Running Report 1 - November 2001

Introduction

My name is Del Sandfort and I reside in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. I am a relative newcomer to Porsche having obtained my first one in 1994. It was a 1980 Euro 911 SC. I bought it from a friend and local shop owner who has been servicing our BMWs since the early 80's. He had a good history on the car and I loved it from day one. It smelled of gas, was noisy and rough and my wife hated it. All positives in my estimation. I had owned a variety of other 2-seaters but this was a true sports car in my view.

Finding a C2

I had been doing more than a normal amount of reading on the evolution of the 911 (based on comments from my wife) and had decided that a 91 C2 was the next logical 911 for me. In June of 2001, my daughter and I were coming home from somewhere when we passed the shop and there sat a very red C2. In fact, a 91. It was not only very red it was the reddest automobile I had ever seen (and still is). It looked to be in very good condition so I contacted the shop the next day and they were pleased to let me take the car for an extended time. Needless to say, I found the only similarity between my SC and this car to be the ignition location and the general shape of the gauges. I thought the SC was easy to turn in to corners but required some effort to hold the line. The C2 seemed to require more effort to get it started in the corner but was much easier to hold on a line. The final blow came when I returned the car and jumped in the SC. What difference in power. The car was very strong and after several inspections I decided to buy it.

There were several significant oil leaks and we determined that the engine was not as strong as originally thought. This was not a local car and there was no history other than what we could see and test. My agreement with the shop included a complete top end overhaul, new single mass flywheel and clutch assembly and repair/replacement of multiple oil lines and leaks. I decided that a refreshed engine was the best history I could ask for. While the work was being completed, I sold my SC to a friend who works with my organization. He is happy with the car and I see it daily. Sale price was $14,000. The car was in very nice condition and only needed rear brakes.

The C2 was finished in mid July and I took delivery with great anticipation having been without a 911 for several weeks. Final price was $31,000. The car is Guards Red with Tan leather. It has 16" 993 cup wheels with new Dunlop 9000's. The mechanics are now very sound and everything is tight. This car, like my SC, is a daily driver and will always be so except for snow.

Projects

The car had been in Arizona and had suffered from sun exposure relative to the various trim pieces and seals. I decided to first replace the sunroof seal myself. My friend gave me his shop manuals and a set of seals and off I went. The job was not especially difficult and the finished result is quite nice. I was going to replace fender to cowl seals and headlight seals next. The black portion of the wing looked very faded so I removed it and after much masking, I was able to repaint with SEM Trim Bright. It now looks very nice.

The sound system was dismal so I replaced everything. Rear speakers are multi-piece Boston installed in custom-build plates (that I built). Front speakers are matched Bostons but I fit the tweeters into the original equipment fittings so as not to change the appearance or function. A new Alpine 4-channel amplifier and finally, a Kenwood tuner with CD. Much better sound now.

I decided to try the entire Griot's Garage system for car care including the buffer/polisher. I used everything and ended up with a very satisfying and beautiful finish. Time will tell as to durability. I had been enjoying the car for about 4 weeks when a very old, very nice woman in a very large Suburban backed into the car while in a parking lot. The result was about $3000 damage to left door, left fender and hood. The repairs were completed but I am still not satisfied with the final finish. The color match is perfect but the buffing and polishing leave something to improved upon. We will continue to work on this. I received the car from the body shop on September 10 and the next day our world changed dramatically.

While driving to a conference in south-western Colorado, I was caught in a torrential rain storm. Nearly impossible to drive at anything over 5 mph. I nearly hit a black bear on the road (this was a very remote part of the Colorado Rocky Mountains). The Check Engine light came on but went off after the car was restarted. I drove home with no mishaps but the car would start but not run afterwards. It turns out that I had saturated the lower plug wires with rain water and splash and they were cross-firing badly. After replacing the plug wires the car now runs perfectly again. I am not sure if the engine cover would have prevented this. It was removed during the rebuild.

Radio Flyer

Since September 11 I have not driven the car much due to a variety of work-related factors including an 8-day work tour at the World Trade Center site. I have a spare airbox cover that I plan to drill and see for myself what happens. I will put a set of sheepskin covers on the seats to help with the cold this winter. The seats are unheated. I am also looking at the possibility of going to 17 inch wheels and lowering the car but I will most definitely wait until the Dunlops are gone before considering this move. Finally, I will put another coat or two of wax on the car, especially the newly painted surfaces before winter really sets in. My plans for this winter are to simply drive the car and stay out of the way of Suburbans. My family has named it the "Radio Flyer" after the little red wagon and I don't intend to put any more paint on it.

Running Report 2 - May 2002

I’m sorry to admit that since the November running report I’ve been travelling so much that the mileage has increased only 1,400 to 94,900. Car mileage that is, my mileage is increasing at an exponential rate. Fourteen hundred in six months! That’s embarrassing! At any rate, the fault lies with me, the cold and the snow, not the car.

After much polishing and waxing, I am now somewhat satisfied with the body and paint work resulting from my encounter with the Suburban. I do like the Griot’s system of polishes and wax and I will continue to use it. The car has not gotten any less red in six months and continues to attract plenty of attention. The young Mitsubishi drivers continue to think of our main street as a scene from a recent movie (the name of which escapes me) and consider it to be great fun to challenge an old man in a red car.

The active spoiler began to misbehave around Christmas. It lifts partially and then faults accompanied by the dash warning. It remains raised until I turn the car off and upon restart it will lower manually. There seems to be no pattern to the fault but it is mostly associated with cold mornings. On warm days it behaves perfectly. I’ve tried another drive motor from a C4 belonging to my friend at the shop where I get service. No luck. I’ve definitely narrowed it down to the motor, the gear drive, the limit switches or the relay and any combination of these (including parts yet discovered). I will win this battle.

In January the car developed a horrible brake squeal. Sure enough, new front rotors, pads and sensors were in order. Much better now and “only” $400. I debated about drilled, slotted or stock rotors and finally decided on stock. In the last month the brake warning light comes on after a good wheel wash and goes out once things dry out. I suspect that one of the sensors is the culprit and will have it checked on the next routine service.

The engine remains tight after the rebuild and oil consumption is minimal. I still have a difficult time reading the oil dip stick and have begun to rely more and more on the oil level gauge. I tried sanding the stick to make things more visible (I read that somewhere) but still find it difficult to see where the oil level is on the stick. Since November the car has used less than 1 quart but I continue to check it constantly and will do so until I get a feel for the normal consumption.

I still have the airbox cover sitting in a box waiting to be drilled. I’m not convinced that this will lead to any improvement but since I have 2 covers I will go ahead and give it a try and see for myself. Based on what I’ve read it is most likely an aural change rather than a performance change. I do not have ready access to a dynamometer so I will never know.

The biggest challenge in the next 6 months is to teach my daughter how to drive a manual transmission. She is about to inherit a 1990 535i with a manual transmission and needs to know how to drive it. The problem is that the C2 is the only manual we have available at the moment so I will have to take plenty of valium or whisky (or both) and let her have a go at it. Luckily, the clutch is new and hopefully stronger than she is.
 

Running Report 3 - November 2002

Hot

What a hot summer! I’m glad it’s over. The heater fan ran more this summer than it did the previous winter. I was fixing a nice cold drink after arriving from a very hot drive when I heard what sounded like the garbage disposer running in the garage. It was very loud and very disturbing to say the least. Sure enough, the fan bearings had gone south and the centrifugal fan was trashing about in the housing as the fan was spinning to cool the engine. Two days later I received a new fan and was given assurance that it was a simple DIY project. It is until you pull the threads out of one of the main attachment points (it appeared to be brass). So, back to the shop for a Time-sert kit. After three trips to the shop and about 4 hours of a Saturday, the fan is in and very quiet. This was a very easy job as long as care is taken to not damage the female threads that accept the 2 long attachment bolts. Total cost (not counting time and aggravation) was about $250.

Holy

While I was in the engine compartment, I decided to drill the air box and see what happened. Instead of drilling, I decided to take the entire flat section of the box out to give it the largest cross-section and hopefully least turbulent path through the filter. I used a photo of the Weltmeister air box sold by Performance Products as a basic guide. There were some logical cut lines molded in the plastic piece so I used a high-speed side cutting bit on a Dremmel tool. It worked like a charm. A little filing, a little sanding and the new air box was ready for a test run.

If I believed everything I had read from various sources, my teeth would get whiter, I would loose 10 pounds and my hair would turn brown again once I did this. I also read the advertising which suggested an increase in horsepower. All I really notice is a change in the aural character of the engine during acceleration at higher (>3000) rpm. I don’t think this has accomplished much and I see/feel no reason to do it unless you just want your car to sound different. It’s really seems to be NO BIG DEAL. I’ll drive it a few thousand more miles and then put the old cover back on to see if I can tell any difference other than sound.

Freezing

I couldn’t really tackle the spoiler problem during the heat of summer since everything worked fine in the heat. However, once cool nights set in, the spoiler began to fault in the cool of the morning. I started at the rear and checked the drive mechanism and the limit switches. I even put them in the freezer for several hours. All worked fine. I located the spoiler control unit in the passenger foot well (LHD car) and gave it a good cold sink. Sure enough, the spoiler faulted when the control unit was cold. I took it apart and there was nothing obviously broken or disconnected. However, there appeared to be the signs of a short on the circuit board. I couldn’t find another 964 around to swap parts to test it so I ordered a new control unit ($230). Everything works well now and the spoiler is more robust on the rise. I believe it is also less noisy but can’t really confirm this.

While in for a routine oil service, I decided to replace the CV boots since they were cracked. The brake pad wear sensors were also adjusted to eliminate the intermittent brake warning light problem. We found that a front sensor was not positioned properly and that one in the rear was not functioning. The rear pads will need replacing and the rear rotors turned or replaced within the next 5K miles or so. I’ll let the wear sensors on the rear as they are until this work is performed. All this set me back about $350.

Cool

I am thankful to report that the new clutch and lightweight flywheel survived the learning curve of a nearly 16 year old daughter who needed to learn how to drive a manual transmission. All-in-all, she did quite well. Her final “exam” with her driving instructor is to make a round trip to a nice little mountain town about 40 miles from here. We just did it for practice and lunch last weekend and now she wants to take the instructor in the 964 instead of his 1993 Corolla. Go girl!

I still plan to put a set of sheepskin seat covers in this winter. The piping on the drivers seat is beginning to crack and the seat pan itself shows wear. The covers won’t fix the wear but I won’t have to look at it and my backside will be much warmer in the cold mornings. The Dunlop 9000’s are wearing very well. A friend has a set on a 540 and they seem to be cupping which causes a noticeable whine at certain speeds. I have no such problem. The car is not starting well and runs rough for about 1 minute when it is very cold. I’ll take it in for a tune and adjust as soon as it really bothers me. Other than that, I’ll just drive it when the roads are dry.

Running Report 4 - May 2003

It’s my wife’s fault. Honest. We put a set of 17 inch M Parallel Spoke wheels on her 540 and they look great. Problem was, now my 16 inchers with the curb rash looked pretty bleak on the 964. It was obvious what needed to be done. I started looking around and my friend at the shop I use found a nice set of 17 inch cup wheels, with tires, on E-bay. Let the bidding begin. When they arrived, the tires were worthless so off they came. The wheels were dirty, had lots of weight tape left on them and one rear had moderate curb rash.

I decided to “bite the bullet” and do a complete restoration. I neglected to take any before or during photos so I can only report the process and my failures/successes.

1. Clean, clean, clean. I used Castrol degreaser and a power washer to remove all grime and baked on brake dust. This was followed by removal of all old tape residue using acetone.
2. Wet sand all the chips and nicks. Luckily, no scratch was into the metal on the exterior wheel surfaces. However, there were multiple gouges on interior wheel surfaces. Although these are not real visible, they will catch and hold dirt and the fact is, I can see them.
3. I used a Dremmell tool with a stone attachment to etch out these gouges. I then filled them with Bondo and sanded them smooth. This resulted in a nice interior surface.
4. I prepared the wheels for primer by thoroughly roughing up all surfaces with #00 steel wool. This dulled all clear-coated surfaces and created a nice “tooth” for primer.
5. Prime the wheels for paint. I chose Wurth products and used the self-etch primer to coat the wheels. It applies easily, dries quickly and provides a very nice surface for color.
6. I checked each wheel for any imperfection in the primer coat and used paint glaze to fill any pits.
7. Apply color. I used Wurth Silver to paint the wheels. Multiple light coats did the trick after I learned how much is too much. The paint does run easily on vertical surfaces and I had to sand out some runs after my first application. Lesson learned. It’s still cold here in Colorado at night so I had to haul the wheels in and out of the house to dry. It took several days of drying between coats and my wife did not think 993 wheels added to the décor of her house.
8. SPolish the paint. The Wurth paint is very good but I could not get a smooth coat without runs. By using multiple light coats I ended up with a slightly rough surface of color so I polished all surfaces with #0000 steel wool. This gave me a nice surface to clear coat.
   Step 9. Clear coat. The final step was to apply Wurth clear lacquer. This stuff dries very quickly and if you’re careful you can get a very smooth finish. The trick is to apply the clear coat thick enough to be smooth but not so thick that it sags. You know right away when you’ve gone too far, sorry to say. I got in a hurry on the front wheels and tried to clear coat too soon after the color coat. The paint lifted in several areas which required several more days of re-sanding and painting. I wasted days trying to save hours. Moral: let the damn paint dry! I mean really dry!!! Finally, when the clear coat was completely dry, I polished the wheels with #0000 steel wool.

I’m pleased with the results but must admit that it’s a “5 foot” refinish job. That is to say that they look great from 5 feet but on close examination you can tell it’s not factory. I think some nice painted hub caps will really set them off (Father’s day maybe).

Final step will be to find some tires. I wanted to try the Kumho Ecsta MX but they are not available in the front size I need. A friend recommended the Sumitomo HTRZ II, and there is always the SO2, SO3 route. Let me know if you have any experience with the Sumitomo’s. They look good.

There have only been minor problems to sort out with the car in the last 6 months. I took a stone to a fog light while on the highway and need to replace the lense. The brake wear indicator comes on after washing or wetting the car. I can’t tell which pad sensor is bad and will have to systematically test each caliper with a hose. Otherwise, nothing to report (touch wood). I do not look forward to rolling over to 100,000 miles. It seems that a 5 digit odometer is still young but 6 is so old.