atb

Many thanks to Ken Osage for finding this deal for me, and for fellow PacNWr's Tom Middleton and John Davis for offering time and parts.
The Good: '79 5 speed, no sunroof, stripped interior
The Bad: Hole in the floor board where stripped battery positve cable made contact and melted through putting a hole in the floor and melting the cable in half; holes in the radiator- although non of them leak; 3 of 4 brake calipers are locked; strip job done with a lot of anger;
and The Ugly:























Ken lent me the positive battery cable from his racecar since the one in this car had been truncated below the driver side floor pan. Rather than trying to wind it through to the stock location in the pouring freezing rain, I ran it up through tthe A/C drain in the center hump over to the passenger seat area and grounded it to the seat rail mount.

Now with battery power we started it up and it made a clanking sound that would wake the dead. Ken noticed that runner 8 was getting hot and thought that the exhaust valve might be stuck. Pulled the plug, and the outside electrode had been pushed flat to the center electrode. John Davis pulled the intake runner to make sure nothing was in the cylinder that didn't belong there, and did a compression check and it held at 150 psi cold and dry. Changed the oil (had a very strong gas smell) with some super light 10w-30, and the noise went away after about 10 minutes of running.

Put it in gear to take off only to have it feel like it was laden with a ton of bricks. Lifted one wheel at a time and 3 of the 4 calipers were locked. Right about this time serious plumes of steam started coming out from the reservoir tank area. Ken pulled the one from his racecar and we (actually John Davis) was able to install it. The car had overheated, but Tom and John noticed that there were some extra leads by the A/C fan that werent' connected. (The mechanical fan is missing). Ken had a spare switch, John wired it up, and with copious amounts of starter fluid we got her going again. With the A/C fan switched on, she held steady with the temp gauge needle right at 50%.

Took the car for a quick trip down the road (smooth shifting tranny), but the calipers still didn't break totally free. As we were putting the tarp on it the car started to roll backwards on its own so maybe its not going to be an issue, but regardless Tom has volunteered the S brakes off his race car (he's installed S4's) just to get me going. Tom is also letting me borrow a Recaro racing seat to replace the original seat out of his '82 that you see in the pics. John has an autopower roll bar taking up space in his garage that he's willing to let me install untill I can get my cage done, and Ken has a set of expired harnesses that will get me through the track days to come. Also, John showed up last night with a set of steel ball joints as well. Life is good.

Definitley a lot of work ahead. Hoping to get her to the shop tonight and start the task of getting her cleaned up, install/inspect the brakes, get the battery properly mounted, and hopefully have her ready for the Track Attack May 8th in Spokane. Let's see, a stripped OB should get me closed to the power to weight ratio of stock S4 shouldn't it?

[Running total on post #59]

jorj7

Congratulations. Does this mean the stoker project is on the back burner? Or are you going to
jug the two at the same time?

Lizard928

Congrats Adam,

Now you need to figure out what that 3rd pedal is for!

mark kibort

reminds me of my 79 that we got near for free and was only going to be used for spare fender, door and rear deck parts. then, we got it running by unwrapping the timing belt from around the crank pulley. a month or two later, we were running 2:10 at Thunderhill on the holbert car's rims.
(only mod was a 3" exhaust, even with a aftermarket cat, koni shocks with eibach springs, and all the needed safety equip like seat, belts, cage, fire ext, and even the old wing from the holbert car. along with the "S" front air dam from my 84.
amazing that it was as strong as it was for what it had been through!

mk

Andre Hedrick

Adam,

Are there any more of the shelf brackets in the car like this one circled?

yamahasteve

ok, someone mention the 928 license plate...

F451

Nice Adam!

And yes, cool plates, I didn't even notice...

atb

I'm hoping not. That is the reason that I haven't done this earlier, I continually told Ken that I'm not building a race car until the stroker is done. Only one project at a time, etc.... He kept finding potential projects, and the prices were getting lower and lower, but still I stuck to my guns. When this one came around with a $500 sale price, I had to do it.

Third pedal? You know it was dark out when I did my test drive, I didn't even see that thing hangin out there.

I think this one is going to be similar. Even with the brakes dragging she pulled pretty hard down low. Didn't get much above 4K, but on these older motors I think the shows pretty much over by then isn't it?

Holy crap Andre, either you're a marksman or you're one of those guys that sees faces in the landscape of Mars. If its a bracket its yours. Send me a PM with a mailing address and I'll send anything that even remotely resembles it to you.

Seriously stoked about this project, will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Lizard928

Now Adam you need MS on that, and abit of intake work for alittle extra power.

Then BOOOOOSSSSTTTTT

Andre Hedrick

Neat!

I have a complete set of calipers from MY81 taking up space if you need a working set, free + shipping is all I ask.

IcemanG17

Adam
Welcome to the "Shark Racing Society"

Be cautious...since everything tends run about 100% OVER budget...but its worth it!!!!

Sailmed

Fixed that for ya

atb

Ken did say that he would have enough parts left over to build a third boost manifold like what he's fabricating for him and John. I probably wouldn't use a T/S route though, easier to get a C/S or an RMT.


Thanks Andre, I think I'm good. Everyone up here has already converted to S4 brakes, so lots of extra calipers lying around. An interesting point here though, in looking on line it looks like there are lots of aftermarket race pades for the OB brakes, but not much for the S brakes. I'm wondering if that's because more 911's used the same calipers as the OB's than the S models?


I hear ya Bryan, I think the expression "low budget racer" is the ultimate oxymoron.
We'll see how it all goes, just looking to get the car driveable first.

mark kibort

What do you mean, "show's over" by 4k? These old buggers have a big curve that arc's around 5k peak HP. so, it pays to shift at near just short of 6k in most cases for max acceleration overall. (although they feel kind of flat in doing so, its faster than shifting at 4k thats FOR SURE! If that is what you are referring to)

Have fun. put on some S brakes if you get a chance down the road. the hockey puck stock 79 brakes are very small and during a track day, fade pretty badly.

mk

Lizard928

Adam,
The OB brakes are the same as 944 brakes for the pads.

I would go with the RMT