Making Our Race Car Road Legal
Posted on Sep 12, 2024
How do you make a race car road legal? Well, after perusing Michigan's requirements we realized we only needed to fix the turn signals and add a horn. How hard could it be? We had hazard lights so we knew the turn signal bulbs were intact. We a replacement for very reasonable money.
We soon found the horn wire and made sure the horn relay and turn signal relay were in place and had power then turned our attention to the steering column as that's where the signals originate from for both systems. It took a lot of prying and unscrewing to gain access to the terminals that attach to the column stalks and a little sleuthing online to determine which pins were responsible for left, right and horn but once located we were able to get all these systems to operate by jumping the pins with a wire.
So why weren't the turn signals and horn working? Well, the horn didn't have a wire from the slip ring to the horn button so that was an obvious one and probably an easy fix. The turn signals were more interesting as the pins on the back of the connectors had all been cut. We also discovered that the horn pin had also been cut. Whoever built this car definitely did not want the turn signals and horn ever to be used!
We realized we were going to need another turn signal cluster thingy. Fortunately, a friend turned us on to Plyhammer's Parts in Ohio who specialize in used parts for 944s. They had two available online so we snagged one quick.
A few days later we had it in hand but in the meantime had realized that our combination of steering wheel mount, quick release and horn button were not going to get along and produce noises. We baled and decided to mount a push button on the cage adjacent to the steering wheel instead. Any port in a storm.
Now, with the car registered and insured we went looking for a suitable test road to see if we could recreate the condition of fuel starvation, or whatever it is, so we could try to figure out how to fix it. This road looked promising especially as it was just half a mile from us and dead during evenings and weekends.
Sure enough, just two laps into driving around the circle anti-clockwise were enough to start it sputtering. Only, we did such a good job it now wouldn't stop doing it. We tried turning the engine off and back on and even disconnecting the battery but the problem remained. It would struggle to get above 25mph and, at steady throttle, would buck slightly every 3-4 seconds, quite consistently. After about 10 minutes it fixed itself so we went back and tried it again with the same result. However, this time we tried going back round the circle clockwise and, to our surprise, that fixed it! We did it a few times just to make sure we weren't going mad but it consistently will go bad if we drive anti-clockwise and good again if we go clockwise. It's like a switch.
Now we either have to figure out what causes this or enter NASCAR events from now on. Wish us luck.
We soon found the horn wire and made sure the horn relay and turn signal relay were in place and had power then turned our attention to the steering column as that's where the signals originate from for both systems. It took a lot of prying and unscrewing to gain access to the terminals that attach to the column stalks and a little sleuthing online to determine which pins were responsible for left, right and horn but once located we were able to get all these systems to operate by jumping the pins with a wire.
So why weren't the turn signals and horn working? Well, the horn didn't have a wire from the slip ring to the horn button so that was an obvious one and probably an easy fix. The turn signals were more interesting as the pins on the back of the connectors had all been cut. We also discovered that the horn pin had also been cut. Whoever built this car definitely did not want the turn signals and horn ever to be used!
We realized we were going to need another turn signal cluster thingy. Fortunately, a friend turned us on to Plyhammer's Parts in Ohio who specialize in used parts for 944s. They had two available online so we snagged one quick.
A few days later we had it in hand but in the meantime had realized that our combination of steering wheel mount, quick release and horn button were not going to get along and produce noises. We baled and decided to mount a push button on the cage adjacent to the steering wheel instead. Any port in a storm.
Now, with the car registered and insured we went looking for a suitable test road to see if we could recreate the condition of fuel starvation, or whatever it is, so we could try to figure out how to fix it. This road looked promising especially as it was just half a mile from us and dead during evenings and weekends.
Sure enough, just two laps into driving around the circle anti-clockwise were enough to start it sputtering. Only, we did such a good job it now wouldn't stop doing it. We tried turning the engine off and back on and even disconnecting the battery but the problem remained. It would struggle to get above 25mph and, at steady throttle, would buck slightly every 3-4 seconds, quite consistently. After about 10 minutes it fixed itself so we went back and tried it again with the same result. However, this time we tried going back round the circle clockwise and, to our surprise, that fixed it! We did it a few times just to make sure we weren't going mad but it consistently will go bad if we drive anti-clockwise and good again if we go clockwise. It's like a switch.
Now we either have to figure out what causes this or enter NASCAR events from now on. Wish us luck.