"Sorting a Franken911..." OR "Don't call it a restoration!"

[illinipo]

Hi everyone! For my first post here I thought I should ask my questions in the form of an introduction. In short, I am an engineer in the purest form and function. I daily drive a Focus wagon with silly amounts of "improvements" (camshafts, shaved head, suspension bits, swapped to manual trans and a Torsen differential, custom tuning, etc) and about 218,000 miles. I've spent the last year or two hopping up a Z4 coupe that belongs to a friend of mine for autocross competition. The class rules are a little conservative, so I've only done the basics like DA monotubes with digressive pistons and swapped out the differential. I have the suspension mapped out in spreadsheets and everything for that car... must have done about 100 alignments on it so far. So, you can see that I have wrenches for fingers, shocks in my knees, oil in my veins, and gears in my head.

Enter 911:





This car also belongs to a friend (sometimes it's all about who you know...) who inherited it from his father upon his far-too-early passing. It sat for a few years, so we got it up and running with a new battery, fresh oil, gas, and brake fluid, and some love. It was driven for a bit, then parked again when the shifter no longer engaged reverse.

About a year later, I got with the owner and replaced the shift rod bushing, shift coupling bushes, and the plastic cup on the bottom of the shifter. He says it has never shifted so well! I also found many many soft spots on the brake lines, so we put in some brand new DOT stainless lines a week or two ago. I also snugged up the front wheel bearings which were a little wobbly. Safety first! With those two quick fixes, I would say the car is now roadworthy, but there remain a lot of little things to do before it gets driven out of town or on the track.

I'm honored to help my friend keep this car running, knowing what it means to him. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mishmash of air-cooled parts, and some of the guys who worked on it previously were not the most detail-oriented... So, I need some help with identifying which parts are from what 911 (or Carrera) so we can work toward a solution without buying 10 parts that don't fit.

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I'm told it is a 1972 chassis with an '88 or '89 3.2 engine. The car is registered as a 1972, but has later body panels and bumpers, so I am REALLY confused here. Can I verify the engine's age and displacement with any casting markings or serial stamping? How about the chassis body panels? Suspension parts? The biggest challenge in this car for me is figuring out how old everything is!

It has 16x7 and 16x8 wheels that appear to be cast Fuchs replicas. How can I verify an original, authentic Fuchs wheel? Or maybe the brand that these wheels are?

There are 25mm spacers up front and 50mm in the rear to get these wheels to fit over the brakes and sit flush with the wheel wells. The brake rotors and hubs seem upgraded, but the calipers seem original. Is there a brake resource/repository that can help me identify the various air-cooled brake setups?

I was able to verify that it has a 915 transmission. What I don't know is the year of the transmission. Can I verify it in the casting? I know the transmission did not come with the 3.2 since 88-89 were G50 cars. The genius that put in the 3.2 bent the throttle rod so that it contacted and tore the inner CV, so I need to know what year the trans/axles are to order the boot kit from Pelican.

This 915 also needs the shift rod seal and shift fork cover plate gasket replaced. I'll check the tightness of the shift fork when I pull the cover off.

Another genius went ahead and pinched the oil cooler supply line in several places. We already bought a rocker panel jack pad to prevent more of this. The motor still has reasonable cold/hot/idle/cruise oil pressures and the oil temp never goes past halfway on the gauge, so this is a minor concern that eventually needs taken care of. Is there an alternative to the $500 line at Pelican that does not involve sweating copper lines? The owner is not interested in that type of thing. Should I expect to have to break and replace the thermostat during this job?

There is an oil leak from the oil level sender gasket, and another at the right side lower valve cover. Typical air-cooled leaks from what I can tell, and easy fixes with new gaskets and hardware.

This car has the 83-89 cabriolet center engine mount. Is it worth it to replace the damper and center rubber piece, or should the owner save up for a solid mount crossbar? Will the solid crossbar even work in a 911 cab?

The left side exhaust collector has an O2 sensor in it, but the wires are all clipped! How does the DME control the AFR? Is there another O2 sensor? Or, is this thing just running open loop at all times because of the clipped wires? Can I datalog the DME without special equipment?

Now, onto suspension. I assume it has the factory torsion bars, and I'm having troubles convincing the owner to go stiffer, or at least newer. Another genius (maybe the same one?) set the left rear ride height about an inch lower than the rest of the car... And that tire rubs quite a bit. I have scales at home, so I plan on taking care of this and a corner balance next time I have the car in my possession. It seems like setting rear ride height is a simple yet tedious task. At that time, I will pull the torsion bars out for inspection and measure them to see what they are. It should also be fun figuring out how the two alignment bolts work on the rear trailing arm. I love a good challenge

It also needs a strut tophat on the right side, the bushing is really worn. Left side was obviously replaced recently. The car appears to have the original black Boge struts with recently replaced inserts, but is there any other way I can verify that? Two or three of the shocks are leaking oil, so the owner has chosen Bilstein Sports as replacement gear. These are pretty pricey, so they will have to wait for a bit.

My last question for now is about the exhaust flapper / noise generator in the left rear wheel well. There is a pull-cord that goes into the passenger cabin, and a spring that holds the flapper in the open position. Where does that pull-cord go?

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Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any help you can provide! I've done quite a bit of searching on my own, but hit a wall on some of this stuff since I'm not familiar with the terminology in the air-cooled world. Together we can keep this heirloom running for many more miles of smiles