Allan-BilletDesign

Very nice! Love the color. Cant wait for mine to arrive.

Nashvegas

Yep - that's the car. It's at Hennessy in Atl.

Basically (upon advice here and elsewhere), wanted to make sure a few things like timing belt and fuel lines were current since it hasn't been driven alot in the past 14 years (~ 2k miles!).

dillon410021

beautiful 951. love the color combo with the fuchs. Very clean. Its neat to see how they came out of the factory with all the zinc coated metal under the hood

Nashvegas

Quick update (really no update...). The car has been at the shop for awhile having the timing belt, rollers, water pump, some seals and fuel lines replaced. Unfortunately, the fuel supply line has gone NLA from Porsche so I'll be replacing that with a Lindsey Racing line that's waiting at home. Black line, black anodized fittings.

There were 3 (!!) 944's in service bays at Hennessy Porsche this weekend, which I thought was cool.

Thought folks might like these (really crappy through a window) photos. No clue why an M3 is in there. Guessing it was a trade in.

ealoken

Nice 944
Looks mint.

Yellowbyrd

A very nice example. I still miss my '86 951. Congrats!

Nashvegas

Quick update today on the '86 951. I've driven it about 600 miles since I purchased it last summer. Just ticked over 40K miles. So much for retaining value (kidding, I don't care but I do want to keep mileage down under 1200-1500 a year). Overall I love it.

Any issues? Well... a few:

COOLANT LEAKS !!! 3 separate coolant leaks, as expected on a low miles car like this that still had all original parts. BY that I mean 3 hoses have burst driving in the past 6-8 months. 2 minor, 1 collosally dumping all coolant in the parking garage at work (the first and only time I drove it to the office). Each time i think the car is on fire, but ... then I smell... just coolant. I'm slowly replacing the hoses all with genuine Porsche parts, new clamps, etc. Hoses that burst were all down by the timing belt area. Go figure.

CV JOINTS!!!! believe I need to repack / replace rear CV joints as I noticed a very slight clanking last time I drove it. Rear left. Very slight. Only on certain turns under accel.

I love the car, drove it on a mountain run with a local Porsche 944 group... and was extremely impressed with how the car handled. Love the gearing. Love the motor. Up until that point I basically babied the car... I now have officially driven the snot out of it.

I get a thumbs up every single time I drive it.

Quick list of other things I've done this fall, and winter:

1) changed the oil (managed to do so without any spillage). Used royal purple. Spendy oil, but hopefully worth it. (even more than the hilarious synth 10w-60 oil my v8 M3 uses) We'll see. !?

2) Bought a Saratoga top, which is awesome.

3) Bought a spare DME relay, just in case I got the Solid State one (google it) with the Pump-Prime option. I don't notice any difference really though with starting more quickly etc.

4) Fixed the power door locks. The little plastic bit had broken inside the doors.

5) Added H4 euro lights. Why not. Under $200 from Pelican Parts and was a fun little upgrade. Looks cool. Easy to take back to stock.

6) Replacement front speakers. They still sound like crap but the old ones rattles. Bought them from Porsche to keep everything 100% original. They look basically just like the old ones. Total crap, whatever. Under $100 for them I believe.

7) Added a Euro front license plate -- package came today -- check it out.
This is something new from Porsche Classic, Euro front plate that says "Turbo" -- just like the brochures and photos back in the 80's. Pretty pleased. It's metal, superb quality and replaces the US front plate mount (that's now in a bag in the trunk). The Porsche part description says "sticker". Um, crazy Germans. It's not a sticker. BTW.

Otherwise, just loving the car. One thing on future "fun" list...

I scored a set of almost brand new genuine Porsche headers/exhaust manifolds - from a great local guy in Atlanta. One of the two manifolds is NLA from Porsche. Darn. I lucked out though -- Supposedly the story is that they have less than 60 miles on them. They look brand new. Someone replaced them on a car and then something happened, unsure what. They were, uh, a bit costly, but I now have them and can take the car back to stock. Now just need to find a weekend to do it or have someone else do it for me (more likely). I'll do a whole post just on these when I tackle the job.

A few pics to enjoy.

bumflick

Niiice. This was my dream car in high school as well, and I picked up my 86 951 about 3 years ago. Not as nice as yours, but I planned to modify before I even bought it.

The white with the black Fuchs is fantastic.

gruhsy

Nice update

You mentioned the coolant leaks where lines up front. Have you checked your motor mounts? Worth checking if you having failing coolant lines due to age.

My first 86 turbo that I bought back in 1993 had one of the front coolant lines fail due to bad motor mounts. This was in the summer of 1994 so the car was not that old at the time.

Motor would torque over with the damaged engine mount and rubbed a hole in the lower rad line from the power steering belt touching it.

ForceReconTrojan

You bought the Euro plate holder or did you double side stick it on?

slownrusty

As a recent 951 owner as well I can relate to the coolant leaks and decided to replace every rubber hose when I did the waterpump, timing belt and balance shaft belt also replaced the clamps as well.

Were you able to purge the air out of the cooling system without any issues? The reason I ask is that it can be tricky and it sounds like you've lost coolant a few times, so will require a refill and purge every time.

I've only driven my car less than 5 miles since I bought it back in November, but hoping to pile on the miles soon.

I look forward to more updates on your ownership experience.

Nashvegas

Just stuck it right on... double sided tape. Didn't want to mess with a plate holder / drilling more holes.

Nashvegas

RE: the cooling system purge, I was having a ton of difficulty bleeding it.

And also wasn't thrilled about coolant getting all over my detailed engine while bleeding... btw.

I bought a pressure tester / stant cooling system pressurizer online and it seems to be the way to go. I'm able to pressurize the system (13psi maybe.. not too high), burp the system, repeat 3-4 times with a drive around the block in between, and it now seems to be fully bled. Temp gauge stays dead center.

Nashvegas

Few more pics of the Saratoga Top and the Turbo front plate.

Also - I added these anodized "Turbo" door sills - thought they looked great and will protect the sills from my boots / feet. Installed with double sided tape so easily removable someday. Not factory - had them shipped from the UK.

Nashvegas

Bit of a pisser today. I've been keeping the car on a smart battery charger (a good one... ) and tonight swapped the charger over to another vehicle.

Looked at the battery area and I'll be damned if battery acid and or water wasn't coming out of the drain tube sitting in the tray under the battery. Grr. No good.

This car does have a bit of rust in the battery tray (in the repair receipts I have there was an "exploded battery" in the late 80's in Tennessee, and then a few years later the Porsche dealer in Nashville "repaired battery tray corrosion for leak".

Is this a common thing (simple battery charging causes acid or something / water / condensation to leak out of the battery)?

My other cars I put on the charger (and an old 80's motorcycle) all have AGM batteries at this point so not used to this... The one car I have with a regular batt is a Range Rover, and I drive it daily so never charge.