johnfm

The rear wing goes up at 50 mph and down again at about 7. I heard an odd story just the other day that said that initially it didn't open until a much higher speed - around 70 mph.

The story added that owners complained 'cos the cops would know they were speeding if the tail was up??

Sounds like bollocks to me, but I'm sure an '89 owner may know the answer.

Christer

never heard that one before. How do 996 owners get around this currently?

Bins

I believe that 996s open up at around 70mph

993s and 996s wing can be kept up manually anyway.

DaveK

Hi,
996s wings go up at 70mph or so, and go back down at about 35mph.

I don't think the rear wing speed was changed, but I heard that the manual control for the rear wing was moved into the cabin because people were complaining about being caught for speeding.

Dave
90 C4

J-McDonald

The speeding story sounds like urban legend to me-- I doubt very much that your average cop would know that much about Porsche technology.

964 wings raise at ~40mph. 996 wings raise at ~70mph. The explanation that I heard was that the speed was raised to lessen wear-and-tear on the wing motor mechanism, since most of the aerodynamic effect is acheived at higher speeds (i.e., 65mph+) anyway.

CmackG

my 89 C4 pops up in the 50 mph range.

gregC2

My speedometer is at 47 (as much as one can tell 47 on that gauge) when the wing begins to raise, about 3 when it lowers. <img src="graemlins/xyxwave.gif" border="0" alt="[bigbye]" />

The Eagle

Hi Guys,
[quote] The speeding story sounds like urban legend to me-- I doubt very much that your average cop would know that much about Porsche technology. <hr></blockquote>
J. McDonald, indeed a average cop doesn't know much about Porsche technology but they do know that the wing is extracted at "high" speed (they don't know at what speed), this means seeing a Porsche driving by with a extracted wing means for them that you're driving way to fast or have been driving to fast. They don't know the wing only goes down when the car almost stops ... so changes are that you're pulled over ...
I know what I'm talking about 'cause I'm working in the police force and get this question about the rear wing a lot.
Btw; my rear wing goes up at exactly 80 km/hr and goes down at 5 km/hr.
Greetz.

GeoC2cab

High,
When you stop and raise the wing manually(say engine is hot) it will stay up when you start to drive again, and it will not go back down until you hit 50mph again, even if you stop before hitting 50mph. At least thats the way it works on my 1991 cab. I dont think the cops are handing out tickets to Porsches strickly on the point that "the rear spoiler was up" it proves nothing.
As long as that manual switch is in the car, the only way he can prove accessive speed is w/ the gun.(helicopter, stripes in the road etc.)

Jay H

Since the Boxster was introduced, I have seen only one of them on the highway with it's little mini spoiler up (raises at 75 mph). Don't those guys/owners drive those things fast??

J-McDonald

I didn't mean any offense to law enforcement - I've got lot of police officers in my family. I just think that making the connection between raised spoiler and "excessive" speed is improbable. As Geo pointed out, police officers have radar guns, certified speedometers, and other means of determining speed.

Adrian

Dear John,
The spoiler speeds are,
warn out at 7kph
Raises at 80kph when reaching this speed or above for more than 3 seconds).
Lowers when incoming speed signal is unusable for more than 3 seconds. This means below 7kph. Mind for instance requires the speed to be almost zero.
If you have a 1990 964 you will notice that it has a manual spoiler extend and retract function. It was not bollocks that attempts were made by Police in various countries to book people for speeding on the 89 C4 when the spoiler was up. The UK actually was one of the main offenders. Some research I did some years ago showed that the cases were thrown out of court when challenged.
The result was that dealers and customers alike complained and the internal manual function was added.
Ciao,
Adrian
911C4

PS: The actual opening speed indicated on the speedo varies with installed tyres. There are also variations between 1989 and 1990 models as compared to 1991 and up. This is because of the different speedo speed sources.

Jeff Curtis

The original statement is FACT...the spoiler raises at 50MPH and lowers below 7MPH.

Randall G.

I can think of two more good reasons to have a switch to raise the spoiler manually:

-So you can wash/wax the bottom side.
-So you can replace the <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" /> air wall <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" /> .

How do '89 owners go about doing the above? Have you guys learned how to jumper the controls?

Roland Kunz

Hello

In germany the speed to rise was around 60 km/h untill 1990. This was then changed to 80 km/h.

The reasons:

Porsche had to meet emmision laws in some stringent europe countrys ( swiss, germany, sweden ). To help that the sonner the spoiler was rised the lower was the soundemmison messured on the rear.

The bad point is that in most europe citys the speed limit is at 50 km/h. In germany when you speed over 10% you get fined and over 25% you ( temporarly if its the first time ) loose your driving licence.

Now if the german police is using there observations to make a rough estimate messurement from your speed you can´t get fined, even if they use a stopwatch there chances to "get" you had been low.
On the 964 the thing was a bit different. The police said they could see the spoiler rise and that speed could be reproduced on a roll street and exactly pinned. They just didn´t needed to go the usuall way´s working with radar or other traps or have a expensive equiped follow up camera car.

Abd the german Police sure knew the stuff as they had 964 police cars for duty.

So Porsche changed the activating speed onto the safe side so even policeofficers on duty couldn´t get traped by simple observation

Grüsse