The car is a 1973.5 911T and this is its story. I’ve owned this car for twenty-six years. A friend owned it for a few years before me and I always told him that I would buy it one day when decided to sell it. Then one afternoon in 1990 I got a call. “I’m bringing your 911 over – get your checkbook out.”At the time I was working with European Car magazine. Greg Brown and I decided that this 911 should become a magazine project car. Over the next several years I wrote a series of articles and participated in a number of driving events with the car. I even talked Derek Bell into testing the car for me once we finished all the modifications.
In the past twenty-six years this 911 has been both a daily driver and a track car. This car has never been stock since I’ve owned it. One of the early owners of this car removed the CIS fuel injection system. I have no intention of finding a replacement CIS. Life is too short for that. The Webers work just fine and the car has a lot of low-end torque. I’m a big fan of low-end torque.
When I was using this 911 as a magazine project car the emphasis was on increasing the performance of the car with aftermarket parts. It worked. I still have a box of Porsche Club of America trophies someplace out in the garage.
Today the car is a street car. It got to the point where I stopped running competitive events and the car was just very uncomfortable on the street. I had crossed the dual-purpose line. I went too far in one direction.
The past year has been one of backing up. It’s now all about enjoying the car on trips and road tours. The ride is much softer and I’m enjoying the car more. I’m also doing things to the interior and fixing some of the rust. I think that all of this may be a sign that I’m getting a little older. It’s also a sign that the cars running HPDEs today are blindingly fast and all I do on the track is point cars by me.
Certificate of Authenticity: People always ask about these certificates. A lot of Porsche owners believe theses certificates are a big deal. I would advise every Porsche owner to acquire one and put it with your valuable papers. When the time comes to sell your 911 this COA may increase the value of your car. At the very least it will give you a bargaining point. I was lucky enough to get my Certificate of Authenticity directly from Germany. This German COA is considered much more accurate than the ones currently available from Porsche North America.
There was a time when you could basically tell the folks in Atlanta what you wanted on your COA and they would put it there. PCNA simply referred to this technique as correcting some documentation mistakes. Sure.
The interesting item here is that my car was delivered to the Porsche dealer in Columbus Ohio in 1973. The next record of the car is in the mid-eighties and the car is in New Jersey. What happened between Ohio and New Jersey is still a mystery.
Wheels: Harvey Weidman refreshed these wheels. I won’t call this a restoration because Porsche never sold polished Fuchs. I was originally going to have Harvey refurbish the wheels with an RSR finish. A friend of mine had that done to his wheels and I liked the look. After watching him trying to clean his RSR wheels I decided I really wasn’t going for the racer/rallye look. That was too much work.
My wheels had some curb rash and Harvey suggested that a polished wheel would look better after he completed the welding. The welds show up when the wheels are anodized. The welding never shows up if you simply polish the wheels.
I have 6x16 wheels on the front and 7x16 wheels on the rear. The tires are 205/55 - 16 all the way around. I’ve had alt least six different brands on the car and they all worked. I now use Michelin Sport Cups on the black wheels and Michelin Pilot Sports on the polished wheels. I’ve never had an issue with any of them rubbing. Then again I run negative camber to that may be why I have no issues.
The polished wheels looked too nice to use on the track. I was also starting to dislike using the stiff DOT tires on the street. I had another set of wheels for the track, which I painted black with a Krylon rattle can.
This was also based on a Harvey Weidman recommendation. He prefers rattle can paint to powder coating for track use. You can easily touch up paint. With powder coating the entire wheel has to be redone.
This was also based on a Harvey Weidman recommendation. He prefers rattle can paint to powder coating for track use. You can easily touch up paint. With powder coating the entire wheel has to be redone.
Bumpers: A few years back I got rid of the huge black ugly bumper guards that Porsche installed on the 1973 911s. I was originally going to replace them with body colored bumper guards then I found a chrome set that was in really nice condition. They were just too nice to paint. The car looks a lot better with the chrome units. Anything is better than those huge 1973 blocks of rubber.
You’ll also notice that I developed my own rallye exhaust system. I created a 3-pipe system. Back in the day when these cars ran rallye events they were required to cap the exhaust system while going through towns. Once they left town they could remove the caps and get a couple more horsepower. I just liked the look.
This entire project cost me less that $30.00. I bought some pipe at Advance Auto and my welder charged me $20.00 to weld it all together.
Interior: The crack in the dash going to stay in place. I've heard from too many people about the bad quality of the cvurent dash reproductions. I don't think anyone is making a decent dash pad today. I'm not even willing to let Tony at Autobahn repair my dash. It's just too much aggravation.
The crack is really a part of the car’s history. At one point the Early 911S Registry did a survey as to what would be better – a reproduction dash pad or an original one with the crack. Roughly 75% of the respondents felt that a cracked original one was superior.
I guess if I can polish wheels then a polished shifter housing is no big deal. Actually a polished shifter housing is a lot easier to take care of than a set of polished Fuchs
These seats are going to stay. I like them and they're comfortable. I've had my share of Scheel and Recaro seats over the years and the stock Porsche 911 seats are wonderful. I simply don’t go fast enough on the street to need the huge side bolsters. They do look great though.
While all of the rust was being taken care of I sent the rear seat bottoms out to Tony at Autobahn for restitching. The part you could see was good but the backing had deteriorated. The rear seat buckets were always filled with that old German horsehair. Vacuuming the rear seat area was something I finally go tired of doing.
I’m still struggling with what to do with my door panels. Do I replace my door panel with a stock panel, or do I install the RS door panels? I don't need the speakers since I no longer have a radio. I'm in no rush here and I welcome any suggestions.
Carpet: At one point I thought the car would go faster if I removed all of the sound deadening material. It didn't. Actually the car just got noisier but I could pretend I was driving a racecar. That was not all bad.
What you see in the photo on the left is what the floor looked like after I removed all the carpeting. The good part was there was absolutely no rust in the floor.
Installing sound deadener is no easy task. The material comes in a large sheet and it has to be trimmed to fit into the depressions in the floor. I know people who just place it over everything but that's not correct. I wanted it done the way the Porsche factory did it. That meant several hours of meticulous cutting and gluing.
The original idea was to use a Wurth product but our local dealer said Wurth didn't make the OEM material. I was able to find an equivalent product from a different supplier.
I later found the original Wurth material online but by that point it was too late. At that point I realized the Wurth rep was trying to bump me up into a more expensive product. So much for the Wurth distribution system.
I'm glad didn't attempt to do my own carpeting. It can be done but it's a tremendous amount of work. I'll stick to working on brakes and suspension
The Fuel Pump Saga: Porsche wanted over $800 for an original 1973.5 fuel pump. I could buy a brand new generic Bosch fuel pump for just under $200. This was an easy decision. What could go wrong?
How about everything. While the original Porsche/Bosch fuel pump lasted 37 years the replacement last less than two years. And, there was no warranty that point. Bosch had no sympathy for my plight.
The good part was that I had kept the original fuel pump. At least the pump that came with the car when I wrote the check.
Instead of buying another new generic fuel pump I sent what I believed to be the original Porsche fuel pump to Fuel Injection Corp. in California.
They informed me that what I thought was the original fuel pump wasn’t. This Bosch pump was built in 1984.That's eleven years after my car was built. The good news was that this fuel pump was designed for a mechanical injection car - which is exactly the fuel pump you want with Weber carbs. I suspect that when the CIS system was removed they replaced the fuel pump, and they did it correctly. A shop that knew what they were doing. Amazing.
The Rust Project: This was a huge deal. While the car wasn't rusted nearly as bad as most early Porsches that doesn't say a great deal. If someone says they have an early 911 with no rust it simply means they haven’t looked close enough.
The front pan and the floors were in perfect condition on this car. The problem here was leaking rear window seals. The left side window seal dried out and allowed water to enter the car.
This water would then run down behind the interior panels and gather in the rear seat pans. Every time I washed the car I was adding to the corrosion.
This water would then run down behind the interior panels and gather in the rear seat pans. Every time I washed the car I was adding to the corrosion.
With the older 911s you develop a rust problem by simply washing your car. The rust in my car didn't develop because of salt and snow. It was a result of my keeping my car clean. If you have an older 911 you really should think about replacing your side window seals.
This is a fairly common problem with cars that reside in a sunny warm climate. The sun dries out the rear window seals and they not long keep water out of the car. I think the sun drying out the rubber seals causes more rust issues than does road salt.
Here you can see how things turned out. The shop did an incredible job welding the new pan into place. The pan on the right hand side simply had surface rust so that wasn't quite as big a deal.
With everything out of the car I decided to install the RSR shock braces. I'm not sure they do anything but they were inexpensive to buy and to weld in place. By this point I was so far into my visa card another $100.00 wouldn't even register.
The Lights: Once I had all the rust taken care of and the new carpeting installed I decided to work on getting all of the lights to operate. In retrospect that may have been a mistake. Actually it wasn't so much a mistake as just one more thing that ended up costing more than I had planned. And other than the cosmetics it really made no difference in the operation of the car.
This is where the problem began. The bulbs were not making contact with the little prongs inside the taillight housing. How hard can this be? I can bend the prongs, or maybe replace the sockets. Not really.This is the backside of the taillight box. This is where life gets complicated. There's really not much you can do on the backside. It's basically a sealed unit. A new unit sells for over $400 dollars. I needed 2 of them. This is not going to be any fun.
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| Very few parts people even now about this little bushing. |
The front parking light/turn signal unit is basically the same thing. Since my left front turn signal lens was broken. The interesting thing was that I had Italian lenses on the front of the car and USA lenses on the back. I'm really not sure how that happened. I replaced the front lenses with Italian reproduction lenses on the front.
The most frustrating thing with this whole job was the parts situation. I used Sierra Madre and Stoddards. Both companies have good parts but the sales people are basically clueless. They're fine on the larger parts but when you get down to the small screws and bolts they don't have any idea about the availability.
The result of all this money and effort is that the car looks slightly better without the cracked lens but the lights still don’t work. I have to get back to this lighting situation. Soon.
The good part is that all of front lights work. I like the yellow French lens. The clear lens actually transmits more light but they don't look as interesting. Since I don't drive this car much at night I like the French look.
The Front Suspension: I put this off about as long as I could. I knew the front torsi bar bushings were bad but the car still drove decently. It was time to do something about the situation. Little did I know that I was about to embark on a path that would frustrate me more than any other thing I’ve ever done to the car.
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| My diagnosis was correct. The bushing was shot. |
There was no question that the front control arm bushings were totally worn out. This was a job that had to be done. The question was how to do it and which parts to use.
I spoke to a lot of people and listened to what other Porsche owners had experienced.
Everyone came to the same conclusion. A 911 that is a street car simply doesn't need trick parts. The stock rubber bushing worked nicely for over 40 years.
Everyone came to the same conclusion. A 911 that is a street car simply doesn't need trick parts. The stock rubber bushing worked nicely for over 40 years.
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The worn out bushing meant the the torsion bar lacked support. It was rubbing. |
Then came the first problem. Porsche no longer supplies the bushing. That meant going to the aftermarket. I ordered a set of bushings from Stoddard Porsche. They were totally wrong. I think they were designed for a 914 but who knows? The parts people at Stoddard were clueless.
The next attempt was to use Automotion. I've used them in the past but since that time they've gone through several owners. A private equity firm now owns them. They had the correct parts. It just took a couple of different sales people to figure that out.
Then came problems with the shop. I’ve used the same tech for the past decade. He’s worked on 911s for over thirty years. The problem was in all those decades he had never replaced the bushings on the 911 front suspension. Or, he had forgotten how to do it. He asked me to seek out alternatives to the rubber bushings. This was where things started to go south very quickly.
I surveyed a number of 911 owners I decided to purchase from Rebel Racing Products. The product looks wonderful and I still believe in the theory of the product. The problem is that there is no customer support. None.
Following the directions from Rebel Racing we discovered that nothing would bolt up correctly. The idea with the Rebel Racing bushings is that the lower control arm should move freely. They suggested using shims to get the desired freedom of movement. I have now set the world record for Porsche shim stacks.