Pelican Parts Forums - I finally own an early 911!My story,my build(?) and more(+some really cool 911 shots)

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I finally own an early 911!My story,my build(?) and more(+some really cool 911 shots)

I own a Porsche 911.

http://i.imgur.com/2U1rTeF.jpg

I know that the above statement doesn't mean much here. A lot of people in this board owned/built multiple examples and some of them are true masterpieces(fuelling the daydreams of many others including me). But I'm pretty sure there are people like me that lurked for years, reading the cool build threads, researching and hoping one day they could actually do it. For these people, and anyone that might find it interesting, I'll try to elaborate.

I come from a completely different background. For me an auto mobile has to be cheap, reliable, fun on the track, bearable as a daily driver but more importantly has to be rewarding to drive. I found all of that on the shape of a Mazda Miata and through years and slow steady steps I ended with...MY miata:

http://i.imgur.com/c7tQRYV.jpg

My miata isn't actually unique(everything is bolt on/off the self) but at ~200hp/930-950 kg isn't slow either. It has worked for years as a reliable daily driver, travelled through half Europe, has a ton of track miles and most importantly through the vast after market options available for the sublime chassis evolved to be the car that tick all the boxes. All my boxes at least because for most people it looks like a...****box(and isn't exactly cheap either)!

http://i.imgur.com/V2jWzeW.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XJdSmFP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ugbQ30m.jpg

Problem was that in the last couple years I had the luck to work to a pretty nice place...the Nurburgring! A place that Porsche were always cool. Before RWB, before the hotrod R-Grouppe cars, before Chris Harris praising the brand, before Singer, before Magnus Walker. A place where 911 GT3s are more common than VW Golfs and apparently the place that a 911 is and will always be...relevant. That meant constant exposure to some of the finest examples of the 911 range. Everything from iconic old racecars, to perfect restorations, to amazing trackday cars, to some of the fastest racecars of today. Daily.

You can't complain about life at the 'Ring but it was probably the catalyst. What made me going from 'I want a 911' to 'I need a 911'. It was probably after my visit to the Porsche Museum at Stutgrat -a thing that EVERY Porsche fan should do- that I left knowing that in the immediate future I'd do something really stupid.

http://i.imgur.com/3pAKdy5.jpg

That thought proved to be prophetic. It took some time and more than one stupid thing(including a loan) but I had my 911 budget. With the money in hand being in...Germany I thought finding the 911 I so much wanted wouldn't be that difficult. Well I was in for quite a surprise. Apparently I wasn't the only one that wanted an early 911. Porsche's marketing machine for the 50 years of 911 plus all the internet exposure fuelled by customizers, collectors and builders meant that the cars were now also a collectable item. Early longhood cars super expensive, the 930 turbo that I loved as a kid super expensive even the less desirable cars were getting out of reach. That 10,000 or 15,000 Euro bargain 911 that used to exist was a thing of the past. Prices kept raising almost monthly and the possibility of finding the...'right' car was getting slimmer and slimmer.

And then the right car appeared. Without even knowing that I was actively looking for one, a good friend shared with me a sales ad from a greek website about a car that ticked most of my boxes. It wasn't 'correct' and it was in a rough shape but was a car that was raced locally and had already some of the 'go-fast' stuff that I wanted. Of course it was also a little bit out of my budget and the seller was...quite a character. After 2 or 3 months of negotiations we actually found some common ground. I wasn't sure if that was the worst or the best decision in my life but I now was the owner of an old 911!

http://i.imgur.com/du6Zq2j.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0OfNqIx.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gNZ3ra1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BeSuiOK.jpg

So what exactly did I get?

The car was originally 1971 2.4 911 coupe. Sometime in the '80-90s has undergone a full '78 SC conversion in Germany. Was imported in Greece sometime in the '00 and then was mildly prepped for racing. Mainly suspension and safety gear. Sometime in the recent years the 2.7 engine was replaced with a '81 3.0 SC engine and has gone through a couple gearboxes(currently spotting a relatively nice feeling 915). All the above leaves me uncertain of what I should call my 911...a '71? a '79 SC with a swap?

For all intent and purposes let's say the car is a '71 chassis with '81 3.0 SC engine/running gear. It has a stock engine(just headers and a Dansk exhaust) outputting ~200hp and it tips the scales at 1054 kg(F 404kg/ R 650kg). It has thicker torsion bars(24-30?), revalved Bilsteins, 15x8 and 15x9 Fuchs(replicas), Toyo R888 205/50 15F-235/50 15R, a rollcage and some Wevo parts.

It is awesome! It has theoretically a reliable engine that can go for miles, looks relatively cool and has a semi decent setup so it doesn't drive like a...40 years old 911!

Or it is a bastardized rusty piece of **** that doesn't even start for no apparent reason.

Both statements have a good amount of truth right now.
The next couple of months will tell...

I'll stop here the already quite long, and potentially boring, rumble and I will close with something more interesting. Some of my favourites from my 'special' 911...photo stash. Working as a photographer in cool places -I hope- translates to a cool selection of metal. Some of them are part of proper shoots others are just simple snapshots but all of them feature some cool 911 inside. Hope you enjoy!

*10 photos limit per post means a I'll have to split them

Cool! Welcome to the club.

Welcome and congrats ! Great story but even better pictures !!!

That panoramic shot at the carousel and of the sunset in front of the castle are fantastic.

Keep the pics coming :)

Welcome.

And wow!!! I love the dramatic shots.

Very much enjoyed this.

THE BEST intro post in the years I've been here.

Fantastic photos as well

Welcome to owning your very own piece of the madness.

Some of those photos are AMAZING. Keep 'em coming!

Welcome, let Sabine Schmitz drive it, she can probably show you a thing or two! Fantastic pictures and enjoy your new iconoclast. BTW hope you kept the Miata, it has attitude.

Very nice intro and outstanding pictures.
Best of luck with your 911.

Welcome to this great forum!

Excellent photos and a nice choice of 911 too. I live just 30 minutes away from the ring so I hope to see you down there at some point when the weather clears.

Enjoy!

Oh and I love the shot of the 911 safari rally car, number 41. I have actually sat in that car at the Daun Classic Rally a few years ago. A great story behind the restoration of that car and lovely owners too. ;-)

Thax for the award winning photos......Luv the 'Ring. Was past there last June....

i really enjoyed this thread, welcome to the club. Love your car, theres a big advantage to buying a some what beat up car, You can go wild with it now.

great pics btw

Congrats and welcome aboard. Post more pics please. : )

Awesome pics! Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to read more of your story.

I hope to get to drive The Ring one day, i'm pretty jealous of anyone who lives so close to it!

Cheers!

Welcome to the club. Here you will find plenty of help with your 911 and more, I did. Thanks for the photos.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat6.gif

Quote:

Originally Posted by 911SauCy (Post 8435535)

THE BEST intro post in the years I've been here.

Fantastic photos as well

Agreed! What an absolutely wonderful way to introduce yourself to the group!

Welcome!

angela

Angela said it. What a great way to explode onto the Pelican scene!

...and I love the picture of Sabine's ring tattoo ;)

Love it. I needed some new desktop wallpaper!

Welcome aboard Mythos, great pictures you posted especially of my arm & white 930 in the backround. I see you have met Ron Simons my good freind & CEO of RSR Nurburg. Drive well be fast.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome.

McLaren-TAG of course the miata is still with me, and will stay as long as this 911 thing doesn't get too out of hand(or out of...budget). Sabine is really awesome and can probably teach a thing or two to most of us that think we can drive relatively fast!

Jase77 I also intend to bring the car back in Germany when weather permits.(Not really a fan of Eifel winter!) Hope to see you at the 'Ring.

Alex, Kostas here! Happy to be here and happy(?) to actually own a 911. We now have to convince Ron to start replacing 75s with 911s! I still owe you the full res. of that shot.

Alex, Kostas here! Happy to be here and happy(?) to actually own a 911. We now have to convince Ron to start replacing 75s with 911s! I still owe you the full res. of that shot.

Jeez Kostas I was thinking this might be you. Welcome my friend glad you are in a 911, It's gonna be difficult to convince Ron to love the 911 instead of the 75.... lol Hope the leg healed up quickly for you seemed like a pretty bad break. See you this Summer at the Ring!

Mythos/Kostas,
Thanks for sharing your mad photographic skills with us here, and a hearty WELCOME to the madness!
You are indeed fortunate to find a genuine early 911 with a pedigree that is so perverted that no one can ever fault you for doing whatever you like with this fine machine. These days of 6 figure T's that's a mouthful.
I know whereof I speak as I am the current conservator of a 73 targa that was massively mechanically modified two owners back, and it's DNA is spilt all over SoCal these days. I love the car and love to drive it!!
You strike me as one who will make very interesting upgrades as this goes along. Please keep us posted....:cool:

Great photos of other cars, but I really dig your '71/'79 as well! Ducktail and 8s and 9s look choice.

I like it (your car that is)

There always will be purists that think a car like that is an abomination. Not me. If it's done to a high standard and functions to it's intent it will garner my appreciation. I come from the school of "It's not what you buy, it's what you build!"

Welcome, and I look forward to seeing it's progress!

Did you take all those shots?

Welcome Mythos,

Your intro took me back in time when I bought my current 911. I was sitting in the garage looking at the car and just thinking : This is my Porsche and nobody can take it from me.

Congratulations, and welcome! You've sure done a proper introduction post, so I look forward to your other contributions! :)

2 years ago I shipped my car to Europe and went for a great Alpine Trip. After that I kept the car in Europe with the single intent of driving it around the NRing. However during that trip I had come across some air leak issues which made my car smoke and idle funny, especially at high altitudes. After the trip I handed the car over to a mechanic a good friend has recommended. He kept it for 3 months. During this time I have booked the Euro Tunnel, 3 night at the Ring, and a Clio with an instructor. Sounded like another dream trip.

A month before my arrival I had contacted the mechanic and informed him of my arrival dates. Anyways fast forward I arrive and when I ask for my car to be delivered to me I was told that it wasn't ready. I get the car a week later, exactly the night before my planned NRing drive. I don't know what he did but basically the car was undrivable. I lost the money from the bookings and the mechanic got paid.
I would have made the trip if I hadn't given it to him :mad:

anyways this is your thread not mine but im not over it and I keep remembering the story ever time I se pictures of 911s on the Ring SmileWavy

Again thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. As for future plans I guess the right thing to do is put the proper body panels and get the car looking '71ish(with a hotrod flare?) again BUT I think I'm going another way. There is so many changes in this car(not matching everything) so I'd say it's safe to let it go wherever...it wants to go...

tips this sound really bad(everyone that has trusted other people to work on his car has been burned at least once), but your original idea was/is awesome. Driving the 'Ring with you own car is really a special experience. Living and working there I could potentially drive any time but still waited 3 months and drove the odd ~2000km from Greece to Germany to do my first laps at the Ring with my own car. Don't let it get you. If you wanted to do it, attempt it again.

cheeze all shots(except the two where I'm driving my miata)are mine.

This is probably going to be my last...rumble and then I will continue with normal updates of the progress on the car. In what follows there are probably things that people owning and driving 911s for years already know. At the same time it's information I was searching before buying and I couldn't easily find.

How does an early 911 drive?

I'll be honest here. There are much better writers and much better drivers having spoken on the subject before me but there lies my problem. A lot of the material doesn't...serve it's audience. Having worked years in publications, and ignoring the fact that there are great writers that aren't great drivers and there are great drivers that can't write to save their lives, internet sort of destroyed things. Most material these days is entertainment not information. Most material falls under 3 categories:

- Clichés. People driving cars they don't own-some times very expensive cars- that they can't or don't want to push so they end up writing about the 'special' 911 experience, the dangerous-unique handling, the special sound of the flat six, the way the door closes, e.t.c. List goes on and on. I understand this people and I'm not criticizing.
(I've read a lot that and occasionally really enjoyed a few of these articles/reviews)

- Material targeted to people already owning one or more 911s. People really knowing about what they are talking about but most of the times comparing with other 911 models. Comparing driving a 915 with a G50 equipped car. Special engine versus super special and even more expensive engine. Suspension and handling aproached as updates/improvements and actually explained.
(I love this stuff, read more than I needed for someone not owning a 911 but still left me with questions)

- Amazing drivers sliding the cars around. I love guys like Chris Harris. I can really watch him sliding early 911s(in slow mo) for hours and hear him speak even if he is just reading a restaurants catalog. True petrolhead, great driver, appealing voice and all around cool guy. This combo is awesome makes for great TV(or great web videos).

But all the above leave me an average driver, a normal carguy with questions. How does the car really drive? How it feels compared to things that I can relate?

http://i.imgur.com/ufJfGx6.jpg

This is me driving my 911 for the first time. (The irony of a shot sideways after the above rant isn't lost).

Fun fact. I never drove my car before buying. Which potentially is the worst thing to do before buying a car.

See the problem was all the Porsche cars I've driven where new cars. The cool ones. I love the new Cayman S, such a capable car. So much grip, great balance, amazing quality. If I could own only one car -and had something like a real job that pays with real money- that would be a 997.5 GT3 RS. Both examples I've driven were magic(if you ignore the strange clutch pedal that is). Let's make that one car a GT3 RS 4.0 since it's a dream anyway. Great...really great cars. Even the 'criticized' 991 GT3 is really an amazing car. The performance is so much more than what the average driver can handle and it's so accessible. (And like the journalists I described I didn't owned these very expansive cars so...I wouldn't write articles about them or give advice to people wanting to buy one)

Anyways long story short: fast modern Porsches are FAST.

But the silhouettes haunting my dreams were early bodied 911s. I've declined offers to get behind the wheel of one the very few times I could since I always believed that it would be crap. The numbers don't lie. Engine in the wrond place, engineering solutions caming from the beetle. How could it be any good?

The single thing I was afraid most when I bought my car was that I'd drive it and then suddenly understand that I bought a very very expensive metal sculpture that I'd enjoy looking but not driving.

So finally -after this huge intro- how the car drives?

http://i.imgur.com/PzDpPTF.jpg

Car drives great. Driving a relatively well sorted but not extremely modified 3.0 SC is a great experience.

It isn't unique. It understeers and oversteers like all other cars. It has three pedals, a steering wheel and shockingly decent shifter. It will not try to kill you. Actually my relatively softly sprung car with relatively tall sidewalled 15" semis was borderline friendly.

In more detail, as far as main controls are concerned(these are after all your only links with the car)everything is manual not power-assisted. I always prefer that but that by itself doesn't mean much. Steering is nice but not sublime. It is relatively light and sometimes lucks information/isn't always confidence inspiring. No surprise since the layout of the car sort of dictates that. The 915 gearbox with the WEVO shifter wasn't as bad as I was afraid it was going to be. If you want bad try a heavily used Lotus Elise/Exige. I'd take the beatiful mechanical feel of a 997 GT3 selector or even humble ones like the Honda S2000 and the MX5 one any day but it wasn't what I was afraid it would be. The engine is nice. Butt dyno agrees that it feels like 200hp car although the light weight of the car(2325 lbs) helps more than the engine. It doesn't rev high and you have to shift relatively slow but there is quite a bit of torque and the sound is characteristic so you are always reminded that this isn't a 4cylinder sports car. Now more specific to my car -and probably not all 911s- the brakes were terrible. Feel/bite and performance was actually one of the worse aspects of the car(I suspect an issue with my car so more details about that on a later update as a tackle a basic pads/discs check and do some maintenance). The handling and the actual balance of the car on the other hand was quite nice. As I said earlier for my own tastes a bit soft and maybe needs some oversteer taken out but it feels nice. It doesn't feel dated, it doesn't feel dangerous or ready to kill you. It doesn't need 'respect' or treating it a special way. It needs understanding of what the four tires are doing and what the weight is doing like...all other sport cars.

Driving an old 911 with a decent setup and modern tires is fun. Period.

http://i.imgur.com/zBt88X6.jpg

As I said earlier I don't really demand much for normal driving as long the car is fun in...dynamic situations. That said the 911 travels nice, definately not like a car from the 70s, and if you consider that my car has no insulation/interior make me even more impressed but how nice chassis it is. There is a problem though. The engine noise. Again...this has to do with my specific car, but it is a ****ing pain in the ass. My car has headers and a Dansk exhaust, looks like a quite common setup, but when the car is cold it is shocking. You can't start the car in a residential area after some time in the day shocking. When travelling the combo of the noise from the tires, no insulation, the smell of oil and gas mixed and the fact that it is loud but with no stupid drone make it work(for someone that has a tolerance to uncomfortable cars that is). However a car that makes mandatory your...driving to be timed so you don't start or return to base when other human beings might sleep isn't exactly cool!

That pretty much sums up my first impressions of the car after a couple kms and some months of ownership. It is my personal opinion about how the car feels and shouldn't be taken for more than that. I tried to be as honest as I could be. Average driver, average car and no attempts to idealize a childhood dream or rationalize a choice already made.

A smart guy with the same money would probably buy a used Cayman, add some nice rubber and a proper LSD and have a ten times better car. I on the other hand...I'm quite confident I'd do exactly the same again.

Now let's hope I'll say the same thing one or two years down the road... :)

*Since I was driving I have to thank my friend Bill for the shots of my car...

And a small video of my first drive at a local short track. Think of it like autocross or a...safe b-road since it is really tight. Driving approach is more 'trying to get a feel for the car' than actually going fast:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-B7gQFXCVvI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Kostas, great video, it is clear your time at RSR has paid off. As you said the 911 is a car that needs to be understood to be driven at the limit. Seems you are doing it right buddy. Carry on have a blast. SmileWavy
Cheers, Alexhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1421184284.jpg

Welcome! Great pictures and review of your car. They are all different indeed. I too wanted an 'old' 911 as a kid and came from the Miata world. I really enjoy my SC and I'm sure you'll have a ball with yours!

You're one hell of a shooter!

Great video and looks to be a really really fun little track!

Kostas,

'Average driver'? You're having a laugh right? :-)

I would love to have the skills to drive like that. I would be bricking it that I would stuff it into a wall and my pride and joy would be reduced to a wreck!

I think we need to get together at the ring for a chat.

Thanks again for a great post.
Jason.