Amber Gramps

Many of you know I'm my own mechanic. My '88 911 Cab has not been to a shop the entire 5+ years I've owned it. No PPI, no prior experience with Porsches, no budget to speak of, and (the hardest admission) a car that was obviously badly neglected by its original owner if not just willfully driven on salted roads.

In the time I've owned her she has gotten a long list of restoration measures, modification, maintenance, and upgrades. Some simply to bring her up to being road worth, others because I wanted it that way. Heaven knows I've asked some stupid questions along the way and needed a lot of hand holding by many of you.

Since early spring the work kinda went into high gear. RS carpet, door cards, steering wheel, etc inside, and strut inserts, rotors, pads, sensors, hard and soft brake lines, parking shoes, and several other small projects.

Coming up this week is turbo tie rods, ride height and toe adjustment, back tires, C/V boots, and a full tune up, oil change, and valve adjustment.

Needless to say I've turned a lot of bolts.

With all this work, and I do trust myself to some extent, she needs a once over by someone other than myself. My local indy requires my first born, so that is out.

To the rescue is Marc at Red Line http://redlineporsche.com/ , the guy that told me how to resurrect my Quaife LSD and introduced my tired G50 to Kendall Oil and GM LSDA.

I'm basically going to have Marc do a full PPI per Pete's instructions in the sticky above. Whatever he find that needs doing, I'll do. I just think I've finally got the 911 where it should have been to begin with, and Marc should be able to tell me if I'm right or wrong. I can't think of a more competent professional that will do this for me without killing me financially in the process.

Here's to hoping.

MillenniumFalcon

Sounds like a great idea. I guess I also am a member of the neglected Porsche driven on salt roads club who cannot stand to let anyone turn a wrench on my car.... mine came back from the alignment yesterday with 1.4 negative camber upfront, because that was as far as they could move the struts towards zero.... not happy, and the car is very twitchy on the freeway. Hope yours goes better than mine.

Amber Gramps

I think you hit it right on the head. I can't stand the idea of letting another man touch my girl. There is a certain amount of pride in doing things myself. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than being my own mechanic.

wildcat077

Dave,

The camber adjustment won't affect the straight line handling on the highway,i would be more concerned with the toe settings ...
A basic 911 alignment calls for -1.0 front and -1.5 rear with 1/16 toe in all around.I have 1/32 toe out on the front and 1/16 toe in on the rear of my car and -2.8 front and -2.7 rear camber because it's better suited for the track and that makes the car a little more sensitive to road changes on the highway !

Take a closer look at the toe on your alignment spec sheet !
You were lucky to even get -1.4 front with a stock suspension as many people can't even match that with both front sides ...

Cheers !
Phil

Cheers !
Phil

Amber Gramps

Phil, how did you know that was my next question?

Oh, and here's what all the fuss is about.

MillenniumFalcon

Amber: I'd rather go out and spend $300 on the tool that I need rather than pay somebody $150 to fix the problem on my car... don't know why, but I've always been that way...

Phil,

I don't want to hijack Amber's thread, but here's what the spec sheet says, and the guy who did it has been doing old Porsches for nearly 20 years, and it was set up with driver weight in the left seat:

Left Front: -1.4 camber, +5.75 Caster, .03" toe in
Rght Front: -1.4 camber, +6.0 Caster, .03" toe in

Left RR: -1.25 camber, .06" toe in
Rght RR: -1.25 camber, .06" toe in.

The car feels sketchy to me- it requires constant steering inputs to keep it tracking straight on the freeway, and the smallest steering input (like a lane change) causes the car to bite in and turn... of course, this is my first Porsche, so maybe this is how these cars drive...but I wouldn't want to be "doing the ton" in this machine right now. All bushings, ball joints, tie rods and cartridges were just replaced as well... wondering if I lowered it a bit too much. It does have steering rack spacers installed.

Dave

Peter Zimmermann

Amber, say HI! to Marc for me! I know that he's really excited about his new WLA location - you won't believe how easy the new shop is to find!

Amber Gramps

I'm just hoping for a glimps at some of the race carIs. Last time he said "don't look over there" and of course off I went only to be stopped short by a stupid yellow chain.

It sounds like Red Line is back where it belongs.

Is Marc still heavilly involved with Ferrari?

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Dave,

Excessive camber certainly does make these cars wander and at 1.4 deg, that's far too much for street use.

Your mechanic should have taken the time to find out WHY he couldn't get you to .5-1.0 degree as that is the range you want to be in.

This can be caused by bent struts, low ride heights, hardware issues, etc.

MillenniumFalcon

Thanks Steve. He showed me where there was an indication that the struts were bent/had moved. I also think that I have the car set a little too low. When I get the time, I'm going to get back into it and pull the rear arms again and set it up about an inch higher...then another alignment. I don't have the cash for struts right now.

Amber Gramps

Could the wandering caused by excessive camber be made worse by tires that are over inflated? Just thinking of the redneck solutions I've employed over the years. maybe Dave could lower the air pressure in the front tires a pound or two and settle the car down some.

Peter Zimmermann

Nah, 1.4 neg is way too much. I never run more than about half that, and with 0 front toe the car is dead steady.

Tire pressures = 29F/34R

I'm not sure what Marc is doing with Ferrari these days. I think that he's so busy with - gasp! - water-cooled P-cars that he doesn't have time.

Amber Gramps

Water cooled P-cars??? What is that???

MillenniumFalcon

I guess I need to research solutions for getting the camber back where I need it to be struts costing what they do, I wonder if monoballs would give me more camber adjustment??

-1.4 was the least amount of camber he could dial in for me, as one side was -1.4 and the other side was -1.2, with the the strut caps pulled as far outboard as he could get them....

Today I removed the rack spacers and raised the front end 1/4" and the car settled down quite a bit (but nowhere near "dead steady"), and this of course added some toe-in, so I'm going to have to reset the toe this weekend myself. Thanks for the tips guys.

I am running tire pressures: FT 32 and RR 34. I'll try 29psi up front as well.

theiceman

i am a bit of a wuss and have the front end zeroed out .. thats whay i thought you had a missprint. Dont know if your car is significantly different to the SC but sounds like something might be wrong.