Irisblau Carrera 3.2

[randall]

Happy to report that after 6 odd months of searching I finally found a car to call my own. The minor issue was that it was located some 1400 kms away in Tasmania ( I am in Sydney).

 

Decided to make a trip out of it so SWMBO and I flew down to pick it up and drove it back over 3 days stopping along the way.

 

Somewhere in Tasmania:

 

 

 

 

Devenport

 

 

 

Spirit of Tasmania

 

 

 

I've noticed humming noise coming from the front end at high speeds and while passing trough Melbourne decided to have it checked out before driving back to Sydney.

Did a quick search on my handset and found a specialist (Harrison RRR) and as luck would have it he was still at his workshop (at this stage it was midday Saturday) and was just up the road from where I was at the time.

Spencer (the business owner) turned out to be a great guy, front wheel bearings were shot and he just happened to have 2 in stock and managed to replace them on Saturday afternoon despite having family commitments. I was expecting given the situation (emergency repair on Saturday) I would pay through the nose for the service but the cost was more than reasonable. If I was in Melbourne I know who would be looking after my car.

 

Few pics from the workshop, all cars in there apart from one boxster were from the air cooled era and Spencer races a Carrera 3.2 so I knew my car was in good hands.

 

 

 

Country Victoria - stopped to get some fresh air.

 

 

SWMBO giving the car a workout.

 

 

The area around Tinamba will stay in my memory for some nice quiet country roads - some of them straight as an arrow with excellent visibility, some would say ideal for testing upper rev range in third and fourth gear if you were so inclined...

 

 

 

 

The trip was a great way to get to know the car and pick on all the little nuances and issues along the way.

 

 

I noticed a fair bit of wind noise coming from the area where doors and dashboard meet the A pillar. Looking at the door from outside it would appear the doors front edge is not entirely flush with the wing. Is there any adjustment in door hinges that would allow me to fix this (I am assuming this could be one of the wind noise contributing factors) or is the adjustment only possible on the front wing itself?

[burgundyben]

Nice colour and nice wheels, I only usually like fuch, but those look cool.

[GP911]

What a great trip, and a great way to give the car a shake down, there are a few threads on door adjustment in the bodywork section, enjoy.

[MrPerkles]

fantastic

[Richard Bernau]

Nice colour and nice wheels, I only usually like fuch, but those look cool.

 

Simmons 3 piece wheels, made in Australia I think. They make great wheels that are widely used by the Porsche racers in NZ and Oz. Used to be pretty well priced but the FX rates + duty + VAT would kill you if you imported to the UK.

 

Cool looking car.

[Fred]

love it!

[Al_W]

Lovely looking car and an epic shakedown trip. Nice one

[JLewis]

Nice car and great write up

[randall]

Thank you gents for the positive comments. Still a lot to learn and lot to do!

 

 

Simmons 3 piece wheels, made in Australia I think. They make great wheels that are widely used by the Porsche racers in NZ and Oz. Used to be pretty well priced but the FX rates + duty + VAT would kill you if you imported to the UK.

 

Cool looking car.

 

Richard, you got it, they are Simmons wheels. I am bit like burgundyben and would have preferred Fuchs but these are growing on me.

 

 

 

Not sure what width they are but they are currently fitted with 245 rears and 225 fronts so I am guessing they would be a "size up" compared to OEM Fuchs. The downside is that decent tyres in 245/45/16 are hard to come by.

[Beaky]

Lovely looking car and an epic shakedown trip. Nice one

 

 

+1, what an epic way to acquire a car, looks great, enjoy

[hukent]

+1, what an epic way to acquire a car, looks great, enjoy

 

 

+1 and it's the right colour, Welcome.

[sjwright944]

Really cool looking car! Very envious.

[randall]

Took the old girl to a race track in order to get to know her better and was pleasantly surprised with her behavior.

I was expecting her to be understeery and difficult to manage however she was very playful and just wanted to oversteer on every opportunity.

 

Now:

Here are the recent wheel alignment results, front struts have been modified to get more camber out of them as you can see.

 

 

 

 

 

Measuring sill height from the ground, front and rear there is about 25 mm height difference (front is lower).

 

Suspension seems to be standard, front struts are green in colour and rears are black, not sure if their external colour signifies anything and what inserts may be in them.

 

Tyres are 225 50 16 Falkens on the front and some very ordinary 245 45 16 Nexens on the back. (both Falkens and Nexens are near new, put on the car by the PO).

 

So my question is would a decent set of tires help to reduce oversteer or will I need to play with suspension settings further to make it more neutral?

Or alternatively should I simply stick a LSD in it and sign up for a drift event?

[Dr Rock]

Front should be lower, green struts are Bilsteins IIRC

[Richard Bernau]

Your relative fr/rr cambers look all wrong to me. Normal wisdom says rear camber should be 0.5-1.0 degree more than the front. So, if you can get ~-2.0 degrees neg camber on the front then you sould be aiming for -2.5+ degrees neg camber on the rear. That plus the Nexen rear tyres would account for most of the oversteer IMHO.

[randall]

Thanks Richard,

 

That is the sort of feedback I was hoping to get.

I am definitelly planning on replacing the tyres was just wondering whether that alone would fix excessive oversteer.

I guess the next step is a rear camber kit of some description.