT and do a hillclimb up here next year, or trying to get down for Duryea, or I know Weatherly is also this weekend aswell, alot of people from the club don't like the NH Sports Car Club and how they run they're events so there will be some people from are club that will be there this weekend.

Again I really want to thank you guys for all of your help. I'm sure we could have figured out things eventually, but you really put us much further ahead on the learning curve and saved us a great deal of time. Yes we do have to get together. I just put a new motor in the #06 Audi and it is designed specifically for hill climbs. I will be looking for an ITE Championship in our series and I would love to attend some of your events as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

untitled15.jpg

Some friend that we race with sent me the pic.

Your selling it? :)

And the car is an 87' that was orginally was NA 2.2L that was wrecked on the LF, Woodner and my father turned it into a turbo racecar... Which Janet Guthrie raced in #45, not this car, 2 years before my dad bought #45 from Woodner and Farrell.

Please do not take this the wrong way at all. Let's face it, it's not a Schumaker Ferrari we are talking about. If you check this link 1986 results Guthrie drove the #25 car. The names were on the window when I bought the car. Really doesn't mean anything, they could have been added at anytime. There was also the #25 in the paint of the car. Also could have been done at any time, but the paint seemed to be very old on the car. Not saying the paint was original as parts of it seemed to have been painted at different times. I was told and again not 100% sure, that the VIN plates were changed several times on the original cars to keep them eligible and this plate does looked to have been changed. Log books would really be the key and I do not have any other than the SVRA one that was created last weekend. Speaking of, this is the FIRST Peugeot to have an SVRA or HSR log book. I thought that was kind of cool.

Please understand I am not trying to start anything, I simply wanted to clear up my position. I deal with very high cars all the time in my business and history can make 100's of thousands of dollars difference or more in the value. No offense to the cars, but I think we are talking about very little difference in value no matter who drove these cars.

Thanks for posting the pic. I bought a CD from the track photographer and he is sending it in the next few weeks. He had some pretty neat pics. I will will post them as soon as they come.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok to talk a little more about the car and the experience. I will start from the beginning and if you have any further questions or I missed some previous ones, just ask.

I saw the car advertised on the internet about 2 years ago. My favorite form of racing is showroom stock. I love taking a "mostly" stock car and beating the Sh$t out of it for 12 or 24 hours and having it hold up. I also like the unusual. So now you can figure out why the 505 caught my eye. It seemed that every few months the ad would pop up on my computer as I was looking through race car classifieds. Finally after a few times I sent the owner an email and we discussed the car some and I told him that I really didn't need another project. We still keep in touch over the next few months, but I never made an offer on the car. Last year I was up at Watkins for the Vintage Grand Prix and I mentioned the car to Vince a long time friend and co-driver. He started asking questions and seemed to have a genuine interest. This got me more fired up about the project and I made a deal on it a few days later.

When the car arrived at the shop (Mechanicsburg Sports Car Center) it was certainly the main topic of many jokes and still kind of is to this day. We all started with American made race stuff 20 years ago and have moved primarly to German in the last 8 or so years. The car ran, but smoked heavily when warm. I am not a mechanic by any means, but I did remove the turbo had it rebuilt by Blouch Turbo and reinstalled it, mostly on my own. The car is MUCH easier to work than any quattro. With the drive train working as it should we focused our attention on the brakes and suspension. All new rotors, brake lines, master cylinder, ARP wheel studs, bushings and Hawk brake pads were installed. I also installed a new harness and radio equipment. For tires I choose Toyo 888's, because they meet the specs for SVRA Group 8, the can run in the rain and they hold up forever. With that stuff completed I sent it down the street to have it painted and then drove it about 45 minutes away to have the graphics installed. In fact, if anyone would like any of the graphics I can put you in touch my guy. He spent a lot of time to make them as original as possible by using some old photos I have. By this time the jokes seemed to calm down a bit and even some of the biggest skeptics started making positive comments. Many commented on how good the car sounded. It really does have a deep healthy tone and anything turbocharged has to sound good.

A friend of mine does a Corvette track event at Pocono in April. I figured this would be the perfect way to get track time without being in a real racing situation. I'm sure you can imagine the comments from the Corvette guys. LOL A few were actually very cool and came to talk about the car. In fact, one of the instructors from the open wheel school that was running on the other track said that he had driven the car a few times in the 80's. Anyway on track for the first time, I really took my time, so I could test the brakes and watch the gauges. Everything really seemed pretty good so I started to push it a little harder. I always have a hard time doing over 100 mph in a car that I don't know that much about. This car had been sitting for quite awhile and it was just unnerving the first few times you are by the concrete wall at 130 mph. By the third session out on track I was really actually becoming quite impressed and comfortable with car. I pulled fairly hard for a 3148 lb car. It surprisingly broke well and straight and it handled much better than I had expected. I even passed a few Corvettes and a friend of mine that was driving a 318is BMW. Unfortunately after the 3rd session I began to lose oil pressure. I called Arlo and he stressed to me how uncommon this was for these motors. I'm still not 100% sure what happened as even though I changed the motor I didn't pull the old one apart.

With the new (to the car) motor and a few more safety modifications it went to Watkins last weekend. Hold on let me back up to the dyno. We got the timing set and after we got the boost under control we made a few pulls at 15lbs and realized that the AFR's were around 13.1. Knowing that we were planning on running and hour enduro I just wasn't comfortable running this lean. I just wanted the car to be safe and make it through the weekend. If we would have had time I would have tried to raise the fuel pressure, but we just decided to run around 12lbs where it kept the AFR's more inline. Group 8 is really a tough group to run this car in. At over 3000lbs it is very hard to run with stuff that is well under 2000lbs. Even when you pull stuff down the straight the braking zones and corners become challenging. I did however start to understand the car more and more and it really did become quit fun. The car ran amazingly cool all weekend. In fact, it never got above 170 deg coolant temp. The only issue was the shift linkage came apart and only left me to finish the race with 3rd and 4th gears. We safety wired it back together, but we need a better solution. Is this common in these cars ? The plastic inserts in the linkage seems to be deteriorated and no longer stays in place. If anyone has the solution or parts please let me know. I am not the easiest guy on transmissions and even though it held up for the rest of the weekend it should be addressed.

The one thing is how much attention the car receives, both on and off the track. I think it would be hard to spend less and still have a car that starts so many conversations. We were lucky enough to be chosen for the downtown reenactment. If you haven't ever been to the US Vintage Grand Prix, I highly recommend it. It is a great time with incredible people and fabulous cars. I can't say that we were the center of attention, next to the pre war Alfa's and GT 40's, but we really did have our own little group around the car for over an hour. One guy told me that he was the guy that punted Janet off the track at I believe Mid-Ohio. I found it a little hard to believe after he told me he was driving and MR2 (weighs about half of the 505 right), but who knows. Also on the track the corner workers and spectators love the car. I got many standing ovations from both on the checkered lap. The one time I was coming down over the hill, after the bus stop into turn 7 and I tried using 4th instead of downshifting into 3rd. As I set the car up and entered toward the apex I really got a nice 4 wheel drift going. I wasn't quite sure how this was going to leave me for the exit, but it felt pretty good at mid corner. I looked up to see the corner workers moving back as far as they could in there station ! LOL Fortunately the car drifted right to edge of track and no further. I'm sure that was fastest I went through turn 7 all weekend. At the end of that race both corner workers gave me the thumbs up ! I'm sure the big Peugeot looked a little intimidating coming right towards them. LOL

Someone asked how the car compares to the Audi. Here #40is an article that I wrote for AudiWorld on the #40 car. I am an Audi guy. I think that AWD has a clear advantage over 2WD. The Audi as I mentioned is a lot harder to work on and is a lot more expensive to own and maintain. The Peugeot is a great car for someone that wants to get into road racing, hill climbs, track events, etc. Parts are inexpensive, it's easy to repair, it makes great sounds (thanks to the turbo), it's very predictable and consistent and people love to be around it and talk about it.

My plan for the Peugeot is to consign it along with the Rally car for our Fall Auction here at Carlisle. It will run either Thursday or Friday Sept. 30 or Oct 1st. Even though this is not the perfect venue I have sold some race cars in the past including a BMW 2002 last Fall. After that I will probably list it on ebay and in some race forums. If you have any more questions just let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Bill III

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow - thanks very much for the detailed write ups Bill!

Your description of the 505 pretty much echo's everyone else I've asked that has raced a 505 turbo. Still pretty darn impressive I think.

The only follow up question I have is WRT to the Audi... :) Did you end up taking it to PPIHC in 09'? Any write ups on your experience if so? I was a mechanic at PPIHC 04' working on an RS200Evo from England(Mach2Racing). Driver was Stig Blomqvist - so being the Audi guy you are you can imagine how excited I was to get that opportunity! Learned more in that week than any other time I must say. (Engine builder-tuner was Geoff Page) Still a highlight of my automotive career was sitting in a pub in Colorado Springs with Stig pouring us beers as he told us stories from the hey days of WRC in the 80's... Absolutely amazing...

I also had to comment on the quattro/AWD comment you made... I live up in Saskatchewan Canada and we get some really extreme weather. AWD is an absolute must I feel from a safety aspect, and while I've never had an Audi, early Subaru's convinced me. Funny thing is that my family car is 00' V70R Volvo... :) 261HP and AWD sheds the Volvo stereotype quite nicely however. (It even has the high pressure turbo 5 cylinder).

That being said - the 505 Turbo on studded winter grips is amazing at how good it is in the snow and ice... Ice Dice Wife's car is AWD - but I'm quite happy in the 505... So capable and very fun - and pretty much equal to an AWD car on all season tires, but stops better. (Volvo runs studded winters)

Rabin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No I still have not competed at Pikes Peak. I chose to keep the CIS on the quattro for historical purposes. I can now say that I should have gone to stand alone from the start. Trying to produce over 300 whp and maintain drivability with CIS is a nightmare. This is one area that the 505 is far superior. The car is still under development in this area and the main reason that I have not made the trip to CO. I am very jealous of your experience. That must have been insane. The RS200 is also in my top 5 cars of all time. Rebuild times are too short, but the cars are amazing.

I am talking to Audi right now regarding a future Pikes Peak kind of deal. I will keep you posted as things progress.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to see that car restored so nicely! I had been looking at the for sale ad and was wishing there was some way to get it but I simply have too many cars. Glad that it went to a Peugeot enthusiast and I'm even happier to see how nicely it's been restored. I hope that you can find a way to hold onto it as it's such a pretty car.

I can relate to the gear shift problem, we had ours come apart and stick our 505 24 Hours of Lemons car in 3rd gear at the Reno-Fernley race in May 2009 and had to drive the last 5 hours with nothing but 3rd gear (and on a track with a pretty steep uphill) so at least you did one better than we did! We've now done four 24 Hours of Lemons races with the car and with the exception of the turbo seal and a few bushings it keeps right on going!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very cool. I remember contacting you guys about the car. I'm glad to hear that it's still doing well. I was really amazed at how cool our car ran the whole time. It rained pretty hard doing the enduro so we really took it kind of easy. I did run the car pretty hard though for 20 to 30 minutes at a time in the other sessions and the temp gauge never moved. Amazing how many uneducated drivers can end up on a race track. Just trying to stay out of everyone’s way was the biggest chore in the enduro. There were a couple of pretty bad accidents.

I will list the car in the classifieds after our Auction here at Carlisle. The car will run next Friday between 7pm and 8pm. If anyone is interested in coming in person or bidding over the phone just send me an email at [email protected] . As I said it's a really fun car, but I just have too many projects. For someone that wants to get into vintage racing it would be hard to find a more economical way.

If you ever need a co-driver for a race, let me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...