The Ninemeister

Domster and Iguana take a trip oop north to meet the Ninemeister, Colin Belton

In Domster’s World, you need a good reason to travel beyond Bicester. A track day perhaps. Or kicking tyres at Stratstones with Derestrictor. But when ninemeister invited Iguana and myself deep into flat cap country to sample the delights of his 400bhp 993RS road/race car at Oulton Park, there was no hesitation. Iguana cancelled the driveway he was going to re-tarmac, fed the dog guarding the caravan, and got his Sunday best off a nearby washing line, whilst I got out a map to see where Oulton Park was.

Colin has been a friend of the PistonHeads Porsche Forum for well over a year, supplying welcome nuggets of technical knowledge to people like me, who think a flat six is what lies between Peter Andre’s pectorals and posing pouch. He is also a well respected Porsche technician and tuner, with his previous outfit (930 Motorsport) well known to anybody who has attempted to liberate more than a chip’s worth of power from their Porsche. He’s also a nifty driver, often winning the odd sprint in the world of Porsche racing. Besides, I had never been to Oulton Park before and it is a legendary little circuit, so the 400 mile round trip on the UK’s cruddiest motorway (the M6) was a small price to pay.

Gone for a Belton

993RS We gatecrashed an Easytrack day to ride with Colin in his 993RS road/race car, but as none of us had met Colin before and he wasn’t by his car, finding him proved a problem for the first half hour. The lizard and I busied ourselves by watching the cars from the pit straight and admiring the assorted track machinery. It was wet, so most cars were circulating relatively cautiously, although a Rover SD1 was one of the quicker cars out (obviously some kind of purpose built track slag) and a racing GT3 was making mincemeat of most of the field.

Eventually, at lunchtime (good burgers by the way, but no pies), we saw someone Iguana recognised as being a bit Beltonesque, according to some long lost pic in 911 and Porsche World. Wearing a Jordan cap and with no 9M branding, I was half-convinced it was Eddie Jordan, but when he went back to the 993RS we knew we’d got our man. After signing on as passengers (£5 each!) Colin took both of us out for a decent session each.

Cheshire’s Mini Nurburgring

Oulton Park is a glorious circuit, undulating and with a good mix of corners. It reminded me very much of a mini-Nurburgring, as it has a compression like Fuchsrohe (on the approach to Deers’ Leap) and a banked corner in the same mould as Karussel, plus little run off as it twists its way through some characterful scenery. In the dry, you wouldn’t want to come off, and in the wet it could be quite dangerous for the unwary. Not a beginner’s circuit in my opinion, but one that must be experienced at least once – just like the ‘ring.

993RS

Colin was taking it easy as the 9M 993RS is a bit of a handful in the wet with up to 400 normally aspirated bhp going through its Clubsport chassis. On the day it was running 390bhp or so through cats and a quiet-ish exhaust system, but that is still a good 90bhp above normal. However, when he did drop the anvil, the effect was impressive. Once the tyres have grip, acceleration is very impressive, backed up by a wonderfully un-smothered growl from the 3.8 litre engine.

993RS

Wet handling shows up any vices, but the 993RS was really only suffering from a lack of traction (Colin had swapped to road going S02s when it started raining instead of Pirelli P Zero Cs). To a layman like me, there seemed to be a whisker of understeer on initial turn in if the car wasn’t set up on the throttle first, but for 99% of the time, the balance of the car was very neutral, and could be cleanly adjusted by using the acclerator.

We reeled in the Rover SD1 (a faster car than we’d both imagined!), but the race GT3 wasn’t circulating. In any case, Colin and his 9M 993RS seemed to be one of the quickest cars out there.

Onto the Teameister

The day ended early due to an incident (when the tractor goes out as well as the tow truck and ambulance, you know it’s serious), so with a few minutes spare, Iguana and I tracked down the owner of a PistonHeads stickered car in the paddock: a white Chimaera owned by none other than whitechimp500.

He was there with a pal in a Honda Civic Type R, and meeting up with them was a real pleasure and reminded me how good the PH community is. We chatted for ages about life on PH and about the conditions on track, before Colin was ready to leave. “Would you like to come back to my place for a bite to eat, before I show you the new premises?” asked Colin. Now, if you’ve ever met Iguana you’ll know that leaving something edible in his proximity is about as safe as asking Robbie Williams to chaperone your girlfriend, so the decision was a made for me. Besides, I had heard about Colin’s new premises, but never seen them.

Colin’s missus, Sarah, is the Teameister… and the Cakemeister, and the Cheese-on-Toastmeister. What can I say? Northern hospitality at its best. Thank you for having us, family 9M.

993RS

With another cup of tea on the way, Colin showed Iggy and I some computer simulations he uses for engine tuning, and although the lizard was following the plot better than me, the revelations were startling. I like a man who loves his job, and Colin loves tuning engines, no question. He isn’t a reseller, who markets an engine tuning package that they send away to get fitted. He isn’t a chip tuner, who fiddles with some code and liberates a little power. He’s a bona fide engine scientist, who will spend weeks analysing data or experimenting with a flow bench.

The 9M Revelations

Ninemeister The evening contained a startling revelation. Using an engine simulation programme, Colin demonstrated that some 911 engines are overtuned in some areas when they leave the factory, and that tuning the engine across the board won’t result in gains. Indeed, he even explained that some people spend thousands on modifications that result in little or no extra horsepower. Colin’s trick is to tune the engine selectively and leave some bits standard, or even take them off other 911 models. This novel approach explains why Colin has found large gains in a normally aspirated 993RS engine, when other tuners using a more orthodox approach find that 340bhp or so is the maximum.

We were also given a tour of 9M’s Warrington premises, which are situated on an industrial estate that can only be described as coming straight from Get Carter (the film not the 996tt owner) or a Long Good Friday. Poncey southern industrial estates have nothing on this one, with their fancy cladding and electric roller doors. This is the real deal, next to a container yard, with arches under railway lines filled with big puddles (and probably long lost business associates).

But what potential… 9M’s new premises are massive, even though they aren’t ready at the moment. When finished, 9M will be in possession of a world class restoration, tuning and servicing facility. Oh, and the different areas will be painted in 9M’s corporate colours: Maritime Blue, Mint Green, Speed Yellow and Rubystone Red. That’s right, the RS colour palette.

You can’t help but like the man

If you just want a chip and filter, there are many outfits who can help. If you want to have your engine scientifically, carefully and lovingly tuned, there are few people to turn to, and few nicer than Colin Belton at 9M racing. The work isn’t cheap though, but your money isn’t going to a middle man – Colin does the work himself, so he should be cheaper than agents for, or resellers of, tuned engines.

www.9mracing.co.uk / 01925 242342

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rob.e

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