Boxsey's Porsche 911 Carrera 2 (964)

Engine Rebuild - Part 3 (Mar 10)

2011-10-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks after tear down had finished the rebuild with cleaned, re-conditioned and new parts began.

The pistons and cylinders, even with 170,000 miles on them were still well within tolerance so had been cleaned and polished. The pistons also received new rings of course:

The conrods received new little end bearings because the originals were well worn:

Each cylinder head and valve was de-coked, the valves re-seated and new valve guides fitted:

The crank was polished at the machine shop:

The valve was reworked, oil ways checked and new studs (with inserts where necessary) fitted:

Lots of new parts that include crank shell bearings, a full set of seals/gaskets, oil through pipes and the all important (and very expensive) uprated dialever studs that bolt the main casing, cylinders and heads together:

A cleaned case ready for reasembly:

The rest of the car waits in the corner of the workshop under cover:

Engine Rebuild - Part 2 (Feb 09)

2011-10-08T03:06:00.000-07:00

Pictures of the disassembled engine:

Then it was a case of de-coking, cleaning, polishing and re-assembling. The good tins (unlike the one above) and new tins went off for blast cleaning and powder coating.

Engine Rebuild - Part 1 (Feb 10)

2011-10-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

Although I like to work on the car myself, I'm no where near enough competent (or have the facilities) to do this myself. Hence, on Monday it went into Unit 11, Warrington for Danny and Jonny to tear down. The car had multiple small leaks in all the usual places that an aging 964 engine has (timing chain covers, power steering pump, crank case nose seal, cylinder base gaskets, etc) and some leaks from breather pipes around the inlet. Therefore, I elected to go for their menu rebuild as a starting point. This includes addressing all these leaks, fitting new oil through pipes, new valve guides, de-coking the valves and cylinder heads, new piston rings, new timing chains and tensioners.

Of course, lots of other stuff crops up once the engine is out, particularly engine tins that need to be replaced or blasted and powder coated and breather hoses that have hardened and need to be replaced. Ideally, I want to have a LWF and clutch fitted but that will depend on how heavy the main bill gets! Luckily, my current normal DMF and clutch has been found to be in excellent condition and can go back in if the funds run out.

Here's the empty space in my engine bay where the lump used to reside:

The clutch slave cylinder and hose (left of next picture) has already been identified as needing replacement as has the clutch fork:

Here's the inlet and engine cowling that has been set to one side. The cowling is oily from leaking breather hoses. It's also split and some point so is going to need replacing:

Here are the first pics of the engine as it's being (quite quickly) disassembled. Obviously it's very dirty and oily at this stage:

This pic shows the rusty crank case breather hose on the right that will soon be coming off and replaced:

A 'New' set of Road Wheels (Nov 09)

2011-10-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

I finally said goodbye to the Cup 1 replicas which were sold on to a friend looking for some and found a good set of 17 inch Sport Classic Boxster wheels. My Continental Sport Contact 2 tyres were duly fitted and mounted to use as by 'best' road wheels. Although not period correct for the car I think they are good look and are both well made and lighter than the old replicas.

A 'New' set of Track Wheels (Sep 09)

2011-10-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about wheels again lately and keeping a keen eye on the usual places they come up for sale. Ideally I want to change the Cup 1 replicas that I use on the road for something smarter. The Cup 1s were badly kerbed when I got the car and are heavy compared to original wheels. Similarly, I wanted to swap the boxster wheels I use for the track for something a bit more in keeping with the car but not overly expensive.

First to come up were the 'track wheels' which I found on ebay just over a week ago. I've now got a set of 17 inch 996 carrera 4 wheels for it for the princely sum of £258!

These are 7 inch wide at the front and 9 inch wide at the rear, with offsets that don't need any spacers. Although not the best looking Porsche wheels in the world, they have a good reputation for being light and strong. Ideal for the track.

With the wheels on at their first outing at Oulton Park:

...and on the move at Curborough:

Two Trackdays and a Round Trip (Sep 09)

2011-09-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

So since the DIY service the last couple of months have all been about just using the car for its main purposes - tracking and touring.The trackdays were an evening session at Donington Park and the annual BoXa trackday at Rockingham. At Donington I still hadn't started tinkering with the adjustability of the KW suspension so just spent the session getting to used the more substantial grip that the KWs and Toyos have given the car. What I noticed in particular is that Old hairpin had become a full throttle corner from the apex and this was a major grin factor due to feeling the car moving around underneath me but at the same time feeling under control. Similarly the hairpin on the Melbourne loop could be taking much tighter than I could with the old set up. A 964 owning friend who came for a ride commented on how much more planted my car was on the fast corners compared to his which runs on standard suspension.However, I did notice that at the heavy braking points that the car had developed a trait of feeling quite squirrely at the back end i.e. losing grip and sliding about. So Prior to Rockingham I decided to check the rear rebound settings. This in itself is not a 5 minute job as both air box and the HVAC blower unit in the engine bay have to removed. And then the actual adjustment has to all be done by feel as you can't see what you're doing. I found that the rebound had been set at four clicks from hard so adjusted it to 8 clicks from hard. On the test drive I immediately noticed that the back end was more lively and a lot more responsive to throttle inputs i.e. be too heavy footed and it would step out. However, had this had any effect on the rear braking...well the Rockingham experiences say yes. Again Rockingham has some hard braking points and the back gripped much better because the softer rebound was allowing the shocks to keep the tyres in contact with the track better than when they were set harder. It's amazing what tiny adjustments can do to the balance of the car and even more amazing that given my limited driving skill that I can detect them.On track at Donington mixing it with the RS boys:

The new suspension set up (particularly the low RS ride height) and wider front tyres are now beginning to endow the car with 'trackday scars'.Rubbing inside the wheel arch on lock while cornering hard:

Rubbing on the wheel arch liners due to the lower height, more caster and then braking hard:

While I have to accept some of these as a consequence of the track biased set up, I've just put a pair of 3 mm shims on the front to move the wheels out slightly to see if it will reduced the rub on lock. I don't want to use anything much bigger than these as a] I would have to put longer wheel studs on and b] I might start causing a problem of the tyres fouling the arches:

After Rockingham we decided to take the 964 on a mini break. This involved driving down to Elevetham Hall in Hampshire to meet up with a load of other 964s and then across to Cornwall using a route of A roads. There we stopped a couple of nights and visited the Eden project and the cornish coast before travelling back home via the motorway network. A round trip of 750 miles. Apart from scraping the bottom of the car on a couple of speed humps, the car ran like a dream. I was surprised how comfortable the recaro seats were during long driving stints (the wife agreed). And where ever we stopped the car always attracted attention, particularly by kids who loved it. We even overheard a conversation between locals in the Inn we stopped at which went along the lines of "have you seen that lovely Porsche in the car park.....yes, but it don't half make a noise!".With other 964s at Elvetham Hall:

Resting overnight at the Cornish Inn;

DIY service and another engine tin (Jun 09)

2011-09-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

This was a full weekend of graft with a couple of hours off to watch the British GP. The aim was to change the plugs, upper and lower valve cover gaskets, air filter and oil. I had also bought a new rear heat shield to replace the rusting old one. On a 964 this means removing most of the exhaust system and lots of engine covers. Here's the pile of stuff that I had to take off:

Also, when doing these jobs on the car I regularly find missing or corroded nuts and bolts. Until now I've purchased what I needed from the Porsche centre but when I was recently quoted £6 each for captive nuts to go on the cat heat shields, I decided enough was enough. A quick search on the web and ebay revealed lots of alternative, good quality nuts, bolts and clips from automotive suppliers. For the price of half a dozen Porsche captive nuts, I've now got this little lot:

When I fitted the new lower valve covers a few weeks ago, I found that a few of the studs came out of the heads because the nuts had siezed on them so replaced those as necessary this time:

Once the plugs and gaskets had been changed it was time to wrestle out the rear shield. Here's a pic of the old one once it was out:

Here's the new one ready to go in:

And after a few hours of persuasion, the new one finally secured in place:

Got the exhaust repaired (Jun 09)

2011-09-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to report that the exhaust issue has now been remedied. The boys at Unit 11 Warrington got a new flange fabricated which is a few mm thicker than the old one. This allowed them to saw off the old flange and weld on the new so that the same spacing was retained (important to ensure that the cat could be bolted on without stressing the exhaust system). A complete new heat exchanger for that side would have cost £2,000 (and a good used one up to half that). The all in cost from Unit 11 to make and fit the new flange was a tenth of that!Here's the old flange now separated from the car:

The flange was initially tacked on to the outlet of the heat exchanger:

Then the inside was welded to make it gas tight:

Changed the oil pressure sender (Jun 09)

2011-09-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Since buying the car I've had flaky oil pressue sender. The needle used to bounce around a was useless for getting an accurate reading. To remedy this I fitted an aftermarket sender (supposedly from a reliable source) which didn't work at all. The replacement I was sent also didn't work! These were £30 not very well spent. So at the third time of asking I got my money back on the aftermarket ones and bought one for £70 direct from Porsche. This one works like a charm and just goes to prove there are certain times when only original parts will do. Here, left to right, are the old one, the duff aftermarket one and the original Porsche one:

New valve covers and some engine tins (May 09)

2011-07-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

964s are infamous for being one of Porsche's leaky 911s. One of the many things that can leak oil are the lower valve covers which are known to warp over, time with the result that the rubber gaskets let oil out even when they are new. The valve covers were originally made of magnesium but these were changed to aluminum at the end of the model line. Even so, the price of Porsche replacement valve covers are nearly £500 a pair plus the the rubber gaskets. Luckily, there are some aftermarket covers available from the USA so I bought a pair direct from the USA that even after shipping, came out to £218.

Newly purchased valve covers below and one of the old magnesiums covers:

Seeing as this was a going to a big job I took the opportunity to replace some of the rusty tinware that fits just above the covers. The tinware has a dual role of shielding the engine from exhaust heat and is vital for directing the air flow produced by the cooling fan. The only place to buy new tinware is directly from Porsche. This little lot, including a few extra bolts came to £147!

Starting on the right side of the engine the first job was to remove the final silencer which exposed a heat shield and a piece of rusty tin:

Once the heat shield and tin were removed removed, the original valve covers were exposed. The upper one is dry (as expected) but there's plenty of oil smeared over the lower one.

Lower valve cover removed:

The old rusty piece of tin and the new piece is shown below. On close inspection it's actually all in tact so could be shot blasted and powder coated so I'll keep it as a spare or stick it on ebay when it's freshened up:

All the old oil that had been seeping out over many years cleaned away and new valve cover and tin fitted:

That side was relatively easy but moving over to the other side the job got a lot bigger because the catalytic converter needed to be removed and since this had not been taken off for some time, there were going to be a lot of siezed nuts and bolts. Here's what I faced:

With the cat eventually out of the way (it took a while to get off) and the lower heat shield removed, you can see that the tin on this side was in a shocking state:

A close up of the valve cover showing just how leaky this one was:

Old and new tin. I didn't bother keeping the old one this time!

Here's a pic of the big cat off the car. Seeing as it was off, I put in a new O2 sensor as there's no record of it ever being changed:

New valve cover and tin fitted and now looking a lot more presentable:

Although I took a few hours off to watch the Spanish GP, this ended up being a full two days work. Although I could have done all the main work quicker, I took the opportunity to give everything I took off a thorough wash with degreaser (Swarfeger solution) which I think is one of the benefits of doing these jobs yourself as a garage wouldn't bother with this bit.

The only downside of the weekend was that removing the cat has now caused me a headache because I found that the flange that connects the headers to the cat has corroded very badly. Since the headers are an integral part of the heat exchangers (produce heat for the air vents) this could mean I'm in for a lot of ££££s to fix it:

First Track Day of 2009 (Apr 09)

2011-01-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

This was the first chance to see what the big suspension and tyre changes had done to the car. Perhaps I should have resisted the tyres and just saw what the suspension had done to the performance on road tyres. No matter as I can do that in the future if necessary.

With this being, I think, my sixth go at Oulton I knew the parts of the track it struggled. In particular, the esses before Knickerbrook and the tight off camber turn at Lodge. It also used to wallow a bit in fast corners like Druids. The changes are quite remakable. The car is much, much sharper now on turn in and sticks much closer to the chosen line. The result is that I don't have to use as much of the track through the slower corners (i.e. I've got less understeer and therefore have room to go a little quicker through these). More impressive than that was the ability to carry more speed through the faster corners. I managed to do some quick glances at my apex speeds and recall 70 mph at Old Hall, 80 mph at Cascades/Lake, 90 mph at Island and 70 mph at Druids. With time all could be done a bit quicker because there was still plenty of room left on the exits (previously I needed the exit kerbs).

A couple of photos courtesy of my friends Fraser and Dave:

This was also the first time I ran with Toyo R888 track tyres. The Toyos aren't available in the normal front size of 205/50/17 but the popular choice is 225/45/17 which is what I have. I experienced no issues during the day and as expected the car went the best it ever has on track with the new suspension, geo setup and track tyres . However, this is what I found when I got home (left front tyre):

I think the different rub/cut lines are probably due to me regularly dropping the pressures during the day as the tyres got hotter. Clearly this is not good for the tyre so I'll investigate a number of cures:

1. Raise the front ride height a bit (currently RS spec)
2. Junk the tyres and fit 215/45/17 (the only other Toyo option)
3. Roll the arches (a bit drastic)
4. Drop pressures more (I got down to 35 psi hot)

There are no similar marks on the other tyres. The circuit (like most in the UK) is a clockwise track hence the left tyres are the ones that take most of a beating.

First Set of Track Tyres (Mar 09)

2010-12-28T08:40:00.000-08:00

In preparation for the new track season I got the spare wheels I've nicked off my boxster shod with trackday tyres. So they're now wearing a spanking new set of Toyo R888s.

I soon found that they work great on the road (albeit that they whine when clocking on) and can't wait to get them on the track next month.

Suspension Upgrade (Mar 09)

2010-12-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

The car came to me with the original fitment Boge shock absorbers albeit that the rear shocks had been replaced and shorter springs had been put on to the lower the car. Changing the suspension had always been planned. When it was time, I wanted it to be replaced with something more suitable for the track.

Putting new suspension on something I decided to leave to the experts. Luckily up here we have one of the highly regarded experts in aircooled 911s, Jonny Holland of Unit 11 Warrington. Jonny recommended without hesitation that I should have KW Variant 3 fitted, so that's what I got.

Front:

Rear:

At the same time I had them replace the aging rubber wishbone bushes with the newer polyurethane (super flex) bushes:

Of course having all this done requires a full geo on the car which was carried out by Jonny's colleague, Danny who used to set up 911s for the track when working at Tech9 in Liverpool. The car's ride height has been dropped to near 964RS specs and the appropriate negative camber applied and the castor and toe set to make the car sharper in the handling department. The car now has a very agressive nose down stance:

Out on the road the handling has been transformed beyond my greatest expectations. The nervousness of the front end has gone which is noticeable both while driving at high speed in a straight line and when driving on bumpy roads, where it used to dart about when unsettled by a bump. Turning is now sharp and quick and inspires me with the confidence to drive it swiftly. And while the adjustable bump and rebound is set to medium the ride is still very comfortable on the old bones.

Another job I had tacked on while the car was at Unit 11 was to have them weld a brace to the engine carrier and have it powder coated. The brace was bought from Rennline in the USA and is there to guard against he possibility of the carrier snapping when driving the car hard on track. A snapped carrier would lead to an engine dragging on the floor!

A picture of the brace and with it welded to the engine carrier (black bar in the pic):

New Distributor Caps and Rotors (Mar 09)

2010-12-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

Fitting new caps and rotors required removal of the heater ducting on the left side of the engine bay so I also remove the heater blower motor and took the opportunity to remove the inlet manifold on that side and clean it out (the right side had already been done). Here's a photo taken while I was doing all that:

Just like earlier in this thread the manifold had a good amount of oil inside it which I cleaned out and then re-seated the manifold so that it was nice and leak tight. This should stop any minor leaks coming from there. Then it was time to get the distributor caps off. As you can see below with twin distributors, twelve plug wires and two coil wires it's a bit like spagetti junction so taking time to label everything up first with a marker pen is essential if it's going to go back together correctly:

The secondary distributor on 964s and 993s is driven off a small toothed belt so this is a good time to check what condition it's in. I'm happy to say that it looked fine as this has been nagging me for a while. If it breaks you get an immediate loss of power at the top end and can cause damage to the engine if it's driven for a long time with a broken belt, especially if the rotor arm stops on a particular pole causing the affected cylinder to be constantly firing.

The old distributor caps and rotor arms were well past their sell by date as can be seen from the pics below.

Some say that badly worn dizzy caps (like mine) will lead to a loss of power. From the test drive after fitting the new parts I would tend to agree with this as the engine feels a bit more lively. But more importantly I'm glad to have those old caps off which I guess could have lead to misfiring.

New Engine Mounts (Nov 08)

2010-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

With time, the fluid filled engine mounts are known to fail on 911s. This manifests itself as a bouncy rear end and difficulty in downshifting through the gearbox when braking hard. In the worst case a failed mount can transmit shocks through the engine carrier with the result that it can fracture and the engine fall out! So I thought with another trackday coming up I should examine mine as there is no record of them ever having been changed.

The left one was sagging a bit:

The right one was sagging a lot:

So I duly ordered new mounts which cost £133 + VAT for the left one and £141 for the right one. This included a discount of 15% from the OPC which I simply asked them for:

Fitting the new mounts involved taking the strain of the engine with a trolley jack, undoing a large nut underneath the mount to release if from the carrier and then undoing two small bolts that held the mount in place. Here's the left mount removed:

The new right mount from the top:

Compared to the old mounts the pictures below show there is only a small gap between the mounts and the frame. I also used some emery paper to clean away some of the unsightly rust on the rear heat shield (that you can see in the photos above) and applied some high temperature engine paint.

New left mount in place:

New right mount in place:

Here are the old mounts. They don't look too bad but when shaken I can hear hydraulic fluid sloshing around which indicates that they had leaked and were therefore were no longer capable of absorbing shocks transmitted from the engine and chassis:

Even on the first spirited test drive I could feel the difference. The mounts have really stiffened up the back end. It used to bob about on uneven road surfaces and crash over bumps. It's much, much more settled now. The gear changes are much slicker. Shifting down to 2nd under heavy braking used to be tricky and required patience. Now it just slots home. I'd heard before that duff mounts caused difficult shifting. It'll be interesting to see what it now performs like both on the road and on the track.

Thoughts from Two Trackdays (Oct 08)

2010-11-28T07:32:00.000-08:00

October saw me take the car on both the BoXa.net trackday at Rockingham and another day at Curborough sprint circuit with a bunch of 911s. By the time we arrived at Rockingham the car was wearing it's full trackday fun clothes - the red carrera decal had been complemented by Red Porsche Script on the Windscreen and was wearing the red wheels.

Both Rockingham and Curborough were tremendous fun. What they both have in common is that they have some twisty hair pin bends so they really test the agility of the car. And I have to say that although slow/twisty turns are not the forte of 964s, I don't think the car was as good as it should be. I believe this is caused in part by the smaller/narrow wheels. With these fitted I'm finding that I have to work much harder to get the car to turn in (it's essential to use the brakes on turn-in) and there is a lot of understeer when back on the power (nail the throttle at the apex and will simply drift off the track). In short the car is short on grip in the corners yet the tyres, Yokohama AVS sports, are known for their good dry grip. So it must be a combination of the smaller width of the tyres and the narrower track that they create when on the car (outer edge of the rear wheels gets pushed in to the arches a good 15 mm more than when the 17 inch wheels are fitted).

Although some of the excessive understeer could be dialed out with a 4 wheel alignment (particularly by adjusting the camber on the front wheels), I'm loathed to do that at the moment because I'm aiming for new suspension early next year which will require it to be done any way. My benchmark is that the car handles the bends better when wearing its 17 inch boots. The problem here is that my 17 inch cup wheels are replicas and are quite a bit heavier than the 16s which impacts on the straight line acceleration. However, I recently picked up a set of Porsche original Boxster S 17 inch wheels which when fitted to my boxster will free up the existing boxster 17 inch wheels for use on the 964. So these will go on for the next trackday in a couple of weeks time and once the Conti rubber is worn out (should only take the day) I can look at putting some trackday rubber on these rather than the 16s.

Some photos from Curborough:

Carrera Decals (Oct 08)

2010-11-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

With a trackday at Rockingham with the BoXa.net gang approaching I decided to dress the car up with some carrera script decals. They were a bit fiddly to get looking nice but thankfully Mrs B lent a second pair of hands, so that we made a nice job. A key part was to remove the Shark fins so that the decals disappeared behind them.

As a final touch a Sunscreen was added:

Just after the decals were added I was asked to write a '964 owners view' for a buying guide that would appear in the December 2008 issue of 'GT Purely Porsche'. The photo above was published in the magazine.

Exhaust Modfication (Sep 08)

2010-11-28T03:18:00.000-08:00

While waiting for the bodywork to be completed I got the opportunity to buy a nearly new cup bypass pipe for the exhaust (£80 vs the new price of about £200). This replaces the standard primary silencer. Having done some research on the various 964 exhaust modifcations available I decided that this one provides the best bang for buck.

Firstly, as shown in the pic below, it gives a significant weight saving over the standard primary.

And most importantly the weight is shed in the best place - the middle of the car. Below is a shot of the bypass in place that shows where the inlet connects to the cat:

The second reason for choosing a cup bypass is that it supposedly releases a few more horses from the engine. How many seems to be a point of debate. Somewhere between 5 and 15 extra bhp covers the range of most people's claims.

The final reason for the change was to tune up the noise the exhaust makes. Give it a bit more growl but not so much that I would fail noise tests at tackdays. Have a look/listen at the clip below and see what you think.

More Rust to Attend to (Sep 08)

2010-11-28T02:38:00.000-08:00

The episode with rust causing the recent MOT fail (see earlier) brought it home to me that despite popular opinion, these cars can suffer from rust as they get on in life. Although galvanised there will be problems in certain places and these problems need to be addressed. So a couple of weeks ago I decided that it was time to stop ignoring what looked to be a few little rust spots on the NS rear quarter panel and get them sorted. As you will see below it was not before time because little spots are not always as little as they appear.

First was the rust around the NS door mirror. This was there when I bought the car and had never got any worse according to the PO. Rust had set in under the base of the mirror before the newer mirrors had been fitted.

All gone now (ignore the paint on the seal as that was there before and is not overspray from the repair)

All the other rust problems were on the rear quarter panel. It was pretty messy inside the light cluster. When I got the car the original tail light was still fitted (see earlier in thread) and the seal design trapped moisture inside the wing. The light design was changed later so that the wing is vented but the damage had already been done to mine:

All the rust had to be cleaned out and some nifty welding done to repair it. Then it got lots of coats of paint and waxoyl to protect it from the elements:

Associated to this there was a problem in the engine bay. What looked to be light rust on the gusset plate turned out to be extensive when I prodded it with a pen. I was pretty gutted when I found this:

The rusty panel was duly cut out, replaced and painted. Again some waxoyl was applied behind the new panel and a smear on the surface that you can see when the engine lid is open.

Finally there was some signs of rust just above the plastic sill cover:

When I took the sill cover off, 18 years of road dirt came out and it was a lot worse than I thought!

This required some extensive welding to repair it and the whole area behind the sill cover was cleaned and coated with waxoyl to prevent future rusting (I'll need to waxoyl it every couple of years). I haven't got a photo with the cover off but the repair is stunning. Here it is with the cover back in place:

Here are a couple of shots of the newly painted rear quarter and door:

I also took the opportunity to get a new headlamp ring painted to replace the old NS one which had always been a bit rusty and in constant need of touching up:

All the work was carried out by a small local body shop (who had been recommended to me and who had already done the front tub repairs). I let them have the car for a couple of weeks so that it could be fitted in between any urgent jobs that came in. This kept the price down a little and I felt comfortable that it wouldn't be a rush job. The price which including much welding, prep and paint came to £500 + VAT (on top of this I supplied them with the new headlamp ring and rubber seals for the sill cover). I would summarise the work they did as a superb finish on the exterior panels you can see and they were very thorough in the repairs and protection applied to the bits that you can't.

Harnesses Fitted and Trackday (Aug 08)

2010-11-28T01:53:00.000-08:00

A trackday at Oulton Park was the first chance to try out the new seats. Prior to the day I fitted 4 point bolt in harnesses and a guide bar. Strapped into a racing shell is a completely difference experience. Not only do I feel more secure behind the wheel but also more connected to chassis and what it's doing. You feel like you can really lean into a corner and find out how much grip there is. In short I'm very pleased with what they have done for its on track ability.

Prior to going to the track I swapped out the Pagid sport pads with Pagid RS15 (grey) race pads. These have taken the brakes to another level. I got no where near their potential on track and ended up taking off too much speed before arriving at the corners. I'll need to re-assess my braking points next time out to make sure I get the most out of them.

I think I'm pretty much done with mods for this year (wallet could do with a rest) but I'm planning on doing something about the suspension and geometry next year to tackle some of the understeer that I like to get dialed out. This is illustrated quite well in the video of me from my friend Tony's Boxster S - you can see how much wider I go on the slow corners compared to the 'camera car'. Saying that, in the very last session I drove the car a lot harder through the bends and found that there was a lot more grip underneath me than I thought there was. I caught up with an Exige and followed it round for 3 or 4 laps without losing any ground on it. So maybe it's me that causes some of the understeer.

First Major Rust Problem (July 08)

2010-11-28T01:50:00.000-08:00

The old girl failed her MOT at the beginning of last week (July 08) due to some nasty rust at the rear of the front tub. Grounding of the front and general erosion of the underseal over her many years had created a water trap where the plastic undertray butted up to the un-protected front tub. The floor of the tub is a welded in panel and had rusted through at the rear. It was regarded by the MOT guy as structural rust and therefore a fail. Consequently it was sent down the road to a body work specialist for diagnosis of what could be done.

Thankfully it hadn't developed to the point where the boot floor had to be removed and replaced as this would have been horrendously expensive. Not to mention the car being off the road for at least a month. The repair involved grinding away the rust and welding it back together and then applying a new layer of underseal. I'm no expert but it looks a very tidy job to me. Oh and it was still a very time consuming job and a stab in the wallet at nearly £500 including the MOT!

Recaro Pole Position seats fitted (Jun 08)

2010-02-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

Although the standard seats are in good condtion and comfy I wanted something more suitable and lighter for track work. After trying a few seats out I plumped for Recaro Pole Position racing shells in black leather with black suede cushions. To fit the seats I needed new double locking sliders and side mounts. Here's the mounting kit that was bought from Southbound Trimmers:

And here's the kit being checked out for fit in the car after removing one of the original seats:

I took the opportunity to give these areas a good clean out but was disappointed to find only a grand total of 7 pence that had been lost down there by previous owners. Once I'd worked how everything went together it was a simple case of bolting them in:

At the moment I've just got the normal 3 point seat belts installed but with a bit of luck a set of Sabelt 4 point harnesses will be arriving this week in time for its next trackday.

Fixing a buzz in the dash (Jun 08)

2010-02-21T09:54:00.001-08:00

Over time 964s develop a lot of little quirks, one of which is a buzzing noise from the dash board. The buzzing starts as soon as you turn the key and carries on for 20 minutes even after the ignition is switched off. This is caused by an air sampling fan at the back of the climate control unit. So today I took out the unit (comes out like a radio) and took apart the fan.

After removing nearly 20 years of dust and fluff, the little fan know runs quietly and the buzzing is gone.

Evening track session at Silverstone (May 08)

2010-02-21T09:47:00.001-08:00

To say it was wet would be an understatement. The circuit was effectively a giant skid pan for the evening and I learned more about the handling of this car in those 2 hours than I have in the year or so that I've owned it. Even on a circuit that I'd never been on before, the car behaved impeccably. Yes it wagged its tail a few times and yes it aquaplaned a few times and the ABS had real problems coping with standing water (being Porsche's first production ABS system it's a bit agricultural by modern standards). But saying all that the feedback through the steering wheel and chassis was remarkable. Measured use of the throttle and smooth steering inputs was all that was needed to make increasingly brisk progress around the circuit. It was great fun balancing it on the throttle and feeling the limit of grip.

The reduction in the weight (particularly the lighter wheels) have given the car a greater urgency out of the bends. It would quickly reach 100 mph down the hangar straight with plenty to spare before the braking zone - It wouldn't have been wise in the conditions to go any faster than that. Hopefully next time I'll get to do Silverstone in the dry because it's definitely one of those circuits that really suits a 911.

The morning after, still sporting the trackday numbers.

Sprint Day and Clutch bleed (Apr 08)

2010-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

I joined the Lancia Sport club for an afternoon at Curborough sprint circuit. This turned out to be a great little circuit to test the agility of the car. It's not possible to go at high speed but testing the handling throught the sharp hairpins was great fun. A great day out in the company of a load of Delta Integrale fanatics.

However the car developed a problem with selecting first gear half way through the day when the car got hot (no problem when it had cooled down). I suspected this was due to very old fluid in the clutch slave cylinder. I'd had a number of goes before at bleeding the slave with no success. Simply because some prune had in the past rounded the edges of the bleed valve. The best of ring spanners (7 mm) wouldn't turn it and there is no room to get mole grips or similar on it.

I feared that I would have to replace the slave completely and that is a painful job to do with the engine/gearbox in place. Yesterday I found and bought a 7mm hexagonal ring spanner and thought I would give it one last go before buying a complete new slave cylinder and it worked. So now all the nasty, smelly old fluid is out and the clutch pedal is so much lighter than it's been since I bought the car. Persistence and a bit of patience has finally paid off.

There's some footage of the Curborough event and the car on Youtube:

In action at Curborough

Added a strut brace (Apr 08)

2009-11-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

I thought it was about time to add a front strut brace to the car so purchased one of the now popular carbon fibre jobbies. I got off Ebay from Cup Spirit who are a specialist in France that supplies parts and upgrades for Porsches. The all in price was £150 which saved me around £50 compared to similar braces supplied by UK Porsche specialists.

For those who doubt the effect of strut braces, I took the car for a test drive in the afternoon and wasn't really expecting to feel any difference under normal driving. The 911 has always had poor front end bite compared to the boxster. Yet on the first corner I could feel a difference. The turn-in is much sharper than it was before and really not that far behind the boxster's. Throughout the drive I felt a precision with the steering that had been previously lacking. This has already proved to be a very worthwhile upgrade.

Fixed the oil sender leak (Mar 08)

2009-11-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Today I tackled the suspected cause of the oil leak that has been dogging the car since I bought it. I removed the air cleaner box and intake manifold on the right side and found significant amounts of oil on top of the engine around the oil temperature sender unit:

Inside of the manifold was pretty oily too!

So I cleaned that up with brake cleaner:

Here's the oil sender unit just after removing it from the top of the engine:

The seal was clearly shagged and obviously Porsche realised that this was a weak point as the replacement part has clearly been upgraded (green O ring fitted to the unit).

Here's the oil sender unit back in position and I've cleaned away as much of the oil as I can. Fingers crossed now that the embaressing smoking when hot problem has been remedied.

Porsche RS Trackday, Oulton Park, 15 Mar 08

2009-11-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

With the weather always likely to be dodgy I was glad the car was still wearing its normal road tyres which I'll keep until they're worn out. The track was extremely slippery in the morning. Allied to the fact that most of the Porsches there were more powerful than the bath tub and therefore I had to move off line a lot, I never pushed the car too far because I didn't want to end the day with anything bent. So really, it turned into a bit of shake down to see how the winter changes had affected the car.

The plus points were that the new brakes worked extremely well. No hint of fade at any point and plenty of pedal. I could have worked them harder if I wanted. There was perceptively less roll in the corners since putting on the new ARB bushes (seems also to be born out by the on track photos I've got). And it felt a tiny, tiny bit quicker out of the corners due to it losing a few pounds (no hard evidence to back this up though).

The only down side is that I've still got the 964 Achilles heel of minor oil leaks when the car gets hot which results in spots of oil dropping to the exhaust and causing some very embaressing smoking as you drive back into the pits. A quick checkover the car the following day showed the exact point it had got on the exhaust and I'm pretty sure I now know the region of the engine where it's originating from. I'm now getting to need to remove the airbox, AFM and part of the intake manifold to inspect further to see what oil seal or line I need to replace.

Photos from the day:

Headlight bulbs and door window (Mar 08)

2009-11-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

This weekend consisted of some basic repairs and maintenance. A bit boring but I suppose that's what a running report is about.

First off was to put some of the Halfords brighter H4 bulbs in the headlamps. £14.99 for two bulbs since they were on a bogof offer. The headlamps haven't been off for quite some time by the looks of it. Although nice and dry inside the bowls were loose because a lot of the retaining wires had shaken loose. Of more concern was that one of the aim adjusters was completely disconnected. This is now remedied but I'll need to drop the car into a local MOT station to have the beam alignment re-set.

Since I've had the car the passenger window has not worked properly (as just about every passenger has told me). It would only drop a couple of inches. The switch and motor seemed to be OK so the only way to find out what was going on was to strip the door down. Like any old car you never know what you're going to find lurking behind a trim panel. Sure enough the membrane (the old polythene type) had been butchered in a previous life and the doors were full of cr@p inside:

The problem with the window turned out to be the alignment of the glass carrier. A few subtle adjustments with an allen key and some grease on the carrier runners soon had it working properly. Then it was a simple job of cleaning it all up and putting some fresh duck tape over all the holes in the membrane. I'll probably put a new membrane on in the future but since the edges of the membrane have never been lifted there's no problem with water leaking into the car at the moment.

Then I took it out for the obligatory test drive to check all was well.

Water under the carpets (Feb 08)

2009-11-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

My carpet underlay/soundproofing was absolutely soaking and needed ripping out and binning. This has been caused by years of little leaks most often caused by blocked sunroof drains. It is a common problem on 964s. The question was what should I replace it with? I could have bought replacement underlay from Porsche for a few hundred pounds. But rather than do this I wanted to take the opportunity to shed a few pounds in weight. Here's what I did about this in pics.

First the state of the soundproofing underneath the carpet:

Very wet and very heavy

Cleaned it all up:

Filled the wells in the floor with Gardener's kneeling foam mats (very light):

Then used the old soundproofing as a template to cut out and put down a layer of sleeping bag foam (extremely light) to protect the wiring followed by some hard board to make sure it was firm underfoot.

Carpet mat back on and she's good to go:

I did the passenger footwell and rear footwells to. These weren't wet but as I said it all helps in the power to weight ratio stakes.

Brake upgrade (Jan 08)

2009-11-09T15:33:00.000-08:00

With January being perhaps one of the worst months to drive a Porsche I decided it was time to do a major job on the car. The brakes.

At the end of 2007 I bought some used 4 pot rears off Ebay to replace the puny 2 pots that are standard on the C2. The aim here is not to give any greater stopping power but to reduce the potential for brake fade by having larger pads to dissipate the heat better. At the same time I get to have a larger choice in pads because the only ones available for 2 pots are OEM or textar (same really). The 4 pot rears take exactly the same pads as the front with the consequence that there is a wide range of Pagids available.

4 pot rears from a 964 C4 and the post 1991 C2 are difficult to find. However they are exactly the same calipers that are found on a variety of the older Porsche models. The ones I found were actually off 928 S4. They looked quite good in the Ebay ad. Once they arrived, they looked a little more battle scarred in the flesh:

Since 928 rear calipers fit to the trailing edge of the disc and 964 calipers sit on the leading edge of the first job was to remove the cross (feed) pipe and fit it where the bleed valves were, so that the fluid would feet into the bottom of the caliper and could be bled out at the top. The next job was to remove the spring plates that had been forced inwards by corrosion (known as plate lift) so that new pads would fit properly. The big problem here is removing the screws that become 'welded in' over time. I was advised to heat the screws but never managed to get them hot enough to make them budge. Use of a dremmel to cut a slot in the screw head and 10 mm cold chisel proved to be the successful method. Here's the mess that was the removed plates and mangled screws:

Behind the plates the corrosion that causes the 'plate lift' was clearly evident:

Use of a Dremmel again and a flat file to finish off, soon had them cleaned up:

I repainted the calipers and fitted new spring plates and screws. These come as a kit with green loctite already impregnated on the screws. It's possible to use any old M6 screw and the original plates but I found that the scew holes in the plates had worn and figured that since this wouldn't have to be done again for at least another 5 years, that it was worth the extra:

Here's the newly refurbished 4 pot rear caliper next to the old weedy 2 pot caliper:

Of course, since I was refurbing and painting the new (used) rear calipers, I took the front calipers off and did those too. One of these required the replacement of a bleed valve which was siezed (and therefore has not been bled for some time):

While the car was stationary all this time I decided to leave a reminder in there for myself and any would be car thieves:

It's worth noting that before I took any of the calipers off the car I clamped off the vent pipe to the reservoir and put clingfilm between the cap and reservoir. This creates a vacuum and stops the fluid spilling out everywhere. Also, before refitting the rear calipers I removed the rotten brake disc shields which were only just clinging on. This should help a little with brake cooling and saves a little bit of weight. I also took some of the old brake warning sensors and looped them out so that I don't have to worry about (or buy any more of) these in the future. They melt on the track so they're pretty useless anyway. Here are the calipers on the car, complete with new decals:

Rear:

Front:

As this was always going to be a thorough job I also bought a set of BF Goodridge braided brake hoses. These were a real fight to get undone and resulted in me having to replace 3 of the copper/nickel brake lines that they attached to. Look good though:

The penultimate job to do was to change the proportioning valve that sits in the front boot to the upgraded version which allows more pressure to go to the bigger rear calipers.

The costs involved in this brake project were;

Used 928 S4 calipers £180
Spring plate kits for rear calipers £70
Spring plate kits for front calipers £70
New bleed valve for front caliper £8
Braided brake hoses £50
Caliper paint £15
Decals £11
Proportioning valve £55
2 litres of Castrol Super Dot4 fluid £20
1 x set of textar pads for road £50
1 x set of pagid pads for track £115
3 x new copper/nickel brake lines £75

Total cost = £719

Thank goodness I didn't have to pay for labour!

All that was left was to flush/bleed the system and go out for a test drive.

Red Wheels (Dec 07)

2009-11-09T15:26:00.001-08:00

At the end of the month I got round to fitting the new cup style 16 inch wheels. Here's one next to the larger 17 inch cup 1 replica.

And here they are on the car:

Now the rear ARB bushes (Dec 07)

2009-11-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

Having replaced the front ARB bushes a few weeks before I finally got round to changing the rear ones. These turned out to be much easier than the front ones. It was a simple case of undoing both retaining brackets, pulling out the old ones and putting on the new ones. In order to get the brackets back on I found that I could use the trolley jack on the ARB to hold the bushes in place.

You can easily spot one of the new purple bushes in the pic below:

Went in for a service (Dec 07)

2009-11-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

For the first service under my watch I put it into JMH specialists in Holmes Chapel. It was for there for 2 and half weeks tongue. This might sound a little strange but since it's a weekend car, the arrangement was to drop if off on a nice day, leave it to be serviced as and when, and collect it on a nice day. So it's now got 21 stamps in the service book which is rapidly running out of space.

A full service on these cars is a big job as it's necessary to remove the heat exchangers in order to adjust the valve clearances and fit a new set of 12 spark plugs. With the diagnostic check and other bits and pieces, the labour time involved is 6 to 8 hours. Including a liberal amount of Mobil's finest and and a gearbox oil change (it hadn't been done for a while), I'm more than happy with the bill that came to £675. Probably half the price of what an OPC would charge (who are unlikely to have any staff these days that could service a 964).

It was great on the blast home after not having driven it for a while.

It's not often that the daily driver and the 964 are out at the same time. So here's a few pics of them together:

Some purchases for the future (Dec 07)

2008-11-27T14:35:00.000-08:00

Well, as usual time has not been standing still. In the last few weeks I have purchased some 4 pot rear calipers (off a 928 S4) which I'm currently refurbishing to put on in the new year, to replace the little two pot calipers:

And I'm collecting these rather stunning, refurbished original Cup 1 wheels:

New ARB bushes (Nov 07)

2008-11-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

The winter upgrades and mods started yesterday when I took up a friend's suggestion to replace some of the 'tired' suspension bushes. The wishbone bushes look to be in pretty good shape so I can wait and do those when I change springs and shocks. So I decided to change the anti-roll bar bushes.

The old bushes were in a pretty sorry state as you can see below. I bought new Powerflex bushes as a replacement (£60 for four bushes!). The clamps would probably have still been serviceable after cleaning them up but to put new ones on at the same time for £3.50 each was a no brainer.

Getting the old bushes and clamps out was pretty easy but putting the new ones in was a b1tch of a job and only achieved by much cursing. You can just see the bush and clamp tucked away behind the wheel hub in the pic below.

I'm sticking with the standard ARBs for now (20 mm front, 21 mm rear) but hopefully the new poly bushes will stiffen the car up a bit. Thicker/adjustable ARBs will be something I'll look into after the springs and shocks which are on my list for next year (funds permitting).

The cost of a year on track (Nov 07)

2008-11-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

I totted up the costs directly attributable to the trackdays this year.

Trackday fees = £568.50
Training day and on-track training = £280
Accomodation = £92
Petrol = £360
Oil top ups = £7
Brakes and fluid changes = £260
Tyres = £474

Grand Total = £2,041.50

Worth every penny!

Nb. Not including 'ring trip as the car stayed at home for that one.

Here's what a rear tyre looked like after 4 trackdays:

Last Trackday of the Year (Oct 07)

2008-11-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

First off, the change of pads and brake fluid was entirely successful. Not a hint of brake fade all day with the added bonus that the Pagid blues provided great initial stopping power and felt a lot more progressive than the previous standard road pads did.

The day started with a wet track which made things a little interesting! Knowing it was wet and since I was there very early (about half an hour before anyone else arrived biggrin.gif ) I had the set of tyres I'd ordered (Conti Sport Contact 2 for £474) put straight on. The suppliers (Protyre Motorsports) warned me they would be like glass until scrubbed in, and on a wet track they were right!

Thankfully, the track dried rapidly and stayed dry for the rest of the day. It is THE most technically demanding and enjoyable track I have driven so far. On my own I may have struggled to enjoy the day and would have been constantly moving off the racing line to let others past (GT3s and turbos were common as muck!) but luckily I'd blagged Marcus 'the Goose' Carniel to instruct for the day. With his help I got faster, and faster, and faster throughout the day. Being a club racer (in a 911) and a local, he knew exactly how to get through each section of the track and by being with me for session after session he got me to work on particular parts of the track each time we went out. Once I'd got one part right, we would move onto the next. It was simple as that.

The 964 doesn't have the power, agility or the electronic stability programs of modern Porsches but when in the right hands or being instructed by the right hands, boy can it haul ass! All this was achieved by showing me the right lines and getting me to develop a smooth steering input technique, with a little bit of trail braking to flick the tail round for good measure. Getting him to drive the car and demonstrate to me what it could do (he never looked like he was taking libertys with it) was a revelation. Cars with 100+ HP more pulled away from us on the straights but were reeled in again on the bends. There were lines through bends where I would turn in, let the car drift and then try to turn in again (my reading of what needed to be done). This meant I was fighting with the steering wheel, adjusting the throttle and unsettling the car. On the same bends he got me to turn in at the right point, set the steering wheel with the right amount of lock and the result was that the car would follow an arc that brought me to exactly the right point I needed to be for the next section of the track. Genious!

Similary to take all the first kerb of the chicane while under braking and then to change down to second in the middle to get maximum exit speed, was something I wouldn't have worked out in a month of Sundays!

At the end of a brilliant day both I and the Goose (and a few passengers) had really enjoyed the car which, simply, did not miss a beat all day. His summary was that the car was currently set up very well, didn't have any great under or oversteer issues and that the biggest benefit I would get from modifications in the short term was to get another set of wheels with sticky tyres which would allow a little bit more corner speed.

This gives an idea of why some refer to Oulton as a mini 'ring

My instructor showing me the way round Shell oils hairpin

Foulston's chicane

Going into Lodge

Keeping the younger generation of Pork in their place!

Attention to the brakes (Oct 07)

2008-11-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend's job is to get the brakes in good order for the car's last track outing of the year, next week at Oulton.

Here's the stuff I got to go on it:

I've gone for Pagid Sports for the front which are a bit more track focussed. Unfortunately I could only get standard pads for the back. I'm trying Halfords uprated Dot4 racing fluid to tackle the fade problem. Getting the pagids and uprated fluid has turned what normally be a fairly cheap parts bill into one that cost the best part of £220!

Here's a shot of the rear pads I took out. The extreme heat they suffered at Donny is clearly shown by the melted brake pad sensors.

New pads now installed so just need to do the bleeding tomorrow.

When the rain finally cleared out of the way today I finished this weekend's brake blitz by flushing with the new uprated brake fluid. With the eezibleed kit it's....well....easy. Here's a few pics to help anyone who wants to save a few quid by doing their own fluid changes:

1. Fill the bleed bottle with fluid and attach it to the fluid reservoir. The brake reservoir cap and float has been removed and the correct cap from the kit fitted. The mole grips are crimping the overflow pipe so that the system is completely closed.

2. Connect the bleed bottle hose to the tyre valve of the nearest wheel (after having first dropped the tyre pressure to 20 psi).

3. Starting at the brake caliper furthest from the reservoir (rear nearside for mine) attach a clear piece of tubing to the bleed valve and crack it open. Catch the fluid in a jar. Once the fluid gets nice and clean (about 250 ml) close the valve.

4. Disconnect the line from the tyre valve, refill the bleed bottle as necessary and move onto the next brake caliper. By the time you get to the front caliper nearest the reservoir it will take less and less fluid for the new fluid to come through.

The whole process took about an hour. Most of this time was taken up by jacking up and removing the wheel from each corner.

Then I went out and bedded in the new pads by doing about 10 progressively harder stops from 60 to 10 mph. All is now looking good for tuesday at Oulton

Trackday at Donington Park (Oct 07)

2008-11-09T10:42:00.001-08:00

This was the first time I had the opportunity to put into practice the training I'd received on the Prodrive track training day. Sure enough I found out a lot more about what the car (and I) could and couldn't do blushing.gif . On the whole the car held up very well throughout the day. On track it was sure footed for the majority of the time. The best fun was on bends like Macleans, Coppice and the old hairpin. Here it was possible to jump on the power at the apex and let the car drift out to the opposite of the track with lots of speed and no drama. Similarly it was very quick throught the Foggy chicane when yet again as soon as I'd turned in and clipped the first apex, it was a simple case of pointing the car at the second apex with full throttle.

The most difficult corners to get through quickly were the melbourne hairpin and goddards. Throughout out the day I had to be content with braking hard, going in deep and only feathering the throttle until I was out the other side. Too harsh and too soon would make the tail slide but having had a big spin at Craner curves early in the day I decided not to experiment with trying to slide it round those corners in case I ran out of talent.

The main issue with the car on the day was that the hard braking points of the melbourne loop took it's toll on my brakes. Although I'd bled some fluid and checked the pads (more than 50% left) before setting out to Donny I got a big case of brake fade after 4 laps in the second session. After checking that everything was OK and letting them cool I was happy to carry on for the rest of the day but I had to be a lot more sympathetic with them by braking much earlier than I would have liked to.

The other plus points from the day were the confirmation that removing the undertray had removed the embaressing phenomenom of smoke coming out of the engine bay after a hard session and that the battery, which had started run down due to a period of low use, had fully charged back up by the time I got home. All in all a brilliant day and the car continues to provide both the fun and thrills that I was hoping for.

Start of weight reduction (Oct 07)

2008-11-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

Over time I aim to put the car on a partial diet to improve the power to weight ratio. However, I'm not aiming to go mad with it as although I want the car to be a bit quicker for track days, I still want it to remain comfortable for touring.

Today I removed the rear seat backs and the engine undertray. Removing the latter should also help engine cooling and I'm hoping it will fix the mild smoking problem I get when the car is driven hard - I think it's being caused by the oil that weeps from the valve covers dropping onto the tray. As the tray makes contact with the primary silencer, the collected oil then burns off.

Weight losses so far:

Fitting teardrop mirrors in place of flag mirrors -1 Kg
Removal of undertray - 6.4 Kg
Removal of rear seat backs - 7 Kg

Total loss so far - 14.4 Kg

Further losses are planned over the winter. These include swapping the leather comfort seats for Recaro Pole Positions and to fit a cup bypass pipe in place of the primary silencer.

Even with the rear seat backs removed it still looks pretty tidy in the back:

Fixing the smile (Sep 07)

2008-11-06T15:32:00.001-08:00

The car, like many 964s today, has always had a frown when you look at from the front. This is caused by the cars being carelessly grouned on kerbs and the like, causing the brackets that secure the lower portion of the bumper to be bent upwards.

This picture perfectly illustrates its gloomy face:

After removing the covers below the bumper and a bit of surgery with some hefty pliers, the smile has been restored:

I've now pretty much achieved my primary aim of bringing the car up to a decent standard, got everything working that needed fixing plus a few cosmetic upgrades (clear lenses and steering wheel) and found what it (and I) can do on track as a standard 964 C2. With winter coming I can start thinking about modding it to make it more track focussed for next year.

New Steering Wheel (Aug 07)

2008-11-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

The steering wheel on the car was changed along time ago to a momo sports steering wheel. Although better to use than the original Porsche wheel, it's one item that I thought let the interior down.

Steering wheel as it was:

So this weekend I put on a new 'clubsport' steering wheel which is just as functional but, I think, a lot more aesthetic.

New Clubsport wheel:

Pro-drive Driver Development day (Aug 07)

2008-11-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

This rates as one of the best performance enhancements I've done to the car. It was a full day of instruction at Prodrive's test facility near Kenilworth, Warwickshire. There were 3 elements to the day, each of which was done twice:

Skid pan

This was all about provoking the rear to break away and to find out how you could correct and manage the slide with throttle input and opposite lock. I spun the car a lot! Eventually I was able to get the car to fish tale down the length of the skid pan when I learned how fast you needed to be with applying the lock. Essentially you had to apply opposite lock as soon as the the tail broke away. Great fun but very difficult.

Short track

A very twisty and narrow track which didn't allow you to use more than 3rd gear. This taught us the importance of positioning the car so that it was set up for following corners i.e. thinking ahead. It also taught us that sometimes it's possible to find one line through a complex of corners. Once found the complex could be treated as one bend, therefore eliminating some braking points to make the quickest progress. By positioning the car in the correct place of a complex of corners it was amazing how quickly you can get on the power to obtain a fast exit speed. We were also shown the benefit of using lift off oversteer to make the best progress through tight hairpin bends.

High speed track

This was about putting everything learned on the short track into practice at high speed. The track allowed speeds well in excess of 100 mph to be obtained. Here again we learned about using vision to find the racing lines. Yet again I was shocked how quickly I could get on to the power once the car had been set on the right line and steadied on the brakes prior to turn in. I was cornering at speeds I've never done before and for the first time experienced the car close to its limits (as evidenced by some nice drifting around the fastest bend while travelling at 3 figures). I also learned that for corners requiring down shifts that the gear changes should be done in the first 3rd of the braking zone, with a very quick but smooth action. This helps keep the revs up for when you turn in (again allowing you to have early power and drive through the corner).

It was one instructor to two people all day. This worked really well because after 10 high speed laps you needed a breather before moving on to the next session.

The car behaved beautifully all day. Most of the instructors hadn't driven a 964 before and each commented about the high grip levels the car had. One commented, "this car is ballistic considering it's age!"

Fixing the ABS issue (July 07)

2008-11-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

After a nice trip out at Donny yesterday it was back to work today and time to have a go at tackling the intermittent ABS problem. A bit of research suggested that with no dash warnings it could be down to dirty wheel speed sensors so these were duly removed and looked like this!

Use of a soft cloth and some electrical contact cleaner got rid of the muck and swarf from the magnets and I cleaned out the housing with a nylon brush and a vacuum cleaner for good measure.

This seems to have cured the issue.

Trackday at Donington Park (July 07)

2008-11-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

Being the first full track day for the car I decided that it would be better to be prepared for most eventualities so the night before, the front boot was filled with a fully loaded tool box, my trolley jack, foot pump and a box containing oil, sprays, lubricants and tape. This is something I'd never considered with the Boxster but the age of the 964 was possibly a factor that could lead to a breakdown being more likely. Of course on arrival at Donington everything was removed prior to going on track. And I'm glad to say that at the end of the day it was all put back without being used - bar the foot pump for adjusting tyre pressures for the track.

The first session gave us two sighting/warm up laps behind a pace car and my first driving experience of the place. At those speeds (not more than 60 mph) the car flowed effortlessly along. Then it was time to put my foot down for a few laps. I can't remember a lot about the first session as I was so engrossed in learning the track and trying to find lines and gears. Most of these were wrong to begin with and I continually let cars pass as they seemed to know more about what they were doing than I did! The thing I most remember is that the track was a little damp and the car skidded a couple of times under heavy braking (particularly at the end of the Dunlop straight where you get the chance to pull top speed). This just confirmed to me what I already knew that the ABS is a bit unreliable and needs investigating. Future laps would be driven with the mindset that the car did NOT have ABS and therefore I had to start braking a little earlier and practice smooth threshold braking.

In the three following sessions the track remained dry so the ABS issue never got in the way. In the second session I think my passenger at the time, Plynchy, summed the car up perfectly, "it feels really planted". There was no better evidence of this than Craner curves where it stuck to the line through the Apex like glue. In the early sessions I just held the car in 3rd gear through Craner in fear of what could happen unsure.gif . By the end I was changing up to 4th and on one occassion glanced down at the rev counter and saw 140 Kph flash up on the digital display w00t.gif . The car was similarly composed through the next section of the track where after the old hairpin there are a couple of gentle left handers that lead up to Mcleans. The more power I dared to put down the more the car gripped in this section. I will have to remember that next time as this is a place the car could easily pick up a second or two.

Strangely, the car never gives a feeling of massive acceleration but that's because it delivers the power in a very linear fashion, there's no sudden urge above 4,500 rpm like I get in the boxster, it just keeps pulling at the same rate. Also the 5 gears appear to be very long, most noticeably 3rd which could be used for every corner if the track was clear in front. Of course the lack of feeling of acceleration was completely false because as I got to know the track and got quicker, the more cars I ended up overtaking and seeing them get smaller in my mirrors. biggrin.gif . As for top speed on the day I clocked 178 kph (4th gear) along the Dunlop straight before braking (in plenty of time) for Goddard's chicane. This was down on the Purd's and Pete's 997S V-maxs (I know for a fact that Purds clocked 121 mph as I saw it wink.gif ) but there's no shame in that. Talking of which the last session that the three of us did together, we got out at the front of the pack and went round in a nice high speed procession for 4 laps. It must have been quite a cool sight watching two nearly new 997Ss tearing down the home straight with an old white 964 in hot persuit happy.gif .

In summary, the car behaved almost flawlessly and was great fun to drive - lots of grip and lots of feel through the steering. It'll never be the quickest car out there but if I can improve my driving ability* it WILL go round a track a lot quicker before it gets to its limits. It did give me one little warning though near the end ermm.gif . I turned in a little early for Redgate and on fearing I was going to run too wide, I did the classic 'panic lift off ' which resulted in the inevitable oversteer moment ohmy.gif . Strangely the natural lift off reaction was followed immediately by a natural gentle application of power and opposite lock and the moment was over, allowing me to carry on blasting round the track without anyone even knowing innocent.gif .

*I've got a driver development day at Prodrive booked for later in the summer.

New tail light (Jul 07)

2008-02-29T12:45:00.000-08:00

964 tail lights are well known (over time) for going pink, cracking, hazing and misting up during the slightest amount of rain. My offside light got changed some time ago before I bought the car (along with the bumper corner due to a small prang) however the nearside was the original and looked like this close up:

So with the MOT looming (weak excuse) I bit the bullet and got a new one. The new ones were redesigned right at the end of the 964 production to not have a full rubber seal (vented plastic surround instead) so that the pipe from the heater blower could purge the light unit of moisture more efficiently. Up until now it seems to work much better and looks a lot better too. Especially pictured next to my brother's 997.

Bonnet lifters and number plates (Jun 07)

2008-02-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

One job that had been bugging me for a while was the replacement of the air con drive belt. Previously I'd cut off the belt so that I could change the two fan belts that needed changing (see earlier). This was done because one particular bolt on the compressor mounting plate appeared impossible to get to. However, when recently replacing the air filter (another box ticked), I found that with the air box cover off, that annoying bolt could be got to. With this knowledge I got a new air con drive belt and proceeded to fit it. But it was the wrong size (too short). The reason for this is that the compressor has been changed to an after market one at some point. After a trip to Halfrauds I located a suitable replacement belt (4.5 cm longer) and I now have functioning air con again.

Nb. I subsequently found later on that the aircon was not working because it needs re-gassing and removed the belt again to release a few horses (engine also revs more freely without it attached).

Another bug bear has been getting bonked on the head by the bonnet . Until now this has meant carrying around a bonnet keepy upper. Which I'm sure you'll agrees gives the car a rustic touch:

As much as I liked the wood, I thought it was about time I fitted a new bonnet shock and another box has been ticked:

The exterior of the car is looking better and better with every polish it gets. However, this highlighted the little things that let it down. Namely the grotty number plates as shown by the pic below:

It looks so much better with new plates:

Clear indicator lenses (May 07)

2008-02-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of ebay, some new clear indicators and side repeaters came up for grabs sooner than I thought and at a price too good to miss. So.....

First Trackday (May 07)

2008-01-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

I had taken the boxster on track twice and had really caught the but. The first trackday for the 964 was an evening session at Bedford autodrome organised by 911UK.com

It was absolutely brilliant fun! The track was wet but not soaking yet the car performed superbly. I was astonished at the amount of grip it has for an old design. Never got close to a spin all evening . The instructor was equally impressed with its levels of grip and commented so. It was in its element coming out of fast corners as it was just a simple case of giving it loads of throttle and gently winding off the lock. Fantastic grip and balance. However, first time out (and being wet) I was braking early to ensure I had a sensible entry speed and I had some concerns about the ABS (didn't cut in consistently). No doubt I'll get more confident in it as time goes on.

The only worrying moment of the night was when blue smoke started pouring out of the engine bay after the first hard session . This was simply down to me topping up the oil a bit much that morning. Once it had spat out what it didn't need (which dripped onto the exhaust) all was fine - phew!

Paintwork Restoration (May 07)

2008-01-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Although the car has had a full respray at some point in its past. It clearly didn't get washed and waxed very often. This resulted in an orange 'bloom' in the paintwork. Panel by panel, I removed the bloom with a gentle cutting fluid (GP white is a pretty hard paint so there's no worry of scratching it) and followed this up with an initial coat of wax. As you can see from the pics below, water is now beading nicely on the surface.

Airbox and Wing Mirrors (May 07)

2008-01-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

A long weekend gave me lots of time to work on the car.

First off was the simple job of replacing the taped up airbox cover (this had been a temporary fix to the big hole that had been cut in the side to get more intake noise) with a new one that I recently bought off a 964RS owner.

I also decided to fit a new battery (75 Ah Bosch Silver costing £75) since the current one was over 5 years old.

The next job was to get the wing mirrors operating. Replacing the big 'flag' mirrors with the more aesthetic (and lighter) 'teardrop' mirrors is a popular upgrade for 964s. These mirrors can be hard to get hold of and regularly go for more than £250 a pair on flea bay. The previous owner had already bought and fitted the teardrops but being somewhat DIY challenged, he had not been able to wire them up. This was quite evident when I remove the mirrors and found that the wires had simply been cut through and taped together with masking tape!

In order to wire up the teardrops it's necessary to cut off the wiring plug and join everything up with bullet crimps. The pic below shows the new and old mirrors (these came with the car), the plug I had to cut off the teardrops and the male bullet crimps on the teardrop. They are now working as they should be.

Health Check and Alignment (Apr 07)

2008-01-15T15:43:00.000-08:00

This week (end of April 07) the car had its first trip to my local Indy for a brake fluid change, wheel alignment and general health check. The brake fluid was mostly because the last 'official' record was 6 years ago. As it turned out there were no problems and Jason guessed that it had been changed more recently than the record due to its condition and that the bleed nipples were fine (apparently they seize up if the fluid doesn't get changed regularly.

The wheel alignment was a different matter. It was well out! In particular the toe-in was 10 mm out from the book settings. With this remedied the car already feels less nervous at the front, tracks better on uneven road surfaces and is much more flat under heavy braking. For anyone interested in the technicalities of wheel alignment I found the site below very good at explaining how the alignment affects a cars behaviour on the road;

http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm

Apart from some very minor issues (which I was aware of and will be attending to), Jason gave the car the thumbs up and reckoned I'd found a good 'un.

Of course I still had to spend the weekend doing stuff on the car myself (it's an obsession now). This included:

1. Fitting a new rear wiper blade
2. Painting the hats on the front discs. These are new Zimmermans that were fitted just before I bought the car and had already started to rust badly and looked very unsightly. A bit of elbow grease to remove the rust and some black heat resistent paint has made them look so much better.
3. The wheels, particularly the rears, were badly kerbed due to the car spending the previous two years on the streets of London. Again some elbow grease and some silver touch up paint has made them look a lot more respectable.

After only 2 months of ownership I've just totted up that I've already spent £1,642 on the car (mostly parts). But I don't regret a penny because of the enjoyment it is giving me.

964 vs Boxster (Apr 07)

2008-01-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

The bumper scrape incident has been pushed to the back of my mind because yesterday I chose to drive the 964 the long way to work (twisty road) and today did the same drive in the boxster. A sort of mini test to see how they faired against each other.

First the 964.

Now that I'm getting used to its charms I'm a lot more confident in it's abilities. It's a beautiful car to balance on the throttle round long sweeping bends. Feed in a bit more throttle and you can feel the nose push wide. Back off a little and you can tighten its line at the end of the bend before giving it some right foot welly onto the straight. The best gear on this twisty road was undoubtly second, fabulous for belting out the other side of a tight corner and a wonderful overtaking gear. I came across a couple of cars tootling down the lane travelling well below the NSL. Each time it was; check the road was clear, move out, indicate, clutch in, big throttle blip whilst slamming her down to second, clutch out, back on the throttle, feel the back of the car hunker down and roar past the plodder whilst pulling 6,000+ rpm on the tacho . In an instant I'm back on the left side of the road and grabbing 3rd gear as she hits 70 mph (before slowing back down).

The other part of the car's charm is its ability to shock and surprise you. Hit a bump or depression at speed (especially one that affects only one side of the car) and your either airborn for a millisecond or one tyre finds more grip than the other. For a very brief moment the steering goes very light as though you're no longer in control . But before you know it the obstacle has been traversed and everything's connected to the road again. At first I was un-nerved by these mini heart stoppers but now I just accept them as part of the drama of driving this car and realise that you have to hold it by the scruff of its neck and make it behave.

Second the Boxster.

I used to think the boxster is easy to drive and after having the 964 I now know it is easy to drive. Through the same bends I could carry quite a bit more speed and just point it round them on steady throttle. In the box you can feel all four wheels gripping (especially the front) as you hug the inside of the bend. It's not as quick out the other side and therefore would lose ground on the '64 but if it had been in front it would have already been well away because of that extra cornering ability .

Over the same bumps and dips the boxster remained flat and un-flustered by the road surface. No drama. Never makes you anxious. I could just focus on the road ahead and let the superb chassis soak up anything that the surface threw at it. The box is a lot quieter than the 964 so doesn't always feel as fast but a quick glance at the speedo and I soon realised that was an illusion because it was going very quickly indeed! Quite possibly quicker overall than the previous day when I was in the other one. And definitely the one I would choose to get down that road as fast as possible if a life depended on it.

Summary

Over the same road in almost identical conditions both cars delivered pure driving enjoyment in different ways. I would liken the boxster to a thorough-bred that you point, coax and carress and the 964 to a wild stallion that you hang on to and use liberal doses of a whip to make it obey your commands.

Minor Repairs and an incident! (Apr 07)

2008-01-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

I took it comparatively easy this weekend and decided to finally getting round to fitting the new fan belts that I got a while ago. The current ones were well past their sell by date and with a few trips planned for the car recently I didn't want to get stranded out on the road with a broken belt or two . There's a belt for the alternator (like any other car) and a belt for the big air cooling fan . It took about an hour to do because you have to fire the engine up and check the tension and then add or remove shims to get this right.

The second small job was to replace a cracked foglight. Here the whole unit has to be replaced (you can't buy the lense separately). These are pretty expensive for what they are but luckily my OPC was selling off old stock last week and I picked one up for less than half price! It took just a few minutes to fit.

I'd rather not report the next bit . At the moment I'm gradually going over the whole body work with a mild cutting/polish cream to remove the 'orange bloom' that has built up due to previous neglect (i.e. the car has not been washed or waxed properly). Last week I did the front bumper to point that it was gleaming . Today, on a drive out, some twunt did this to it in a car park!

The Exhaust System (Apr 07)

2008-01-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

Another busy weekend with the 964 saw me removing the noisy G-pipe and replacing it with a standard final silencer. The new silencer was sourced from Porsch-apart for a third of the price that a new one would cost (£150 versus £450).

Fitting was fairly straight forward. It just took a couple of attempts to get the olive between the pre-silencer outlet and the inlet to the final silencer to seal nicely. The car is a lot more refined now at tick over and low revs and is both track and neighbour friendly in the noise stakes.

From what I've picked up the G-pipe does not give any bhp gains but saves a lot of weight compared to the standard silencer (about 10 kilos but don't quote me on that). The main reason people put a G-pipe on is for the aural pleasure it gives. Today on a long test drive since putting on the standard silencer, there was no perceptable difference in performance IMO.

Again, from what I've read about 964 exhausts, the silencers are very free flowing. It's the cat that has the greatest restrictions. Putting on a cat bypass can liberate a few more bhp.

There are quite a few combinations you can play with on the 964 because of there being a cat, pre-silencer and final silencer. These can all be replaced with a cat-bypass, cup pipe and G-pipe as appropriate.

From what I've gleaned from Rennlist; the standard set up (which I now have) is about 92 dba, change one component and you'll be between 97 and 100 dba, change two components and you'll be between 105 and 108 dba and if you change all three there will be blood coming out of your ears

BTW, all these meausurements are the standard 0.5 metres static test at 4,000 revs.

I didn't want to risk being on the limit on trackdays and having to start short shifting and the like to keep the noise down. And didn't want to annoy the neighbours too much . A happy side effect of putting a standard silencer on is that the overall balance/stability of the car seems a whole lot better. I guess that the silencer on the right is balancing the weight of the cat on the left (just how Porsche meant it to be).

I've stored the G-pipe for now in case I want to play with exhaust mods later. At the moment my future preference is to remove the heavy pre-silencer and put on a cup pipe. This will introduce a bit more growl (but should be below the magic 100 dba) but more importantly remove a chunk of weight from the car.

Fitted a tacho with an OBC (Mar 07)

2008-01-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

The job at the end of March was an upgrade. A tachometer off a turbo came up on ebay and I managed to win the bid with a few seconds left. Anyway, unlike my existing tacho, this version has the OBC display. Whipping the old tacho out was a 15 minute job and the new one slotted and plugged straight in (the wiring harness already had the alternative plug and I already had the control stalk from replacing the indicator stalk unit).

The 964 OBC is very basic compared to newer Porsches but at least I now have a very useful digital speed display in the tacho. However, it was only once I turned it on that it was a KPH version (they don't in built switch-ability) but it's still very useful since the speedometer is always obscured by the steering wheel once over 70 mph!

Work on the rear brakes (Mar 07)

2008-01-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Soon the brake pad warning light came on so one weekend's job was to put new rear pads and discs on the back (the history file indicated that the discs were getting on for 70,000 miles!).

To say that the job was a pig is a bit of an understatement. I decided to be ultra safe and put the car on axles stands. This necessitates jacking up the car under the engine. But before you can do this it's necessary to remove the undertray to ensure you don't put the jack through an oil pipe. With very little ground clearance under a porsche it's a very frustrating and time consuming job. With that done the car could be jacked up and then dropped onto the stands:

Getting badly corroded discs off is no piece of cake either especially when the handbrake shoes are binding on the inside of the disc hub because they hadn't been adjusted properly in their previous life! However once off, I gave the wheel hub and the calipers a good cleaning and adjusted the handbrake shoes so that they had a nice clearance. This meant that the new discs slid on very nicely. The new discs are the Sebro version which come already painted in grey primer. I sprayed the hat rims with high temperature black paint but left the face of the hat grey as it is hidden by the wheel.

The final pain in the ass is the need to grind down the sides of the new brake pads - over time the corrosion in the calipers 'lifts' the spring plates so new pads stick in the calipers. Changing the spring plates is a very frustrating job and can be very expensive if you get it wrong so the general consensus is to just adjust the pads so they fit.

Since I had the car on stands I finished the weekend off by fitting a rear bumper support bar (they rust away over time) and I took the opportunity to wash down the underside of the engine to clean away some of the old oil. If you're worried about the RMS leaking on a boxster, don't bother with a 964 - they are notorious for leaking oil. In my case most of the oil was clearly old from previous leaks that had been fixed. I thought I'd clean them away to make it easy spot any new ones when they occur.

p.s. Discs, pads and sensors came to a shade over £150.

Problems with the indicators (Mar 07)

2008-01-07T14:52:00.000-08:00

The first job at home was to rip out out the old indicator stalk mechanism (I had to hold up the stalk when indicating to go right) and put on a new one. Amazingly even though the car has been out of production for some 15 years, I was still able to order a new assembly. Just had to wait a few days for it to be shipped over from Porsche-land. Even though it was £192, I thought it was better to get new rather than buy an old used one that might not last long.

Owing to the lack of an airbag, disassembly of the steering wheel was straight forward and the new stalk mechanism installed very easily. I had to modify the plastic cowling because I bought the 3 stalk model which will operate the OBC when I get round to hacking into the dash wiring to get it up and running (this option wasn't ordered when the car was new).

So now I can safely turn right without the worry of someone ploughing into the back of me because they thought I'd cancelled the indicator on purpose!

Collection and first pics at home (Feb 07)

2008-01-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

The first job I had to do was to replace the engine lid release cable which had snapped when I viewed the car for the first time. So on the morning of purchase I fitted the cable outside the vendors flat, took it for another test drive and then handed over the payment to him . I then drove the car home. A 250 mile journey and it didn't miss a beat.

First Photos (Feb 07)

2008-01-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

Here are the very first photos of the car that were taken when I bought and rescued it from the streets of London. This was the culmination of around 4 months of looking for the right car. I'd looked at dozens of adverts in that time, read everything I could about the 964, got loads of advice from the PCGB 964 register and looked at two other examples (which I rejected). One of the photos shows my very tired Mrs clutching the 100+ point checklist that I filled in before deciding to buy it.