not to mention his kids braces and college education :p

Nah...I know better than to show up on those days.

Well, I take a little more than an hour, but I never said I don't do my own. :)

Perhaps some aren't mechanically inclined, perhaps they don't enjoy working on the cars, perhaps they don't have the time, or maybe they make $200 / hr themselves & it's more cost effective to have someone else do it.

Me? I was just offering a thought on the subjekt. :D

Well put, Fred. It's a relative thing, 4sure.

I remember (at 16 years of age) being shown how to properly adjust VW valves...my ex-father-in-law was heavy into VW rebuilds. I spent so many hours with this guy, building everything from ground up...all of it, for the most part, above my head at the time,..and certainly all forgotten, by now. Man, he was detailed in his work habits.....THIS, I learned from him )the anality, I guess.

Then, comes the 911,..a year ago. My first engagement with the valve adjustments really brought back those memories, albeit different angular approaches were used. STILL I wasn't comfortable (just yet) with my final adjustments,...and feel was the very question at bay. Drag,..feeling drag.

I just need to get with someone who can engage the process with me (with assessment and guidance),...guage my "feel".....THEN, I'll be ready to go. I'm just very conservative with this engine's service, when it comes to my "engine expertise" and choose to engage the pros,..not taking ANY chances whatsoever. In addition, when my schedule doesn't permit my attendance to ANY service matter,..you can bet that she stays on schedule, regardless,..and I'll engage my P-wrench right away....I can afford it (or, better said: I budget it).

I've yet to engage the backside method but it does make perfect sense......I prefer to translate the math VERY purely but STILL Racer's work has proven it's point. And an interesting one. As many have had correlative success,..others had issues and retreated to the German's methodologies. Go figure?

Bottom line? Just as MANY have stated within this thread, you have to DO it and go through the processes of "arrival". You WILL land in the right spot,...learning it the right way, in the end,..hopefully NOT at the expense of adjusting just one a bit too tight............................................. .................................................. .....

(and ever so quietly tight)

On to the backside correlation.............very cool!

Best,