All, have been a little busy this month hence the lack of G55 updates. For those interested though, here's what I have been up to...
I have had the good fortune to attend the Virginia City Hill Climb -
https://www.virginiacityhillclimb.com - (now having just run for its 51st year this past weekend) first in 2014, 2015, and 2016, with the CTS-V wagon I had at the time...
The wagon was an unlikely hit with the Ferrari and Shelby clubs that put on the event. As can be seen in the Instagram link from 2016 below, the wagon became known for starting line hoonage put on by yours truly...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcaEbbzB4ds/
Things took a turn in 2016, as immediately following the hoonage in the video above, the wagon developed a front main seal oil leak and thus it went back on the trailer I had thankfully brought for the first time that year.
Depressed, I was urged by friends there to go find a rental car up in Reno - it does take place on a public road, after all - and shenanigans ensued:
Note my highly-professional lap timing system:
Never felt so good about taking out every coverage offered at the rental car counter... Easily the most fun 24 hours I've ever had in a rental... Anyway...
Nevertheless I ended up selling the wagon in 2017, and thusly missed the 2017-2019 events. 2020 was not held due to COVID, and then last year I returned in 2021 having picked up a ratty 2014 C7 'Vette:
They say with experience comes wisdom, but apparently I was still in short supply as I had decided the 'Vette needed an A&A supercharger prior to the event... Which then led to us discovering I was generating Spyhunter-like clouds of oil halfway up the 'hill as apparently the tired LT1 in the 'Vette did not appreciate ~7 pounds of boost being shoved down its throat (and consequently into the crank case...)
So in the ensuing year I ended up pulling the supercharger off the 'Vette and sold the car, and just this past June, I picked up my '17 TTS, pictured here last Friday in the lot of the Silverland Inn in Virginia City, NV:
Aside from attempting to install a BMS JB4 running Map 0 for datalogging purposes prior to the event, I hadn't made any mechanical changes to the car aside from an oil change, a brake fluid flush + Motul RBF 660 fluid, and new forged wheels and Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect 240s on said wheels plus an alignment. Everything was great at first on Saturday, until it wasn't:
Here I and friends are with the bumper off in the dirt parking lot at the bottom of the hill, desperately looking for a sign of a blown off charge pipe or vacuum leak - none of which was to be found. I had bought the car knowing it had a catless Soul Performance exhaust and likely a tune, but as it turned out the car had a few more mods on it including what I
think are Fabspeed headers, an IPD y-pipe painted yellow, and cold air intakes. I'm pretty sure the turbos are stock and I know the intercoolers are.
However - on a parade lap up the hill early Saturday, the car suddenly began stumbling and missing hard, making no power, and as I brought it to a stop a third of the way up the hill, it stalled, and then re-started itself. I gently nursed it up the hill and back down the return road, having found that it had thrown dozens of codes. I was worried I had hurt it badly.
I got it to the bottom of the hill and due to needing to find some Torx bits, the car ended up sitting for nearly two hours. When I started it again to move it into some shade next to that motorhome to begin working on it - it suddenly started normally as if nothing had happened.
Unconvinced, we got into it anyway, and the only things we did were to clean the top MAP sensor off with some convenient gasoline as it was oily, and then to completely disconnect the JB4 in case it was somehow involved with the issue.
From there on - the car was fine! I was then fortunate to get in 5 practice runs on Saturday afternoon, 3 runs Sunday AM, and 5 more runs Sunday PM.
So, I got to business:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CioiKiwjJ0w/This resulted in some pretty good runs on Sunday (I forgot to hit Record in TrackAddict for one of them):
Here's a video of my best time of the weekend on Sunday - 3:24.656, which corresponds to the 3:23.797 run above - need to adjust the starting-line GPS coordinates next year to better-reflect the official timing.
The car definitely has a lot left in it as I need driver mods first; click below out to YouTube proper for 4k 60 fps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlZjyUcJB6QTrackAddict does a really great job:
This ended up with me running the 8th/9th fastest (more on that in a sec) run of the weekend - note that my registration still shows a 2014 Vette...:
As such I ended up taking 3rd in the Porsche Turbo class:
A 992 TTS was run both by the owner to a time .5 seconds faster than me, and then (before said 992 TTS owner ended up glancing off of a guard rail and shutting down the hill for 45 minutes as he was towed off..) driven by a stunt-shoe to a stunning 3:13 time WITH the owner in the passenger seat in a car he couldn't even figure out how to put in D.
Conveniently however, said stunt-shoe also happens to be both the now-former King of the Hill for the past ~8 years, as he brought not his GT2 RS he had previously set a 3:06 Hill record in last year, and instead ran his wife's bone-stock brand-new 2022 Mach1 to a 3:23 this year.
Another terrific accomplishment was the original-owner gent in the '07 997 Turbo running a fantastic 3:23... Which is both a reflection of his skill as well as the fact that he's been participating in the event since 1991.
As you may have noticed on the above list, a new record was set this year...
The Senna driver/owner was a first-timer and nevertheless set an extremely impressive 3:03 new Hill record. As you might expect, my buddy with the GT2 RS is going to war next year... This was his 3:06 run last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_aFJSwj1BQMeanwhile, my goal will be to continue to find more speed both by way of seat-time and driver mods (just go faster, right?) - but I am also beginning to talk with Sam @ ByDesign about what next-steps with the car could look like.
Anyway - while it's always a long haul out from Denver to Virginia City and back, I look forward to this event every year.
Porsches were VERY well-represented up on the Hill this year, and as my buddy took a break from his GT2 RS, I get to be able to say I was also faster than all the GT cars this year.
I believe Registration tends to open around April 1st. Be seeing you... Follow @vchillclimb on Instagram for more photos and videos:
https://www.instagram.com/vchillclimb/