996tnz

John, if you do sell yours, I'm hoping the next owner will keep taking her to the track since it's nice having a few others to benchmark with. Someone wanted mine late last year but I didn't see the point of naming a price as I'd only be looking around for another 996TT to replace it with. It really is made to order for our NZ roads and weather!

In over 3 years, mine had never had the whole family in it once, so flying down to the recent Mystery Creek lunch (in P3 between a 997 Turbo and a 993 Turbo) with kids in back and my wife riding shotgun was pretty surreal. The kids both loved it but my navigator got a bit green around the gills in the twisties - despite me very considerately straightening them out as much as possible.

Understand where you're coming from though. It takes the better part of 10 kms to warm mine up but luckily I'm more than 30 kms away from my work.

Macca

John.

I think you idea of selling the 996TT may be a good one. Driving the C4 daily for your short work run would be much more fun. As good as it is you always buy another 996TT anytime you like but life's short and living with the C4 would be fun. Plus you save insurance, service.maintenance and gas on one more car each year - more money for track days and mods LOL!

In terms of your plan I think its very sound. Its taken a while for this to crystallize but I honestly think you have nailed exactly the important changes left to make it a nice balance between track and road. The fact it can manage multiple purposes is to me a hugely gratifying part of the project. To jump in drive down the length of the country, do numerous track days and be competent on track, drive home all without having changed a wheel, tyres or pads etc with (one hopes) total reliability and almost no oil use - is how I dream my machine to be and to deliver and a total reward for my effort.

I believe your ARBs are beefed up RUF units and may be suitable for the task at hand. Having the adjust ability of the RS ones however gives you skope with a small adjustable spanner to make the car more suited to rod or track with little effort.

My thoughts are that you probably don't need PSS10 or KWv3 (coliovers) at this stage of the game - your HDs will be just fine once checked and possibly overhauled. Petes set up is a good one to blueprint your machine on. You know he can manage a mid 1.19 in his C4 and yours will eventually be lighter so if you have similar suspension there is no reason yours cant achieve similar or better performance.

John McM

A positive experience with Robinson instruments. The odometer stopped working somewhere on the way to Pirongia on the NITT. The fault was cogs where the teeth stripped because of aged plastic. I think I've lost up to 2,000 km. Thought about winding the odo forward but what's the point when the engine has been rebuilt?

Other problem was a cracked face on the fuel gauge. Total cost to fix everything was $240.

All looks good as new. Very impressed

John McM

Macca, yes the ARBs are RUF 22mm

Macca

John. Depends how fussy you are (see left screw in speedo your picture). I heard good things and gave my instruments to them to install custom VDO dials which I had spent a lot of money and 6 months waiting for VDO in Europe to customize for me (classic grey with my own designed freehand "anniversary" script). They came back with dust inside and burred screws (brass and irreplaceable). Luckily I never used my factory dials (the originals still live in a box in storage with all the other original parts from the car) but instead bough a used set on fleabag.

Im a Virgo and I wanted my screws undamaged and sans dust and debris! As soon as I picked up the damage my eye was drawn to it. So I took a crash course in rebuilding VDO instruments and many many late nights after had them pretty much perfect (I still missed one bit of dust/debris unfortunately which annoys me to this day - but I did repaint the screws and get them aligned etc).

Call me ****....Id say they are the best people I know to use but next time Id tell them exactly what I expect the finished product to look like! My 2C worth....

P.S. Customizing those gauges was one of the longest most frustrating and potentially expensive jobs. A cheap set of second hand guages was $800 (now I believe much more), the dials were $500 customized, LED warm white back lights and steel bezels around $300 and labour around $450. Viola - Sir you just spent $2000 on some nice looking guages.....go figure!

John McM

Macca,

That's why Leos rule the world. We don't sweat the small stuff I see your point in the screw painting but none of the gauges have aligned screws ex factory. I think I can live with it.

Next stop is CCS tomorrow to get my pads changed and tighten belts. The squeal is hurting my street cred on the heel and toe.

Macca

11 GT3s on TM right now incl 4 x RS. Would appear people are trading in early for the new one. A good time to do a deal on a 997.1 GT3....

John you have OBC and Cruise?

kiwi 911

Do 997.1 GT3's suffer the same engine issues as standard Gen 1 997's, or do they have a different block etc.?? i.e totally different engine that doesn't share the same bearing issues etc. Gen 1's seem to be almost half the price of Gen 2's - and can't quite see why??

Macca

Gen 1 have same bulletproof Mezger block but 3.6L v 3.8 for gen 2. Gen 2 has more nannies CL wheels and a bump in power. Frankly a good gen 1 around 110k is all you need...

John McM

Macca, yes OBC but no cruise on the C4.

kiwi 911

Macca - it seems I have plenty of excuses for not quite breaking the 1.50 barrier at Taupo - the latest is dogie suspension (I only had the shocks done 2 years ago!!!)

Just imagine how fast I would have been with proper seats and non-dogie suspension......

P.s can you kindly give me the link for your seats please - I might have to get a set.

By the way, does anyone know whether a racing seat needs to be MANZ approved??

Hi Paul,
We have noticed another problem with your Porsche this morning.
The L/F strut is covered in oil which most likely means the shock has blown a seal.
We can remove them and have them rebuilt.We can normally get them done within the week
I wouldn’t advise driving like that in case it does some terminal damage to the shock
Please advise if you would like us to pull them out

Kind regards
Stuart Ashby

Macca

Paul.
Sounds similar to my inability to shift into 2nd from 3rd costing me 2 seconds a lap at Taupo LOL!

P.S. I found that my bikes often showed weeping front shock seals after being strapped down on transporter. Maybe this was what happened when your car transported to Pirongia. Sometimes the haulage compress the suspension so the car does move on the flatbed. It causes the seals to weep. Believe me you would have known all about it of you had ave lost a shock on the track!

http://www.border.com.tw/admin/produ...duct.php?id=45 (I went sp5) but it you want FIA approved from MANZ you need SP$ (more expensive).

http://www.border.com.tw/admin/produ...duct.php?id=45

mjg

997.1 GT3 needs new suspension to be a compelling drive, the active dampers are pretty awful in that iteration.

kiwi 911

Hummm - I saw your car in at Conti's yesterday- with Mechanics under the hood looking for that missing second at Taupo?? (ha-ha hee-hee)

Macca

Thanks Matt. That useful information. I didnt realize that was a weakness.

Paul. Good to know finally something being done. Car been there since NITT. Still wearing the tyre marbles and mud. Rear toe arms being done and last ditch (Wevo engine mounts) to rectify shift issues before looking inside the box (next year). Also getting rid of that alloy "Tilt kit" as the exaggerated anti squat is costing me at least 1s a lap under power coming out of corners LOL! One day (2014?) I may even get to drive HD again and see if I can keep up with you guys! Obviously I need all the help I can get.

Your little girl sounds like shes a bit tantrum prone lately. Do you think she can be made reliable for SITT? I too am concerned about this being one of the Drive down and Back brigade. Shes not let me down ever in 13 years but this is a very long trip with plenty of track time. Just wondering if you had a plan for her or maybe a 996 GT3?