Porsche 968 Club Sport

[Mike]

thanks Mike, some bloke called Walter Rohl raved about it when it first came out, something about "the best handling Porsche"....

[Mike]

But back to the oily bits. So the 968 properly serviced can go on forever, EMC have a 250,000 miler they look after! The design of the big 3 litre four cylinder means a system of belts, and the Variocam relies on a chain drive to the cams, seen at the top of the pic here, which all needs regular servicing. It's best done with the radiator out....



On examination all good at this stage with the cams and sprockets unmarked, but with the radiator fan not working, which we knew about, and a crap coolant at a low level the boys began to be a little concerned about the head gasket. With 968's not regularly serviced with the right coolant, the gaskets can break down so we decided to whip the head off to check. Good job we did as it was showing signs of letting go, but great to know after a quick strip down, a skim and building back up with new oil seals, it's all fine now with the original guides, valves and seats all in great shape for the future.



My contribution was getting the cam covers vapour blasted while they were off, obviously a very important job....



With everything back together, all the service work done including the all important timing set correctly which is an art in itself apparently, it's looking pretty good in there....

[Sam]

So. Shiny.

[brembo]

Nice one Mike,you always seem to make special cars even more special.

[sladey]

Nice car Mike

[Darren65]

Very distinctive car Mike, congrats

[Mike]

Thanks guys I think the CS is much underrated and under valued, so I'm on a mission to single handedly raise it's profile!

I mentioned it's the detail bits that get me going, and on the Club Sport it's mainly what the factory deleted to reduce weight. Stuff you can't really see include very little sound deadening under the carpet, smaller lighter wiring loom as it's not powering up the lux stuff, and therefore a smaller lighter alternator and battery were fitted.

What you can see are the rear seat delete shelf/cover..



Door panels are the old lighter 944 ones with a manual window winder and the electric lifter switch blanked off...



Rear hatch key lock blanked off.....



...and now opened by pull cable from inside.....



Rear wiper delete...



But my favorite are the blanked off switches to the centre console, combined with the radio blanking plate, all very minimal!

[Mike]

The CS was also lowered 20mm all round from the Coupe and Sport models, and 17" fitted as standard. The colour coded wheels were a factory option.



I've put the car on the Porsche N3 rated Michelin Pilot Sports to replace those 15 year old tyres!

[hot66]

I thought the sports, equipped with the mo30 package , were identical,to the CS . The sport being the U.K. dealers way of helping to sell the CS by adding in options.

Nice cars, I almost bought one about 12 years ago... test drove 8 of them but even then it was difficult to find a nice one and ultimately I decided I’m not a 4 cyl kind of person

[Mike]

Ha yes that’s what Sport owners like to think, but it’s still not a CS!

Turned out I was incredibly lucky to find a good one, being a ‘cheap’ Porsche they did fall into the wrong hands in terms of people trying to run them on the cheap, and just not looking after them properly.

That was the case with mine in terms of recent servicing, but where I’ve scored is in terms of the structural integrity, with virtually no rust to the car at all. Some did suffer badly in the sills and rear suspension mounting points, can’t believe how good mine is.

[964RS]

Nice car. If it doesn't have MO30 front and rear roll bars I would fit them. Cheapest mod I did to my CS and transformed the fast road handling....

[rhd racer]

That rear wiper delete is the same as aftermarket one I bought from Greece for the 964. Interesting they did not produce a glass without a hole for the model; I guess the numbers did not stack up

[Mike]

So now the car's been back home for a while I've had some time to get some driving impressions....

I've just been surprised at how well it goes, how quick it is and obviously how well it handles. Comparing it to the 993 was always going to be tricky, especially after the boys at EMC in Birmingham said that I'd find it quicker than than a 993, oh how I laughed! They are racers and made the point that on track the 968 may lose out on a long straight, but will have the 993 every time through the corners, and sure enough on my cross country roads it does feels that much quicker. It's that ability to carry it's speed through the corners that sets it apart, and maybe carrying slightly less weight than the 993 might make up for being 25hp down on the flat 6.

Strangely enough it feels as though it's quicker through the revs than the 993, but maybe that's a torque thing. The 968 encourages you to use the rev range with it's variocam system and it comes into it's own over 4000rpm, whereas dare I say the 993 was almost a lazy drive in comparison.

With only limited sound deadening and those hardback seats you certainly know your out for a drive, which is exactly what I was looking for, and it certainly puts a smile on your face, almost in a hooligan way!

As I mentioned Walter Rohl is quoted in Auto Bild and Auto und Motor Sport, as saying the "the best handling car that Porsche made" and went on to say the car was ''sensational" with "tremendous handling" I think he might have been working for them at that time though... Performance Car magazine named it Performance Car of the Year 1993....





Funnily enough the Maritime car K291 BRX, has been for sale for a couple of years, it drove well enough around the Wandsworth one way system.. but there were a few things about it which rang some alarm bells when compared with the car in the test photos....

All in all really pleased with the buy, a couple of small niggly things to sort in the short term and a trip to Centre Gravity on the cards at some stage.

The one big problem I have with the car though is the noise it makes, or should I say the lack of noise it makes! Incredibly quiet, apart from the mechanical noise from the front absolutely no exhaust noise at all, so a new ss system on the cards asap. Haywood and Scott do a cat-back system for them but supposed to be too loud and not very well made, so maybe Janspeed or a company called Infinity near Bristol who come well recommended, so will check them out.

Thanks for the comments and interest, and hope you might let me tag along when we're eventually let out to get together again.

[neilbardsley]

No noise means it's running nicely!!

Sent from my Redmi 7 using Tapatalk

[911hillclimber]

Had a yellow one in my class on hillclimbs about when they came out, approx. 1998?
Anyway, driver was stunned how good it was.
Soon dropped hillclimbs for trackdays. When I saw him in later years he still had it and track day'ed it to death, 'only needs pads and oil' and was still in, love with it.

The very best car he had ever had he said, and his 'level' was Jag 220 and such like.

It was prepped by his local OPC iirc.