NineMeister

Roll back a couple of months:

A prospective customer contacts 9m with the view to us building him a 1974 911RS-R trackday car. Following many in-depth telephone discussions on the possible combinations & options available, a visit to 9m is arranged to finalise a build plan for the car. Customer arrives with his fellow petrol-head friend, spends the day at 9m with myself & between us we come up with the following specification based on a 9m64RS platform:

1974 911RS-R carbon bodywork (wings, bumpers, doors, quarters, spoiler)
Full seam-welded & caged non-sunroof shell
Recaro SPG seats
Perspex rear & side windows
Heater delete, lightweight Aircon system
425+hp 9m 3.82 litre 8200rpm race engine
Motec M800 engine management & camera/datalogger
6 speed G50/32 gearbox with 9m carbon LSD
993RS 4 channel brake system & calipers
GT2 evo uprights with KW Clubsport suspension, poly bushes, RS ARBs
17" lightweight centrelock wheels, Toyo R888 tyres
Target weight 1000kg

This is the look of the car that the customer has requested & we made the joint decision to build the new car on 964 platform due to the expected performance of the 9m race engine and the desire to run with ABS, hence the designation of 9m11RS-R even though technically it could have been a 9m64RS-R (not that it really matters in any case!).

NineMeister

It did not take too long to find a suitable donor car in the form of an accident free, original panel, one-owner 1990 964C2 with 100k on the clock. Aside from the usual rust around the screen aperture the car is perfect for our needs, even down to having the early 964 round bonnet catch which is the same as the pre-89 cars.

Did not take too long to strip it ....

Bill Verburg

another awesome project!

ChaseN

I wish 9m was in the US so I could be the shop flunkie can't wait to see the outcome!

NineMeister

No problem Chase, you can now be a flunkie via Rennlist as well!

Here are a few more workshop shots of the stripdown:

NineMeister

Remember I mentioned about the rust in the screen aperture? Since we are going to fit a complete new roof panel this did not concern us since the offending rusty bits were destined for replacement in any case, however they may be of interest to anyone wondering why they have a few small rust bubbles appearing in the paint under the screen rubbers. Also of note is the rust along the wing (fender) to inner wing jointline - just remember that this was a one-owner car that had never had a replacement panel or paint. Certainly makes you think...

NineMeister

The shell is moved on the dolly to our baseless 2 post lift so that we take off the dolly (mounted on the jacking points), position the jig underneath and lower the shell onto the jig brackets. Leigh is seen here dropping the shell down into place on the Celette jig, the same as used by Porsche.

Luke

I have always loved the look with the fenders off. It just reminds you have purpose built it is.

ChaseN

Thanks Colin - it affects my productivity nearly as badly!

One of these I'll make it back to the UK - and want to see your shop when I do.

Barty964rst

This looks to be a great project in the making!
Cheers Colin!

JPP

Subscribed (again ...)

NineMeister

With the shell on the jig there is no point in messing around, so the first job was to remove the original roof panel to shed some light on the scene in preparation for the roll cage fabrication. The new solid roof skin is hanging up on the wall behind the shell.

NineMeister

The 9mRS rollcage tubes are CNC mandrel formed to our exact specification. First stage of the cage installation is to clean up the shell & weld in the floor plates.

A lot of cage fabricators then cut holes in the plates, slide the rear hoop and forward tubes through the holes and then weld around the tubes, however we prefer the old method of profiling the tubes to be an exact fit and then welding them to the top of the plate, thus avoiding shear loading the weld in the event of a vertical impact.

NineMeister

The central cage assembly comes first, starting with the rear hoop, forward tubes, screen top tube & roof diagonal. We profile cut the ends of the pipes on our milling machine to get perfect fit, compound angled saddle joints before welding. The more accurate the joint, the stronger the weld. In the photos the top of the cage has been fully welded (try that with the roof panel on!) and Marc is about to start fully welding the structure down to the floorplates. Note the ratchet strap on the main hoop which is being used to gently close up the uprights before welding.

NineMeister

Rear struts come next: plates welded in position on bulkhead & chassis legs, holes drilled through bulkhead, strut tubes cutto length & profiled on the bench cutoff grinder.