F1 pit stop

You know that at an F1 pit stop some of the mechanics stick their arms in the air intakes of the cars and pull out track debri and other ' stuff' . Well have you had a look at the ' stuff' cuddling the 2 radiators at the front of your cars recently? I have just pulled out 18 months worth of rubbish including a tree' s worth of leaves, 5 crisps packets, 4 cigarette dogs ends, 2 spiders (one was a big b****r), and a lump of polystyrene. I fully expected to find a birds nest and a couple of chicks! There doesnt seem to be a natural outlet for this stuff once its got stuck in front of the radiators. I dont imagine it will alter the effectiveness of the radiators but the amount of dampness behind the leaves once I cleared them out seems like a potential cause of rot for the radiators in the long term. I wonder whats lurking in your front end? Happy hunting! Mark

Clean mine out every week (well.... nearly). A GT3 at the recent Goodwood trackday had some metal mesh like ' Expamet' inserted, which stops all the big bits. Only problem is the small stones etc will still go in and you have to remove the front of the car to install the mesh in the first place! Pity some manufacturer hasn' t come up with a stylish, effective, easily removable, non-obstructive, cheap, unobtrusive grille product. [8|]

Have you guys considered investing in the latest technology for removing detritus. It' s called a vacuum cleaner. I use one to clean he inside of the car and it tends to do the trick if I can' t be bothrered to grope around in the rad vents. I run a GT3 and know the Iris Blue car with the metal grill that you mentioned. Personally I think it looks naff (cheap) and restricts air flow to the radiators.

Gary, I did say unobtrusive!! The vacuum is a good invention but I don' t think it is an appropriate device for stopping a rock doing mach1 through your radiator......

Just send a small boy in -chimney sweep style. But, and we did discuss this Gary -there is no protection for the rad in the GT3 if a stone should go thru. I had this happen on a Pug on the M4 once, how the stone got through the 15mm opening in the grille took some doing! There are loads of different meshes available on the Max Power market, must admit John' s car ' s mesh DOES look what it is -expanded metal lathing -I usually see it covered in render -perhaps that' s his next move??? You could also try for alternative radiator grilles -do a Google search.......I think ' Brass Anodised Club' would look rather tasty..... Melv

Luckily the GT3 has a high energy force field that ensures stones don' t come into contact with the radiators. Not a lot of people know that. I think Helen Goff told me that one so it must be true! HA, and that from a man who has furry dice AND a nodding dog in his 964 Cup Car Maybe John P... said the mesh would get plastered , only he meant with flies.

Silly boy Mach 1 is in excess of 600mph. I don' t go over 28mph auld chap. Just in case the SUN newspaper might be watching my every move.

Gary, I was very careful to say the stone was travelling at Mach1 (probably thrown by a Johnny Foreigner).

Goodness gracious me. Whatever next.

Slightly off topic, but did anyone see what a burst tyre did to the PK Sport GT3 radiator at Le Mans last weekend !!!

No, but I did hear about it on the radio commentary. I wonder if the PKSport guy is still on the forum and could post us a juicy photo (of the radiator of course [ ] )

Sure did - immediately ran back to campsite to check MY tyres and rads.... Not really off topic - all in the same department.... debris on road = front corner destroyed. Didn' t one of the other Porsches suffer with a punctured rad I seem to recall???

I remember at the wet ' 01 LM race loads of GT3R' s suffering high rate of attrition from damaged front rads. Mainly due to offs rather than stone damage, but struck me at the time how vulnerable the rads are on these cars. Melv

If you see any of the Porsche Cup races (especially the SuperCup or German Porsche Cup - there seems to be more contact there...[ ]) then you will notice that the slightest touch up the back of the car in front invariably seems to result in total loss of coolant from the radiators. I don' t know why the 996 range (and by extension, Boxster) should be any more vunerable than any other car, but they really seem to be! [ ]

I see Simon at Essential Styling is advertising a mesh grille insert for the Boxster in this months Porsche Post. Only a small photo illustrated the product but it looked awful.