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Improving the driving position

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Improving the driving position
Upgrading the suspension
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"Why mess with a perfectly good car?" you might ask. Simple: it's not perfect. In fact, the driving position is not very good if you're of average build, and worse than bad if you have relatively long legs (like I do). The following challenges come free with the car, courtesy of the Porsche engineers:
  1. The steering wheel sits too close to the dashboard.
  2. The gas pedal sits much farther away than the brake pedal.
  3. The pedals are offset to the right.
  4. The steering wheel is offset to the right.
For me, this has the following consequences:
  • I can't steer very quickly or precisely because either my arms are nearly straight, or I have the seatback pointing forwards. And that makes it almost impossible to drive with a helmet on, because the headrest is in the way.
  • It's very difficult to reach the brake pedal: I can only put my foot on it while bending my ankle. A lot.
  • My right leg is so close to the rim of the steering wheel that my right hand doesn't pass between the wheel and my leg when steering.
  • I can't heel-and-toe without breaking my ankle.
Clearly this situation isn't ideally suited to serious driving. I therefore checked around on the Internet and asked both my OPC and a well-respected independent for an opinion on how to improve the driving position. Problems nr. 3 and 4 (the offset of pedals and wheel) are obvious non-starters for modifications, but I had high hopes for changing the brake pedal and/or the steering wheel.

Brake pedal
Most of the problems would go away if the brake pedal could be adjusted to sit a few centimeters deeper. Apparently, not many people bother with this kind of modification, as there wasn't much relevant information to be found on the Internet. Which is quite unusual, because the 964-community is very active, helpful and thoroughly knowledgable on a host of different subjects. There were some debates on whether or not you could adjust the height of the brake pedal. Some people claimed you could, others claimed you couldn't. I had a look for myself but didn't see an easy way of doing it. The OPC was very clear: you can't adjust the height of the brake pedal. As this was bothering me quite a bit, I asked a thoroughly knowledgable independent with 25 years experience racing Porsches (lots of those being 964RS's). Same answer: don't mess with the adjustment of the brake pedal.

Gas pedal
Having ruled out the easy solution of adjusting the brake pedal, it was time to consider other options. Both the OPC and the independent suggested bolting a little wooden block on the gas pedal to decrease the gap between brake and gas pedals. It's also possible to move the entire gas pedal by drilling new holes in the bottom of the car and fitting a longer rod to actuate the throttle mechanism. Another option is to buy a hellishly expensive aftermarket replacement adjustable gas pedal. I went for a wooden block :-) There's no hard and fast rule on how wide and how thick that block should be. It's highly personal, depending on such things as the width of your foot, the flexibility of your ankle, the particular heel-and-toe technique you employ, and your preference to have brake and gas pedals close together (with the risk of hitting the throttle when braking hard) or spaced apart (which makes heel-and-toeing using the side-flip technique more awkward).

Modified throttleI like to use the side-flip technique and am used to driving cars that have little space between gas and brake pedals, so I went for a relatively wide block. The block isn't very thick, as the width is more important to me, but it seems to do the trick. The actual dimensions are: 14.5cm x 7.5cm by 0.8cm thick. Of course, getting the dimensions right is a process of trial and error. I might go to a narrower and/or thicker block in the future.

Steering wheel
Solving the heel-and-toe problem by adding height to the gas pedal of course increased the severity of the steering wheel being too close to my right leg. There's two things that can be done:

  1. fit a steering wheel with a smaller diameter
  2. extend the steering column
Although the 964C2 has power steering, it still requires a bit of strength when turning the wheel. Not surprising, as the main goal of the power steering is not so much to lessen the steering effort, as it is to remove much of the nasty kickbacks from the front wheels that are transmitted through the steering wheel when going over bumps while cornering. Fitting a smaller steering wheel might not make the car more enjoyable to drive on a serious track, therefore, and would solve only part of the problem. A smaller wheel would provide more room for my hand, but I would still have to drive with my arms near full stretch.

Option number 2 was much more attractive. There are three ways to do this that I'm aware of:

  • fit an original Porsche 964 steering wheel with an extended hub
  • fit an aftermarket wheel and use spacers
  • fit a Porsche 993RS wheel and add a custom-made hub
The original 964-wheel with the extended hub works great for most people. It extends the steering column by 3.8cm. This means you can still reach the control stalks on the steering column. You'll also retain the original look. The wheel has the same diameter as the original (38cm). However, if you need more extension or more legroom, you're out of luck. Oh, and it's not a cheap solution...

Using an aftermarket wheel (Momo has some nice steering wheels) was a serious option. However, I needed about 6cm of column extension, which is a bit much to reach elegantly with spacers. In addition, it's hard to find a 38cm diameter aftermarket wheel that looks good. Most are smaller.

Jos de Bock Jos de Bock You guessed it: I went for solution number three, an original 993RS wheel with three spokes. This wheel comes with a hub that can be extended by a competent metal-worker. The new 993-hub fits on the steering column (which solves the problem of getting the horn to work) and is extended by a made to measure one-piece spacer that's 6cm long. The 993-wheel is attached to the extension in such a way that it's off-center. The centerline of the steering wheel is about 1cm above the centerline of the steering column, giving 1cm more legroom when you are traveling straight ahead. Which is when you need it, because most of the braking is done with the front wheels pointing straight ahead. The cost of this solution is comparable to the cost of the original 964-wheel with the extended hub, but in this case you get a custom-made, tailored solution. The only downside is that I can't reach the control stalks on the steering column with my hands in a normal steering position. Fitting the wheel and fabricating the extension was done by Jos de Bock, who did a very good job.

Result
Here are some "before" and "after" pictures. They speak for themselves.
Before: Original setup Original setup
After: Modified setup Modified setup Modified setup

Experiences so far
The big question is of course, "do I like the results?" Based on approximately 1000km driving with the new setup, including 6 laps on the Nürburgring, I can say that I love it. It is a huge improvement. I can now put my foot on the brake without fear of sliding off the pedal. I have lots of room to turn the wheel, so I don't have to move my hands around on the steering wheel when cornering. The 993RS-wheel has a thicker rim than the 964-wheels, which feels very comforable. Heel-and-toeing is pretty easy. I might replace the wooden block on the gas pedal with a slightly thicker one, but I'll do some more kilometers first.

All in all the steering position is much more relaxed and inspires much more confidence that if you have to steer quickly, you can do so.