My First Porsche - 86 Targa Project Thread

[mooch29]

Hello all! Been wanting to do put together one of these project trackers for a while. To keep track of everything and also to help fellow 911 owners with some handy DIY work.

Last year (2024) I bought my first Porsche. It's a 1986 911 Targa, had it shipped up to MA from Florida. Previous owner put a ton of work into it as it seems to have been a bit of a neglected car like a lot of these cars ended up. He had the 915 rebuilt, new clutch and a whole host of other engine-out maintenance items.

I wish I had more history on the car, but the sun seems to have taken its toll on some of the interior parts. This car is a full leather package car so the dashboard has curled up pretty bad, but that's one of my next items on the list.

Anyways onto pics when I first got it!

First order of business was getting rid of these awful seats that were in it. I guess one of the previous owners was really tall and needed the extra space. Ended up finding a set of driver power seats out of a 944 in PA and had a friend who lives down there just so happen to be visiting right before the car was delivered to me. He brought them up, gave them a good clean and condition and they were ready to go.

[mooch29]

Next up was the first small batch of mods and repairs/restorations. Ordered some of the euro tail light lenses, cleaned up the housings a bit and put some new seals on. They were hurtin'.







Also ordered a Focus 9 Tech DME relay and threw the current one in the glove box.



New pedal covers





and the best one yet, a Porsche Momo steering wheel

[mooch29]

The seats were overall in pretty good condition, but they had a little bit of bolster wear and discoloration. So I grabbed a $20 bottle of leather dye from Seat Doctor and went to town.

[mooch29]

Alright onto a bigger project. The door trim caps and rear window trim was driving me INSANE. The leather was peeling off, cracked, warped, and just made the interior look a lot worse than it actually was. I did a ton of research on this and really didn't want to spend $400+ per side for a new set, so I took matters into my own hands.

I ordered some fabric glue, authentic german vinyl from AASE and tried to make these look as best as I could "for now" in case I decide to reupholster the interior someday. In my previous career I used to work with vinyl, make signs and occasionally vinyl wrap. So I wasn't afraid of a little tugging. Felt fairly similar, bit less forgiving, but I made it work!

Before pics:

[mooch29]

During:















aaand back in! also got some new door lock surrounds and caps for the screws on each side







Please excuse the garage mess, I don't have a shed. I decided to buy a 911 instead LOL

[Jjm4life]

Congrats on the car. Love seeing more air cooled 911s around Boston. Driving season is just around the corner

[mooch29]

Next up, I lowered the front a little turning down the front bolts. Couldn't get the rear lower without taking it all apart (spring plates were already adjusted on the lower side of things). So I was stuck with this stance for the time being until I was ready to go down the suspension rabbit hole (I'll get to that later).



My gas cap leather was pretty much hard as a rock, but I had some leftover leather from my previous car when I did the seats over. I used to own a 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra and had the seats redone in a gorgeous red leather. So figured why not pay a little homage to my previous ride and make my own.





Also picked up a set of the CarMagic LED gauge bulbs. Massive difference, I could finally see them at night lol



Bonus pics of my old Cobra

[mooch29]

The weather finally started to get nicer (I took delivery of the car in early March), so it was time to put some miles on it. One last thing I wanted to try to fix was the glove box cover. The glue was failing, so I grabbed a few clamps, some glue and sorta successfully made it better.









Also picked up some gold crest center caps to bring a little life into the dark wheels





Continuing with the miles, I drove the car down to CT to fly out with a friend to attend the Indy 500. They have an awesome garage I was able to leave it in for the weekend.



Got caught in the rain on the way home, but all was well!

[mooch29]

Since 2017, a friend and I would attend the local "Porsche Day" at Larz Anderson Auto Museum and would always say one year we'd park next to each other here. 2024 was that year. Pretty rewarding feeling, also cool to attend with the car basically all stock knowing I wasn't going to leave this thing alone.







On the ride there, my friends wife was taking a video of my car and when I watched it back, I noticed the rear wheel had a bit of a bounce to it. I assumed it was a tire balance issue, but it ended up being bad rear struts. They were pretty shot, I knew they needed to be done as they made some noise, but didn't think they were "bounce your wheel at 75mph on the highway" bad.

I ordered up some green Bilstein's and threw them in the rear. It helped greatly while the suspension "bug" kept creeping up on me. It also raised the rear end even higher which drove me nuts lol

[mooch29]

Spent the rest of the summer just driving the car whenever I could, did a little traveling, and come Sept it was time to attend a local car show with a group of friends. We all met through the mustang world. This is where I lost all self control on my bank account and dove head first. Motivation...right?





Despite how good the car looks in photos, it really had it's fair share of dents. It badly needed to be polished, so I got a quote on some paintless dent repair and had Rob from Dent Patrol come to my house and work his magic. According to one of the old listings on this car, a child thought it was a neat idea to take a hammer to the front left fender

Some before pics, this isn't even all of the dents either but you get the idea!









The car came out fantastic. It felt like a new car to me now that dents were no longer catching my eye every time I walked by it:

[mooch29]

Next up were a few front end upgrades. I really wanted to switch over to the H4 headlights, so I placed an order for some 9Haus Bi-LED Headlights with the fluted lenses. I replaced the seals while I was in there, my goodness I never thought 1 screw would fight me so hard. I ended up needing to trim back the new seals to get these things to fit. Not a 9Haus problem, but a common problem switching to any H4 lights. But once the seal was trimmed back, they were able to go in with a bit less of a fight.




dent-less hood is nice!



Also, my fog light brackets were completely broken somehow and they were held in by zip ties. I honestly prefer the look of no fog lights on these cars for some reason, so I decided to make some fog-delete screens. Whipped up some templates and was able to mount these to the bumper. Much cleaner look IMO!

[mooch29]

One of my good friends offered to help me bring some new life to this tired black paint. So him and I planned a weekend to stay over and bring this black back to life. Before I went over there I clay barred the car and removed the 2 really crusty fender seals.







steak & wine break








Could not believe the difference. We ceramic coated the car with Gtechniq Crystal Serum and EXO V4.

[mooch29]

The car really felt as if it was coming along to me. and it was! Another thing I wanted to address was getting rid of the Pirelli tires and Maxlite reps it came with. I stared at this thing for hours trying to figure out why I didn't like the wheels, and it turned out, the front spokes on the Maxlite reps are very flat and thick toward the center caps. Once I figured that out, I couldn't unsee it. I ended up ordering a new set of Euromeisters for it and a set of Yokohama AO52's.

Before wheels/tires, new seals!














now we're talkin

[mooch29]

Next up, a couple more exterior "restorations"

One of the vent strips on the whale tail was cracked and was poorly touched up to hide it. So I grabbed some bondo and attempted to be a body repair guy for a day. I used SEM Trim Black, what an absolutely amazing aerosol paint. Not perfect if you're looking at the bondo job up close, but I could not be happier with how the paint turned out. Also took the time to respray the hood vent while I had the paint going.

[mooch29]

And finally, to wrap out updates for 2024. The suspension bug has bit me. After hours and hours of research, I finally settled on a setup:

26mm rear torsion bars
Rebel Racing Spring Plates
OEM replacement sway bar bushings
21mm front torsion bars
930 turbo tie rods
Rebel racing RSR bushings
Rebel strut brace
Bilstein shock inserts
Steering rack spacer (bumpsteer)

I was only able to get the rear done before the weather got too cold here. My garage is basically detached from my house, so it got cold in there quick.







Got the rear all done, it fought me a little, learned a ton. What an incredible difference in ride alone just with the rear alone!



It was getting far too cold, so I put some stabilizer in the tank and topped it off for one last fill-up of the year. Tucked the car in the corner of the garage, covered it, unhooked the battery and into hibernation it went.

[mooch29]

Finally caught up to today. I turned the rear spring plates down a touch more to really get the stance where I wanted it. Also, tiny $10 update, I replaced the peeling AC sticker on the motor.

I have a special photoshoot I need to do with the car next weekend, but once that is all wrapped up, the car is going back in the air to take the front all apart and install the new suspension goodies. Very excited for that!

[brighton911]

Lookin' mighty fine Mooch !

[dictoresno]

love it!!

[nospiners]

Beautiful Black Targa , thats driven , not a garage queen ,congrats !!!

[Otter74]

Nice work! I feel you on the wheels. I have Italian replica Fuchs on my car and I got them for a reason but the different profile of the petals still annoys me.