Virginia City Hill Climb Report and Sport Q info

["Mark Nelson" <tahoe@email.msn.com>]

Hi All,

Sorry for my tardiness in sending out the report, but better late then never
;-).  Anyway, I drove down from Redmond, Washington EARLY Saturday morning
(left at 1:30 AM and made terrible time) and got to Reno around 12:00.  I
hooked up with my dad at his shop, and then we were off in my newly acquired
CQ (shod with H&R's, Borbet Type T's, with Dunlop 225/50ZR16's...look for
pictures soon =).  We stopped at a 7-11 on 341 (Geiger Grade) where Mike
Williams showed up in his 4kq with its custom bodywork ;-).  Anyway, we
decided to blast up (my NA CQ doesn't do the blasting part so well ;-)
Geiger grade.  We had a good run going up the super twisty mountain road
until we caught traffic...that 20V sure was hurtn' in that high altitude,
although keeping the r's up around 5K seemed to help.

We made it up to base of the truck route (which is where the hill climb
itself takes place) and saw the Bennett camp with Alex Neckas, Tim Valencia
(4ktq race car for sale), Andrew and Ken Bennett, Rod Cornell, and a few
others there.  Definitely was Audi central up there ;-).  Frank Beddor and
his son David were there with the RUF Ultimate and CTR2 (600BHP and AWD).
Every time I watch those cars take off, I cannot believe how INCREDIBLY hard
they pull...it's absolutely intense!  The real treat was being able to
FINALLY see two Sport Quattros in person!  The Beddor's brought out two red
Sport Q's (representing 1% of all the Sport Q's in the world ;-) equipped
with 486BHP Lehmann 20vt motors.  They had turned the boost down to about
14lbs for the hot hill climb and were running an estimated 460BHP at that
point (what I wouldn't give for one of those motors...I bet about $25K would
do it ;-).  Mike Williams could tell you what it was like as he got a chance
to ride in one of them.

My dad and I spent about an hour and a half intensely scoping out one of the
cars on Sunday and took TONS of photos, which I will scan shortly.  Of all
the Audis, the Sport Q's were the fastest at about 107 MPH with Alex Neckas
having the third fastest Q in his 20vt equipped 4kq (with some giant Porsche
big reds), clocking in at over 101 MPH.  The fastest of all the cars, was
the Ferrari F40 of Amir Rosenbaum...the engine in the car has apparently
been worked over a bit =).  He was turning in consistent top speeds of over
130 MPH (4 MPH fastest then the second fastest car...a '78 Porsche Turbo).
That car sounded SO sweet once it hit about a 11 grand or so...you could
just watch the power spew on those poor Hoosier race tires =)  In case
you're wondering how I know what the speeds are, I got roped into radar gun
duty on Sunday, which was actually pretty fun.  Unfortunately it prevented
me from getting a ride in the Sport Q though =(.

Anyway, here's the skinny on the Sport's...one of them had a power steering
pump let go on Saturday, so it was down on Sunday.  The other Sport Q was
loosing third gear (would pop out of gear) and I believe Mike Williams had
to hold it in place on his two runs up the hill =).  Both cars had the Ronal
R9's of course running BFG R1's which seemed to stick pretty well.  The
suspension on these cars was VERY cool...they of course had lightweight Gr.
B tubular control arms with support links coming from the front of the
control arms (both the front and rear control arms utilized these links),
inward towards the chassis.  I've seen this setup on pictures Thompson Smith
sent me, of Buffum's S2, which had the same setup.  These extra links seem
to help prevent the arms from moving back and forth and also prevent extra
suspension movement and wheel chatter under hard acceleration (can happen
with that much HP).  The struts were adjustable coil-overs of course (should
have been set lower IMHO).  The floor pan on the car is entirely different
from any other Q I've seen...it didn't look anything like a 4kq or UrQ floor
pan...very different design to it.  As far as the power on the car, the
intercooler is a huge 3" thick core that takes up a large portion of the
grille space and sits down around the bumper up to the core support and has
a nice short straight shot to the throttle body.  The oil cooler sits in the
lower right hand corner of the bumper.  The radiator is a HUGE 4 pass
lightweight unit that sits at an extreme angle to clear the intake.  The fan
being utilized is a 5ktq 4-blade unit with a nice Carbon fiber fan shroud.
The intake on the car is of course specific to the Sport Q...no obvious
reworking externally, but I bet Lehmann added some special touches to it.
;-).  The exhaust manifold, on the other hand, was a piece of art.  It's a
beautifully made stainless piece...exactly the way my dad had envisioned the
unit he's making for my car.  Boost was so generously provided by the huge
K27 turbo sitting off in the right hand corner of the engine compartment.
The car was utilizing an SMC boost controller, mounted in the cubby hole
area below the windshield.  Coincidentally, I've had my dad order one of
these boost controls =)...8 weeks before it get here from Germany.  Anyway,
I could go on and on, as one could probably tell...but if anyone is
interested, or has any questions on the cars, let me know!  I looked at
these cars REAL close, and got some good ideas for things to try on my S2.
Listening to those cars was like listening to the old Group B cars on my
rally tapes...especially hearing that big K27 spool up.  Pretty awesome
sound!  The driving duties were undertaken by Karen Chadwick, Bob Houston,
and Jack Fischer.  They all seemed to turn very consistent runs in the cars
with the only visible mishap was the last run that Bob Houston made, when he
spun the car in turn 12 I believe, with lots of tire squealing and
smoke...fortunately everything was OK,  but I bet it was pucker up time ;-).

Anyway, I will try and scan the pictures my dad took and post them by the
weekend.

cya!
-mark nelson
mailto:tahoe@msn.com

http://www.quattrosport.com