Evolution of a Carrera RST

[Uwon]

Forgot to post this last year. I had intended to only drop by as it was a three hour drive to the event. Succombed to pressure from fellow club members so in it went into the judging, dust and all.



More hardware......



Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

Last days of summer are soon gone in this neck of the woods so I got up early-ish last week and drove down to the town wharf for some cool, clear pics of the RST. This one struck me as soooo right.



Added this year are Italian parking lenses with white LED DLRs- very bright to hopefully avoid future near misses. Seems that the truck faculty around here can’t see a small bright orange car-go figure.
Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

As a tribute to my unfortunate track incident back in 2009, which started this journey, my wonderful wife made this quilt for Orange (family nickname for the RST).
She started by placing some of my old rusted rotors on the wet fabric followed by indigo dying the fabric scrunched on a dryer vent tubing and then finally stenciling all the 911s made from a carved styrofoam block. As in real track days, some cars are not quite following the "proper track line". The pic doesn't really do it justice.



Cheers,
Johan

[Jonny042]

Wow that's neat!! I like the checkered border.

The RST is looking shiny and ready to go! Light at the end of the winter tunnel.....

[Brookieslayer]

The quilt is spectacular! Does she do commissions?

[Jonny042]

Maybe some Pascha?? For a challenge

[Tom Elder]

Love it, when old parts get a second life, definitely up cycled in this case, brake disc to textile print stamp. Never would have thought of that. Nice work

[Uwon]

Thank you all for your very kind comments. My wife is very creative with anything fibre and at any one time she has several projects on the go in various stages of inspiration.
Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

Last fall in a moment of weakness i acquired a ‘71 911 molested into a sort of IROC complete with turbo flares and whale tail. Odd thing indeed with only a 2.2T motor and still with the original 15” rims. It’s been dubbed the Ugly Duckling for now by family and friends. More on the Duckling sometime later.
By late February I realized that I should turn my attention to my beloved RST. I love dropping the motor just to see it, clean it, adjust this, modify that.....a labor of love.
Well, not quite! I absolutely hate adjusting the valves, unbearable with the motor in the car and slightly better with the motor out. So, two winters ago I broke down and bought the SnapGap kit which supposedly makes this horrible task easier. Well, it did especially with the motor out. What is of more significance to me is that I drove about 20k km last season and never noticed any unruly valve clatter. When I checked the valves with the SnapGap kit just this past March, ALL valve clearances were to spec. Kudos to SnapGap!




Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

Last fall Jonny042 got me interested in the Wevo GateShift and as I knew that I was going to have to address a nagging transmission oil leak, I decided that I too should instal one. The oil leak could have been disastrous as it had already found its way into the pilot bearing but not yet onto the clutch disk. Thank goodness.
The GateShift instal was a two full days effort for me, not two hours like the rather vague web instructions suggest. I clicked on the instructions and it looked like I was missing some parts. The next day I used my laptop rather than my iPad and I got a set of instructions that matched my kit. I cleared my cache and more confusion. What a disappointment!
The final straw was having to ream out the dongle holes for the pin. Fortunately Jonny042 had already posted the issue and solution. I would have thought that for the hefty price of this kit, a new pin should have been included or the holes should have been the right size.

The GateShift cover.



One way of wrestling…torquing down the big nut on the transmission.



How does the GateShift perform? A marked improvement all around. Nice precise position for every gear and no guesswork. The icing on the cake is the combination of the GateShift with the Shift Improvement Spring made by our own Karsten17 on this forum.

. Photo by Karsten17

I just love the combination!
Cheers,
Johan

[jpnovak]

I have to admit this is one of my favorite builds.

[jjeffries]

Ditto JPN’s comment.

John

[Jonny042]

x3!!!

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Mine as well and of course Jamie's and Jon's and John's... all good company.

Thanks for posting about that spring Johan, I just ordered two from Karsten. Such a nice fellow.

[Uwon]

Thanks all for your kind comments from fellow Porsche nuts . And Shaun, so good to hear from you. Hopefully we’ll meet up again next April 30th in Carlisle at the swap meet.

OK, onto next “Project”-My nicely modified but aging 7006 turbocharger was blowing a bit of smoke (again) by fall last year and since it had undergone so many rebuilds by different “experts” over some 20 years of service, I decided to retire it in place of a Garret GT35R. I was told that it was a direct replacement with a few extra parts.

Well,.......sort of.....not exactly.....HoHum……
1. The total distance from the exhaust intake bolt-on face to the face on the exhaust side is a bit longer so the turbocharger pushes the muffler and tailpipe out from the motor and off-centre towards the passenger side. All this becomes problematic on the RST as the muffler is already very close to the rear bumper centre section and the exhaust pipe is intended to stick out in the middle of the rear;
2. Bolt pattern is slightly different and the four supplied smaller diameter bolts raised my concern that the turbocharger could shift over time and not be centred to the exhaust manifold. I solved the issue by sourcing bolts with a thick “neck” portion then stepping down by 2mm for the threaded portion;
3. I extended and modified the heat shield inside the rear valance towards the driver’s side; and,
4. By far the most potentially disastrous issue was the installation of the new oil feed one way valve sitting on top of the motor in the triangle of death. I had never had this type of valve but it seemed like a good idea to prevent that puff of smoke on startup. I primed the oil feed line, turned the motor with the electronics off until I had 6 bars on the oil pressure gauge, turned the electronics back on and fired up the motor.......no oil coming out of the bottom of the turbo by the unscrewed line leading to the scavenger pump. I turned the motor off and could still hear the turbo impeller whirling away momentarily on its ball bearings. OUCH! Thoughts of ruined bearings and a backward valve installation ran through my mind but not so it turned out. By this time I was fed up, removed the ball and spring from the valve, re-primed and repeated the startup procedure. Still a puff of smoke on startup but I didn’t care at that point.



Performance wise the GT35R has a smoother acceleration curve at the low end but quite frankly I think it runs out of steam earlier at the top end than my old boat anchor 7006. I’ll never find out as my track days are gone. Probably more appropriate for my current style of driving.

Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

Got myself a used scissor lift. Love it. I can move it around anywhere in the garage with relative ease. Drive on ramps are low enough for the lowered 997S and the RST but some short 2X12 boards makes much easier for the short wheelbase RST.





Cheers,
Johan

[Uwon]

Now I know what my wife did with all my old Porsche related T-shirts…….
Lots of FOND MEMORIES.

Best of the season.
Stay safe.
Cheers,
Johan

[78-911SC]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

[Brookieslayer]

Originally Posted by Uwon

Now I know what my wife did with all my old Porsche related T-shirts…….
Lots of FOND MEMORIES.

Best of the season.
Stay safe.
Cheers,
Johan

Great shot!

Happy Holidays Johan!

[Larmo63]

Beautiful car and a fun thread to read through.

I like I know you by now and I could wander into your garage while we talk Porsches.