PFBZ's 1985 ROW 930: Intro, Q&A, Build Thread.

[pfbz]

Greetings!

I finally have a 930 I can call my own... 1985 ROW 911 Turbo, Red over Black.

While I'm a fairly experienced water-cooled Porsche owner (currently two 996 Turbos and a 991 Turbo), and have had some brief forays with other air cooled cars ('82 SC, '79 SC), this is my first 930.

I do much of my own service work, can turn a decent wrench, but with a new platform I'm running into SO many questions! I'm pretty good at searching forums and general googling for answers, but I'm finding that there is often an overwhelming amount of chaff that needs to be sifted before getting to the wheat on cars that are a bit older than what I'm used to...

I was hoping to use this thread to document the car as it sits, discuss some upgrade options, and hopefully as a general Q&A thread for this generation of Turbo.

History as I understand it, a few details and intro photos of the car!

1985 911 Turbo ROW

[pfbz]

I like to go through older cars I buy pretty carefully and identify what needs to be sorted as best I can.

First project Alarm Wiring Removal: I discovered an old alarm system in the car... WAY too many wires, and the wiring done was just not to my standard. Fortunately, they didn't really hack up the factory wiring harness badly, just tapped in to it in a few places, largely right at the fuse-box screws. It was mostly all the downstream wiring that was done like crap. And while it took a while to track everything down and make sure added wires could be removed safely, it is now GONE. It was mostly tucked under the drivers foot board, not visible until you pulled the carpet and floorboard.

Crap removed!



Second project, Fix seat switch: Sport seats in the car, in great shape, I noticed the power lift front switch would go up, but not down.... This was one of the projects where I could find some excellent older threads showing the inner workings of the switch. Removed the switch, opened it up, cleaned the contacts, a few dabs of di-electric grease, and hopefully it will work for another 30+ years.

[pfbz]

Third project, Swap Momo wheel: The car came with a fairly decent condition Momo wheel (not sure of the exact model, something other than a prototipo, in the typical 350mm size). Unfortunately no stock wheel. I find the 350mm diameter to be too small... Not enough steering leverage plus it blocks the gauges. I replaced it with a Momo Prototipo which they started making again in 370mm. Much better!

New Prototipo 370:

[pfbz]

OK, now on to my first question...

What the heck is this switch for? It is identical to the fan switch on the lower console for the AC. I've seen it in pictures on some other 911's of this era, but it is missing (blank) on most.

I'm also missing an owners manual, and it seems to be either ridiculously hard or flat-out impossible to find a pdf version of a 1985 911 Turbo owners manual? if anyone has a pdf copy, I would be much obliged if they could possibly send it to me?

Mystery knob:

[RarlyL8]

Nice!
Interesting addition of the boxed rockers and 930S front spoiler.
The 1985 Euro has a few unique items not found in the Porsche factory manuals (I have an '85 myself). A big change came in '86 with options and wiring that was started in '85, leading to a hybrid of sorts. Which items are affected depends on how the car was optioned. To fill in the gaps you need both '83 and '86 manuals or the addendums from Porsche for the '85 manual.
Yes the 2 fan knobs are confusing. My '85 has the same setup. The knob on the console is for A/C only, the one on the dash is everything else. Yes that is an odd setup but probably no less confusing than the HVAC sliders, ha!

[JacobS911]

Congrats on the new TURBO! Nice work on getting that rats nest of a alarm outta there already!

Good things to look over. Fuel lines/Oil lines. Check for cracks. There's a guy on pelican that will make a you a set of fuel lines as well that are rated for ethanol fuels which eat old fuel lines.

I'd love to swing by this week to check her out! Shoot me a email.

And more pics pleeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

[pfbz]

quick pic from earlier today....

[flightlead404]

Beautiful car, but all non-marine internal combustion engines are air cooled, including jet engines.

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by pfbz

OK, now on to my first question...

What the heck is this switch for? It is identical to the fan switch on the lower console for the AC. I've seen it in pictures on some other 911's of this era, but it is missing (blank) on most.

I'm also missing an owners manual, and it seems to be either ridiculously hard or flat-out impossible to find a pdf version of a 1985 911 Turbo owners manual? if anyone has a pdf copy, I would be much obliged if they could possibly send it to me?

Mystery knob:

That's odd. On my US '86 that spot is for the tiny air intake used by the cabin air temp sensor for the auto heat.