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Turbo tie rods are a requirement on these cars. Have them on my 71, 89, and the 964/993 equivalent on my 91 C2. Massive improvement in steering feel with no harshness.
Rack was surprisingly good. No corrosion or evident wear. Seals/bushings were good and the bearing appears good. Everything felt snug and smooth in terms of movement.
I have reached out to Andy to arrange a time for him to come see my car - hoping he doesn't see a hack job! Anyway, it will be a good checkpoint time for guidance on next steps with sheet metal work. While I am waiting for him to come over and as I am running out of parts to tinker with in my dining and living room, my mind is back on the motor. I have gone back and forth on what I want to do with the motor. I want to build on my case for originality (matching numbers) but also because I am trying to stick somewhat with the vintage of the car - these MAG motors are lighter and IMHO compliment these lighter longhoods well. It is also important to me to keep the MFI - again, somewhat for matching to the vintage of the car (and you rarely see these with MFI anymore). I realize it may be cheaper to buy a 3.0 or another newer/bigger motor and store this motor, but I don't have room for storage and already have an SC and 993, so I already get to experience the 3.0 and 3.6 (which are both superb motors), so when I jump in my '72, I want to keep that experience different from those others. Finally, my budget will limit what I can do. So, with budget, keeping my 4R case and MFI, I think I am going to build a 2.5LS motor. This was a consideration for me from the beginning, and recent input on Pelican has me nearly convinced. How appropriate would this be since my car is a '72 and one of the greatest Porsche's was the '72 2.5 ST. I will not have the budget for a full ST 2.5 build, so mine will definitely be MUCH milder. Shooting for 200hp range. I may start going thru my MFI first - I will need to have my throttle bodies modified to larger port size and also bore the stacks. My MFI pump will also need to be rebuilt and modified. Now all of this could go out the window once I know more of the condition of my case!
Andy came by tonight - I cannot say enough great things about that guy, so I am gonna plug his business here again (www.andyelsener.com). He said I am on the right track with my sheet metal work and talked me thru my next steps. The parcel shelf has too much to graft in, so he showed how I can remove the rest of it to where a new piece can be welded in without anyone being able to tell. The challenge with these parcel shelves on the LWB cars is that the front edge is welded between two other panels - then you have all kinds of alignment concerns (decklid hinges specifically), so this job needs to be done right. I have a number of spot welds to remove, some welds to grind off and more cutting to get the rest of that shelf out correctly. He also talked me through how to cut my replacement sheet metal pieces for grafting.
Here are the replacement pieces I have so far:
Rear seat buckets
Front fender joining panel
Front tank support
Front nose sections (just cutting the bottom section off the get the flange for the suspension pan)
If you recall, my front driver front fender was shot. Andy had a original Porsche fender in his shop that he removed from a SWB car that someone had forward-dated back in the 70's. The owner is on Early S and restoring this rare and valuable early SWB back to original so his fender found a new home on my car.
I still need to order:
Longitudinal tank supports (both sides)
Suspension pan (this is coming soon)
Parcel shelf
Front latch panel (Andy has one)
Got another bag o' gold back from the plater. This allowed me to start putting some things back together. I thought I would assemble the front strut assemblies. New bearings and seals were installed in the hubs, bolted new rotors to the hubs, mounted the newly plated brake backing plates to the struts and was ready to attach the hubs to the strut spindle/axle and realized that the axle nuts and thrust washers that I kept from my old Boge spindles did not fit the Bilsteins. The Bilsteins are more robust. The Boge used 16mm where the Bilsteins use 18mm. Darn, I need to order these and couldn't quite finish this job. They look good though
Ok so this pic was taken just for fun. 21mm torsion bars, with Elephant bushings throughout. Will be complimented with 18mm sway, Bilsteins and S brakes (still at PMB). Everything is basically new in the front and rear end now. Front suspension isn't going back on anytime soon though!
Oh and I'm sure you noticed no washers. I didn't get any of the typical washers cleaned/prepped and plated this time to save a few bucks. I will reuse those still in good shape or buy cheaply from the hardware store or Belmetric. There were A LOT of washers that I kept in a separate bag.
get Elephant hollow t-bars & do it right the first time!
Hey man I would gladly spend more where there is a return. To get the same effective rate you get a slightly larger diameter and really not a lot of weight savings in the end. Good product but IMHO not worth the extra cash.
I tried to buy the Elephant bars (they are sanders bars) and they are / were backordred for months. Ended up with 21/26 sway away and super happy w/ the chassis feel with 18mm sways F/R.
04-03-2019, 02:54 PM
nice work
