The Porsche Weekend Summary

[84porsche]

Well, this weekend involved my local Pelican community and thought I would give you guys a rundown of the events with a few pictures.

Saturday morning - Cars & Coffee - Irvine - Met up with fellow Pelicans (450knotoffice/PRE-H20/kg911/BlueSideUp)







My beautiful P-car with her new stance



BlueSideUp had some brake issues hopefully he made it home safely. Then I went to breakfast with PRE-H20.



Then we drove the 2 P-cars to the home of 450knotoffice to sort out a few issues with my car. My car was stalling at idle and idle was dropping to about 600 rpm. 450knotoffice looked at a few different things and discovered that the likely culprit was the O2 sensor. Without the O2 sensor plugged in the idle held at 800 rpm and the engine was not violently shaking. 450knotoffice also tightened up my fanbelt as it was loose and disconnected the power to the automatic heating unit. I left his place late afternoon and drove home via the toll road and the car felt transformed without the heat, my AC seemed to work better and the throttle response was so much more.

Sunday - 450knotoffice came over and we gave the 996 a little waxin love. I tried a new 3-step Mothers wax and polish process and the car looked fantastic. With the wash and wax, I think we spent a good three hours on and off making the car look pretty.







Two red P-cars together shining pretty in the shade.

[oregonmon]

Great looking red babies! But I have to say the oldie is the goodie. Nice of him to lend a hand with some issues though.

[slodave]

Looks nice Chris. I'm proud to say that I am working hard on giving oil back to mother nature! My cousin and I met up with another guy and his friend this morning and did a little driving. Towards the end, we switched cars - I drove his 997 and he drove my 911. I was able to look at the rear of my car and I have a little stream of oil that creates a trail down the freeway . Anyway, your cars look very nice. I'll be posting a thread on my leaks a little later.

Dave

[450knotOffice]

Awesome pics, Chris. Guys, Chris has to take just about all of the credit for the beautiful polish on my 996. I was basically the hired help here doing as he told me. Chris really knows how to pull the brightness and shine out of these cars. Great job Chris!! Btw, Dawn said her car is next.

I was glad to work on Chris' car on Saturday. I absolutely love working on these cars and basically any excuse I can get to get my hands on another Porsche I take. Chris had been complaining that his heat had been dribbling into the cabin for quite some time and during the hot season it was becoming almost unbearable in the cabin with his shirt and tie on. We basically diagnosed his system and found that the automatic system had been tampered with and basically screwed up royally by the previous owner. About the only thing we could do was unplug the unit from it's power source which disabled the (continuously running) engine heater fan and the (also continuously running) footwell blowers. He told me today that his AC was actually able to cool the cabin again, for a change, which was a welcome relief for him.

His O2 sensor started acting up on him a few weeks ago and was basically causing his idle to be erratic and slow to the point of stalling frequently at lights. Unplugging it allowed the idle to be rock steady at the proper RPM, with and without the ICV in the loop (which we also removed and he cleaned - it was filthy inside). Plugging the O2 sensor back in brought back the poor idle issues so we unplugged it once again and I told him that he could run like that until he felt like ponying up the $138 for another three wire O2 sensor with the Carrera plug if he didn't mind the drop in fuel mileage. I asked him today how the car felt and he said the car has never run smoother. He liked the better throttle response and low end power. I think his faulty O2 sensor was causing his engine to lean out too much.

It was great to see Alex and Kelly again yesterday. Both are class acts and a lot of fun to be around. Alex has got a keen sense of humor with a really subtle delivery. Alex came by yesterday and helped out a bit with the idle issues Chris was having and then helped as all three of us fished around with a flashlight trying to find a nut Chris dropped onto the engine fan housing and underneath the intake runners - after I told him not to drop the nut. Dohh!!

Anyway, it was a good Porsche weekend with my fellow Pelicans, guys who I consider my best friends. Also, Chris, thanks for all of the TIVO info (I've had it for years but the current box is acting up big time and Chris gave me tons of good insight on how to handle the issues I have).

[450knotOffice]

Oh, and oregonmon, I've got an oldie myself. She's my baby, but she's getting a new flywheel this week.

[BlueSideUp]

Hey guys, good to meet up with you this weekend. I wish the circumstances could have been better for me but it all turned out OK. For those that weren't there....

I was exiting the freeway and realized I had very little braking power. The pedal is usually rock solid but it felt like stepping on the pedal in my old Lincoln Town Car. With some down shifting I was able to make it into the parking lot at the Premier Auto Group and found a leak at the right rear caliper.

At that point I decided to check out the cars and work on it later.

Here are the pics...

The new 7s and 9s look sweet!


I think this is the best angle of the 996, it really looks nice!







Somehow this is the only pic I have of the RS



Sweet bug!



So after meeting up with Alex, Chris, Kelly, and Scott we all talked for a bit, then Scott gave Chris some advice on his idle problem. Alex had some brake fluid in his car so we headed over to where I parked for a little trouble shooting. Kelly pulled out his very nice tool kit and I discovered the hard line was leaking at the right rear caliper. I quickly figured out that I wasn't going to be able to fix it without my tools from home. My sister-in-law picked me up and I returned later with my wife.



Once I had it jacked up and on a jackstand I was able to look a little closer. I discovered that the bottom caliper to trailing arm bolt had come loose and disappeared! Obviously the vibration had stressed the hard line causing the leak. I was just lucky both bolts did not disappear! It did give me the opportunity to use my AAA membership for the first time.

The flatbed showed up within 20 minutes of calling and the car was home within an hour. I haven't had time to get under the car since my lugnut key seems to have grown legs. Tomorrow afternoon I'll have time to start working on it, hopefully I can find a source for the caliper bolt. I'm going to replace all of the outer hard lines and redo the locktite on all of the caliper bolts.

Thanks you guys for all the help, Bentley and I really appreciated it!



Did you guys do all that buffing by hand? The cars turned out great!

[450knotOffice]

Yup! The forearms are a bit sore this evening. It was worth it though. No swirls at all. None.

Sorry I couldn't stick around yesterday, btw. I needed to get home asap. Heck, I even missed the breakfast I usually have with the guys afterward.

Come on by with the car one of these days and we'll wrench on the cars and chit chat about Porsches and RJ's (old 911's always need something done, right?). By the way, your car looks great! I'd forgotten how nice that color is.

[BlueSideUp]

Ain't that the truth! It always seems like there is something to do on these cars, it's all part of the love right? That would be great to hang out and shoot some bull.

[Wickd89]

Great pics!!

Which I was there. Maybe in September when I get back...

[Wickd89]

Wish....... ;-)

[Wickd89]

Check out my daily driver this month:

[450knotOffice]

Whoo Hoo, Luis! Awesome wheels! What is that?

[Wickd89]

Hi Scott,
This is a Renault Scenic. It is a 5 seater but has two extra seats in the trunk area. My inlaws rented for us while we are in Switzerland.
I am considering renting a pcar for a day to go to Germany (6 miles away) B but a boxster is around 300euro a day, 996 around 700, 997 around 900: I can even rent a Carrera GT for 3500EUR a day. Should I? I would have to be nuts to spend that kind of money for one day...

I am staying in Elgg, Switzerland which is around 30 miles outside of Zurich. Nice horse riding community that is pretty relaxing. Should return back to the states a new man!

take care, luis

[Don@ModBargains]

Where are these meets that you guys go to usually posted up at? I live in Irvine too actually, heh.

[Zef]

Very nice pics guys...Thanks for sharing...!

[oregonmon]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

Oh, and oregonmon, I've got an oldie myself. She's my baby, but she's getting a new flywheel this week.

B..E..AUTIFUL!!! THe polished with black Fuchs look sweet on that cab.

[450knotOffice]

Every Saturday morning at 7AM (except next Saturday due to the Monterey Historics coming up) the Premier Auto Group (PAG), which is Ford's design studio I believe and is run by a car enthusiast, opens up their parking lot for a two hour gathering of exotics, classics, antiques, hot rods, drag cars, one-off concept cars, etc. The parking lot is always full to the brim with literally hundreds of these cars and probably a 500 to 700 people milling about. It's a great way to see some amazing machinery. The gathering replaced the old Crystal Cove gathering when they got run out of their old traditional meeting place in Laguna Beach about a year ago.

It's called Cars and Coffee, Irvine. It's spawned other gatherings like it in other parts of this country too.

It's at the Alton exit of the 5 freeway. Here's the address and a google map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=7905+gateway+blvd.,+irvine,+ca&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=33.659282,-117.74713&spn=0.015681,0.029182&z=15&iwloc=addr

[PRE-H20]

well i thought i would chime in myself.

saturday turned out to be a great day..... hooking up with the fellas in the morning then getting some breakfast with chris and bull****ting, then off to scotts was just what i needed on a nice hot saturday afternoon.

scott it super cool of you to help with all the stuff you know about our cars... i remember when you 1st got your cab and the enthusiasm you had then... now 3 p-cars later your energy is even higher..... cool stuff.

wow, chris you did a great job on scotts 996!.....

glad we were able to help a pelicanhead in need, the brakes were kinda a serious thing there..... i remember when i went down with a clutch issue on one of our 1st runs when the socg 1st started.... 4 guys stayed back with me as i hobbled home... i will never forget that..... that was awesome.

so lets plan a garage hangout day one of these days...... erica said will cook for us if we do it at my house!

[azasadny]

Beautiful cars! Looks like you guys had a great weekend!

[84porsche]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

Alex came by yesterday and helped out a bit with the idle issues Chris was having and then helped as all three of us fished around with a flashlight trying to find a nut Chris dropped onto the engine fan housing and underneath the intake runners - after I told him not to drop the nut. Dohh!!

Well I went to Sears today to buy one thing and came out with a few interesting devices, one of which I used at Scott's last week which inspired me that I need to buy one of my own. And in less than 5 minutes of looking on a cool engine, of course, I found the missing nut jammed under a hose. This thing is pretty cool, it even has an LED light on.



There is hope for me yet.