David, after your wonderful column in the magazine about this car, I hope this doesn't mean you're going to stop driving the thing...
Update by David S. Wallens to the
Porsche 911 Carrera project car
Sep 29, 2009
The Coker Tire folks took care of everything. They even applied the required number panels and stickers.
The Coker Tire Challenge was aimed more at prewar classics, but somehow we fit in. Oddly, there were half a dozen Porsche 911s in the event. Everyone involved was super nice.
Friday's dinner took place at Corky Coker's farm. They had plenty of space for the 50-car field.
Before leaving, we did an oil change. For a 25-year-old car, it's pretty darn clean underneath.
And on the way home, we received a little love tap. No harm, no foul. The dirt smudges tell the complete story. The car will get a bath soon.
Wow, the car is clean. We couldn’t find any evidence of leaks, while the car has obviously never been hit. It even still has a factory muffler.
We just wrapped up a busy week with the Porsche, as we took it on the [Coker Tire Challenge] (http://www.cokertirechallenge.com/) Sept. 18-20. This TSD rally wrapped around Chattanooga. Even though it was geared toward vintage cars—meaning prewar machines—we were welcomed with open arms.
Before heading off, we changed the engine oil and transmission lube: 20W50 Valvoline VR-1 Racing Oil for the engine and Red Line 75W90 in the gearbox. (When we have time for some better before-and-after testing, we’ll try some Red Line in the engine.)
The VR-1 oil claims to have the proper amount of zinc for these older engines, while the Red Line transmission oil should help our somewhat primitive 915 box. Yes, we used a Mahle filter.
Having the car on the lift also gave us a good chance to inspect everything below. Wow, the car is clean. We couldn’t find any evidence of leaks, while the car has obviously never been hit. It even still has a factory muffler. We do have a bad CV boot, so we’ll replace that axle soon.
Despite some drenching rain, the 500-mile drive up to Chattanooga went very smoothly. The event also went well. The Cokers know how to throw a party, and we saw some amazing machines: lots of prewar Fords plus other neat vehicles. The scenery was also terrific.
After more than 500 miles of TSD rallying—some of it at a walking pace—we ended up fourth in the rookie class and 33rd overall. Not bad. We never got lost, but somehow we were really late on two stages. Those two bad scores wound up hurting us.
The drive home went well until a slight road rage incident unfolded on I-75. The car we were following was moving a bit slowly, and someone took offense—and showed that displeasure buy doing a brake-check maneuver.
We slowed down in time, but the Nissan SUV behind us didn’t. We got a love tap while decelerating.
Even though it was dark, the roadside inspection showed that the 5 mph bumpers did their job. The next day we did a better inspection. The smudged dirt shows how the bumper was pressed into the body and then resumed its normal position. There isn’t a scratch anywhere to be found. Thanks, Porsche, for building such good cars.
Oh, and a P.S.: We never had to add any oil.
David, after your wonderful column in the magazine about this car, I hope this doesn't mean you're going to stop driving the thing...
Nope, no change in plans, but to be honest I haven't driven it since returning from the rally. That's been more due to other travel (Runoffs) and needing to give some other cars attention. We had a Nissan Cube this week, and I wanted to spend some time with it.
Cool. You gonna take that pair of Vans out of the box for that, or just sit on `em until they're worth something on eBay?
No, the Vans are staying put. They're collector items.
They put your numbers on upside down. =P
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