GT3 / GT4 / TCR Parts Lifing

[TheHoof]

Watching the Dubai 24Hrs stream this morning over breakfast, I was contemplating the costs and complexities associated with running GT / TCR cars and thought PH may be able to answer some questions I had on parts lifing.

- Are suggested part life schedules provided by the manufacturer or does each team define their own schedule based on experience/risk appetite/budget?

- When you buy something like the Porsche GT3 Cup Car - how much detail does the manufacturer provide in terms of how to run/maintain/manage the car and the various systems?

- what are a typical life schedule for major mechanical components (engine, gearbox, springs & dampers, drive shafts, hubs/uprights, brake cylinders, calipers, steering racks, etc.) on GT/TCR car and are all parts lifed, or are some replaced on an 'on inspection' basis only?

[The Wookie]

1 - It’s usually a combination, teams have their own schedules, sometimes above the manufacturer recommendations, some don’t bother to follow it to the letter. Some cars also come with less info, something like a Ginetta will probably have much less service and maintenance info than something like a Porsche Cup Car. Regardless you need a level of pragmatism though as the maintenance schedule on a cup car will be centred around it’s primary intended use case, which is sprint racing not endurance

2 - Again it depends on the car, a volume race car from a top manufacturer like Porsche Cup car comes with a pretty comprehensive handling manual that will include a lot of lifing info as well as correct maintenance procedures and probably even things like how to interface with it for data logging or interrogating the ECU. Others don’t!

3 - It’s a bit of a how long is a piece of string question, most things like driveshafts and brakes will cope with service/rebuild or even just inspection but some will simply be replacement.

Ahead of a 24 race a good team will be looking to service or replace any major point of failure as it’s effectively a season’s running in one weekend. In the same way a good BTCC team will service or replace effectively every part of the car at the start of a season, even though they have the advantage of inspection and servicing things that aren’t possible in a 24 hour if you see what I mean

[TheHoof]

Thanks for the detail Wookie!

Google has turned up the following "Technical Manual" for a 991 Cup Car

http://www.carreracup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/20...

... and this for the 911 GT3 Cup MR II

https://www.manthey-racing.de/Technical-Manual-911...

I'll do a full read later. A quick parse of the latter states the life of the Exhaust headers alone is 50 hours

[airbusA346]

TheHoof said:

Thanks for the detail Wookie!

Google has turned up the following "Technical Manual" for a 991 Cup Car

http://www.carreracup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/20...

... and this for the 911 GT3 Cup MR II

https://www.manthey-racing.de/Technical-Manual-911...

I'll do a full read later. A quick parse of the latter states the life of the Exhaust headers alone is 50 hours

Last time I looked at a lifing sheet (2011 997 RSR) a lot of stuff was lifed at 30 hours. Basically to do warm-up and the 24 hours at Le Mans.

[kel176506]

Interesting to see those manuals and i'll have a look through out of interest as well. I did some spannering on 996 GT3 Cup, 996 GT3 R and RSR race cars for a small team but very much at the club level (Britcar and GT Cup). I used to find it amazing the difference in the cars under the skin.... and the budget to run them.

My (albeit by no means expert) knowledge and experience working on the 996 era of race cars taught me that at the level of running an RSR you must keep to the guidelines on components.You need very deep pockets to run a Porsche RSR.

Budget plays a huge part of the equation on how closely you keep to the manual component 'life' guidelines. At the lower level of the Porsche cars, you sometimes see GT3 Cup cars trading hands on RaceCarsDirect for what appears to be relatively speaking 'value' but if you don't know when it was last refreshed you could almost face the cost of the car in rebuild.

The length of race plays a key part to what they will inspect or refresh. If you're entering a 24hr race, the refurb/prep works needs to be extensive to have the car ready to do 30 hrs of running and you wouldn't risk blowing the Owners/Drivers chance of a drive for the sake of saving money.

Rose tinted specs off, my knowledge of the 996 era is well over 10-years ago and i'm amazed at how far modern GT3 cars have come in tech and durability.

[Racespannermonkey]

All depends on the car GT3 is more my bag but the £ per hour depends on the car massivly Lambo/Audi/Merc being on the cheaper side and st boxes like the Mclaren being £££££ Ferrari being very expensive to buy the bare car comes with no wheels its a option.

[indigorallye]

I've done a few 24H series events in my Seat Supercopa (precursor to the TCR's)
Seat Sport recommend the following in their manual:
Engine- 10,000km's (refresh)
Turbo- 6,000km's (refresh)
Gearbox- 6,000km's (refresh)
Front hubs- 10,000km's (renew)
Steering rack- 10,000km's (renew)

Nothing special. However, the car looks wrecked, absolutely battered after each event.