Crown

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

Sounds like a great event . Does it mean you solved the insurance issues that caused the car to be grounded?

Whoopsy:

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

 

If you hit i70 I hope you take a short stop in KC!  Stay as long as you like. 

Whoopsy:

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

 

Nick, wouldn’t that depend on if your car is the only 918 attending? Otherwise, what’s the point?  I’m assuming you’re buying one time special insurance for the car.

The purpose of life is to enjoy the moment.

nberry:

Whoopsy:

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

 

Nick, wouldn’t that depend on if your car is the only 918 attending? Otherwise, what’s the point?  I’m assuming you’re buying one time special insurance for the car.

Haha Nick, the whole point is just an excuse for me to do a long road trip in the 918. I would expect there could be a few 918s there. I have never been to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

That's the route Google Maps shows, I have driven through all the western states before, but never Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky. Heck outside of Chicago, I have never set foot in any of those states. Of the lower 50, I have only ever visited 14 of them.

As for insurance, over the last year the insurance company had dropped it's rates, plus, I am only doing a short term, maybe 3 months for the trip anyways.

Leawood911:

Whoopsy:

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

 

If you hit i70 I hope you take a short stop in KC!  Stay as long as you like. 

Haven't decided on what route I am taking yet, but KC isn't too far off the beaten path

Not too much. You need to go south to i70 at some point. If nothing else I will go to Indy. 

If it were me, I avoid Chicagoland, due to heavy car and truck traffic (great at kicking up rocks into windshields), traffic snarls, not to mention unstaffed, automated tolls that are a pain to deal with unless you've got an iPass or equivalent.  

If you were going into Chicago for a compelling reason, that would be different, but as an en route, I'd take a different path.

I'd be happy to advise with Iowa gas stops, etc., just let me know.

I wish I could contradict Jim about Chicago roads, but if you do come through the deep dish pizza is on me.

I prefer highway 2 to I94 through Montana and North Dakota--better pavement, more interesting scenery, much less traffic and far fewer police.

One thing to watch for is E15 gas, which they love in Iowa and Nebraska.  It's supposed to be safe for all newer cars, and while I can't vouch for Porsches, my Volvo was never happy on it.

whichever route....do it !

intouch1:

whichever route....do it !

Exactly. Personally I would take 80 through Nebraska and then south to I70 all the way from KC to Indy. Totally avoid Chicago and Illinois. 

Hehe, noted! You guys lived in those states in questions so will be experts! 

So something like this?

No plans yet, but if I do have the time, I will stop by every one of you guys at least to have a beer or 10. 

On the return trop, I think I might want to shut across Kansas and towards Colorado Springs, Just gonna stop by and say hi with friends I made when I did the Pikes Peak. From there head north towards Yellowstone Park, always wanted to visit. Alternatively I could go all the way west to California and head back north via I5, visiting friends and family there along the way.

After this trip, I still have plans to do one ginormous trip that I wanted to do, covering all 13 provinces and territories in Canada and all lower 48 in one go. At least 61 pics along the way.  But will need some careful planning on routing to hit all the states. 

Wonder if Porsche might want to foot that bill or at least chip in haha. Maybe they might be more encouraged if I were to take the Taycan. But honestly I would want to do it in the Panamera turbo S. Or the Exclusive. 

Heck, I might even be open to taking a Model 3 to do it if Elon wanted to sponsor it. 

I wonder if there is a Guinness record to be had for covering all 61 states and provinces and territories in one go in the shortest time.

These are the types of plans I live for. Good deal. Personally I have always been a fan of the cannonball.  Looking forward to your blast through KC. 

waiting for PDK:

I wish I could contradict Jim about Chicago roads, but if you do come through the deep dish pizza is on me.

I prefer highway 2 to I94 through Montana and North Dakota--better pavement, more interesting scenery, much less traffic and far fewer police.

One thing to watch for is E15 gas, which they love in Iowa and Nebraska.  It's supposed to be safe for all newer cars, and while I can't vouch for Porsches, my Volvo was never happy on it.

I would never put E15 in anything I cared about, whether that be a 918 or a lawnmower.

In Iowa at least, it should be well-labeled.  The state inspectors put on an "American Ethanol" sticker above the grades.  See this example from LeClaire, where I-80 crosses the Mississippi into Illinois:

While crowd-sourced, this site (and phone app) gives the best info I know in re ethanol:

https://www.pure-gas.org

I know of two exceptions in the state, but generally "93" AKI (98 ROZ) means 10% ethanol.  91 AKI (96 ROZ) means 0% ethanol.  Every state has different ethanol labelings, which makes it tough.  Everything in Minnesota or Missouri, for example, is E10 unless it says otherwise, which isn't often.  Illinois is mostly E10, which is why I avoid buying gas in that state if I can.  Larger metros mean EPA zones so everything there will be E10.

As an aside, if you're not concerned about making time, there are some outstanding driving roads between Minneapolis along the Mississippi River down to where I-80/I-74 cross into Illinois.

Having issues with the photo, it shrank and rotated somehow.

Nick, sounds like a fantastic trip. I assume you’re not going alone. The brickyard is worth the trip. 

The purpose of life is to enjoy the moment.

Jim_in_Iowa:

Having issues with the photo, it shrank and rotated somehow.

 

That one make sense. Gas stations only take in 2 grades of gas, the 87 with ethanol mixed in and 91 without. the 89 is created by mixing the 2 grades at the pump.

Our Shell stations actually provides 93 octane gas now as the top grade after they switched over to the Nitro+ mix. A very close competitor to the 94 from our Chevrons. 

At least in the U.S. Midwest, most stations have three tanks, one for each grade, no mixing.  (I know some in the Northeast do mixing, Sunoco was famous for that.  Some very new stations have more than three, sometimes six, usually for diesel, E15, and E85.)  The Meridian Pipeline terminates into a tanker farm about 300M from my local bike path, I ride by all the time.  Rail cars carry the ethanol in, and it's blended at "the rack" where the tanker fills up.  Ethanol can't be put in a pipeline because it absorbs water like crazy (yet another reason to avoid it.)

When I took that photo, the tanker driver happened to be there unloading fuel, and I asked him some questions.  The short answer, for V-Power, that particular station is the only Shell around here getting 91E0; all the other local Shells have 93E10.  The only reason I can think of, that station is about 500M from boat ramps, and boaters know better than to buy ethanol.  If that station didn't have one E0 grade, boaters would fill up elsewhere, probably the BP that's 7 KM south.

Another factoid, many independent stations in the upper Midwest (e.g., Kwik Trip) used to have a detergent package that met Top Tier detergent requirements (notably more than EPA requirements.)  That was really convenient, especially in western Wisconsin where major oil co. stations are rare.  Back in November of 2021, the Top Tier stickers started disappearing from the independent's pumps.  There is reportedly a supply chain issue in getting the detergents, and nobody has seen when they'll be back.  Third party companies make the additive packages, e.g., Lubrizol, BASF, et al.  BASF reportedly makes BP's "Ultimate" additive for them in the U.S.

So in the meantime, I'm back to Shell, even though that station is about 20 KM farther.  V-Power also claims to have friction reducers, anti-corrosion properties, and wear reducers, in addition to better detergent.  Top Tier covers just detergents.

One more trivia point, Scuderia Ferrari found that going to E10 in the 2022 F1 specs meant that their V-Power lost 20 HP due to lower fuel density/BTUs.  That doesn't sound like much, but in F1 where everything counts, it was a problem.  For a street car, E10 drops BTUs about 4%.

https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/don%27t-confuse-gasoline-octane-and-quality

The purpose of life is to enjoy the moment.

A bit more complex that that article.

Ethanol has a higher 'knock' point than gasoline, but lower energy content. The whole purpose of blending ethanol with gasoline is to create an artificial market for your corn farmers, who have a very powerful lobbying body in DC.

The green part of ethanol blended fuel is debatable. On one hand the crops are grown, so it captures some CO2 from the atmosphere, but on the other hand cars will have a worse fuel consumption rating simply because the blended fuel has less energy by volume. The 10%, 15% ethanol content really doesn't do much to help the environment, it's just paper theory. But the E85 grade fuel has a higher enough ethanol content to actually make a difference however. 

The higher knock resistance of ethanol also means refineries can use lower grade gasoline and mix in the ethanol to get it up to 87 octane. 

Now if the world is fair, all oil companies will blend all their difference grades of gasoline with the same detergent and additive package, only difference will just be the octane rating. But the world isn't fair. I believe most will give their higher grade gasoline better mix of the additive in order to upsell customers, even when they don't need to higher octane. 

https://youtu.be/F-yDKeya4SU

22 GT3 Manual, 73 Carrera RS 2.7 Carbon Fiber replica (1,890 lbs), 06 EVO9 with track mods. Former: 18 GT3 Manual, 16 Cayman GT4, 73 911S, Two 951S's, 996 C2, 993 C2, 98 Ferrari 550, 79 635CSi

Such abuse of perfectly good ears of corn... Both by Jason and Congress.

Kidding aside, although not mentioned in this excellent video, this is the triumph of the farm lobby over the rest of the country and common sense.

All correct.

Prior to the pandemic, the ethanol producers hit a "blend wall" where they couldn't get financing to expand their facilities because there was enough ethanol to add 10% to the gasoline volume.  So the problem was banks wouldn't loan them any more, as there was no potential additional market for ethanol.   

So that gives you the drive for E15, expand the market another 5%, but in total volume, a 50% jump going from E10 to E15 if you did everything.  E15 would void auto warranties, BTW, save for "flex fuel" vehicles.  The EPA has said E15 okay for newer than 2000, other places I've seen 2012, but none of the car makers go along with anything higher than E10; ethanol is chemically aggressive.  Just because the fuel systems have been improved to tolerate it, doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it.

E85 has been around a long time, but as the energy drops around 40%, even people with flex fuel vehicles don't use it, because it's not 40% cheaper.  A few tuners play around with it, but I've never met anyone that uses it regularly as an ordinary fuel.  Never seen anyone using an E85 pump, in fact.

BP tested bio-butanol for awhile, it has advantages over ethanol, it isn't hydroscopic and could be put in pipelines.  They dropped their research, I never heard why.   Maybe too much ethanol entrenchment in production?

Jim_in_Iowa:

Having issues with the photo, it shrank and rotated somehow.

 

I love that someone found it necessary to mostly remove the "I Did That" - Biden sticker from the 89 R+M/2 selector 

Mike

918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T

Good eye! 

Whoopsy:

Hehe, noted! You guys lived in those states in questions so will be experts! 

So something like this?

No plans yet, but if I do have the time, I will stop by every one of you guys at least to have a beer or 10. 

On the return trop, I think I might want to shut across Kansas and towards Colorado Springs, Just gonna stop by and say hi with friends I made when I did the Pikes Peak. From there head north towards Yellowstone Park, always wanted to visit. Alternatively I could go all the way west to California and head back north via I5, visiting friends and family there along the way.

 

After this trip, I still have plans to do one ginormous trip that I wanted to do, covering all 13 provinces and territories in Canada and all lower 48 in one go. At least 61 pics along the way.  But will need some careful planning on routing to hit all the states. 

Wonder if Porsche might want to foot that bill or at least chip in haha. Maybe they might be more encouraged if I were to take the Taycan. But honestly I would want to do it in the Panamera turbo S. Or the Exclusive. 

Heck, I might even be open to taking a Model 3 to do it if Elon wanted to sponsor it. 

I wonder if there is a Guinness record to be had for covering all 61 states and provinces and territories in one go in the shortest time.

 

That would be an epic trip !! My automotive dream is to one day do a loop of the whole unites states in a Porsche or a Ferrari. Don’t know how yet, but I’ll get there. 

Whoopsy:

Leawood911:

Whoopsy:

So, it would seems the 918 thread had rolled off the board. Guess I am starting another one.

I was just informed of the 2022 Porsche Sports Car Together Fest at Indianapolis 2022. Over the Labour Day weekend. 

I planned on attending, with my 918. It's 3980km or whatever one way from Vancouver. With the round trip it will push my car well over 30k km.

Gives me an excuse to drive the 918 for a long trip. Been a while since the last one to Vegas and back.

 

If you hit i70 I hope you take a short stop in KC!  Stay as long as you like. 

 

Haven't decided on what route I am taking yet, but KC isn't too far off the beaten path

This 34 hour blue line that Google picked out would be much less trafficked than using I-70 through Missouri (or I-80 through Iowa-Illinois.)

I-74 going through Illinois is the least truck congested E-W route, best way to get to Indy, in my experience.

A highly recommended trip is highway 89 from Phoenix up to the Canadian border.

Whoopsy, if you haven't already made summer reservations anywhere near a national park you're probably out of luck, though if you want to spend more than seems right, Under Canvas may have some openings.

On the ethanol topic, and what point is there push back on using corn for ethanol in a high food price scenario I wonder? 
 

whoopsy, awesome that you are using your 918 like this

Corn/maize over here is not often direct food.  The main use, it goes into animal feed for livestock, mostly cattle, hogs, or chickens, or into High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  

It's also significantly subsidized and government insured, and produced in great abundance, same for soybeans.  (Subsidizing healthy vegetables would be far better for the population.)  Because there's so much corn available, they need markets for it, and putting it into fuel opened up a way to use the excess or surplus, depending on how one wants to phrase it.

Carlos can likely give a long bit about how bad HFSC is for people, but it's cheap and so easy to product, it's taken over the U.S. sweetener market since around 1980.  You'll note U.S./Canada soda pop is almost all HFSC, yet cane sugar dominates the rest of the world.  That's due to the 7 companies that dominate U.S. sugar production and have tariffs installed against world market sugar.  By the late 1970s the U.S. soda pop makers got tired of paying the artificial high prices for cane sugar, and switched to HFCS, with devastating health effects.

But back to the 918 road trip, what a wonderful adventure,  and would hope to meet up if Whoopsy passes by me.