I knew I didn't want a stock 912-but what did I want? I needed a goal- a vision I could picture and work toward
I went to autocrosses, car shows, thumbed through magazines like "Excellence", surfed the Porsche-themed Web sites,and watched lots of Speedvision (I do all this anyway-but now I could justify it to the wife as "research".) Slowly a
picture started to emerge- a stock body (well, mostly), no huge wings, flares, or spoilers.
Powdercoated window frames and engine crossmember
A one piece fiberglass RSR rear bumper ($50 on eBay!)
16" Fuchs w/45 and 50 series BFG Comp T/A KD's.
Lowered suspension (European ride height). Body color dash w/white face guages. 4 pt roll bar w/5 pt Simpson harnesess. Aftermarket adjustable sport/race seats. I plan to use this car for autocrossing and street driving, so I didn't want to make it TOO wild (plus, I'm on a budget), but I knew stock specs weren't going to cut it against Miatas, Civic SI's, and who knows what that'd show up to run against me.
So now I had a goal to work towards-I knew what I wanted to end up with. Now it was time to assess what I had to
work with-how many parts could I re-use, which ones did I need to replace (and what with?) Some things were obvious-
the seats(hell, practically the whole interior) were of no use to me, the rear bumper would find a new home, most of the
wiring would have to be redone-but the vast majority of the basic parts that made up the car itself would be perfectly
usable after a complete stripping, painting, and rebuilding with new items such as wheel bearings, caliper seals, control
arm bushings, ball joints, new throttle and E-brake cables, shifter bushings-all of the hundreds of little things that,
combined, really determine how a car runs (and feels). I considered upgrading the torsion bars, brake calipers and
rotors, and sway bars with larger, stiffer ones from a later 911, but after giving the matter some thought, I decided to
stay with the stock (size) parts-I figured it would be easy to change later, after I've driven the car some and would
better able to decide if it needs them or not. One of the main reasons I chose to do this was I plan to reduce the weight
of the car as much as possible and still keep it street legal (and somewhat affordable). The less the car weighs, the
faster it will be, given the same horsepower. It will stop quicker, handle better, and parts will last longer(plus, it's cheap to do if you're creative.)
