sen2two

the only hard part for me to go the way of the Porsche right now is, i would have to sell my 10AE. i have 4 cars and 2 bikes. i might have to sell even 2 cars and maybe a bike to do the Porsche. the parts are much more costly, and i have thise problem where i cant leave anything stock. plus, i would need the space.

Jims5543

If your scrimping and saving to get a 911 then don't. There is a saying the Porsche world concerning the 77-87 models, they are all 20K cars, you can buy a well sorted one that needs nothing for 20K or buy a 10K car and spend 10k making it right.



Basic maintenance parts are not so expensive, big repairs are VERY expensive and to be honest, it seems Porsche is turning it back on the older owners.



Also something to consider, Mazda has the Mazdaspeed program, run in 2 SCCA Autocrosses a year and you get upwards of 50% off parts for your car.



Porsche give you a 1-800 number so you can talk to a tech for free about your racing.





When I was shopping for a Porsche I was looking to buy a 930 (turbo) and had 3 separate 930's sent in for PPI's (pre purchase inspections) all 3 of them had bad engines and a engine rebuild will run in the 10-14K range. I spent $900 on PPI's and was no closer to a car.



Non - Turbo 911's have approx 200HP and to be honest I was not into getting into a 200HP car. I did some research and found out a popular swap was this 3.6 swap, I started reading about it and 300+ HP was the norm, when mated with a 2200 lb car, now we are talking.



I found this 1980 Targa in Kansas City and flew up to drive it home to Florida. I did many road trips in that car and it ran flawlessly but it had been gone through, according the the previous owner it had over 50K invested into it.



Finding a 3.6 swap for less than 20K is hard to do and doing the swap easily run into the high 30's.





You have a couple of sick FC's there to be honest FC's (or FD's) are much faster cars than 911's, while the 911's do FEEL like they handle great a well set up FC (or FD) will tear them up. The engine out back is a huge crutch for them, it makes hard breaking very difficult and trail braking an adventure. While they love the last 1/2 oft he turn the 1st half is very while knuckle.



I now take my FC up tot he mountains and chase some very well setup 911's around and they cannot keep up. Something I knew from owning both at the same time, and I am not talking acceleration either I am talking braking and turning stuff.



If I were you I would pass on a Porsche for now, you have the better 944 anyway.



I tease my friends all the time a badge my RX7 as a 944 just to screw with them, passer by think its a 944 even when its parked next to one.

sen2two

some very good points. but how do the engine rebuilds cost so much? is it parts or labor? cause i would be doing the work myself.



and its more of a space saving thing to sell the cars. i have no room to work on the cars i have now.



but the more i look. the more i like the Porsche. even still, for the cost of buying a stock 911 turbo. i could build a TII do destroy almost anything on the road and a lot of tracks.



i might just stick to the Japanese. asian girls are hotter anyways.

j9fd3s

its both. its german, there are a lot of parts you replace. 6 pistons and cylinders, cylinders are aluminum, and cant be surfaced. 2 timing chains, and all the guides, plus the 2 hydraulic tensioners. it needs head studs, cause the old ones broke, and are in the glovebox. lots of weird little oil lines, and things on top of the motor.



you can do a lot of the labor, but for example, you dont have the tools to set the cam timing, and its german, if you're off by a teeny bit the world ends. theres also some weird stuff going on when you have the crankcase apart, its gotta be right as it supplies the bearing crush...



also vote for skipping the turbo, its why all the magazines bitch about turbo lag, even today. that how bad it lags. under 4000rpms, moms pushing stollers seem fast, the porsche is geared so it drops to about 4000 when you shift at redline, so it lags in every gear. i know you're thinking you have a big single rotary, and its like that, but its not. its way worse.

j9fd3s

not to rain on your parade or anything. 911's are cool, its just german, so you get all the BS that goes with

Jims5543

Spot on!



All that said, there is something about a 911, I feel very lucky to have been able to afford one (especially the early bodied 3.6 swap) for 3 years. It was an amazing car to drive, when you sat in it you felt like it just sucked you in, you really felt connected to the steering of the car like no other car I have driven. There was one negative, you felt really disconnected from the transmission, you could feel the 4 feet of linkage connected to it. It took me a couple of months to get used to it and even then I was not 100% comfortable with it 3 years later.



If I drove the RX7 a lot and left the Porsche sitting, then got back into the Porsche, it took a while to get my rhythm back down with it... but the steering... man, I have spent thousands on my RX7 trying to replicate that steering and it just cannot be duplicated.



Then there is the attention the car gets, there is good and bad. There is the good old ***** and a Porsche joke. But there is also positive. When you buy an older one you will notice something about the typical owner. In the Porsche world the old school air cooled owners are much like the RX7 world, most of them wrench on their own cars, and really have a disdain for the direction Porsche took the marque. A SUV? Please. I have made some really cool friends from the Porsche BB's I go up to NC to meet up with a few of them a few times a year to play car. One is a mechanic, another is a aviation mechanic and a over the road trucker, another is a construction worker, you get the picture. They are not all doctors and lawyers they are regular guys that love cars.



I am heading back up to the Dragon in November if you want to tag along let me know I am driving up in my RX7, there will be a Rotary Porsche 911 there, and there is a dude that will be there that used to be involved in the Mazdaspeed program he owns a beautiful 1969 911 that my wife absolutely loves.



email me at Jims5543 at gmail dot com.



The other thing I forgot to mention is you will get lots of looks in the car, lots of attention. I was not totally comfortable with it. Oh and then you get the "life is good for you" type of comments. I had a customer say that me once and he was driving a giant F350 turbo diesel crew cab truck with a lift kit on it. I looked at his truck and looked back at him and told him he could buy 3 of my cars with what he spent on that truck. I kind of prefer the down and dirty look of my FC, thats part of why I do not have an FD just all its good parts under my hood.

defprun

Jims just ninja'd my brain and ink-blotted it down on the screen...it's exactly like that with every make...except for Hondas...they have no quirks they just run until they die...even the ones from the 70s. I have mass respect for AC VW/Porsche owners, always have and I hope I get to own a couple some day. New porsches are great...I love the GT3 line...but jesus ever break anything and you might as well have called it a life.

Jims5543

If you have a couple of hours to kill, want to see some eye candy and what you can have if you take an older 911 and spend somewhere north of 140K on it.



Look here:



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=260064



While this car was being built this guy bought a Ford GT and eventually moved from Charlotte to the UK. He is from Italy originally and seems to be some bigshot investment banker.



I have exchanged e-mails with him urging him to ditch his dizzy setup and use his Motec M-800 to its full potential. Hopefully those brits will talk some sense into him, he is probably throwing away a lot of power with the dizzy setup.

j9fd3s

we pitted next to a guy with a tube frame 911 the other weekend, thing was a MONSTER.



with the tube frame, the car was really low, brakes straight off of something like a champ car, motec 2 turbos etc etc.



it dynos over 700hp

defprun

**** me that thread is hot, Jims.