928 Spyder Maiden Voyage this week !
#16
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He should be smiling, his dad has a cool car.
#20
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I'm happy to report that the trip up went great. Aside from the A/C not really working, the car ran fabulously. Day 1 was about 96 degrees and even with the 80-85 MPH wind chill we created, was still very hot, but the engine temp never creeped up above the last white line, oil pressure stayed pegged at 5 and AFR stayed in the correct range. Even drove through some periods of rain, a couple quite heavy, no electrical issues and only some minor top leakage at the back of the window to top seal, which I knew wasn't great to start with.
Looking forward to the return trip with slicker shifting, an extra gear, and two overdrives.
Looking forward to the return trip with slicker shifting, an extra gear, and two overdrives.
Last edited by Petza914; 06-28-2015 at 12:17 PM.
#22
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I have a bunch of pictures from the progress and at some point will probably put together a build thread just so I have a record of it.
Last edited by Petza914; 06-29-2015 at 11:43 AM.
#24
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Thanks Carl. Can't wait to get it back in a few days.
#27
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A couple of years ago I took a hatch with the window in it back to Mojave, CA to a guy named Gene Winfield who is a famous car customizer from back in the fifties and sixties and who is still at it. His home and shop is on a plot of ground about a mile and half south of town and just off the freeway a quarter mile or so. When I was there he told me that he did 6 of these 928 convertible conversions back in the 80s. If yours is one of his it will probably be worth some real money some day just from coming from out of his shop. It might be worth your trying to document that history.
#28
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A couple of years ago I took a hatch with the window in it back to Mojave, CA to a guy named Gene Winfield who is a famous car customizer from back in the fifties and sixties and who is still at it. His home and shop is on a plot of ground about a mile and half south of town and just off the freeway a quarter mile or so. When I was there he told me that he did 6 of these 928 convertible conversions back in the 80s. If yours is one of his it will probably be worth some real money some day just from coming from out of his shop. It might be worth your trying to document that history.
That's great - thanks for the note. Any contact info for Gene in your database that might be a place for me to start?
For the others here, from what I've gathered, there were at least 3 companies or people chopping the tops off 928s. One group was in Canada but theirs didn't have a folding top and was just an open car, another was Carelli, but theirs had the top fold down into the rear seat area and had a flat toneau cover that came down over the folded top to make the rear deck completely flat, kind of like how the Corvette convertible looks, and then there were the ones like mine, which keep the rear seats functional with the top up or down and the top folds onto the rear deck, but in-front of the trunk hinge. I believe there were 6 of these last type with mine being 1 of them. There was another blue one that was part of an estate sale in CA with a polished intake, but the intake was disassembled at the time of the sale. I believe that car has recently been purchased and is now in the Atlanta area.
#29
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Mine is the 'Carelli' style in terms of how the top stows and the leading edge of the door being cut much lower than yours. I was able to make the rear seats functional by making a bracket the moves the seat back pivot point forward an inch or two. I don't think my conversion was actually done by Carelli, though as in some places the original work was very crude. I think they must have made a kit that was installed by someone else.
#30
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Mine is the 'Carelli' style in terms of how the top stows and the leading edge of the door being cut much lower than yours. I was able to make the rear seats functional by making a bracket the moves the seat back pivot point forward an inch or two. I don't think my conversion was actually done by Carelli, though as in some places the original work was very crude. I think they must have made a kit that was installed by someone else.