Back in Black

[Bugs 77]

Just found a box of shiny new wheel nuts on my desk, going to have to be careful not to scratch them when they go on!

[gt two]

Love this car. Well executed. Colour combo and seats look superb.

[Bugs 77]

Thanks Lee

Little jobs, fit new wheel nuts and finish plumbing the new washer setup.

New and old

With new ones on they just disappear, another one of those 1% jobs that all add up in the end. Now if I start talking about cleaning products and the use of cotton buds someone come and slap me!, I've never gone into this much or level of detail before. 

Wiring up the new pump for the washers I just extended the wires from the old pump position. I found some twin wire, black with a blue stripe one side, added male terminals to plug into the old wiring end then ran the extension across the nose in the trunk alongside the wiring loom there then into behind the double skin and up to a hole right next to the new pump position where it came out, put on two female connectors and plugged  straight onto the new pump that clips into the bottle. I was going to take the power feed more directly from the switch to the pump but as the original wires are all well locked into the looms it would be a bit of a mission to remove/redirect them so took the easy way out, still pretty neat. I unplugged the water feed from the washer nozzles and spun them around to lead down the opposite side from stock to the new pump/bottle position, then trimmed the tubes and connected to the new pump. All worked a treat, the most powerful washers I've ever had, except one jet in one nozzle is blocked, as in need a new nozzle blocked!

[gt two]

I find that the little jobs are often really satisfying. Plan to tackle making a simplified fuel hose route this weekend and also change my oil pressure sensor. Also try and balance the throttle bodies myself for the first time.

Wheels and nuts look great. Love the polished finish on the lip of the Fuchs.

 

 

[TargaWayne]

Have you thought about, clear/smoked indicators back and front? Would go with the Black on Black exterior.

I'm looking at these for mine because I don't like the orange against the dark blue.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124852158824

[Bugs 77]

I don't mind the orange indicators with the black, kind of fits in with the rich cork and black interior. But I think I'll be changing the headlights to darker LED types, it'll change the face of the car from stock classic to a more resto mod look. I was going for classic 74-75 Carrera hotrod sort of thing but modern stuff is creeping in.

[Bugs 77]

Had a good run in the car this weekend, my wife's band played  at Dwellingup Saturday night which is up in the hills east of where we live and we planned to stay up there overnight. The following day there was a large Coffee and Cars event on up in Perth I wanted to attend and had to be there early to meet up with a group so we could convoy in and park together, so that meant taking the IB up the hill and going straight to Perth from there.

Driving up to Dwellingup is a nice run, a chance to see what the car is like now on something slightly more challenging than our flat straight freeways or tootling round the streets, winding away up the scarp was still a cruise though as the car did it all easily in 5th, the handling is pretty sharp but may look into fitting a bump-steer kit for the rougher stuff. Heading down the hill in the morning on the way to Perth it had been raining and still was lightly which made things a bit twitchy with some standing water and greasy sections, it was the first rain for months so backed off a bit. Found if you drive the car to a point where it feels comfortable, ignoring the speedo, the rate is surprisingly fast with the car or me not even close to raising a sweat, more so than before the rebuild, have to be more conscious of the speed limit to avoid the car being confiscated then crushed.

On arrival in Perth I met the rest of the group in a car park near the old Swan Brewery on the Swan river then we drove down the road a mile or so to the University of W.A. grounds for Coffee and Cars, $10 entry per car proceeds go to charity. In all we had 12 cars, all customers of RJP Motorsport, most were IBs with the exception of two 964s and one longhood, lately the local Porsche club has become one of late model cars that do just lunch so Richard is getting the aircooled gang together about once a month to do some driving (plus a pie and beer).

Anyway was a good 250+ kms of driving for the weekend.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Bugs 77

[Chris T]

14 hours ago, Bugs 77 said:

have to be more conscious of the speed limit to avoid the car being confiscated then crushed.

Really??? I thought speed limits and enforcement here was bad..... Tell us more.

[Bugs 77]

Yes if you're silly enough to break the law by a considerable margin your car will be confiscated and some have had the pleasure of seeing them crushed before their own eyes while being told "don't do it again!"

It's got to be pretty bad though, the odd mechanic has been busted "test"driving Ferrari's at quite a lick and some major sweet talking was needed by the owners to keep them from the crusher. I know a few rice rockets have gone that way.  

[Bugs 77]

Another little job out of the way, the dead peddle to replace the center console. (must clean the workbench)

Fabbed this out of some alloy plate.

Contact glued on some rubber matting I found at the local hardware store

Then slipped it in place, It fitted pretty well over the tunnel and at this stage only have a screw tapped into the upper tab but it feels solid, so will see how that goes.

When I got the car the interior was all over the shop, but it did have these embossed floor mats. But they where from when the car was LHD and after the conversion were just jammed in place being the wrong shape. So I cleaned them up and then re-cut to the right shape and re-bound the edges, worthwhile bit of recycling.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Bugs 77
Spelling, again.

[fat fuchs]

Nice work, looks super tidy.

[Bugs 77]

So, another run up to Perth, this time to Richards workshop for the first service after run in plus replace the rear wheel bearings. Straight in and on the hoist for a quick poke around, engine had a small leak traced down to oil pressure switch so will sort that, dry as a bone elsewhere. Richard whipped out the plugs while we chatted and all looks good and covers are off in prep for checking valve clearance. Oil will be dumped for fresh stuff then on the dyno it will go for final tune but has run very well straight out of the box. Will post the numbers this makes when they come to hand and I'll list the specs of the engine build.

Straight into it at RPJ

Always something nice here to see, this is a RHD 73 911E that I have seen around Perth for quite a few years now, really amazing in the flesh.

Should have closed the hood but didn't want to scratch it!

Nice that it gets driven.

[Bugs 77]

OK, car is home again.

A friend of mine had a car to pick up from Richards workshop too so scrounged a ride to Perth with them.
So rear wheel bearings have been replaced and bump-steer kit fitted, now no highway rumbles from the rear and the car no longer darts around so much on the rough stuff, can't recall having used them in the past but now feel is a must do if you drop the nose.|
First service done after run in process then it was put onto the dyno for final tune and we have some numbers.

So max HP is 190 at the rear wheels, 250 HP at the flywheel and as you can see power delivery is very linear through the range, which it feels like on the road.

Engine is 3.0lt, stock rods with JE pistons and re-conditioned barrels, ARP hardware compression ratio approx 10:1
PMO 46mm carbs
Modified S cams
Re-curved stock SC distributor with 3.2 cap, single plugs, MSD ignition
Stock flywheel but lightened clutch
Dansk headers (no heat) two in two out Dansk rear S/S muffler

You can see power starts to level off at 6000 rpm so we have set the limiter at 6400 rpm, it is a magic bit of gear and very easy to drive, sounds insane. 

Next jobs is sort electric windows out to work better, and the forward shift rod bush has just given up so will put a new one of those in.

And here's something, when we were unpacking the carburetors we found this letter in there,

So, if not already a done deal, any takers?

[gt two]

Looks great and a very nice power amount.

You reckon you could introduce a little more fuel under 3800revs? or does it read like a higher AFR because they are on the rollers and running at that speed before they hit the throttle?

From lots of experimenting with mapping and a really good tuner, I have really strong optimal power at 12.5AFR

[TargaWayne]

I'm not very knowledgeable about Dyno testing but surely 250 /190 = 30% power loss between the flywheel and wheels

That sounds very high.

[Bugs 77]

22 hours ago, gt two said:

Looks great and a very nice power amount.

You reckon you could introduce a little more fuel under 3800revs? or does it read like a higher AFR because they are on the rollers and running at that speed before they hit the throttle?

From lots of experimenting with mapping and a really good tuner, I have really strong optimal power at 12.5AFR

In final tune it was made a bit richer down low, what the motor likes or shows on the dyno compared to actually driving on the road would have to be a bit different, it's set up now using combination of the dyno, Richard's experience  of many race engine builds and seat of the pants feel letting the car tell you what it wants on the road. Driving it I'm really surprised at how smooth and linear it is, just pulls and pulls not running out of breath, very much down to the 46mm carbs and that cam I think, was expecting it to be a bit cranky down low but you can just slip your foot off the clutch and press the loud peddle and off you go.
But maybe with a bit more fuel we could get flames and a bit more crackle and pop on over run 
With your EFI I imagine you can play with mapping so the computer can take care of things better if you mash the throttle, with the carbs you are the computer so do a lot of regulating manually with your right foot, as It's a fixed setup to cover the whole range there can be a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul, could be a bit of that in what you see in the AFR numbers.

 

18 hours ago, TargaWayne said:

I'm not very knowledgeable about Dyno testing but surely 250 /190 = 30% power loss between the flywheel and wheels

That sounds very high.

Quite a bit is lost between flywheel and the wheels, even turning on your garden variety AC can suck 15hp from the system (that's why Jonny's AC is so good).
 I'm not that clued up on the dyno thing either but that's what the numbers say, I know results can vary considerably from dyno to dyno. Richard is careful to use one dyno facility he trusts to get consistency when checking motor builds or modifications.
There couldn't be a blanket reduction number either, there would be all sorts of different drive train drag numbers from car to car, perhaps someone more knowledgeable on the dyno can chime in on if these numbers add up. 

[gt two]

Awesome mate, enjoy!!!!

[zerotosixty2]

what a great thread! thank you. I'm sure you'll have many miles of enjoyment in this

[Bugs 77]

Had cleaned and re-greased window regulator, checked the window motor and re-installed, operating but unfortunately there is a spot on the big plastic cog in the window gearbox that has worn low.

I did check and grease the gearbox and at first glance all looked ok but the teeth wear just out of sight further in level with the worm screw. That big cog is locked in with pressed in fittings so I'll scrounge another working motor with box or buy new.

As suspected the forward bush on the selector rod has fallen to bits,

will be nice to slip a fresh one of these in, usually makes a big difference.

[Bugs 77]

Picked up shifter bushes and another window motor and fitted this weekend.

New bush in the bracket for the selector rod.

New bush on the bottom of the gearstick, old one was ok but replaced anyway.

After fitting these went for a spin, so nice to change gears now, having these bushes in order is a must have. I think this car has the best 915 box I have ever used, will fit Wevo shifter later but only because I like the look to be honest.

Not a lot to see here really, fitted and tested the new window motor and all good. This door has had the later window regulator fitted at some stage. There are repairs made to some regulator attachment points that would have fatigued with the old style regulator, this would have been the drivers door originally so has seen most use but all good now. My "new" drivers door motor and regulator are still the original ones and struggle a tad but will do for now, have had enough of pulling the cards off and wrestling bits in and out of the doors!

Have found some LED replacement bulbs, you can get them for all the lights in the car, will be starting with replacing the indicator, brake and reverse lights, pretty happy with the headlights now the Retrofit fuse panel is in but there is a cost efficient LED replacement I'm going to check out.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Bugs 77

[Bugs 77]

Doing some LED light upgrades to the car, have various parts on their way so will post fitting those. On the list to do is LED headlight conversion, we've all seen the growing list of options available for those and I've been checking out how well they fit, work and look. The thing is they are all quite expensive and some require a bit of fettling to fit nicely, then I came across these,

they are 7" units that by all rights should fit in US spec headlight units and with some mods fit straight into a H4 Euro housing, they are pretty good from all reports, they mainly fit them to 4WD vehicles here in OZ and the units are only AUD$380.00 for a pair. These units have high and low beam plus a half halo parking light.

Here are some basic dimensions of the units, there is 190mm space available in the H4 housing so I am thinking a 190mm OD alloy ring with, what at this stage looks like, can be a 160mm ID hole that the unit will fit in, ring could be 5mm thick. To this ring you can fit some simple tabs to copy the attachment holes for the rubber fittings the standard reflectors have. The 5mm thick ring would have plenty of meat to tap and screw in these fittings along with some unit retaining tabs. Then the units will go straight in the standard H4 housing that you already know fits your car nicely, the units are plug and play to your exiting wiring.

Here's the reflector unit the new unit will replace, you can see the three rubber fittings in the unit, two in the side lip of the reflector and one in a more extended tab. I had considered cutting out most of the reflector bucket and using the outer section with the fittings already attached as the adaptor ring, just needing to figure out a way of fixing the new light to that ring but I think it would be nicer to make a new adaptor ring altogether, I've got a good laser cutting mob down the road that could cut out the rings.

The inside of the housings I will paint satin black, the units I have are a bit tatty anyway but this would bring them up to scratch, the intention in the end is to have black stealth type appearance to go with the black car. I will at this stage use the H4 outer lens, they could be non fluted but will start with what I have first. You could do this conversion using Stedi chrome finish lights and not paint the housings for classic look.

Anyway, see how we go.

[Bugs 77]

The car now has LED indicators, brake and taillights and reversing lights, all vey simple in the end but there is a process.

1. Get some LED globes and an LED flasher unit, I bought from Stedi here in Australia, they do sell their gear in the UK. The globes are direct replacements for the single and twin element 12v ones in the car, for ROW spec you need 6 x single element and 2 x double for the brake/taillights, if US or ex US like mine the two front indicator globes are twin element. In converting my car to RHD the front indicator units where not changed to single element but all works fine as is with the matching globes. Fit the new globes.

2. Flasher unit will need to be switched to an LED compatible one, the flasher unit is in front of the speedo/clock area behind the dash. The LED flasher units available are three pin not four like standard so there is a trick to maintain circuits needed for correct operation. Swap over the flasher units.

This is the flasher unit I found in my car, a three pin one made to work by rearranging things a bit with additional wires, there is a far neater way as you will see in the next step.

3. As the new LED flasher unit only has three pins there is part of the circuit missing, the missing pin is connecting to the indicator lights in the tachometer and this is where you go to make a neat change.

Pull out the tachometer and you will see the blue and white wire that links the two indicator lights and then makes it's way to the flasher unit, what I did was to cut the wire where it led to the flasher unit and put on a female connector with a piggyback connector. You then unplug the brown earth wire of the three wires at the bottom of the tacko back and plug on the blue and white wire to that terminal then the earth wire back onto the piggyback connector, this earths the indicator system so all the lights will flash as they should. It is most likely that you will have to swap the power side of the tacho indicator lights over (or just swap the lights over in their holes) as they may flash in the opposite direction to the outer car lights.

Rather than cut the blue and white wire others have unplugged this from the lights and made up another small harness to do the job, so as not to alter the cars originality, however with this car that is not an issue.

Anyway all worked perfectly, lights are very sharp and modern in action.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Bugs 77

[Bugs 77]

Continuing the LED upgrade I have fitted 41mm festoon bulbs to the interior lights and changed all the dash globes over too.

Nice white light in the cabin now, way better than the more feeble yellow glow.

Same with the dash lights, crisp and white but not too bright 

I've been doing the changes without disconnecting the battery so inevitably when I was fitting the LED flasher I knocked off the power connection to the trunk compartment light and it must have shorted on the body, or something like that, and I guessed blew a fuse so went to see if that was the problem (interior lights weren't working either). Took the cover of the fuse panel and was greeted with the sight of a red indicator light pulsing at the position of the offending fuse, how good is that! It's one of Jonny's Retrofit panels, so cool. Anyway that was the problem so new fuse in and sorted.

Work is continuing on the LED headlight adapter, I have received the new headlights so was able to take some final measurements to finish the design and send the file to the cutters. I had designed the adapter in a way I could do the bending required to set up the tabs for the stock rubber holders to fit in but the engineers said they could do the bending too so I have agreed to that, I do want these to be finished as professionally as possible. Anyway should have these parts in 7-10 days but won't pick them up for a few weeks as I have trip interstate to do.

This is the back of the light unit, plug and play into the stock H4 connector, the red wire is for the park light halo so I guess will simply plug into the park light power supply with the matching connector fitted. I have figured out what I think will be a neat way to pick up the securing points on the back of the lights to lock it to the adapter.

I picked up another H4 housing as one of the ones in the car at present is a later 964 unit which has a different adjusting system and housing, I cleaned up this one and painted satin black, as will be the adapter that will neatly fill the space around the light unit, will have the stealth look to go with the black car. The final part I have sourced is some clear lenses as the H4 ones will not be necessary, plus the clear will show off the LED units for the modern look. There is a few choices for lenses, clear H4 style ones or early style sealed unit clear lenses that were in some 356s, early VW Beatles to 67 and early 911s, all used the same lens. I want the rounder smooth look of the early style so found some Brazilian made ones on a VW site, quality is fine and not that critical as they are clear, they just have to fit. The prices vary a lot as you can imagine, there is NOS original, then new OEM and then these Brazilian ones from a VW site, not a Porsche one and they cost me 48 Pasific pesos (AUD$) each plus freight. Now I don't want to appear tight but to put in some nice complete units that are available will cost in the region of AUD$2,200-$2,500 by the time they are freighted in here and duties paid, doing what I am doing I should have some nice RHD  Australian compliant lights in for approx AUD$600-700, will be interesting to see if they cut the mustard.

If all works out well you will be able customize the look with ease too, I'm going black stealth but you can leave the housing silver, paint the adapter silver and choose one of the chrome look light units for a classic look, use the clear H4 or even stick with the stock H4 lens for stock look but better lighting. Good thing is you are using the Porsche unit that already fits your car well, you are just swapping over the H4 reflector unit and maybe the lens, all can be changed back to stock, utilizing much of what you have already, better on your pocket and better for the Planet.

 

 

 

 

[Bugs 77]

Picked up the adapter parts for the LED conversion.

Here's the adapter ring and have fitted the light retaining clips, these are power cable clips which I tapped out to take M3 bolts, once tightened clamp the light to the ring.

Once the light is clamped in the unit mimics the old reflector unit, just swap over the rubber grommets from the old unit to the new.

housing can be painted black as is the adapter to match.

Unit all assembled again, red wire is power feed for park light and has had blade fitting attached to match the car, is now plug and play.

and in, darker stealth look.

In comparison to stock look.

These lights have half halo park pattern. others in the range have full halo but not in a black light. Have the stock H4 lenses in at the moment but early style clear ones arrive on Monday, will test how the lights work with the H4 lenses this weekend then see the difference after the change to the clear.

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Bugs 77

[Chris_911]

Nice work.