March 19, 2008

After my accident (in the S4) I went kind of quiet not really knowing whether I would get back into the 928 scene again. I am more interested in track type performance rather than out and out speed and really I wanted a manual tranny variant. There is only one out here in Oman and a friend of mine purchased it when it came up for sale just before I crashed. Urrgh! The original GTS engine was running when I purchased the car but the PO knew there was soemthing not right and it took me a matter of seconds to diagnose what the problem was. Upon partial stripping of the motor we found that the crank had been scored on the rear thrust face but we think it is recoverable so the rotating assembly is going to be available although it may need to be nitrided again. The heads and the spare pair that came with it are OK so scope for some project work there. Louie Ott gave me a tip to use the GTS inlet cam with my S4 exhaust. Must say it does seem to work quite nicely and that is without any tuning work on the chips. I would like to acquire a sharktuner but it is chunky investment. Even so with the crossover exhaust, rrfpr and everything in tip top condition we think it is making about the same as a GTS but probably with a bit less torque. From a drivers perspective I doubt most would not know it was anything but a GTS motor. The car was in pretty good trim having had [for no good reason] a re-spray by the local agents whose personal car it was. The main thing was I knew the chassis was straight and the car had not been worked hard or abused. So, it is now looking rather good having won our Concourse competition a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I will be able to get a pair of Michelin cup tires for the front wheels for our last autocross event of the season in a few weeks time. I want to get in amongst the 997's just to make them feel sick. I have modified the cooling system with a larger aluminium radiator and a big fan kit. Intersting how the cooling characteristics have changed. It now runs cooler at speed and when the a/c is on than it does at tickover. That is because the fan programme is not modified and I have over capacity for once. Indeed I ghave not really noticed the fans at all since fitting the bigger radiator. Ultimately I would like to make it go a bit quicker and I really like the idea of the twin screw supercharger giving massive torque off tickover. Another interesting development is this chap who just announced a twin turbo kit to be made available later this year. It is not cheap but then it makes about 550 rwhp.

My Letter to the Editor 911 & Porsche World November 2000

Copyright 2000, George A Suennen (except photo)
_{written: 07/24/00
rev: 03/19/08}