1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[Jonny Hart]

Interesting reading. We provide full email and telephone support for our kits and it is amazing how varied the questions are - to the point that if we put every answer to every question back into the manual, it would probably be 1000 pages long!

On thing is a theme though. The kit is designed for a 911 G Body and can be made to fit other variations. You can't expect it to be pre-customised to fit your own variety of hot rod!

I am still baffled by it to be honest. At one end of the scale we have some email support queries that are into 100's of questions and replies. Then we have a workshop in Japan who have installed over 20 kits and have never asked a single question. I once phoned them to thank them for the business and found that their English is only slightly better than my Japanese so I'm guessing they translate the manual.

[RobFrost]

Putting every question and answer into an ai chatbot as it occurs would probably save you a lot of time in the long run.

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[sladey]

That’s probably a good idea.

I hope I made it clear in my write-up Jonny that most of my issues are nothing to do with the kit:-

- the fact it’s a backdate hotrod meant placement in the front arch wasn’t going to work - especially as I’m not willing to do without my arch liners
- there are things that I would make do with in the past but which I’m no longer happy with so I’ve been using the opportunity to improve things - such as replacing pipework and fixing/replacing vents
- the ultimate gotcha was snapping that stud on the engine casing meaning I've got an engine drop to come

[massivesplitproject]

do you have a white porsche with ddk on the plate dude , i keep seeing one and think its a coincidence

[sladey]

Yep that’s me - that’s my daily driver

[massivesplitproject]

I thought as much, pop in anytime if you are passing

[sladey]

Will do

[sladey]

OK so time for another update

I now went back to the condenser and dryer which as you’ll remember is in the rear arch.
I started to put the fittings onto the condenser and hit this problem



It just wasn’t sitting square. Tightening the bolt wasn’t going to help either. Eventually I solved it with some clamps



They didn’t need to be tight - just enough pressure to make the fittings sit squarely, and then when they bolt was tightened they just stayed there


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[sladey]

Next was mounting the dryer. A bit of thought and I decided to attach it to the bottom bracket of the condenser mounting



I reused the dryer mounting that came with the kit but chopped it up and then mounted it to the bracket with a couple of bolts

At this stage I started mocking up the pipe runs to and from the condenser, using some left over hosepipe



The hose joining onto the dryer was fine but I wasn’t happy with this routing of the pipe coming down from the top - I changed the position of the mounting to get a better route. You’ll see that later

This all neatly fits behind the arch liner



However I had to make a fresh bracket to make that work - both at the front and the rear I removed.destroyed the old arch liner brackets and making new ones proved to be a real ball-ache. The problem is that you can’t easily reach the position of the bracket with the liner in place.

As a result it takes ages to get it right - lots of trial fitting and adjustment. This rear bracket took the best part of a day to make and I went through the same process (and time) when making the one for the front arch


It was worth it though as both brackets are now made of stainless steel and are much more substantial than the original ones


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[sladey]

Fast forward a bit and this is the final routing of the condenser piping



I’ve made more progress than the above and I’ll put some more updates on when I get a chance.

Suffice to say that I now feel I’ve turned a corner on the install. I’m hoping to have finished the AC install next week but then I’ve got to drop the engine to fix that earth stud.

I’m off on a tour of the Pyrenees in 7 weeks time. That looked like ages ago when I started this but it’s now looking alarmingly close.

I’ll just have to reign in my ‘while you’re in there’ urges when I drop the engine


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[sladey]

Next was the route of the pipes from the rear arch down to the front. I checked with Jonny and I could do this inside or outside the car. Initially I was reluctant to fix them outside but Jonny confirmed that this was the route of the OEM aircon pipes so I thought if it’s good enough for Porsche it’s good enough for me.

I wanted something better than P-clips to hold them in place and after a bit of sighing about on the web I found these


The diameter of each hole is exactly spot-on for the larger pipe and close enough for the smaller pipe. They are anodised aluminium so rust won’t be an issue. They aren’t really designed to screw into anything but that was easily sorted.

I drilled out the holes to 6mm


I then drilled 9mm holes into the sills, then painted the bare metal, then fitted rivnuts in that took an M6 bolt. As an added precaution I sprayed plenty of cavity wax into the hole, and then coated the outside with some dinitrol stone-chip.

After a first mounting they looked like this


I’m pretty pleased with them. I can take out the sag with either an additional bracket or pulling them tight before I tighten up the fitting. I’ve since added another bracket just behind the front arch and ordered 3 more of the brackets so I can add intermediate ones if necessary.

It was a pain doing this part of the job as the car lift was in the way so I had to pull out the wheel blocks (which you can make out in the above picture


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[911hillclimber]

Starting to shape-up really well, and you must be getting close to The Big Freeze Test.
Clamps are nice and add quality to the installation!

[sladey]

Thanks Graham

[RobFrost]

All looking tidy and well-engineered.

Presumably the condenser's function depends upon drawing in cold air and outputting warm, and therefore needs a constant supply of fresh air as well as for the warm air to escape, without the two mixing. How will that happen in that space with the wheel arch liner? Are you planning some added baffles separating the two sides, as well as ducting to exit above or below?

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[rhd racer]

Great work

Those clips are not dissimilar to those used on the fuel lines of a 986 / Boxster so looks very factory!


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