993 wiper position

[stocksie]

I have a 98 993 2s right hand drive. The wipers at rest sit right in my line of sight and i can not see the raised torpedo style light/front wing on the right hand side. Is it possible to move these so they sit at rest on the left hand side of the car ie out of my line of sight?????

[Don Plumley]

Two ways - one is to remove the intermittent wiper relay. The other is to reverse the wipers, shown here for a lhd car: http://p-car.com/diy/wiper/

[phelix]

Just be aware that with the blades no longer resting on the portion of the screen in front of you every time they complete their wipe and return to base the water they pushed down will get blown back up into your line of vision by the air flow. No big deal if the wipers are on constantly but annoying if they're on intermittent or you use the screen wash.

[aigel]

993 wipers are special and their positioning and spacing were carefully designed by the factory:

http://www.elfer-gtr.de/p993.htm

The water will be pushed off the wipers after they complete the stroke, further aiding keeping the windshield clear.

In summary, do you think Porsche would have put the wipers in your face if they would have been just as well off on the passenger's side???

George

[Eric86Red911]

Lol, I simply pulled my wipers off and moved them and ditched the intermittent wiper relay. No more wiper blades in my face. I couldn't be happier!

Since then I've driven in the rain and it's no biggie whatsoever.

[phelix]

You must have done something else otherwise when you turn the wipers on they'll go from the right side of the car and try to clean the front lid. Or did I miss something?

[Eric86Red911]

Yeah, sorry that was a horrible post. If you pull the relay, you can then park the wipers on the right manually. So you simply turn off the wipers exactly when they're on the opposite side. But they're not exactly flush, so you need to remove the wipers and turn them a bit so that they're nice and flush when parked. So you lose intermittent wipers, but you can keep them out of the way.

[Leo O'Farrell]

Hi George,

Is this site only in German? My HS language classes can't help me here, but it looks to be good info. What is said about the wipers?

Thanks.

Leo

Originally Posted by aigel

993 wipers are special and their positioning and spacing were carefully designed by the factory:

http://www.elfer-gtr.de/p993.htm

The water will be pushed off the wipers after they complete the stroke, further aiding keeping the windshield clear.

In summary, do you think Porsche would have put the wipers in your face if they would have been just as well off on the passenger's side???

George

[aigel]

The page discusses in detail the design considerations going into the last air cooled 911. Some of it really points to brilliant engineering. The other is a bit glorifying though. There are two sections in the page about the windshield wipers that I translate quickly and loosely below:

"Während die Windschutzscheibe ihre alte Form wahrt. liegt an deren Unterkante ein neues Paar Scheibenwischer sehr viel unauffälliger als bisher in der Ruhestellung. Die Wischerblätter parken weiterhin links vor dem Fahrer in Hab-Acht-Stellung, um gegebenenfalls blitzschnell für freie Sicht zu sorgen. Aber sie drängen sich nicht mehr so auffällig ins Blickfeld. Die Drehpunkte der Wischerarme rückten dichter zusammen. Dadurch ist nicht nur ein anderes, vorteilhafteres Wischfeld entstanden, die Wisch-Qualität wurde wesentlich besser, weil 80 Prozent der gesäuberten Fläche von beiden Wischern in unmittelbarer Folge bestrichen wird. Sowohl die Arme als auch die Blätter der neuen Wischer zeigen die Eleganz aerodynamischer Gestaltung, deren Ziel es ist, den Auftrieb bei hohen Geschwindigkeiten zu unterbinden."

While the shape of the windshield remained the same there is a pair of new windshield wipers at it's the bottom edge. The wipers are more inconspicious in the resting position as before. The wiper blades still park on the left in front of the driver and are ready to go to clear the vision in a split second, should the need arise. But they are not as obvious in the field of vision any more. The points of rotation of the wiper arms are now closer together. This does not only lead to a different, improved wiping area, the wiping quality also improved significantly because 80 percent of the cleaned area is swiped by both blades immediately one after the other. The arm as well as the blades of the wipers follow the principle of the aerodynamic design which has the goal to eliminate lift at high speeds.


"Vollkommen neu ist die Wischeranlage des Porsche Carrera, die in Anordnung und Leistungsfähigkeit auf ein beispielhaftes Niveau gebracht wurde. Die Achsen beider Wischerarme liegen dicht nebeneinander in der Mitte der Windschutzscheibe. So ist einmal gewährleistet, das rund 80 Prozent des Wischerfeldes doppelt, also kurz nacheinander, von beiden Scheibenwischern bestrichen werden. Das nützt bei starkem Niederschlag mehr als jede noch so hohe Wischergeschwindigkeit.

Zudem macht sich die neue Wischeranordnung die grundlegenden Erkenntnisse der Strömungslehre zunutze, indem die Scheibenwischer weitgehend in der Richtung der Fahrtwindströmung über die Scheibe geführt werden. Somit wird Wasser mit Unterstützung des Fahrtwinds zügig hinweggefegt und nicht auf der Scheibe hin und her geschoben. "

Completely new is the wiper assembly on the Porsche Carrera, which has been brought to an exemplary level both in geometry and performance. The axes of oth arms are close to one another in the center o the windshield. This way 80 percent of the windshield is wiped by two arms immediately after one another. In heavy precipitation this is more effective than any high speed wiping.

In addition the wiper geometry takes advantage of new knowledge from fluid mechanics as the wipers are largely pointing in the direction of the air flow across the windshield. This way, with the help of the the air stream, water is quickly blown away and is not pushed back and forth on the windshield."

So, while this doesn't reveal any secrets there are a few things that you may loose by moving and bending wipers:

- Are the wipers still pointing in the same direction than the air flow across your windshield?
- The wipers will need some time to get over to the driver's side when you turn them on. If you get splashed by some water and need instant wiping, this may be a hazard.
- As mentioned by the above posts, the water will not be pushed down and remain there by the wipers. Instead it will come back up and get across your windshield.

I drove in the rain today and watched the pass. side carefully. I rather look at my wipers, I have to say than the little puddles that wander across the windshield on the wiper-blade free side. Loosing intermittent wipers seems pretty stupid too. Of course any water effects do not apply if you don't drive your car much in the rain. The aerodynamics still play into this, you certainly want to get the angle right, so you don't loose that 2-3 mph at top speed. (I am thinking of the rain gutter fillers and rain gutter shaving threads ... )

In the end it is your car - go nuts.

Cheers, George

[jkarolyi]

Good points above, but if you live in SoCal like I do where it rains about 10 days per year, and avoid driving the 993 on rainy days, it makes sense to move the wipers out of your line of sight. My old 3.2 Carrera had higher fender "torpedos", so the wipers never bothered me much, but on my 993 I can't see them.

I think I'll pull the relay on mine and see if I like the results.