Leaving Boulder City I got into some stop and go traffic and started to realize that the car was stumbling a bit when taking off from a stop. It got worse, and the engine may have started to heat up. I pulled over at a gas station and did a search on my laptop for an independent Porsche mechanic. I went with the first result I got on Google, and drove the car to the north end of LV.
In a very Peter Egan-ish moment, I met a great guy - Cal - who had cut his teeth at one of the first Florida VW dealerships, then went to Porsche when they were still selling 356's. He had a lot of great Porsches stories and we talked for some time. What a treasure.
I told him the symptoms and my suspicions of timing/points, and he whipped out a business card and drug it through the points contacts, removing some black film. He said he had done enough points in 911's to eyeball them, and that they needed to be set. He did so, checked it with a dwell meter (they were dead on) and we started it up. It ran like a top for 4 hours straight through the desert to home. So I guess Egan's comments over the years about breakdowns and the people you end up meeting are true!
Sorry so wordy - anyways, drove 1073 miles and burned 48.7 gallons of gas and one quart of oil. 22.03 mpg - is that possible? (Edit - found another receipt - make that 60.4 gallons or 17.76 mpg.)
It was a great trip, but it's also good to be home.
