Just another 1973 911 Build

[David Borden]

Ive been a long time member of Pelican, although dont post a great deal. My wife Mary and I are hardcore Porsche and car enthusiasts and Mary is a saint when it comes to car projects. Im so lucky she loves cars almost as much as I do

We have/had a few 911s, and have always wanted a long nose. While Im not afraid of a project, we didnt want to start with a total wreck either financially or with the time commitment involved. With the prices going stratospheric, it was looking our dream would remain just that.

I had been helping Tracy, a good friend of mine with his 911 build over the last several years and really loved the direction he was going with it.

A few months ago, I mentioned if he considered selling it to let us know. To my surprise, he said he was and we worked a deal we were both happy with. Thinking back, I think he was the smart one... while I have been upside down in the footwells and crawling under the car the last few months, he has been enjoying time with his family and driving a new shiny fast modern car. haha. Us car enthusiasts are an interesting lot…

The 911 is a ST tribute and at the point of assembly outside of a few more repairs. The body has been painted, and the suspension and most of the new wiring complete.

He had done a great deal of work to it over the last several years and collected a treasure of parts for it along the way. Some panels and pieces had been replaced due to rust, SC flares were grafted on and shaped to that of an ST and it was then covered in Signal Yellow paint. While Ive never been a fan of yellow cars, I really like it on this car.

Unlike my last build ( 74 911 S, What should I do?? ) where I felt obligated to keep it bone stock, which looking back was the right thing to do for the car, but not necessarily for me. It was too nice once done and I was a bit afraid of driving it for fear of rock chips or damage.

The beauty of this project, is its a 73, but not a high dollar car being a T and not having the original motor or trans. What I really wanted was a car I could drive and not worry about. I wanted a 911 hot rod that I could track and autocross and this car fit the bill perfectly.

With that said, lets get on with build

[David Borden]

Once getting the car home and doing a careful inspection, I found an area in the footwell that had some rust. The car must have had a leaky door or windshield seal and allowed some water onto the pan where it settled in the lowest part of the pan where the pedal cluster lives.



This is a bit of the fun I found…

I originally spent nearly 20 hours doing spot repairs by hand forming sheet metal and welding in them in place. I didn’t take the time I should have removing all the undercoating in the areas in question and ended up finding more metal thinned by corrosion and decided to cut my losses and all that work ended up being scrapped and I chose to remove the entire area. This was a complex repair with several stamped features that would need a perfect cut of the new panel for butt welding.

From doing research on the Pelican parts forum, I found the easiest way to do this would be to cut out the area in question. Cut the new panel a bit larger so it overlapped and after carefully aligning, fix via screws or clecos.







After cutting out most of the footwell on the drivers side, I started to fit the replacement panel. It fit well in most areas, except near the master cylinder area which would need some forming to get it all to fit.

[David Borden]

Using a body saw, you carefully cut between the overlap of the two panels, peel the metal back, align the panel and tack weld in place.





Here the panel is fully trimmed and tacked in place. Note the area near where the master cylinder mates up. We were able to get it to come together fairly well.



Panel fully welded in place. Care was taken to weld small areas and move around to avoid building up too much heat in one area.



I also chose not to grind everything perfectly flush which will remove some base material. Leaving a small bit of weld exposed ensures this wont happen. Once undercoated this will disappear.





Underside after some significant time with roloc disks and an air grinder.

More to come.

[billybek]

When you do post, you make it worthwhile.

Looks like a great project! Good work.

[Jose_JGC]

Thanks for sharing. I agree that yellow looks great in that car.
You did a good work with that panel repair, but are you sure that there are no more rusted sections ( front pan where the torsion bars attach, the inner and outer rocker panels, etc)?. It is rare to find a 1973 911 with so little rust.
Please keep posting this build. The wife is a keeper
Jose

[David Borden]

Originally Posted by billybek

When you do post, you make it worthwhile.

Looks like a great project! Good work.

Bill,

Thanks, really appreciate it!

David

[RSBob]

Very meticulous work - quite well done. I am not a fan of yellows either but yours is outstanding. Thought it was an orange derivative.

Had a 73 coupe and it was a great car. Am sure you will enjoy yours.

[David Borden]

Originally Posted by Jose_JGC

Thanks for sharing. I agree that yellow looks great in that car.
You did a good work with that panel repair, but are you sure that there are no more rusted sections ( front pan where the torsion bars attach, the inner and outer rocker panels, etc)?. It is rare to find a 1973 911 with so little rust.
Please keep posting this build. The wife is a keeper
Jose

Thanks Jose! Re other rust sections, at this point Im pretty comfortable with the tub being sound now. Rust is a major pet peeve of mine, I cant stand it. Because the car came from a friend, I know what panels have been replaced and was familiar with the car before it was painted. I also used a boroscope in both rockers, door striker and hing areas. I saw hints of surface rust here and there, but no cancer to speak of. I used a pick in several areas on the pan as well and it was solid.

Ive been investigating spraying a coating in all the cavities to add further protection.

David

[David Borden]

Here are a couple shots. One of the underside after priming and spraying with Wurth undercoating and shot of the primed and painted inside.



So on to another matter, the engine... Here she is! It is a 78 3.0 with rebuild heads, 964 cams, a re-curved distributor, updated tensioners and a few other tidbits.

There is also a brand new set of 46mm PMO's that have yet to be run. I believe these are from EBS and setup ready to roll for the 3.0.

With that said, I have always wanted to FI a 911 and happen to have a complete set of TWM ITBs that I could throw on the engine and go that direction from the start.

I have a a little bit of tuning experience on other cars/systems so should be able to pull it off if I go that direction.

If I go FI, I could just sell the PMO setup and am guessing its worth more never been run vs used?

Thoughts?

David

[Jose_JGC]

I understand that you should go FI for a faster car, but those PMOs do look great... Just a thought.

[puddy]

Is this the same David Borden from FFCobra.com?

Beauty car! Can wait to see & read more about it!

[Deschodt]

"Just another 1973 911 Build" - you crack me up.

It's superb looking project car and we love to see shiny welded bits ! Great stuff, please post more !

[CCM911]

What a cool car. You definitely know how to weld! Great color. Please keep posting.

[David Borden]

Thank you everybody, really appreciate the kind words, they are greatly appreciated. Im super stoked about the build. Ive been obsessing over this build to an unhealthy degree!

Originally Posted by puddy

Is this the same David Borden from FFCobra.com?

Beauty car! Can wait to see & read more about it!

Yes Sir, its me

If you are bored and want to read about me and a slippery slope Cobra project you can here: David's Mk4 Build Thread... - FFCars.com : Factory Five Racing Discussion Forum

David

[puddy]

Wow David thats quite a Cobra you're building, and now you're building a Porsche at the same time! You certainly did Marry the right woman!

They both look fantastic and I look forward to reading more on them both. I sold my cobra to finance the 911, but its still in the family for now, so I still get visitation privileges

[SOLO]

Love the color. Car has a good look to it!

[ej911]

When are you going to update the rear flares to match the front flares. Beautiful but looks like a narrow body rear with a turbo or ST front.

[Craig_D]

Just curious why you didn't go with ST rear fenders. They look mismatched ST front/SC rear from the pics, but maybe that's just the photos.

[David Borden]

Originally Posted by Craig_D

Just curious why you didn't go with ST rear fenders. They look mismatched ST front/SC rear from the pics, but maybe that's just the photos.

Ahhh this was to be the subject of my next post. I purchased it this way from a good friend. I am torn on what to do. Swap out the front fenders for stock and make it an RS tribute... Or buy ST real flares and deal with the pain and cost associated. I am partial to the ST look. I'm also partial to money in the bank

I could leave it as is for while as well.

Thoughts?

[David Borden]

Its been way to long for an update on this thread. I have been pained by what I wanted to do with the car between going with new ST flairs on the rear to match the front, or go with narrow body flairs up front.

We were hoping to make the decision at Rennsport this year... and we did after running across this car while roaming around. Thats all it took!





Narrow body RS clone it is...

I called Dave at TRE and ordered up fenders and front bumper. After receiving them, a great friend of mine Dan came up and helped me mount the hood and do a rough mount of the fenders and bumper this weekend. They fit OK at this point but there are some issues we are working through, mostly on the passenger fender. The drivers fender is workable from the quick test. Dave has been great working with me to make sure they fit as expected.

So here are some pics of the project so far. It doesnt feel great pulling off body worked and painted fenders for ones that need too be fitted prepped and painted, but I will be happier with the end project and this(hopefully) wont require anything more than a repaint of the fenders and bumper.









... and a bit of an artsy image



I also decided to sell the PMOs and go with AEM Infinity injection with ITBs. Its the same stand alone system that is in the Cobra, so looking forward to doing one more.

Went through the brakes, mounted the master cyl and pedal box and despite the Alum S calipers being fully rebuilt, I pulled one apart after seeing a small amount of debris in the port. Cleaned it out and have been waiting for a new O ring which has taken way to long to arrive. Will install that and mount the new rotors obtained from our host soon.

Rebuilt the rear brake calipers with new seals and cleaned up the existing rotors on the lathe which were in great shape.

In addition found a noisy rear wheel bearing so am replacing those as well. Its been tough running into these little roadblocks but in the end, the car will be safe.

Pulled the door frames, installed the new weather stripping and adjusted the doors and frames and the doors shut and thunk as a Porsche should. It still blows me away on how well the doors on these cars shut being over 40 years old. New inner and outer quarter window seals were installed along with cleaning up and or replacing some of the aluminum that was damaged from someone trying to break into the car years ago.

I will try to post some more pictures of some of the details here in the near future.

Hopefully not to many of you all think Im crazy for all the changes on the project, especially with the changes to the body...

David