NineMeister

The Porsche 911 is the master of change (Changemeister?). Over the years I recall seeing 911s made to look newer with pre-73 to 74RS & impact bumper and impact bumper to 964 look; then as the interest in all things old took over, now we even have 964's being turned into pre-73 RS, ST and the like. Within all these swaps and changes, the most popular conversion of all is the impact bumper 911 to a pre-73 "long hood" to pay homage to the most renowned performance 911 of all time, the 2.7RS.

The starting point of this particular story is of the metamorphosis of a 1982 911SC. No ordinary SC mind you, this one was already doing a convincing job of impersonating a 1985 3.2 Carrera, complete with 3.2 engine and oil cooled 915 3.2 gearbox - converted and owned by myself for 13 years. I sold it to my friend Paul, he enjoyed it for another 13 years and with just 100,000 miles on the clock had me place it with current owner Adam for his exciting backdate project.

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Before we get into the project for real I figured you might like to know the history and see a few more photos from my archives at the time when I owned the SC.

Photo 1 was taken on the first day I ran the OZ Futura wheels after borrowing them from a sales car at our old premises.
Photo 2 is from Harewood Hillclimb in Yorkshire, sometime around 1998.
Photo 3 shows the newly rebuild SC engine which I converted to a blueprinted 3.2 specification using all stock 3.2 parts.
Running with B&B headers and Motec engine management the engine made an impressive 270hp as shown on the dyno curves. I now can't believe that this dyno test was in 1996, but not a bad result for my first 9m n/a performance upgrade?
No doubt the girls won't thank me for posting photo 4, but hey, where would we be without them? Right to left are Sarah, Jo and Lynne, the other halves of myself, Dave & Simon, the founding partners of 930 Sport. Eventually I left the partnership to start up 930 Motorsport which seeded the 9m brand that actually pre-dated Ninemeister.

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The day after sale, the fun began:

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The underside was in near perfect condition after having minor restoration work done in the past by myself when I sold it to Paul, hence why it was an easy choice to recommend the car as the perfect donor for Adam's project.

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Then the panels started to arrive. In the rabbit hutch is the new sunroof delete panel, from scuttle to rear deck.

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Next up, remove the oil system, running gear, wiring, front wings and remainder of the trim.

We're not intending to do a complete floor-up restoration because the car is already in great condition. There is a colour change is planned but even so there is little point in repainting the interior when it is going to be fully covered; naturally the trim is removed for the fabrication process.

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Shell safely bolted to a rolling dolly, off to the bodyshop it went for full bare metal panel strip, sunroof delete (with fully welded in factory roof panel) then a factory panel long hood conversion. The impact bumper supports are removed front and back to make way for the early bumpers. Iain here is making a small repair section for the left front inner wing to replace the section behind the support which always suffers corrosion due to it catching mud from the tyre.

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With the new early front panel located, the new factory front wings and hood are fitted with the original doors to check the relative alignments between all the panels. Once we are happy the front panel can be fully welded.

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On all 911 builds the panel gaps have to be set from front to rear, the critical datum (starting point) being the two A-post mountings of the doors. Wings (fenders) are aligned to the doors and checked along the front edge to the bonnet (hood) - if you cannot get the hood to align at the front it can indicate that the A-posts are not in line which can be checked from measurements on the jig. The quarter panels are then checked to the doors, and again if you are not happy with the gap at the back of the door you can try another door (they should all be the same) or re-work the quarter panel/B-post to fit the door correctly.

I should also mention that with long hood conversions you have to align the hood with the seal, struts and front lock in place, furthermore to get the hood to follow the wing profile correctly it will need careful bending to reduce the front-rear curvature and increase the pressure on the seal along the centre of the hood-fender joint, otherwise it will always sit proud. it's better to do this now rather than wait until the paint is done, just in case the panel is marked.

Here the wings have been checked and removed to fully weld the new long hood front panel and the guys are checking the quarter panel to door gaps and quarter to engine lid gaps on the rear. This is when we discovered a possible issue with the driver's door to quarter alignment which pre-dated my ownership of the SC.

The dash face will be painted body colour so has been marked for welding up the redundant switch holes.

tcsracing1

very nice!

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From the outset the customer specified original steel RS bumpers, here being offered up to the panelled up shell. In spite of the cost, it was obvious that to achieve the fit we wanted we would have to re-work the RS flares on the rear and the profile of the wheel-arch blends to match the wings and quarters. First job was to fabricate the bumper supports to hold everything square.

Dash now welded, ready for primer.

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Meanwhile, in an engine room not far, far away, it was out with the old and on with the new.

The 993 non-Varioram engine is having a complete top end rebuild with 9m cams & valve springs before installation.

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Here is one detail that I mentioned before that will be addressed with the build. The arch profile of the standard front metal bumper to the wings has never been great, as perfectly demonstrated by the left to right alignment discrepancy on a 1972 911T which we have in storage. Since the parts are in steel it's a relatively easy job at the fabrication stage to slice and stretch the rear edge of the new bumper to follow the curvature of the arch correctly.

r911

what will you do on those gaps in the rubber trim?

NineMeister

On the yellow 911, nothing. Its a different car that's just here for storage. On this build there will be no gaps.