Eyal 951

driven, not launched, and you will find out fairly soon why we say this if you feel you know better. However, welcome to the site, you have come to thew right place to learn about your 951.

PS I hate techs, they always think they know soo much, and their always full of it.

Lorax

Prepare to be flamed - but dispite what anyone says, it is YOUR car, and you can do whatever the %$%* you want with it.

welcome to rennlist.

Acetylene

That is exactly what I thought. I am a veteran racer, hot rodder, turbo lover, but I am new to Porches. The principles are similar to my Grand National, but the methods are different. The guy owns a large European repair facility in Orlando and always has a lot of 911's and such in the lot. Assumption was he knew what he was talking about, but it didn't sound right so I decided to ask the real experts - you guys. Thanks for welcoming me. As for the burnouts...what the f$%^ you guys think i bougth the car for - she begs to be driven!

Acetylene

I think I understand what you mean by the driven not launched concept - I'll try to keep it in mind. The car is just so fun once your past the lag. This site is a wealth of info.

schwank

Welcome to the list. You might as well toss your wallet in the ocean... this site can have the same effect. AND you have a turbo!

Eyal 951

K, let me help you out a bit. The engine is in front, the tranny is waaay in the back. They are connected by a tube... the tranny is hung by one mount. This makes for a hairy situation when you put all that torque through the sytem at once. It's not designed as a drag car, thats why its slow as hell until 3000 RPM. You WILL break expensive stuff if you abuse the drivetrain like that. The reason we all say so, is because plenty of people have first hand experience.
Sounds like a drag huh (no pun intended) well, thing about how this thing has perfect weight distribution, and how that effects the car once it IS in motion. Starts to make up for it huh?

Acetylene

Makes perfect sense. I dumped it twice the day I bought it to get a feel of what I had to work with. It is definately not the violent rush of power I have been used to, but once she is moving and the lag is behind you it is a very "exact" car to drive. I love it - the car allows you to be a driver instead of a passenger if you know what I mean. Sincerely, thank you for the advice. This is going to cost enough w/out prematurely breaking what I already have. The burnouts will be kept to a strict minimum if at all.

Robby

I argued the LSD / Posi thing last week- a guy was putting a Torsen on a Mustang at the shop that was replacing my PS hose. He said positrac was not an LSD & that LSD would spin each tire opposite, etc. I tried to tell him, but ended up letting it go, as I've argued this point a FEW times w/big American muscle car guys- not sure why they think Posi's different from LSD...? I think they confuse "open diff" w/"limited slip diff" or something. The factory 951 only had a ZF LSD on 40% lock. The 968 had either a ZF LSD (40%) OR Torsen in 1992 & then in 1993 & up, the only option was Torsen.

As for burn-outs, etc- you can load up the tranny a bit by letting the clutch out, BEFORE dumping it completely, thereby tightening the drive-line first & keeping things from jolting so badly. People always argue that these are highway cars & not drag racers- that they somehow are magically faster at highway speeds than off-the-line stuff- it is simply not true- the Turbo S ran 0-60 in 5.5 seconds & the 1/4 in 14.2 @ ~100 & 0-120 was ~22 seconds. See other similar sized & powered cars, like 1996 & up M3-> 0-60 in 5.5, 1/4 in 13.9 - 14.0 @ ~100 & 0-130 by 25-26 secs. They would be dead-even to 60, but beyond that, the M3 would pull ahead- more & more, till it redlined 5th at ~145. What I'm saying is, that the 951 really has VERY LINEAR acceleration all the way from 0 to top speed. The 951S is really a hair slower in the 60-100 range, b/c of it's shift into 4th @ ~95mph, right before crossing the line- the M3 would have been in 4th by 85 or so, making it's gearing much better for acceleration & especially for a specific 1/4 mile race. Still, the 951 is not slow on the launch & then magically fast on the freeway- it's just easier & feels better w/4000rpms on tap than it is to launch well from a dead stop, which is why most people like 3rd the best- it has time to achieve max boost, etc...

Ask any serious drag racer- they'll tell you how fast a car will cross the 1/4 & at what speed, just by the 60ft times. These cars feel great at freeway speeds, but they're strong off-the-line too. Of course, as has been mentioned, they CAN be expensive to launch! Any full-throttle work through 1st isn't the best idea, as more TQ is transferred in 1st than any other, but the jolting done on a full-throttle launch is probably the worst, even if the tires are weak- the more traction, the better chance something will break- there was a big argument on here, recently, about this, where some guys were talking about CV joints failing vs several other driveline parts, at the drag-strip- there are a few here who are into that w/these cars.

Anyway, welcome to the board- sorry for the rant. If you're going to be wearing it out in this car, just be sensible. Changing a clutch is a 12-14hr job, for instance & tranny rebuilds can cost >$3k & I think the only way to replace synchros is to rebuild the tranny(?), & also, torque tubes, etc, can be very pricey too. One good thing to do, IF you're dead-set on hard launches, etc, is to strip some weight from the car- they are ~3160lbs w/full tank, options, spare, etc- dropping to 2900 or so, would make a pretty decent difference....