9-5-00 Well, the sites officially up. It will be awhile before the rest of the site is done. I will add new content as the car evolves.
10-23-00 After waiting 5 weeks I finally received my AGLA steering wheel recover kit. I will document the recover process. I have heard a few horror stories about them never sending orders. Because of that I am not sure if they were pulling my leg or if the U.S. Postal Service actually lost my shipment.
Status as of 11-27-00
11-27-00 A lot has been going on. My friend Doug Avella helped me find a nice factory Carrera whale tail and a Carrera front valance with inlaid fog lights. This weekend my dad and I pulled the motor. I'm going to be sending my transmission to Imagine Auto in Kansas for a full rebuild. I'm still working on my steering wheel recovering project. Another pal Alex Caggan also donated a used catalytic converter to go with the loud exhaust I have planned. It will be to loud with the current set up which has a gutted converter. Lastly, I received my subs and sub enclosure from Rod Birch at Car Audio Innovations it's really nice. Unfortunately that will be the last thing I install.
Status as of 11-27-00
12-15-00 My Christmas vacation officially began at 5:30 pm Tuesday the 13th after I finished my last exam. For weeks I had been planning to make my 2nd annual mid west run. This time last year I was headed to Kansas to sale my '87 951. I was planning on having a little more fun this time around. A few of my 911 and 944 list pals and I had been making plans for a month prior. I was going to spend a night in STL with either Menelaos Karamichalis or Robert Hohn, then I was going to make my way up to Kansas City to hang out with the boys at Imagine Auto Michael "Over210MPH" Benet and Stephen "PorschePhD" Kasper and pick up my 915 gearbox that PhD had just rebuilt. I watched the weather channel as I pack up my bags, it said bad weather was scheduled for Thursday so I figured a head start would be a good move and leave out Wednesday morning. After prepping my apartment for the month long vacancy, I rolled out of Starkville (Home of Mississippi State University) around 11 am. It rained from the very beginning all the way to the very end of the day. Apparently the bad weather decided to arrive a day early. I braved thru massive amounts rain, ice, and a little snow. Ice and snow are two things that are rarely thought of in my native warm state of Mississippi. Around 7pm that evening I-55 in Missouri was nearly covered in snow. My rear wheel drive Volvo wagon was doing all it could to stay on course. I decided to call it a day and spend the night at the Best Western in Perryville, MO. Thursday morning I woke up to 25 degrees and almost clear roads. I loaded up on food from the continental breakfast bar and hit the road. After about 100 more miles I finally arrived at Robert Hohn's house in Glen Carbon, IL. He, his lovely girl friend Tara, and I spent the day hanging out and talking cars. No, she did not participate in the car talk. But she did know how many ventilators his '87 944S had. :) Gotta love that. That evening he, Tara and I meet up with Menelaos Karamichalis for dinner. It's very rare that I actually get to see other Porsche owners. In Mississippi they are far and few. So I loved every minute of it. The next morning wasn’t so nice more icy roads and a –33 degree wind chill. No place for my warm blooded self. I decided to scratch trying to make it to Kansas City that day. Fortunately, Robert's family was more then happy to provide me with shelter for one more day. I hung out another day with Robert and Tara and also got to see his over heated 944S. RIP. They showed me around St. Louis and took me to dinner too. Saturday morning the roads were clear so I pointed the Volvo towards Kansas and let it eat. I arrived mid afternoon just ahead of the bad weather, exhausted from the 2 days of travel. PhD and I hung out for the rest of the weekend. I got a little lesson in 915 gearboxes and we also got to cruse around KC for a few hours in his '91 928 S4. Unfortunately, do to the bad weather I only got to spend less the half an hour with my pal Michael. Once again the weather was bad on Monday so I stayed another night at PhD's. Tuesday all was clear so I pulled out around and hit the road headed towards my dad's in Louisiana. 600 miles and 9.5 hours later I was sitting at my granny's kitchen table eating Potato soup. That was a fun trip, I saw enough snow and below freezing weather to last me along time. I'd like to thank the Hohn and Kasper families for all the hospitality they showed me. To make a long story even better today I woke up to find a few nice goodies under my Christmas tree. A Weltmeister Short Shift, Weltmeister bronze pedal bushings, and 7 factory Porsche posters from the late 70's to mid 80's featuring 930 and 944 Turbo's. It was also a lovely day here in the Magnolia State the high here today was like 50 degrees. I’m so glad to be away from snow. As for the remainder of my time off, (I don't have to be back at school until Jan 8th) I hope to get my SC prepped for painting and maybe even finish polishing my Fuchs.
1-19-01 I've made a little progress in the last month. While I'm saving up for the paint job I figured I'd address a few things. The pedals in my car were very squeaky when I bought it. So I figured it would be a cheap and easy fix. Santa Claus delivered some new bronze bushings for the repair. Now that I've done it, I hope I never have to do it again. It was a very unpleasant fix due to one tiny thing. A single roll pin holds the cluster together. It took forever to beat that little bugger out. I finally finished my steering wheel recover project and am unhappy with the results. I've ordered the parts to rebuild my brakes so I'll do that the next time I can spend some time on the car.
2-6-01 I went to visit my car this weekend, and at first had trouble finding something to do to it. I currently have a few projects in progress. 1. Paint Job - waiting on money. 2. Brake Caliper Rebuild - I've got the parts to rebuild the calipers themselves, but have decided to wait until I get new brake lines, pads and maybe rotors. So I can do it all at once and only have to bleed it once. 3. Polish the lips on 16x7 and 16x8 Fuchs Alloys - I've finished the 7's and am still trying to cut through the anodizing on the 8's. 4. Pedal Cluster Rebuild - I've finished but ran out of day light before I could reinstall it. I think that's it. Basically that means the car is in a million pieces. So what did I decide to do? Take more stuff apart. Project 5 began. At first I was going to just adjust the valves. Then I decided to detail the engine. Which required taking everything off. I found numerous dry rotted vacuum lines which will be replace before I reassemble it all.
5-7-01 Long time no update. Not much to say, other then I haven't touched the 911. I'm still planning on having the car ready for school next semester. It lacks about 30 minutes worth of work before it will be ready to deliver to the body shop. I also decided to paint my valve covers while I had them off for the valve adjustment.
5-31-01 I took the 911 to the body shop this weekend, it should be fully repainted in Guards Red by next Saturday. I'm going with Glasurit paint, the same brand that was used from the factory. I also spent 8 hours cleaning and detailing the engine. I think it looks pretty slick now. I still have a few more things to do before it's ready to bolt in. I never thought I'd get it back together again. After it sat for months without any injection. I replaced the intake manifold seals and the rubber boots that connect the intake runners to the air box.
6-13-01 It's already been painted. I just haven't seen it yet. It received another coat of primer before it was painted. Finished pics will be up soon.