1973 2.4T CIS Restomod

[shoestring7]

A few days before I was due to collect the car from Tuthills their invoice dropped into my in-box.

Like all of us, I've experienced some pain in my life, and this was pretty painful. Perhaps not like that time the German doctor re-set the broken bones in my arm without anaesthetic and red flashes when off inside my head. Or when the first great love of my life dumped me, or when I got T-boned in a kart and broke a handful of ribs. Or even when I was on a family holiday at Disneyworld, and 'work' called to tell me I was being made redundant. But it was definitely up there in my Top 20 list.

It was all on the pdf in black and white, from 'Grommet, Ford type 28mm' (£0.28) to 'Race/Rally pedal box with cylinders' (£1075.00). Other big ticket items included H4 Headlamps (£428.84), Pair 29mm rear torsion bar (£380.00), Bilstein rear damper - Race 20 (£290.00), Bilsein insert for Boge strut (£340.00), the Wevo gear shift (£577.89), and the Continental tyres in 205 & 225/60 (£427.10). The parts list carried on over 2 pages (Item 10: Ceramic fuse 16A x 6 @ £0.21, Item 59: Dizzy internal dust shield £1.50) and totalled £5269.28.

Labour was a further £5880.00, add the government's graft and the grand total was the princely sum of £13,324.00*.

In other words, almost as much as I'd paid for the car, and as it didn't include any bodywork or rebuilding major mechanical components it did really feel pretty rich. I gave myself a bit of a mental kicking for a/ getting carried away, and b/ not keeping a better grip on bills as they added up. At least it answered the question about finding a replacement engine; the one Porsche stuck in there back in 1973 would have to do.

Man-maths kicked in to dull the ache; some of the costs were for a service, some for tyres, which could have been needed on any car I needed. Keeping the money in the bank would generate only a tiny return, and as the prices of early 911s were still heading upwards, I was probably still ahead of the curve. And better still, I would finally be driving a Porsche that appeared to be solid, had been subject to over 100 hours of thorough fettling over by one of the best names in the business, and was built to my ideal specification to boot!



And collection day could only bring more good experiences, so before long I would surely forget the financial sting...

C>
*I know its not the DDK way to discuss costs in detail, but I thought I'd share in light of the current price of restoration thread. And it has been (almost) long enough for me to put it behind me.

[Gary71]

Ouch. Still, look at it this way is only 33% over the original estimate!

Why did it need a pedal box? That's a fair portion of the bill.

[911hillclimber]

Good grief...... but they are in business, not trying to win a popularity show.

Sharing such costs to me is important as it has been (to my irritation) on the 'Restoration Cost' thread on DDK.

I've had pm's from some who are really happy with that thread and what has come out of it, people going into these rebuilds with their eyes WIDE open, only a good thing, esp in today's world.

Estimates are evil but understandable. Massive over-runs are weak esp if they are a surprise to you. It also helps other realise this can/will happen.
100 hours is about 2.5 man weeks to do that list. I would think that through if I had this happen.

I've only known one specialist, Mike Bainbridge, keep exactly to his quotation on the 3 gearbox rebuilds he has done for me, nice customer service that.

[visualfx]

I didn't hit you that hard, it was just a Nico Rosberg Kimi Raikkonen moment, and hey how fast can you go in a go-kart

I also know what's coming in the next episode

[Nige]

In the grand scheme of things if you started down spec'ing some items such as the pedal box, wevo shifter it doesn't really drop the price greatly. Some part prices such as headlamps have more than doubled in the past couple of years, I remember balking at buying a new pair at £75 each 6-7 years ago! ECP have them listed at over £500 a pair. ABSOLUTE BONKERS! Especially when you consider a classic Beetle version ain't much different to make, are made by Hella or Bosch and are less than half the cost.

[shoestring7]

I didn't hit you that hard, it was just a Nico Rosberg Kimi Raikkonen moment, and hey how fast can you go in a go-kart

I also know what's coming in the next episode

Kinetic Energy = Mass x Velocity2.

There was a lot of Mass.


>C

[Gary71]

#geekmode 1/2m

So clearly it wasn't that bad

[shoestring7]

Collection day was a sunny Mayday 2012. While the car didn’t exactly look resplendent in the early summer sunshine, but it certainly looked err…. yellow. It occurred to me on the way up to Banbury on the train, that I’d actually never driven an early 911 before. I suppose that happens quite a lot in our world, other than a couple of short test drives in SCs and a ride in a 2.2 targa when I were t’lad, most of my 911 experience has been in 964s. Never mind, all those enthusiastic DDK-ers couldn’t be that wrong, could they?

When I arrived, Tuthill senior was leaning over the car’s engine bay. After we had exchanged a few pleasantries he left, I only half-caught his parting words which seemed to be a comment relating to the primitive nature of the CIS system.

In hindsight I think he may possibly have said something like “Fecked if I can figure out how this works, good luck”. Even behind my trusty Rayban Aviators (with rose tinted lense coatings) I could tell that slow speed running wasn’t that great. In fact the car lurched, stuttered and stammered down the road under part load when cold. But I was encouraged to stick with it for a while and see if it cleared, and hey, the sun was shining I was driving my very own old 911. Surely a few teething problems were to be expected?

Eschewing the M40, I plotted a cross-country route back down to Bognor. Out of town the car ran great, of course it was noisy at speed and the sun was hot through the glass (assisted by warm oily vapours emanating from the heater) but this is character, right? Apart from the noise and smell, I was also dealing with more common early 911 challenges; a 915 ‘box that needed careful management (with the wrong hand), weird over-centre pedals, beautifully direct steering (albeit with a bit of steering play) and heavy un-servoed brakes (that seemed oddly spongey).

After an hour or so I stopped to re-hydrate with a cup of tea, and to take some pictures while the rush hour traffic around Maidenhead subsided.


Yellow number plates on yellow!! What were they thinking?

Ready to go again I turned onto the main road and accelerated away. There was a lurch, a cough and a bang, followed by silence and a lack of forward motion. Much churning on the starter had no effect and I had to resort to the international ‘My car’s broken’ sign; the raised engine cover. Luckily, Holyport has 3G coverage.

There followed an hour or so of phone calls to Banbury and much Googling of common search strings like ‘CIS engine goes bang’. It eventually became apparent that the top of the aircleaner was no-longer securely mounted. Reattaching the two halves (and noting the after-market blow-off valve) sorted the starting problem, and progress was resumed. That’s certainly old car character for you.

I’ll not lie, the drive back to Bognor on the quiet Sussex roads that evening was a lot of fun, and I had few regrets as I tucked the car into its garage. The boys loved it too:



As an aside, the car (and glam neighbour) is pictured here outside my rented house at Coastguards Cottages in Aldwick, which is inbetween Pagham and Bognor Regis.


Some forty years earlier, John Watson, then a Brabham F1 driver had lived there, and parked his black 2.7RS in the same spot (the garage has since been demolished). I believe he still has the car.



Over the next few weeks I became the world record holder at pop-the-engine-cover-re-seat-the-airbox-close-the-cover-hop-back-in as the cough/bang became a regular part of the warming up process. I could even predict where, within a few hundred yards or so, it would happen – usually four or five minutes after starting off. Character eh? Who’d want to drive a modern 911 with all that boring Moronic reliability?

I also started planning how I’d go about improving the cosmetics. Turns out that I really couldn’t turn that much of a blind eye to multiple shades of bodywork yellow, extruded rubber sill trim, butchered door cars and epic overspray.


Could you live with this level of crapness?

Parcels from parts far and wide started to arrive at Coastguards Cottages and at the same time I tried to find a solution to the CIS woes. Funnily enough a trip back up to Banbury wasn't a possibility I considered for long.

SS7

[lamakdaddy]

Wow..I can imagine that a 13k+ bill and having such a poorly running car could be quite upsetting. This is where a thorough inspection and a plan of works pays a lot of dividends...

[shoestring7]

The poor running didn't improve over time.

I wasted some money getting the warm-up regulator rebuilt:


And that made no difference. I paid for some hours of time of a Berkshire-based specialist, with the result that while cold running improved, when hot the car idled at 1500rpm. Not fun.

So I amused myself with improving the cosmetics.

The modern white and yellow numberplate had to go:


And some black tape helped break up the general yellowness:


I found heel 'n toeing and struggle with the original pedal (essential with e thcar's tricky warm-up routine) so I fitted one of D-Zug's 917 style items:

Southbound delivered a pair of lovely RS-style door cards, with a basket-weave fabric finish:




And I bought a suitable period radio, a Becker Europa. Although it was probably a decade or so later than the car it looked much better and had a cable for an iPod input:


Now I just needed to use it a bit.

>C

[shoestring7]

We made an appearance at Brooklands:



And at Prescott there wasn't much trouble in finding it in the car-park:


I didn't trust it enough to try the long drive to that year's Le Mans Classic, but meanwhile this beauty had found its way into my garage"


The lower dash trim needed replacing, so I used more of Southbound's basket weave:




I tried improving the finish on the boot and bonnet, but the yellow was past bringing back. A local bodyshop performed a quick once-over in matt black and I fitted some decals:





Those cheap 'Fuchs' wheels? A lucky late-snipe on eBay bagged me some proper ones; 7" and 8" rims date marked 1983 which I believe were originally intended for a US market turbo. They arrived some weeks later, and were in beautiful condition and looked as if they'd never been refurbished. Thoughts of a RSR-style make-over were put on ice. Trial fit:

It did look the business, yet still didn't appear to attract the sort of unwanted attention a modern 911 does:


Amongst the frustrations there were glimpses of the car I wanted. But long motorway journeys were hot, noisy affairs, which could only be countenanced by using earplugs. After a period of high speed running, lifting off the gas produced clouds of exhaust smoke inside the car, as the various leaks were vaporised by the heat exchangers.

Probably the biggest crime was that the noisy, yellow and black old 911 'hot' rod, was no more than a very mild Khorma. Lots of the 130bhp horses it left the factory with had been pensioned off, in truth it was a lamb in wolf's clothing.

I needed to review things; cut my losses or go for broke? And if the latter, how was I going to find a way forward that didn't simply involved lining the pockets of another 'specialist'?

C>

[sladey]

Car is certainly starting to look cool - love the black bonnet and boot look - it's a look I toyed with when I was planning mine.

IMHO those Fuchs would look better with silver or RSR petals though

[dragonfly]

Thanks for running this thread, a good tale so far and in the last photos above it looks great (although I've seen a future look too).
I've also had some sizeable bills from Tuthills but they did lots of work which transformed my car, so no complaints here.

[Bertroex]

Love it, love it, love it. I also share your pain (Which Porsche restoration project doesn't?) and upwards and onwards.

Luckily we are not a mercedes originality club.

Bert

[911hillclimber]

I like black centre wheels, and they match the black panels, even better.
Good story.
Interior changes make quite a difference, made me think.