Running Report 1 - June 2002: My Second Porsche – 1991 C2 Turbo

Why the Turbo?

Ever been on a roller coaster?

That feeling of anticipation as the carriage is pulled up and up and up.  Finally, you reach the top.  There is a brief pause as gravity takes over.  Then, right on cue, all hell breaks loose.  For several blurry moments you are completely overwhelmed by the speed and g-forces.  Your heart is shoving pure adrenalin through your tubes.  Your reflexes become razor sharp.  A part of you wishes it was all over.  Suddenly, it is.  When the carriage comes to a stop you peel your white knuckles from the handlebar. Shaking, you disembark.  But, as the colour begins to return to your skin, a grin widens across your face.  And you join the end of the queue to do it all again.

Capture that.  Bottle it.  Call it the Turbo.

That’s why.

About the Car

When I first test-drove this car, I took a friend along who had previously owned a turbo-charged Nissan 200SX.  After a few minutes of driving, we both thought that the car lacked performance, but just couldn’t nail why.  I had organised to take the car home overnight, and therefore stopped at work to pick up my things.  When I got back into the car, it wouldn’t start.  The engine ticked over, but wouldn’t fire.  Eventually I tried pushing and holding the accelerator down, and then turning the key… she fired!   Problem is, as soon as I took my foot from the pedal, the engine coughed to a halt.  I decided to take it back to Porsche, fighting the traffic with my one foot continually feeding the petrol, while the other was doing clutch and brake.  When I finally got it to Porsche Centre, they thought it might have been due to the fact that the car had been standing for some time, and that the immobiliser was playing up.  However, I wasn’t convinced. Something else was amiss.

About a week later Porsche Centre called me to let me know that they had gone over the car but could not find anything specific that may have caused the problem.  They suggested that I take it for another overnight drive.  I picked the car up around 5pm and waited until I got far enough up the highway where the traffic began to thin out.  The car was feeling very different, and I could tell that there was plenty of power behind me.  Whatever Porsche had done, had fixed the problem.

Finally, there was enough of a gap to give the horses a collective kick in the ribs. So I did.  Several seconds later I was back in the slow lane peeling my white knuckles from the steering wheel, waiting for the blood to flow back into my adrenalin stream.  I slowed right down.  I wondered whether I had the nerve to own this beast.  I love driving spiritedly, but I was nervous that ultimately the car would get the better of me.  As my nerves settled, however, a faint smile passed over my lips.  I checked to see if the boy-I-was had noticed anything.  I found him sitting beside me, watching my face.

“Woooooohaaaaaaaa!” I screamed.
The boy said nothing.  He just kept waiting, searching my expression.
“Well?” I said.
“Well?” He replied.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“So you gonna buy it?”
“Hell yes!” I replied. 
“Wooooohaaaa!” screamed the boy-I-was.

When I got home I decided to wash the car.  I find that while I am washing a car I get to know a lot about its condition: the nicks in the paintwork, any scratches, chips in the windscreen or headlamps and so on.  I found none.  This car was immaculate.  I checked the sunroof, the boot, and the engine.  It seemed to have been very well looked after.  The only gripe I had was the stereo.  The original deck had been replaced with a Clarion head unit and CD player – and it was very ordinary.  That would need replacing soon after I purchased the car.

Car Details and Previous Ownership

After I had washed the car, I read through the service records.  It had been bought from Porsche Centre in Melbourne, and had been serviced there regularly.  In fact, the previous owner had kept all the copies of the services in the leather binder with the Owners Manual!

Here are the important things to note:

Vehicle Identification:

Maintenance Record:

*LLG – Long-life Guarantee Report (Porsche Logic)

Part Two

Ownership

There are many facets to Porsche ownership: Reliability, Fun Drive days, Track events, Modifications, Services and so on.  In this first report on my C2 Turbo I will cover briefly my experience thus far, and what’s planned in each of these topics.

Reliability

As I have mentioned above, when I first test drove the car it seemed to lack the performance I had expected - that famed push in the back under boost.  Porsche themselves could not identify immediately the problem, but serviced the car before delivery and that seemed to make a huge difference.  The other thing I noticed was that when I first test-drove the Turbo, there was a distinct hiss from what seemed to be the intercooler (at least that’s where it sounded like the hiss was coming from).  When I took delivery, however, the hiss was much quieter than it had been, and my analytical mind immediately assumed that this had been related to the car’s lack of power. 

However, a few weeks after I took delivery, the car seemed to be down on performance once again, and I couldn’t work out whether I was just getting used to the awesome acceleration, or whether it had indeed lost its edge.  I drove the car for a few more weeks until finally I was convinced there was something wrong.  The hiss had also returned, along with an intermittent pop when revving the engine.

I took the car back to Porsche, and had them check it out.  The head engineer listened to the engine on a quick drive with me, and immediately identified that the boost hose was loose.  Indeed, under inspection, they found that the hose was worn and needed replacing.  I left my car with them until the part arrived from Germany.  When I got it back, I was absolutely blown away by the performance of the car.  It was now even wilder than when I took delivery.

The car has been rock solid ever since; with the only niggle a rattle coming from the rear of the car.  My investigation suggests that the top of the intercooler is rattling, and that I can hear this from inside the cabin.  This is still unresolved, however.  But as soon as I find and fix the problem, I will let you know.
 

Modifications

Like my C4, I don’t think I will modify the car at all.  I think it is perfect just the way it is.  I also believe (hope  :p ) that the car holds its value better because it is unmodified.  But that remains to be seen.

There are two things I have done, which don’t really qualify as modifications, but are upgrades nonetheless.  The first thing I did was change the stereo.  I ripped out everything except the rear speakers, and replaced it with the following:

I had the work done by John Bergman, who fits all of the stereos for Porsche Centre Melbourne.  John did some work for me in the C4, and I was utterly impressed with his work. 

When I decided to go ahead with changing the stereo, I called John and explained to him that I wanted something that sounded spectacular, looked standard (in other words not too flashy/ no lights and gadgets on the head unit).  I wanted it to look as though no work had been done, and to use the minimum amount of space in the boot as possible.  Other than that I would leave it completely in his hands.

A few weeks later John called me back and announced that he had found the perfect set-up (above).  I dropped my car into Porsche, where John does his work.  I also asked Porsche to do a minor service while the car was there (see Services below).

When I picked the car up later the next day I had no idea what to expect.  John had called and told me the set-up was better than he had done in the C4, so my expectations were very high.  But when I finally hopped in the car and listened to the sound, I was speechless.  The sound was so good, and so clear, that it almost put me in the recording studio.  As I turned the volume up and up, it got to the point where I could not bear to sit in the car anymore it was so loud, yet there was no distortion at all.

Now, I am sure there are better systems around.  For example, I have not installed a subwoofer.  But, frankly, for the money, the fact that it takes up no additional space, and is mounted in the same places as the stock system was, I cannot think of anything I would prefer.  Highly recommended as a set-up.  And for those in Melbourne, Australia, John Bergman (who can be contacted through Porsche Centre Melbourne) is the best of the best. 

One of these days I will get John to install a Radar Detector.  Woops, did I say that?

The only other modification, as small as it is, was the wheel caps.  The black caps that cover the inflation nipple are pretty dated, and I had heard from Porsche that one could buy silver replacements with the Porsche logo on them.  So for AU$20.00 I did.  They take minutes to install and look great.

Services

Apart from the table of services shown above, I had Porsche complete a minor service on the car since it had now done 70,000 km.  The service details are:

General

The last two months with the Turbo have left a couple of moments that stick in my mind.  The first was on the way home one evening, when I was passing an onramp to the highway.  I was in the slow lane doing about 100 km/h, when a very old Toyota Corolla entered from the onramp.  I moved into the fast lane to give him some space.  As I came alongside, the driver wound down his window and started to slap his door as if he was in a horse race.  He was grinning from ear to ear since there was no way he could hope to keep up.  He waved as I passed, and then gave me a huge thumbs-up.

The other moment was when I dropped my son off at his school the morning after I first took delivery of the car.  I pulled up outside the gate and had the whole primary school, girls and boys, rush to the fence to gawk at the car.  My son saw them, and slowed his pace right down.  Making every moment count. 

And here is video of me doing a classic 911 spin on the track.  Right click here to download (7mb AVI).

I’ll end this report with some words that I think sum up my ownership to date perfectly.  These words come from the running report of Bernard Abrams, in 911 and Porsche World, Issue 47:

“The sight of another car – any car – so far adrift and going backwards into the distance was very, very satisfying.”

Running Report 2 - May 2003

Like every year of my life, 2002 blurred past carrying with it many eventful moments. Car-wise, too, much has happened since my last report. I bought my better-half a 944S as a daily driver. This turned out to be a great decision because it has been reliable, comfortable and very cheap to run. To all those die-hard 911 owners (like me) – next time you see a 944 on the road, take a moment to stop and have a closer look. Apart from being a very sexy car, they really do have an appeal all of their own.

However, this report is about my ’91 Turbo, and on this topic, much has happened too…

Winton Raceway

It was back in April 2002, sitting in the Pit Lane of Philip Island Raceway, waiting to blast out onto the straight for my first time, that I met the-kid-I-was. He was standing with his face pressed up against the fence at Kyalami Raceway, South Africa, back in 1976. Formula One cars thundered past. And in that moment, the boy’s dreams pierced through time, his eyes seeing across the years of my life, finding me in this moment, almost twenty-five years later.

In the deluge of every day, we never take time to acknowledge the kids-we-were, or the ability they have to expand a moment, to find and explore every single corner that it has to offer, and to energetically fill it with the seeds that now have grown into our lives. For me, anyway, there are two places that I keep bumping into my kid-in-me, one of them is out there, as the car powers through a corner, right – on – the – very – edge! It is there that I now go to keep in touch.

Just before my last report in July, I had the opportunity to take my car out to Winton Raceway. This was only my second time on a racetrack, and the first in my ’91 Turbo. I was very careful to start slowly and learn about the car’s characteristics before pushing it, even though I was eager to enter that space in time where I would meet the kid-I-was. And I’m glad I did. I found the turbo to be a very, very different car to the C4 on the track. The C4 had a lot of understeer and a nice smooth power curve. The turbo, on the other hand, requires consideration when and where the turbo spools up, and boost comes on. Earlier in the day I was chasing a 944 through the ‘S’ bend that divides the two sections of the main straight. I came out of the second section of the ‘S’, put the power down early and ‘WHAM’ – round came her rear! The power came on so suddenly that it caught me by surprise, and I committed the cardinal sin of 911 track-work – I lifted off the power!

There is an AVI of this spin on John’s site in the Media Section.

Wiser for the spin, I spent the rest of the day becoming familiar with the track, and worked on the sections where I knew I could easily make up some time. The other thing that I played with over the course of the day were my tyre pressures. I had started the day on 40psi cold all round, but ended up with 40psi just after coming off the track. This translated to 36psi all round, measured later when the tyres were cold.

All the while I was having a blast. But lunchtime came, and I still had not found that moment. I just had not reached that point yet where everything is perfect: when you are at the edge of your ability, and the universe just seems to cooperate to bring you through the moment with your soul feeling completely unrestricted. And it was there that I knew he’d be waiting. I had to get back out there, and try harder.

Now, not to digress too far, I must mention another thread to this story for it to make sense. I was adopted as a child, and many years ago I went in search of my mother – and found her. Today she still lives in South Africa, but was out visiting us for a few weeks. I had much to talk about with my mother, many things to understand. Even though I had met her some time back, our relationship was still strained. I knew that we both wanted so much to reach out, but something kept holding us both back…

I walked towards my Landcruiser where my wife, my son and my mother were sitting watching the days’ activities. My wife had prepared sandwiches for lunch. I scoffed a couple down quickly, swallowed an iced coffee, and was about to get back to the Turbo when I sensed something in my mother’s eyes.
“You ok?” I asked.
“Your Mum wants to go out with you, Kev.” My wife explained.

My jaw dropped. I would never have expected this! I borrowed a helmet, got her in the car, excitedly fumbled out something about putting her feet on either side of the foot-well, and using her legs to keep her stable, and we were hurtling out onto the track.

I had started the day with lap times of around 1m55s, and now was getting progressively quicker. At each point on the track, I was hurtling through all the advice people had given me during the day – sacrifice the first part of the ‘S’ for a better exit speed; if you attack the sweeper in two sections you’ll find it can be divided into two straights; late apex here, early one there. I could feel it. It was near the end of the session, when I was accelerating down the back straight, that I suddenly realised this was my best lap yet. I could feel my heartbeat slow; the right-hander at the end of the back straight came up, the car’s nose dipped under braking, clutch, blip-throttle, second, turn! A short burst, another right hander onto the main straight…

There it was! The engine noise faded. The car danced over the slight bump in the track. My eyes were fixed. The moment expanded, and, as everything slowed down, I felt his face pressed right up against my mind. He was smiling. His teary eyes were staring past me, his soul was laughing. My mother was there! The kid-I-was, all his childhood questions answered, his tiny, burdened spirit took flight, my Mum was with me! I could hear the Turbo spooling up. Out of the corner, onto the straight. 1m48s!

In the end, after almost 230km of track-time I knew I had a long way to go, for I should be getting times of around 1m42s. But with a little work, some new tyres, more camber… next time!!

Tyres

After Winton, my tyres were looking a little scrubbed. They lasted a couple more months, and then began to become dangerous. A few slippery moments around some smooth car-park floors, and a couple of rainy days, and I had to bite the bullet! I reached deep into my wallet and headed off for the recommended Porsche Tyre Specialist.

I had been running Bridgestone S02’s on the standard C2 Turbo rims. They had performed very well, and in fact were the same tyre that I used on my C4. These were no longer available when I enquired, but they did have a set of ES02A’s. Now I’m really not sure what the difference is between the ES02A’s and the new S03’s. All I can tell you is that I have compared the tread patterns and they look identical.

That said, I must comment that it took me quite some time to settle into these new tyres. I felt that at first the car was squirmy compared to the previous S02’s. I thought it had something to do with the fact that they were new and needed to be worn-in. But once I had done several hundred kilometres and they still felt squirmy I thought it might be tyre pressures. I set the pressures according to the manual but that proved fruitless.

It wasn’t until I had done a track day out at Calder Raceway (see below), and adjusted my tyre pressures for the track (36psi all round, cold tyre), that the tyres suddenly settled down. Once they had warmed up, and my pressures were set right, the car just felt awesome!

I have left the pressures as they were at Calder and it seems to have made a big difference! I am keen to try and play around a bit with raising them to about 38psi cold, as I believe this will be a better all round street-driving pressure. I will let you know the outcome in my next report.

All up, the tyres cost me a little over AU$2000. They were not the cheapest choice, but now I’ve figured them out, I am convinced that I will go for the S03’s next time.

Clutch Replacement

The car had now done around 75000km, and was still on the original clutch. I figured this was a pretty good innings, and was not surprised when the clutch started to slip. I took the car into Porsche Centre who confirmed my suspicions. Details are as follows:
 

I did take some pictures of the engine while it was out. Here they are:

Dyno Night

I have a friend here in Melbourne who used to work at Porsche as a mechanic. He now owns and drives a lovely red 944S2. Jon works at one of the Technical Colleges teaching mechanics now, and therefore has access to a Dynamometer. Although this particular one is a little dated, it still proved an enjoyable and informative evening. In the end, there was a 968, a 993 Carrera S, a Nissan 200SX Turbo and myself with the 964 Turbo.

The only thing I know about dyno’s, other than the fact that they measure BHP at the wheels, is that this measurement then needs to be converted to give one the true HP rating at the flywheel. It is the power at the flywheel, in either kilowatts (kw) or horsepower (hp) that is quoted by the manufacturer.

My Turbo is rated by Porsche to have 320 BHP at the flywheel. On this particular evening my car was measured as follows:

We tried one more test, where I got the revs up to 6000 rpm, but the scale on the dyno only went up to 160mph, and the needle raced past that and stopped just after the 160mph mark, with the car still accelerating! So in the end everyone agreed that there were more horses there than we could measure.

Now comes the interesting part: The conversion to work out the power at the flywheel! After much debate on the various forums, I must admit to still being a little confused. I believe that the loss of power from the flywheel to the rear wheels should be no more than 20-25%. Even this is a little high according to some on the Rennlist group. However, others in the know tell me that the industry standard is to multiply the power measured at the rear wheels by 1.32. In other words, add another 32% to the power measured to get the flywheel power.

Taking the figures above, my car then delivers:
228bhp x 1.32 = 301hp at the flywheel – far short of the 320hp I should have!

Of course, the mathematics works such that only 24% of 301hp is lost in the direction of the rear wheels, which is, in fact, the direction of power delivery. So I assume both the industry standard, and the guru’s on Rennlist are consistent.

I was a little disappointed in this reading, however, and therefore decided to get my car professionally dyno’d at Porsche Centre in Melbourne. The results of this dyno were thus:


241.5bhp at the rear wheels = 318.78bhp at the flywheel, or
180kw peak hold at the rear wheels = 237.70kw at the flywheel.

Porsche quote 320hp, and 235kw. So I’m just under, and just over? From now on, I’m going to use my Butt-o-meter! And that, every time I get into this beauty, tells me she’s still very, very quick!

Calder Park Raceway: 20 November 2002

In July I decided to join the Porsche Club of Victoria, Australia, for the first time and in September attended one of their dinners. There I met a lady who regularly organised track days at Calder Park Raceway. She usually organises them to start around 4pm and end at around 10pm with a BBQ thrown in. Although this is not an exclusively Porsche event, it is frequented mostly by Porsche owners.

I attended my first one of these in November 2002, not really knowing what to expect. It would be only my third time out on a track, and therefore I decided to go along with the goal of meeting people and picking up tips. To say that I achieved this would be an understatement!

I was woken up that day by the sound of racing cars, only they didn’t sound exactly like engines. They sounded more like someone going ‘vroom-vroom-neeeowwww!’ And that someone sounded just like a young boy, pretending to be a racing driver! I opened my eyes and smiled. There he was! And he didn’t leave my thoughts for the rest of the day.

The kid-in-me kept shouting “Whoaw! D’yaseethat!” There were many different cars, from 944 Challenge Cars (a racing series here in Australia), the odd GT3, older 911’s and a few other-manufacturer cars. I didn’t mind his enthusiasm, except for the fact that it got a little distracting when he’d say it right in the middle of conversation!

Many of the drivers were seasoned racing drivers of one form or another, including one gentlemen I met that has the words ‘engineer’, ‘racing driver’, ‘mechanic’ and more behind his name! I asked him to accompany me out on the track for a few laps, to give me some pointers. What a difference!

Now, interestingly, there is an unwritten ‘30 second rule’ between Calder Raceway and Winton Raceway. The general rule of thumb is that whatever time you are doing at Winton, take away 30 seconds and this gives you what you really should achieve at Calder. I had achieved a 1m48s out at Winton, so using the rule I was aiming for around 1m18s at Calder.

After a few laps getting some tuition, I managed to put in consistent laps of around 1m12s! I was thrilled by this outcome. It also meant that next time I get out to Winton, I should be looking for lap times of 1m42s – a full 6 seconds better than my first time out there (above).

It was later in the evening when I pulled into the pits for a rest (much to the disgust of a certain eager young lad) that my friend Jon came running up to me. Through the din of complaint still going on within, I heard Jon say something about flames coming from the back of my car. Suddenly there was quiet from the kid! A short pause, and then, at exactly the same time as I started to get a concerned look across my face, the kid blurted out: ‘C-o-o-l!’

Jon explained that I had gone flying past him on the straight, and that he had seen my left hand exhaust (the turbo blow-off exhaust) glowing red hot. As I past him, I must have changed gears (indeed, I did go from 3rd to 4th) and as I did so flames shot out of this exhaust. I posted this on the various forums, and there was much debate over whether or not it was normal. My car was coming up for it’s 80,000km service, however, and so I waited to get it checked out by Porsche themselves.

80,000km Service

I wanted to try and do this service before the next track day at Calder Park, and with the 80,000km service I also decided to get the car set up for semi-track conditions. This means that I asked Porsche to put more camber on my front wheels, and to replace the brake fluid with proper race fluid. I do not wish to start down the road of completely modifying the car, as I would like to keep it as original as possible. However, I figured that the two things I could immediately affect were the brakes and the camber. Due to time constraints and the fact that it was just ‘that time of year’, Porsche could not complete both before the 18 December track event. We decided to get the car set up done, and to check on the flame issue, and then after the track day, to do the service.
The details of the service are as follows:

Calder Park Raceway: 18 December 2002

I kept the kid up late the night before the next Calder Track Day out. I figured an hour or two playing NFS: Porsche 2000 on my computer would satisfy the kid-in-me so that I did not get woken again to the sounds of imaginary Porsches ‘vrooming’ down the straight!

‘…eeeeerrrrr!’
I opened my eyes and smiled to myself, and whispered a mental hello!
‘Are you racing again?’ I asked.
‘No, this time I’m a Porsche Test Driver, like that game…’

All day I kept thinking to myself, 70 seconds. That was what I wanted to achieve out there. Just two seconds quicker. I went over the track in my head. Where were those two seconds?

I met the kid-I-was again as I drove out to the track. He appeared in my thoughts, as excited as I was. As if he had heard my thoughts, he waited until my mind was quiet and then stated:
“You’re afraid.”
“What?” I asked, surprised at his directness.
“You’re scared that if you get it wrong out there, you’ll wreck the car. That is why you won’t beat your time.”
“You may be right.” I agreed.
“I am right. When we were out at Winton, for one lap I could tell that you had abandoned your concerns, trusted in your ability. It was great!”
The kid was right! I had to leave my fear behind in the pits, and concentrate on getting it right, instead of worrying about getting in wrong! I knew the track now, so there was every reason to settle down. Seventy seconds. That’s all I wanted.

We arrived at the track. As I was filling out the forms, hiring a race-suit, and paying, I heard an engine that was not a Porsche! It sounded familiar, however. I looked out the door to see a fire-engine-red Ferrari 355 pull up. The driver got out and came into the room. We chatted for a few minutes before I went to change.

Uh-oh!

Somewhere around 6pm, when everyone had arrived and warmed up, I was out on the track again. The car felt much better, the brakes were awesome with the new fluid, and the extra camber was making a difference. The first right-hander approached. I worked on placing the car, there was the apex, now a burst of speed, a quick right-left, then up the hill and over, third, fourth. Now, a chicane right then left, flat out to the next corner. Brake hard, right-hander, late apex, stay right then left-hander, keep the arc until – now! Head for that fire hydrant. Brake hard. Turn, right-hander onto the main straight. Power down, turbo spools up… What’s that!? The Ferrari had exited pit lane in front of me! I got past quickly. And he noticed…

An eight-lap battle with the 355 showed that he had a very slight advantage on the straight, but not enough to get around me. I seemed to have some advantage through the back part of the track, and tended to open up a small gap. On the straight again, and he closed up slowly, but turn one was upon us again, and he had to concede under braking.

We both pulled into the pits one behind the other. Before I had completely stopped the car, the kid-in-me was out and half way to the Ferrari. What a rush!

Jane, a friend who had accompanied me to the track that day, came running up to me. She knew I had wanted to get a 70 second lap, and she was doing the timing. I took my helmet off, and looked at her, searching for the answer…

68 seconds!

68 Seconds! In that moment, and for the first time in many years, I was the kid again. So much had been weighing on my mind over the past few years. Leaving my family to move to Australia, being diagnosed with Leukaemia and surviving, my career – so many things… but now that fire that ignited in my soul that day back in 1976, found its was across the years, and burned in me now! I felt brilliant.

And even now, as I write these words, the kid is sitting here too. I am punching away at the keyboard, he is staring at my model car collection. But his mind is not with me now. It is elsewhere. I stop typing. If I am quiet, I can just hear him talking to someone. My eyes are closed. I must be careful not to intrude. Who is that? It is an older man, the years of his life showing in his familiar smile. Then, I realise…

It is me years from now! The kid is pointing to the cars, and I can hear him explaining excitedly. The old man laughs, puts his hand to his mouth, and gestures for the kid to come closer. He whispers something and the kid-I-was is delighted!

I wonder what they are talking about…