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Intro

Work done

In addition to these things, I replaced the rear deck speakers and the front mid/bass speakers with something better. A friend of mine had some spare front speakers taking up shelf space, and the local car audio shop ordered some Kenwood KFC-4075's for the rear deck. They're a drop-in replacement if you either remove the rear windscreen or use a very short screwdriver. I opted to use a very short screwdriver :-) The Kenwoods come with their own cover, which is handy as I couldn't see a reasonable way of re-using the original covers. Now I can understand what people on the radio are saying. Most of the time, anyway.

Storage space being at a premium inside the cabin of the 964, I followed up on a tip from Jeff Curtis (you'll find him and many other helpful people on the Rennlist 964 forum) and removed the grating from inside the ashtray, converting it into a miniature lighted storage bin. Very easy to do. The dealer replaced the not very useful cassette holder behind the handbrake with a general purpose storage bin for free (thanks guys).

Some more brownie points to the OPC: they took apart the gearbox and re-adjusted everything (free of charge, under warranty). This makes a world of difference when shifting. The difficulties of finding a gear after moving the gear lever laterally (say, from 3rd to 2nd) are gone completely, except when the gearbox gets hot.

Finally, upon hearing that the black 911SC from a friend of a friend of mine had been stolen I decided to swap my immobiliser for a full-fledged class-3 alarm system.

Memorable events

Another memorable trip was much shorter, more pleasant, but just as exciting. It was a glorious winter morning. Cold, sunny and a blue sky with a few clouds thrown in for contrast. Snow was forecast for later in the day, but I figured a visit to a colleague of mine should see the 964 back in its garage before the snow would start to fall. To make a long story short: it didn't. We were having too much fun, and his wife had never ridden in a 911 before. Of course I was happy to oblige with a quick trip. As a result I was late getting back, and halfway home snow started to fall. Quite a bit of it. Enough to make me wonder if declining an offer to buy winter tires was a wise decision after all... Anyway, the ride home was pretty much uneventful, except for the last 50 meters. Upon turning into my street (at about 1000 RPM in second gear, neutral throttle), the back started to come round. Which at that speed isn't much of a deal in a FWD car. Just feed in some opposite lock, and all's well again. Not in a 911: pushing in the clutch was necessary to get things under control again. Welcome to the world of RWD!

The low point of the past six months was caused by a stupid bugger who managed to prove the saying "If you drive a Porsche, the question is not how quickly you can stop, the question is how quickly the guy behind you can stop" by running into the back of me (at low speed, fortunately). Just some superficial damage to the rear bumper, more hassle than damage actually, but not the most pleasant of experiences. Of course the guy didn't have his driver's license or his insurance papers with him, so we had to wait for the police to take some statements and run his plates. His insurance company reimbursed me quickly, though.

Naturally, when I got the car back again, the first trip was to Germany to see what the top speed really was. I'd had 275km/h on the clock before, but didn't have my GPS with me. This time I did, and it showed a real top speed of 265 km/h (281 indicated) before bouncing off the rev limiter. Incidentally, that 281 came up in both directions on the same segment of Autobahn. I've done that speed a few times since then, so it's safe to assume it wasn't a one-off fluke :-)) What impresses me most is the ease with which the car rockets you to those speeds. You're doing 250 before you know it, and 260 isn't long in coming. 260 to 265 takes a bit longer, but hey, that's faster than the factory said it would do when it was new :-) It does use a bit of oil at those speeds, though, and the gear change gets sticky: moving the gear lever laterally takes a lot more strength than when the gearbox is at 'normal' temperatures.

Somewhat surprising (to me at least) is the stability of the car at those speeds. Let's face it, it's still a RWD car with no weight on the front wheels and lots of weight behind the rear wheels. Yet there is no vagueness in the steering and the car goes where you want it to go. Even medium-sized bumps don't unsettle the car much. It's more relaxing to cruise at 240 in this car than driving 120 in lots of other cars.

Another memorable event was a visit to the Nürburgring in Germany during Easter. The Nordschleife to be more precise. The Nürburgring is situated in the Eiffel mountains, which makes for some great winding roads and nice scenery. Add some sunshine to that, and life is great. I didn't take the 964 out on the Nordschleife because it was way to busy. Besides, I don't know the car well enough yet, and the Nordschleife is not the place to learn it. Leaving the track almost always means running into the armco. I did take some nice pictures though, and I went round as a passenger in a smoothly and quickly driven Porsche 968 (thanks again, Ben). On the way back, a rabbit tried to cross the road in front of me (when I was doing about 255km/h), resulting in a slight disalignment of the front spoiler. To fix it, I built an improvised ramp, loosened the black plastic lining at the bottom of the spoiler, bent it into shape, and screwed everything back together again.

A stark contrast to the great trip to the Nürburgring was reading the announcement of Adrian Streather of the death of his 17-year old daughter Natalie on the 964-forum on Rennlist the evening I got back. This tragic event made a big impression on many Rennlisters, myself included. I was touched by the many warm reactions from fellow Rennlisters, which shows the true power of the Internet. So far, I haven't met Adrian in person, but we've corresponded on several occasions, mostly related to 964s, some related to his book about the 964. He's always prepared to help out or answer questions. We have a provisional appointment to meet in Switzerland this summer for an impromptu book signing. It'll be a three day trip: drive up there on day 1, have a chat with Adrian and any other 964-owners that might turn up on day 2, drive back on day 3. In the meantime, I wish him and his family all the best.

Last but not least was a day of driver training at Lelystad. I took the owner of the white Targa (introduced in the previous report) along as a co-driver. Not only is it much more fun to share such an experience directly, it also saves you from mumbling to the windscreen while analysing what you just did on the track. A training such as this one I can recommend to anyone. Spending a day on a circuit with 19 other Porsches is a lot of fun all by itself. Getting pointers from a pro like Gijs van Lennep (he's won Le Mans in 1971 and 1976, for example) makes it even better. Add to that the opportunity to start to get a feeling for where the limit of your car is and how it handles there and I think it's money well spent.

Exercises included a slalom, laps around a kart circuit (big fun to drive a car around a track which is that narrow), correcting understeer, correcting oversteer, playing with power oversteer, ABS braking, avoiding an obstacle at speeds of 80 to 95km/h (very cool to do it succesfully at 95 in a good old 964, and see a 996 with its Porsche Stability Management switched off go into a huge spin :)). To be fair, I did spin out as well, but that was at a little over 100 km/h. Almost caught it, but almost doesn't count. I even managed to knock over a cone that the guys setting the course had figured was unreachable. They'll put it back a bit further next time :) The last exercise was driving single laps on a short circuit, with Van Lennep rotating over all the cars and setting the pace. Experiencing the way a real pro drives your car shows how much more the car can do, and that I still have a lot to learn about driving cars :)

As a bonus we did a number of laps on the testing oval. The turns have a 60% banking. My first thought upon entering the first turn was "we're going to slide down". However, the second was "nah, there's a 30-year old 911SC before me, and that didn't fall down." It's a neat feeling to go through a turn at 120km/h without having to actively turn the steering wheel. It's a pity that not everybody followed the instructions, which were to keep a constant distance to the car in front. There was a 996 in front of us that was really scared of the turns. Even when approaching the turns at 130, he braked! Nutcase. The aim was to go round with a constant speed of 170 or 180. As a result, the 996 was trailing the car in front of him by about 50 meters instead of the instructed 15 to 20 meters. Furthermore, to be able to take the turns at the intended speeds we had to drop back on the straights, and accelerate through the turns to about 160, and braking after exciting the turn to avoid running into the back of said 996. I never figured out why that guy didn't just drive off the track to donate his car to the first person (with or without a driver's license) to walk by.

Things that still need sorting

A bit annoying is the fuel gauge that gets stuck at the 'full' position after strong acceleration with an almost full tank. It returns to normal behavior after turning the ignition off, though. So far the sender has been replaced, but that didn't solve it.

To be done sometime in the future

• Save money for the 180,000km service and a set of new tires.
• Improve the steering position: I still need to lower the brake pedal, reduce the lateral gap between gas pedal and brake pedal, and find a slightly smaller steering wheel.
• I've bought a bullet camera that needs to be installed properly. The idea is to use the bullet camera in various places in the cabin (on the dash looking forward, or on the rear deck looking backward for example) and use a VCR in the luggage compartment for recording. It would be nice to hide most of the cabling.
• Drive around the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring :-)
• Yank out the frequency crossovers and tweeters, and replace them with something better. Removing the crossovers seems to be a PIA job, as the screws mounting them to the doors are not accessible without removing the door paneling.
• Maybe replace the mirrors with teardrops, but this has a very low priority.
• Take the car onto the track: my dealer is organizing an evening at Zandvoort which I'll be attending shortly. Buying a car at an OPC does have some benefits :-)
• Go on a holiday to Switzerland. I think I'll be able to find some interesting roads there.