Vintage Historic Racing- David Hobb’s

[Hoover]

As many of you have followed us for years; we love walking the historics at Laguna Seca every year.
I’ve often said that if I had the chance, I would love to crew one of turbo cars and put our experience to work. I think we know more about turbo race car tuning and the past years of hands-on work have been priceless.

This year I received a call to look over an historic BMW driven by Reknown driver - David Hobbs. I took the opportunity to look at the car and was asked to crew the car during this years historics. I was very happy, but could not make them any promises as I have other projects to complete.

Here are pics of 70’s turbo engineering-

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[Hoover]

This car definitely has some heritage----
I've been getting pictures from Dan Gurney's son and other driver's of that era......

[Hoover]

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I was sent this picture of Hans Schtuck and Milt Minter that raced this car in 1977.

[Hoover]

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Hobbs and Minter after the Driveshaft broke.
Circa: 1977

[doug_porsche]

From what I remember, interesting car.

Back when cars were easy to drive.

With the turbo lag, you just had to be happy with your apex, before you are even close to the apex

And then the car would gain half of its total HP in just 500 rpm. (I remember reading about some old Porsches that had approx 150 HP at 3000 RPM and close to 500 HP at 3500 RPM)
You definitely wanted the car pointing straight when the power hit.

I envy you for getting to spend time with a fun piece of history.

[Hoover]

This project was a part of IMSA/BMW history, so we
we’re excited to just see the car.

The motor will be gone through and assembled to specs that we know work for turbo cars and getting away from the on/off HP through proper turbo sizing.

One of these days you may see a picture of us at Laguna with this car and the next generation will see that this piece of mechanical history raced one more time.

Engine out by a good friend of mine that I’ve known for 30 years. He’s worked on quite a few Vintage BMW’s even though he’s retired. Attachment 10763

[Hoover]

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.........

[Hoover]

Attachment 10765Attachment 10766

We modified and refitted the intercooler.
One of the mechanics of that period told me that the intake technology of the airbox was near worthless, and was used to minimize damage to the compressor wheel. I’ve been given permission to simplify.

[Hoover]

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Same 1.5 ltr used in BMW formula Racing. History shows it made 1400hp during qualifying.
The turbo is mongo size which equals narrow power band. The owner will may allow us to put our know-how to make the power band more linear.

[Hoover]

Small world-
As you all know, this vehicle was engineered and campaigned by the lead engineer of Mclaren.
A friend of mine does know the owner/ President. I received a call yesterday from my long time friend and he said, “guess what? Mclaren’s lead engineer that campaigned the three cars for BMWMA caught wind that you were working on this car and the newer innovations and was very pleased with what he was seeing!”

In the future, we may see chassis #1 and #2 with his guidance.