936 Race Car

Excellence, Flat 6, 911 & Porsche World

The 936, one of Porsche's most successful racing cars, was developed because Porsche felt that they were forced to build a car that they had not intended to build. In 1976 there was a new form of rules that governed Sports and GT racing. Initially there were only supposed to be classes for production based cars in Groups 1 through 5. The World Manufactures Championship would be determined by the "Silhouette" formula for Group 5 cars and Group 5 is where Porsche intended to race with their 911-based 935. Porsche had done all of their development work in 1974 with the with the Carrera RSR turbo in preparation of running Group 5 cars in the new World Manufacturers Championship. These new rules were supposed to take effect in 1975, but they were delayed a year until 1976. In 1975, almost as an after thought, the FIA decided to add an additional World Sports Car Championship class to the series as the Group 6 type sports cars, so instead of one World Championship there now there would be two World Championships. 

The Automobile Club de L'Ouest, who puts on the Le Mans 24 hour race each year also preferred the open prototype cars from the earlier prototype racing formula and opened their Le Mans race to both group 5 and group 6 cars. Porsche feared that FIA would also run races that would allow both Group 5 Silhouette cars and Group 6 sports prototypes to race against each other in the same race. They knew that if this happened that the sports prototypes would dominate the overall standings and obscure whatever success the silhouette cars had. Porsche was not willing to compete in the Group 5 World Manufactures Championship, a championship that they felt confident about winning only to be beaten for the overall victory in the races by the Group 6 sports prototypes, so to be sure that this would not happen Porsche decided to build their own Group 6 sport prototype the 936. Fortunately FIA never race d the two championship classes together so the only place that Porsche's group 5 935 had to compete against the faster group 6 sports cars was at Le Mans. 

Under the new FIA rules the classes which pertained to Porsche were Groups 3, 4, 5 and 6. Group 3 was for GT cars with a minimum production of 1000 cars per year. Group 4 was for GT cars with a minimum of 400 cars in two years, and group 5 was a very liberal "silhouette formula based on cars which were homologated in Groups 1 through 4. These Group 5 cars competed for the World Championship of Makes. The Group 6 class and the Sports Car World Championship was created ostensibly to give cars from the previous 3.0-liter sports prototype class a place to compete. 

When the FIA created this new championship for the Group 6 cars it appeared that the Alpine-Renault and Alfa-Romeo teams would be the only competitors in this class and that the Alpine-Renault would probably run at Le Mans uncontested, Porsche rose to the occasion, producing yet another new car, the 936 to compete in this Group 6 class. The 936 would prove to be a very successful effort, winning the Group 6 World Sports Car Championship, Le Mans and giving Porsche a double World Championship for 1976. The 936 prototype was a blend of the 908/3 and the 917 sports cars which used the engine from the 1974 Carrera RSR Turbo. The engine from the Carrera RSR Turbo was used because, like the 3.0-liter prototype class where the 1974 Carrera RSR Turbo had raced, the Group 6 cars had an engine size limitation of three liters, and for the turbocharged engines, there was also a 1.4 multiplier which limited the engine size to 2142 cc in displacement. 

The decision to build a group 6 car was a last minute decision made by Ernst Fuhrmann, Porsche's managing director in September 1975. It has been said that only a dozen people, the people actually building the cars, knew of the 936 project. One reason why Ernst Fuhrmann had decide to go ahead with the 936 is that because it used so many components from other sports racing cars that Porsche had already built it could be developed quickly and it would be relatively in expensive to develop and produce. The 936 engine was borrowed from the 1974 Carrera RSR Turbo, most of the running gear parts could be borrowed from the 917/10 or 917/30. The transmission was a Type 920 five-speed from the 1970/71 917 endurance racers. All that remained to be done was to design and build an aluminum tube frame chassis, suspension components and to design and build a body of fiberglass which would conform with the new Group 6 regulations. The go ahead for the project was given late in September of 1975 and the first car was built and testing at the Paul Richard circuit in February 1976. The test car was painted black in the hopes that nobody would notice it and taken along to test a test session for the group 5 935 at the Paul Richard in France. 936 001 was used in the wind tunnel at Volkswagen to develop the body shape to influence the lift and drag characteristics. 936 001 was also used for most of the development work for the 936s, a second car 936 002 ran most of the races in the Sports car World Championship series except the first race of the year Nürburgring and Dijon where 936 001 was used. From the second race, at Monza, the cars were painted white with red and blue Martini racing trim instead of flat black with the red and blue trim. Only one 936 was raced in all of the Sports Car Championship races in 1976 and the only place where Porsche raced both cars was the non championship Le Mans 24 hour race. At the seasons first race at Nürburgring the 936 001 suffered a jamming throttle cable which would be its only serious malfunction of the season. Fortunately Reinhold Joest won the race with a turbocharged 908/03 saving the day for Porsche as Stommelen placed fifth in the new 936. In the remaining six races in the Sports car championship the 936 reliability was exceptional and the 936s proved to be unbeatable and won all of the remaining races. 

In 1976 both 936.001 and 936.002 ran the Le Mans 24 hour race. The 936 002 was revised for Le Mans with a high rear deck and a large air scoop above the rear deck. The pear-shaped opening in the air scoop provided cooling air for the engine and the intercoolers. Jacky Ickx and Gijs van Lennep qualified on the pole and led from start to finish in 936.002. The car had a mostly trouble free race with the exception of a cracked exhaust pipe which made the turbocharger inoperative and required a half an hour pit stop to replace it near the end of the race. Even with this half hour stop this car was never in danger of loosing its lead position. However, their extended stop to replace the exhaust delayed them long enough that they did not beat the race record set by Matra in 1973. 

Jurgen Barth and Reinhold Joest were running second with the 936.001 car until it stopped out on the track after 15 hours with both a sheared drive shaft and a seized rocker arm which also damaged a piston. 

After winning all of the races in the 1976 Sports Car Championship and the championship itself in 1976 Porsche did not compete with the 936 racers for the championship again and they were only used for selected races, primarily Le Mans each year. For 1977 both 936 001 and 936 002 received twin turbochargers and revised more aerodynamic bodywork. The twin turbos greatly improved the throttle response and raised the power from 520 to 540 horsepower. The modifications to the body included decreasing the front and rear track width so they could make the body work narrower to reduce the frontal area. They used a short nose piece and a long tail extension for reduce drag on the long straights at Le Mans. Both cars now had the high rear deck and air scoop and they looked the same again. 

The 1977 Le Mans 24 hour race was a real test for the Porsche team. 936 001 entered for Jürgen Barth and Hurley Haywood had problems with the injection pu mp little more than an hour into the race when the mechanical injection pump had a failure that necessitated a 28 minute stop to replace it and dropped 936 001 to 41 place. There was an even worse fate in store for 936 002 which was driven by Jacky Ickx and Henry Pescarolo for it had a connecting rod failure after only 2 hours and 50 minutes of racing and was out of the race. Porsche moved Ickx into 936 001 with Barth and Haywood and the three of them brought the car back into first place after eighteen hours of driving. But at 3:14 with just 36 minutes left to race 936 001 had a head gasket fail and Hurley, Haywood came in with the car only running on 5 cylinders. Fortunately all of the real challengers were out of the race by then or so far back that they could not catch 936 001 even if it sat in the pits for the rest of the race. So that was what it did with the exception of the last two laps so that it would qualify as a finisher .The team disabled the fuel and ignition to the one bad cylinder and at the end of the race Jürgen Barth took 936 001 out for two slow laps and Porsche's fourth victory at Le Mans. 

For the 1978 season the 936 had a newly developed version of the 901/911 engine which was similar to the Moby Dick 935 engine with four valves and water-cooled cylinder heads for increased power and reliability. Each bank of heads had its own water pump and the coolant was circulated from the bottom of the heads to the top, from the exhaust to the intake side, ensuring more even cooling. Each individual cylinder head was electron beam welded to its individual cylinder. This was done to eliminate the cylinder head gasket failures which had become the weakness of these engines when running in long races. These engines were significant in that they were the basis for all further development of 911 racing engines right up through and including the third pace at the 1992 Daytona 24 hour race. 

In addition to the two old cars Porsche built one additional all new 936 for 1978, 936 003, They also modified 936 001 to the same configuration as new 936 003. The body work on both 936 001 and 936 003 was modified to include two large NACA inlets to duct cooing air to the radiators required by the water cooled heads. The vertical fins were replaced by what they called a rear Dornier airfoil with vertical extensions on either side. The air box was made a little smaller and the ducting was changed because the cooling requirements for the engine were different with the water cooled heads. The front nose section was again also made longer in an effort to improve the aerodynamics. 

All three cars were entered in the 1978 Le Mans 936 003 for Jacky Ickx Jochen Mass and Henry Pescarolo, 936 001 updated to 1978 specifications was entered for Jurgen Barth, and Bob Wollek, and 936 002 which was still to 1977 specifications was entered for Hurley Haywood, Peter Gregg and Reinhold Joest. The strategy was to run the cars with a tall final drive gear and a conservative turbo boost, but unfortunately they underestimated the capabiliti es of the Alpine-Renaults. It was obvious right away in the race that the four Alpine-Renaults were faster as the lead Renault had built up a lead of eleven seconds over Ickx on the first lap of the race. And then it got worse for Ickx stopped on the second lap with a throttle pedal that was slow to return and then after 77 laps, the fifth gear pinion broke. Ickx was moved into 936 001 with Wollek and Barth. At the pace that the three drivers drove this car it might have won the race, but it too had a fifth gear pinion failure that took 37 minutes to repair. This car surely would have been the winner had in not been for the transmission failure and after the problem was repaired soldered on to finish second some 80 km behind the winners Jean Pierre Jaussand and Didier Piroini in their Renault-Alpine. 

Henry Pescarolo and Jochen Mass drove 936 003 up to tenth place before its retirement in the 19th hour of the race because of a collision with Mass driving. Haywood, Greg and Joest drove 936 002 to a third place overall even though they were delayed by some minor trouble including a turbocharger failure. The mechanics replaced the turbo in a exceptionally short 13 minutes. 

The two 1978 specification 936s were entered in the 1979 Le Mans race when Essex oil company owner David Thieme offered to sponsor the team for that one race only. The cars were Painted the Essex colors white, blue and red. 936 001 was entered for Bob Wollek and Hurley Haywood and 936 003 was entered for Jacky Ickx and Brian Redman. Unfortunately both cars failed to finish. 936 001 driven by Bob Wollek and Hurley Haywood retired in the nineteenth hour after being in fifth place the proceeding hour. 936 003 driven by Jacky Ickx and Brian Redman in the 1979 Le Mans race. It was disqualified in the seventeenth hour after being in sixteenth place in the preceding hour. It was disqualified because Ickx received outside assistance in the form of a crew member who dropped a pump belt where Ickx could find it out at the edge of the track side where he was trying to repair the car. 1979 was the year that private teams won Le Mans with 935s. Kremer Brother's German team were first with Klaus Ludwig and Bill and Don Whittington as drivers and Dick Barbour's California team was second with himself, Paul Newman and Rolf Stommelen driving. 

The fourth 936 was built for Joest Racing for the 1980 Le Mans race where it was driven to a second place finish by Reinhold Joest and Jacky Ickx. The Joest 936 was a copy of the 1977 version of the 936; but it was not originally called a 936, but instead it was called a 908/80. The car was entered by Joest and sponsored by Martini Racing for Joest and Jacky Ickx to run in the 1980 Le Mans race. There reason given for the car being called a 908/80 was that the car was built as a replacement for the 908/3 and the new c ar for Joest was originally built as an updated 908/3 using a 936 chassis, chassis parts, transmission, engine, fuel and oil tanks, pedals etc. Therefore a new 936 was built and the only difference was that for tactical reasons it was called a 908/80 because Porsche did not want to be in the business of selling 936s to customers and did not want to be pressured by their other racing customers. Later they allowed Joest to call their car 936 004 and provided the Joest and Kremer teams with all of the drawings and data necessary to duplicate the 936s and the Kremers built 936 005 and the Joest team built their 936 C coupe. to run in group C races. 

For the 1980 Le Mans race the Joest team underestimated their competition the Rondeau's. Nobody expected much reliability from the Ford-Cosworth Formula 1 engines powering the Rondeaus. As a result Joest and Ickx ran a pace that was not fast enough. Many feel that the team lost the race in the early stages by running too conservative of a pace when they should have been running a faster pace to build up a safety margin. When team lost fifth gear in the nineteenth hour they had not built up a large enough lead to allow them to regain the lead and the Rondeau of Jean Rondeau and Jean-Pierre Jaussand beat them to the finish by only four minutes. 

For 1980 Porsche AG was planning to go Indy racing with the US. Interscope racing team. The engine for this car was a 2650-cc development of the four valve water-cooled-head engines used in the 936 and Moby Dick in 1978. Porsche, as it turned out, attempted to enter championship cars racing at the wrong time in history, right in the middle of the USAC and CART feud, and the rules for Indy racing changed right out from under them. Porsche had been told that with their six-cylinder engines that they would be allowed to run with a turbo boost of 54 inches of mercury. At the last minute the turbo boost requirements were changed to 48 inches, the same as for the V8 engined cars. Porsche felt that with this last minute change, they did not have time to comply and they probably could not be competitive with the eight cylinder, turbocharged engines and withdrew. Porsche was beaten before they started, not on the track but at the conference room table. 

Porsche didn't let the engine they had designed for the Indy car go to waste though. For 1981, on Peter Schutz, Porsche's managing director's, orders, they dragged the 936s out of the museum once more and updated them to comply with the liberalized Group 6 rules by installing the Indy version of the engine in them. The Indy engine was converted to gasoline and used twin turbochargers for a power output of 620 horsepower. This combination won Le Mans for Porsche for the sixth time in 1981. 

The 1981 running of Le Mans would be the last Le Mans race that the 936 would be eligible for, because from 1982 the race would be for Group C cars. Both 936 001 and 936 003 were again updated for the 1981 running of Le Mans using the more powerful "Indy" engines. Because the five-speed transmission had proven to be problematic they utilized the stronger four-speed version that had originally been developed for the turbocharged 917 Can-Am cars. The two 936s roadsters qualified on the front row, first and second. The 936s were painted in the colors of their new sponsors "Jules". 936 001 was driven by Jochen Mass, Vern Schuppan and Hurley Haywood and 936 003 was driven by Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. The Mass, Schuppan, Haywood car had a number of problems including a bad spark plug, a faulty injection pump and a clutch failure that required an hour and ten minutes to replace, but they did finally complete the race, but back in twelfth place. This car, 936 001, is now part of Dave Morse’s collection. 

The Ickx-Bell car achieved its target and dominated the race from the start and finished fourteen laps ahead of their closest rival, a Rondeau. This victory gave Porsche six wins at the Prestigious Le Mans 24 hour race and three of those races were won by the 936s. 

The 908/80 (936 004) was also entered in the 1981 Le Mans race with Technocar sponsorship by Reinhold Joest racing for Reinhold Joest and Dale Whittington. It was withdrawn in the fifth hour after being twenty fifth in the proceeding hour because of an accident at the Tertre Rouge S-bend with Dale Whittington driving. 

Inn 1982 the 908/80 was rechristined 936 004. Porsche allowed the 908/80 to be renumbered as 936 004 to be consistent with the other 936s numbering. This car won the 1980 Kylami race and the 1982 German Championship with Bob Wollek driving. 936 004 also helped Bob Wollek to win the 1982 Porsche Cup. This car, 936 004, is now part of the David Morse collection in Campbell California. 

Also during the winter of 1981/1982 Porsche Kremer Racing built 936 005 using the 1981 factory style bodywork. Porsche provided the Kremer's with the 936 drawings and parts necessary to build their 936 005. Rolf Stommelen raced 936 005 in the German Championship in 1982 where they did well and won Wunstorf outright June 6, 1982. Stefan Bellof drove 936 005 for his first turbo drive in the 1982 Hockenheim race. The Kremers still have this car in their collection race ready and beautiful. 

The Kremer brothers also built a couple of Group C cars that they called the CK5 that were largely based upon the 936 components that they raced in the Gro up C races and the German championship. 

Joest also used the drawings and parts from Porsche to build their 936 C which they built in their own workshop. The 936 C ran its first race at Monza in 1982 with Bob Wollek and the Martin brothers with Belga cigarettes as sponsors. 

The Joest 936 C raced at the 1982 Le Mans 24 hour with Belga sponsorship and Bob Wollek and the Martin brothers and made it until the 24th hour when they retired after being fourth the previous hour. The Joest Racing team also entered the 936 C in the 1983 Le Mans for the Martin Brothers and Duez, but an insolvable fuel injection problem forced an early retirement only two hour into the race. The Joest 936 C was raced extensively until 1986 when its current owner, Ernst Schuster, retired The Joest 936 C to his collection. 

936 002 is still in its 1977 Martini Racing configuration and 936 003 in its 1981 Jules configuration and both are part of the Porsche Museum collection and are usually either on display in the factory's museum or on display in some other collection. 936 003 is currently on display at the Porsche racing car collection in the French Musée National De l' Automobile.

Dave Morse's 934

911 and Porsche World

In 1976 FIA changed the international rules for Group 4 cars requiring that instead of production of 500 cars being required in one year that only 400 were required to be built over a period of two years. The rules change also reduced the modifications that were allowed and applied a weight scale that was relative to the engine size instead of homologated weight as it had been before. This new weight rule had two purposes: one was to reduce the manufactures cheating on the homologation weight and the other was to allow more luxurious cars that would naturally be heavier to be competitive in the restructured class. With this new rule change there was no longer a need for special lightweight models of a production model such as the Carrera RS 2.7 and RS 3.0 because the weight would be based on the engines size and not the homologation weight. So as a result of these new rules any car could be lightened to the limit determined by the engine size. There was also a scale limiting the tire width proportional to the engine capacity for the Group 4 category as well. 

Porsche introduced the 930 Turbo Carrera in 1975 as their basis for a Group 4 race car. Their intent was to build 400 of the 930 Turbo Carrera over the required two year period. The rule changes finally came in 1976 and Porsche produced two new 911 race cars for the new classes that were based on the production 930 Turbo Carrera, the 934 and 935. The 934 was homologated as a Group 4 car and sold to racing customers for GT racing. The 935 was a Group 5 car and as such was required to be based on a production car that homologated in groups 1 to 4. For 1976 the Porsche factory built and raced two 935s and raced the cars exclusively themselves and won the 1976 World Championship of Makes in the Group 5 category. 

The basis for the homologation of both the 934 and the 935 was the series production 930 Turbo Carrera and the requirement was for 400 to be produced in two model years. Because the 934 was supercharged with a turbocharger the displacement of the engine had its actual displacement multiplied by 1.4 and considered to be a 4.2 liter engine. Because of the 1.4 multiplier for turbocharged cars the 934 Turbo RSR could not be considered a light weight model like its predecessor the 3.0 RSR had been. The multiplier placed the 934 in the 4001 to 4.500 cc class requiring the cars weight to be 1,120 kg (2469 lbs). The 934s had power Windows and still required 88 lbs of lead in the front trunk to bring them up to weight. A new Porsche 934 sold for DM97,000 ($28.000 US) in 1976 delivered ready to race. 

Because of the Group 4 rules the 934 was very closely related to the production 930 Turbo Carrera. The most obvious visual changes were the added on fiberglass fender flares and the front fiberglass air dam with openings for the oil cooler, brake ducting and the water radiators for the engines intercooling. The rules allowed extending the front fenders by 50 mm and the rear fenders by 100 mm which was approximately 2 and 4 inches respectively so these fender flares extended all around the standard openings by 50 mm in the front and 100 mm in the rear. The 934s had an aluminum roll cage and some aluminum cross bracing to structurally increase the torsional strength of the body. A large 120 liter (31.7 gallon) safety fuel cell and a front mounted 22 liter (5.8 gallon) dry sump oil tank filled up most of the front trunk area. 

The interior was simplified, but retained most of the interior features of the production series 930 Turbo Carrera including a standard headliner, the power windows and Leatherette upholstery on the door panels. The rear seat was left out and the dash was simplified, and a Porsche racing seat and six point seat belts were added in place of the standard driver and passenger seats. The standard gauges were used for tachometer, oil pressure and temperature and additional gauges were added for fuel pressure and fuel injection system pressure. The windows remained glass because the rules required that the original material be retained. 

The suspension was based on the standard 930 Turbo Carrera torsion bar suspension, but suplemented with Bilstein shock absorbers fitted with coil over springs. The suspension was stiffened by the addition of Delrin bushing on the front A arms in place of the rubber used on the series production car and in the rear they used a spherical joint on the inner end of the cast aluminum trailing arm and a ball bearing race around the outer end of the rear spring plate. The larger disc brakes from the 917 and Carrera RSR 3.0 were used with large radially vented and cross drilled brake rotors and the heavily finned aluminum calipers. The brake bias was controlled by a dual master cylinder pedal assembly with a bias bar adjustment. They also used the same center lock hubs that had been used on the Carrera RSR 3.0 They went to a sixteen inch wheel and tire combination to provide a larger foot print and adequate room for the large brakes. Because no Porsche cast magnesium wheels were available in the sixteen inch size they had BBS make modular wheels with a cast center for the 934s. 

The engine and transmission were also based on the production 930 Turbo Carrera, units. The crankcase, crankshaft, rods and were essentially the standard 3.0 liter Turbo parts. The engine had a flat fan in place of the standard vertical fan for improved cooling. The flat fan was driven by a horizontal shaft up through a set of bevel drive gears to drive the fan. An adaptation of the Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection was used on the initial 934. While the original 930 Turbo Carrera did not use an intercooler the 934 used a pair of water to air heat exchangers one above each intake manifold which reduced the charge air temperature from 150°C (302°F) to just 50°C (122°F). The water was circulated by a water pump mounted on the right bank of cylinders, and driven from the end of the camshaft, to a pair of front mounted water radiators. Porsche used a KKK turbocharger and wastgate that similar to what they had used on the 917 Can-Am cars and the Turbo RSR. They used a couple of different racing camshafts for turbocharged racing engines as they developed the engine and initially with 1.3 bar boost the engine produced around 485 horsepower, later versions of the engine with mechanical fuel injection produced as much as 600 horsepower. 

The transmission was essentially the standard 930 four-speed transmission that had been developed for the production Turbo. They added and gear driven oil pump and mounted an oil cooler for the transmission up in the rear wing where the A/C condenser mounted in the production 930. The rules only allowed three different ratios for each gear set so Porsche offered three different rations for each of the four gear sets plus three different final drive ring and pinion sets. The differential was a ZF limited slip with a 80% locking factor. 

Thirty one of these group 4 934s were produced for Porsche's racing customers. Most of these cars remained in Europe and competed in the Group 4 category, where the 934 was an immediate success and Toine Hezemans won the European GT Championship for 1976. 

Several of the 934s were used in Group 5 category and Porsche supplied a kit that consisted of wider fender flare extensions to cover the wider tires permitted by the group 5 rules as well as a larger rear wing like those used on the later customer version of the 935s. These cars were considered by the entrants to be Group 4 1/2 cars running in support of the factory entered. 935s. 

The car in our story, chassis number 93060700155, which now belongs to California Porsche collector Dave Morse, was originally purchased by Egon Evertz and driven by himself and Leo Kinnunen in the 1976 world championship events as wells Group 5 races in Germany. 

Evertz and Kinnunen had a successful debut in the orange 934 at Mugello, Italy, March 21, 1976, winning the group 4 category and placing third overall behind the factory 935 and Kremers Group 5 Turbo Porsche. This was the first 934 to win in Group 4 competition in the first race of this new formula. They were not so lucky at the second race at Valleunga, also in Italy , where about half way through the race the dropped out with and engine problem. The third race of 1976 was Silverstone where the car was entered with its Group 5 conversion kit. Evertz and Kinnunen actually lead overall several times before falling back with a misfiring engine. In the fourth race of the season at Nurbürgring they went out after two hours with transmission problems. 

At round five at the Osterreichring Kinnunen qualified the car second to the factory 935 driven by Jacky Ickx and Manfred Schurti. The factory 935 was delayed when the throttle cable broke and Porsche put their driver, Manfred Schurti, in the Group 4 1/2 934 in place of car owner Egon Evertz in an effort to make up time after and early pit stop by Kinnunen when he had a puncture. This was not a legal substitution since Schurti had not qualified in the car and the car was disqualified and retired. After Osterreichring Porsche was ahead in the World Championship of Makes, but just barely, leading BMW by 82 to 78 points. So, for the sixth round in the championship at Watkins Glen in addition to the normal entry of Ickx and Mass Porsche added a second 935 driven by Stommelen and Schurti and supported the entry of Kinnuen/Evertz/Hexemans in Evertz’s converted 934. The factories effort paid off with their Stomelen and Schurti 935 winning, and Evertz’s converted 934 placing second driven by a Finn, a Dutchman and a German just ahead of Mass and Ickx in the other factory 935. 

Porsche left the US leading the World Championship of Makes over BMW 102 to 88 with only one championship race remaining at Dijon, France. Evertz and Kinnunen placed fourth at Dijon behind three other Porsche 935s.

The 934 as sold to Kannacher at Krefeld, but returned to Evertz and raced very little during the 1977 season. The next owner was Kenneth Leim who bought the car without the Group 5 conversion parts to contest the Group 4 category. Leim rebuilt the car to Group 4 specifications in Sweden and painted it white. Leim ran the car with Kurt Simonsen at Nurburgring in 1977 where they finished 9th. 

Kenneth Leim still owned the 934 in 1978 and he and Simonsen ran the car again at the third race of the season the Dijon, France 6 hour race where they placed 9th overall and second in the Group 4 class. For the fourth race of the 1978 season at Silverstone Leim partnered with Italian lady driver, Lella Lombardi placed 15th overall. Kenneth Leim and Kurt Simonsen appeared in other rounds in 1978 with disappointing results. 1979 was not much better for the Leims team, but with an 8th at Silverstone and 16th at Brands Hatch showing that the car was still competitive. 

In late 1979 the 934 was purchased by Richard Cleare. The Autofarm crew stripped the car to a bare chassis and did a comprehensive rebuild of the chassis, suspension, transmission and engine. By the time they got the car it was showing signs of the wear and tear and four seasons of racing. They had the car ready by the March 1980 race at Brands Hatch looking resplendent in its new red paint. Driven by owner Richard Cleare and Tony Dron the car was leading the Group 4 class when it had to be withdrawn with a suspension failure with Dron at the wheel. The team was more successful at their second race, Silverstone in May 1980 where Cleare and Dron placed 8th overall and won the Group 4 class. Their next race was Vallelunga where Cleare and Dron again won the Group 4 class and placed 10th overall. Their final race for the 1980 season was Dijon where they again won the Group for class and placed 11th overall. In its fifth year of international competition the 934 had shown itself to be competitive and reliable winning the Group 4 class in 3 of the 4 races that they entered. 

Richard Cleare ran the 934 again in 1981 partnered at Silverstone by Andy Rouse. At the first race of the season at Silverstone Cleare and Rouse were running second to one of the then new 924 GTR Turbos when an oil line came lose and a resulting engine fire put them out at five hours. Partnered by David Kennedy Cleare‘s next race with the 934 was Nurburgring. An accident early in the race resulted in an off course excursion and the hot engine refused to restart and the team lost 30 minutes before it refired and Kennedy was able to get back to the pits where Cleare took over the driving chores. The car was finally placed 49th after the raced was stopped because of a fiery accident that cost the life of Porsche 908/3 pilot Herbert Muller. The next race in 1981 was Brands Hatch where Richard Cleare and David Kennedy were second in class after a stuck fuel catch bottle dropped them to second place a lap behind the Group 4 class winning Canon 924 GTR. 

In preparation for the 1982 Season Cleare returned the 934 engine to the factory where the cylinder heads were modified and mechanical fuel injection was fitted in place of the original CIS system. The result was a power increase from 500 hp to 600 hp. Tony Dron returned to the team for the 1982 season and in their first race at Monza they placed 9th overall and won the Group 4 class. While they were at Monza the team learned that after three years of trying that they had finally been accepted for the 1982 Le Mans 24-hour classic. This was the seventh season of racing for the 934 and the car would finally see its first 24 hour race. After some difficulties with the transmission Cleare and Dron placed second in the Group 4 category and 19th overall at the May Silverstone race. They also had some handling problems which were traced to changes that they had made in the cars ride height to extend the life of the rear axles. The CV joints were showing excessive wear because of the engines extra power and the axles were having to be replaced after each race. 

For the 1982 Le Mans, probably the most significant race of the 934‘s illustrious career, Tony Dron turned a time of 4.04.08, which was the fastest time ever turned at Le Mans by a Porsche 934. The team had a few problems during the race and had to replace both rear axles, but even so the 934 driven by Richard Cleare, Tony Dron and Richard Jones completed 2466.97 miles for and average of 102.79 mph winning the Group 4 class and placing 13th overall in the 1982 Le Mans race. 

At Spa in September 1982 Cleare and Dron places second in the group four class and 16th overall. The next race was at Mugello and Porsche persuaded Richard Clear to take his 934 because of its reliability. Porsche promised to supply new axles, but none were available and after five hours the 934 dropped out when the right axle failed. The 1982 Brands Hatch race was the final outing for the 934 in a World Championship race where the car again won the Group 4 class and placed 14th overall. Thus ending the racing career of seven seasons of the most successful 934 to race in international competition. 

Dave Morse bought this 934 in the summer of 1985 and has run it in an number of club events beginning and extensive restoration a few years ago. The car was restored to its original condition in the original orange color and completed in time for the 1998 Monterey Historics where his son Mark Morse drove it in the fifty year event at Monterey.

2001 911 Turbo

Porsche Market Letter | Excellence Magazine

 

I just had what could be considered the perfect three days for anyone who really loves cars and driving them. Sunday I drove up to Reno to meet the new 911 Turbo. For the drive up I chose Ebbetts Pass. I have not been through the Ebbetts Pass since 1962 when I bought my first Porsche 356. That year I made a project of driving back and fourth through most of the Sierra passes. These are really great roads for people who love cars and love driving. The roads are marvelous and if you are reasonably judicious about selecting your time of driving through them the traffic is not too bad. It is also nice to have a driving instrument like the new Boxster S. I drove up Sunday afternoon and met with the Porsche gang at the Reno Hilton. 

Sunday evening the Porsche folks took us to the National Automobile Museum in Reno. This is a great collection, which was started with a seed gift of 100 cars from the Holiday Inn, who purchased the Harrahs casinos and got his collection of over 2000 cars thrown in for good measure. The museum was originally supposed to have gotten 250 cars from the Holiday Inn, but after the Holiday Inn started auctioning the cars of they found out that old cars were worth money, lots of money. And once they found out just how much old cars were worth they got less generous with the cars. Holiday Inn sold a 1931 Bugatti Royal out of the collection for $6.5 million the most any car had sold for up until that time. They never did give the Museum all of the cars that they promised them, but the museum has augmented that first 100 cars with cars donated and loaned to the museum by other car enthusiast that wish to see the museum succeed. 

I ran into our old friend Walter Minato at the Museum. He is one of the Museum’s volunteers and he acted as the technical authority for our tour through the collection. We had a very nice meal catered for the group right in the museum. 

Monday morning at about 7:45 we went to the Reno PCNA Service Training Center for breakfast and a technical presentation on the new Turbo. They didn’t answer all of my questions, but at least I knew more than before. Fortunately I hung around the hospitality suite Monday evening while the factory engineers were still there and they were willing to answer all of my questions. It all started when I asked the project leader what I should tell people who asked me why the brakes squeaked on some of the new cars and not others, the answer was that they don’t squeak. That sounds like the German way to me. The good news was that they were willing to answer the other questions that I couldn’t get anyone else to answer. My big question for them was how the VarioCam Plus worked, the printed information that I have seen so far was not that helpful and the subject was not covered in depth in the introduction presentation. 

Basically the way the VarioCam Plus works is that there are two different sized camshaft lobes on the intake camshafts and a magic hydraulic intake cam followers. The small cam lobe has a lift of 3 mm and a very mild profile. The second, larger cam lobe has 10 mm of lift with a more aggressive profile. At lower rpms and lower performance levels the engine operates on the three mm lift cam. This optimizes both emissions and performance at low load and low rpms. Then as you pick up the pace the helical drive mechanism on the front of the camshaft advances the cam by 15 degrees extending the duration and improving the engine’s performance. When you really stick your foot into the throttle the cam followers switch over to the 10 mm cam profiles for peak torque and power. 

The DME engine management system determines when these changes happen depending on a variety of inputs including the drivers torque and power requirements, the throttle position, temperatures, loads gear selection and what not. All of these inputs are compared with the control maps and then the system determines which operating configuration is best for the given operating conditions. It is possible to run as fast as 100 m.p.h. on the smaller 3 mm cam under light load conditions. But when you stick your foot into it the engine switches to the larger more aggressive 10 mm cams and you GO! You can actually feel the transition from the 3 mm to the 10 mm cams if you drive along at light throttle in the 3000 rpm range and gently tip your foot into the throttle. You will feel a slight bump when this transition happens. It is very subtle, but I noticed the bump and felt that I must have something to do with the VarioCam Plus operation. I asked the engineer about this and he said, yes that was when the system made the transition for the 3 mm cam to the 10 mm cam. As I said it was very subtle and probably most people wouldn’t notice it unless they looked for it. I stumbled onto the bump and went back and looked for it and found that it was repeatable. Both the cam timing and the cam lift are controlled by the engine oil pressure. Remember this is a dual overhead cam engine with one intake and one exhaust cam for each bank of cylinders. The intake cam timing altered with respect to the exhaust cam by directing the oil pressure to one side or the other of the helical camshaft adjuster. When the pressure is on the outside the cam is retarded and when the pressure is diverted to the inside the cam is advanced relative to the exhaust cam increasing the valve timing overlap. The cam timing is actually advanced by 15 degrees or 30 crankshaft degrees by this mechanism.

Each intake cam has three lobes for each valve, the little 3 mm bump straddled by two 10 mm bumps. The intake cam follower is actually two cam followers in one. The operation of the cam follower is also hydraulically controlled by the engine‘s oil pressure. The two portions of the cam follower are interlocked hydraulically by means of a pin which is actuated by an electrohydraulic solenoid valve. The cam follower has an extension that goes up and rides on the little bump, as conditions change first the intake cam is advanced 15 degrees relative to the exhaust cam, which increases the duration and enhances performance. Next the cam follower is changed so that the center extension drops down and the outer edges of the follower rides on the two 10 mm cam lobes. This transition is in addition to the advance that was already cranked in by the helical cam advance mechanism so now you have both the additional advance and the 7 mm higher lift of the 10 mm cam profiles. This is very fascinating technology resulting in incredible performance over the whole rpm range. 

We started the ride and drive portion of the introduction at 9:30 Monday morning heading out of Reno towards the south and Carson City. There were four new Turbos for the ride and drive portion of the intro and eight journalists, so we paired up and my partner was Allan Caldwell, Tech Editor for the Porsche Club‘s Panorama magazine. Allan and I are old pals so this was a fun association for us both. Allan and I drew the new Tiptronic version of the new 996 Turbo for the first half of the ride and drive. I drove first and we drove for three or four miles on the town streets before I had a chance to stick my boot in it. When we finally turned onto the 395 highway on ramp heading south I went for it and we saw 100 M.P.H. plus for the first time of the day. And that was before we were at the end of the on ramp. We still had plenty of time to slow and merge with traffic when we hit the freeway… brakes are good too. 

We turned off of 395 onto 431, the Mt. Rose Highway to Lake Tahoe, the idea being to show the journalist from other parts of the country some great roads and a good look at some of the beautiful sights around Reno. Bob Carlson, a native Californian, who is very familiar with the Reno area having been assigned there for several years with PCNA before moving to Atlanta a couple of years ago laid out the route. The route returned to 395 via Highway 50 and we continued south. 

Our next detour, right after returning to 395, was off onto Jacks Valley Road to Genoa which was about six miles to the West. Genoa is the "Oldest settlement in Nevada--Established 1851." We had a rest stop in the "Genoa Saloon", which is the oldest bar in Nevada. After our rest and a drink we switched drivers and drove south along the foot hills and over to Woodfords and Markleeville on the California side of the boarder to set us up for highway 89 through the Monitor Pass, which took us back to 395 again. This was a pass I had never been through before. The pass is very lightly traveled and great fun to drive. All of this was over on the California side. 

Even though this was a Monday and these roads are fairly lightly traveled they are mostly all two-lane roads so we had many opportunities to pass. The new Turbo is a wonderful car for passing, I have never driven a car with so much passing power. With the 415 hp and the virtually flat torque curve of 413 lb of torque from about 2500 rpm to almost 5000 rpm, with it peak torque of 415 lb ft. at 6000 rpm it is very willing to pass at almost any speed. We found that we could pass in very short spaces, spaces that would probably not consider a passing opportunity in lesser cars, we also found that these passing maneuvers usually resulted in a terminal speed of 100 m.p.h. or greater. One time on the second day of driving while we were passing one of those three trailer trucks that are so common over in Nevada we actually saw 142 M.P.H. before slowing back to our normal brisk cruising speed. 

After Monitor pass we headed south again. Through Topaz, Coleville and Walker on our way to Bridgeport for our lunch stop. After lunch we traded some of the other journalist for one of the a six-speed cars and headed back across to Highway 182 and 388 which are also some wonderful driving roads on the Nevada side. This took us up to Wellington where we turned onto 208 and headed back for 395 where we turned north for Carson City. At Carson City we switched drivers and Allan drove over through Virginia City. We saw all of the skid marks were they hold the Virginia City hill climb. We cruised the main in Virginia City and then headed back for the hotel in Reno so we could rush to get ready for dinner. A wonderful driving experience for us both and in all about 280 mile of mostly great Porsche roads. If you really enjoy driving you owe it to yourself to get over to the Sierras and drive some of these roads. 

We liked both the Tiptronic S and the Six-Speed and didn’t feel put upon having been "stuck" with the Tiptronic. The new Tiptronic for the Turbo has 250 shift maps, so it adapts quickly to your driving style and for the given conditions. This new Tiptronic is amazing in addition to all of the maps this magic transmission actually has two reverse gears one has a ratio oaf 3.16 and the other 1.93. The transmission hardware actually comes from Daimler-Chrysler. Porsche adopted the twin reverse function from them to improve steep driveway climbing performance when the engine is cold. They do not want the drivers to get into the turbo boost phase by depressing the gas pedal too far with a long gear ratio when the engine is cold so they select the lower gear for this condition. The driver actually has no influence over which reverse gear ration is chosen it is selected by the computer. 

The one thing that I don’t like about the Tiptronic is the silly little buttons on the steering wheel. When you are really driving fast they are damn near impossible to find. If they were going to do something like that they should go with the paddles like Ferrari has. I will have an opportunity to spend more time with the Tiptronic in July when I have the Tip car for most of a week. I will take the time to learn more about the capabilities of this transmission, it is hard to learn very much about cars that are as complex as these new Turbos are in one of these short ride and drive sessions. The cars are getting to be so complex that they should probably mail an owners manual to the journalist a week or so before one of these intros so we can bone up on the features of the cars.

We really did like the new Turbos and the only things that we found to complain about was the warts on the front bumper and the digital dash display. I found that I could not read the dash display with my Polaroid sunglasses on and since we needed the odometer reading to run the route this was a problem. The Turbo dash uses a dot matrix display instead of the segment display used in the 996 and Boxster .The route was laid out like a rally with the instructions based on the mileage traveled. After the lunch stop the sun was somewhat in our eyes so I had decided to wear my sunglasses. I actually had to take them off to read the odometer, after a few miles of this I gave up and went back to my regular glasses and squinted. One other minor point is that they have moved the digital speedometer over into the analog speedometer. I have grown accustomed to it being centered on the steering wheel in the tachometer from the Boxsters and other 996s that I have been driving and found it more awkward to look over to the left at the speedometer. If you would have asked me before the first time that I drove a Boxster or 996 if I would like and use the digital speedometer I would have told you no, because I usually hate digital instrumentation of any kind, particularly wrist watches and clocks, but I have grown fond and dependant on them. 

Aside form the warts that they have put on the front bumpers to comply with the bumper laws I really like the modern aggressive look of this Turbo. I have never liked the bulbous look of the earlier Turbos. This car was designed to have huge wheels and tires (8x18" with 225/40 tires up front and 11/18" with 295/30 tires in the rear) that fit within the standard body work so it does not have that awkward look of a car with added on huge fender flares. The car is 2.6 inches wider in the rear than the standard 996 model, but it isn’t objectionable. It has the aggressive, stylish looks designed in and doesn’t take on the overly fat look of its predecessors. Also the ride of this car is really pretty good even with the extremely low profile tires. In contrast recently rode in a 993 Turbo Look with sport suspension and 18 inch wheels and the ride was unbearable. 

It is distinctive looking with its huge front radiator openings, the three radiators themselves have 50% more surface areas than the standard 996. The leading edge of the rear fenders have the very functional air inlets for the Turbo intercoolers. Again the appearance is an integral design and doesn’t have that added on look of the old Turbo flares had. The air from the intercoolers exits below the rear bumper through 959ish louvers. The new trick xenon headlights look cool but we never got to drive the cars in the dark so I don’t have a clue how effective they are. Another thing that the have changed on this version of the Turbo is he rear wing. Apparently the Europeans object to the looks of rear wings so Porsche has made every effort to minimize the presence of the wing. They have also done this with all of their normally aspirated cars having them fold completely out of sight when the cars are at rest. Though not completely out of site the Turbo wing is much smaller than previous versions on the Turbo, partially because they have moved the intercoolers into the rear fenders so that they didn’t have to make room for the intercooler under the rear engine lid and wing. The Turbo rear wing is also able to be more subtle because it also extends at speed like the normally aspirated 996 and Boxster do. All of this fits into the more subtle design of the new Porsches. The new Turbo is by no means subtle, it is still a very aggressive looking car, but it is not overstated like the earlier Turbos were. 

Monday night’s dinner was out at the Bowers Mansion which was built in 1864 by Alison and Sandy Bowers who had earned their fortune from silver in the Comstock Lode. Their claim produced riches they could not have imagined. They built their mansion half way between Reno and Carson City in Washoe Valley. They built a great stone mansion and furnished it with furnishings that they purchased on a ten month trip to Europe. Their mansion was completed in 1884 for about $200,000 including their European furnishings. Besides another great meal the highlight of the evening was that Samuel Clemens joined us for dinner. It was uncanny, this guy really looked and sounded like Mark Twain. Apparently he makes a living by impersonating Mark Twain, he was a fascinating guy. He set at our table of five during dinner and was a fascinating fellow. He popped in and out of character and really knew his history when it came to Twain. The significance of him being there is Mark Twain really got his start writing for the newspaper of Virginia City where the Comstock Silver mother load was mined. It was an evening of good food, good company and good entertainment. 

The second day of the event, Tuesday, was out on the Black Rock Dry Lake which has been the site of the Burning Man hoo ha for the past ten years and the World Land Speed Record that broke the sound barrier at 763.035 mph in 1997. At 8:00 Am we left the Reno Hilton for a trip of a little more than 110 miles out to Gerlach and the Black Rock Dry Lake. This dry lake bed is huge, so we could see why it had been chosen as the sight for attempts at the land speed record. I am not sure what the appeal is for the Burning Man whackos, but there were 28,000 of them there last year. Driving out to the lake and back was another fun high speed tour, but Bob Carlson warned us that the week before someone had been stopped for speeding on one of the Indian reservations out there for 3 miles over the speed limit and fined $500 cash. I guess that gambling casinos aren’t viable options for them in Nevada so they have to be more creative to make a living out there. Bob went on to say that one of his guys had been stopped twice on his way out there that very morning and talked himself out of a ticket both time. I asked him what the good news was, he replied that the road was very straight and you could see for miles. As it turned out even with us religiously abiding by the very restrictive speed limits on the reservations we still made it out to the lakebed at an average speed of 75 - 80 M.P.H. from the hotel. 

Their idea was to have us each establish our own personal high speed driving record. I am sure that conceptually they expected us all to be able to blast through this event at speeds approaching 200 m.p.h. They brought two of the early production cars over for the speed runs, one was chassis number 0011 and the other was 0020, so they were very early cars. They said that the modifications were limited to safety modifications. Both cars had a pair of racing seats, a roll cage and five-point seat belts. They were both Euro spec cars so they were 20 mm lower than the US version, but they told us that otherwise they were stock. They actually looked very much like the four cars that we had been driving around for two days except for the Euro lighting differences. 

Unfortunately the dry lake bed surface was not very good for this sort of activity this year and the cars became very unstable at speeds much above 180 m.p.h. The Porsche troops had gone out to check the sight out on Sunday before the event started and became very concerned about the safety aspect of their planed event. Bob Carlson and one of the factory engineers got the cars greatly out of shape at speed above an indicated 190 M.P.H., so they became concerned and decided to control the event. Hurley Haywood showed up late Sunday evening so they waited until he got a chance to check out the site before making their decision of what to do. While we were out on our ride and drive on Monday Hurley was out at the Black Rock Lake bed deciding what would be safe for all when each of the four waves made the full speed runs at the dry lake surface.

Hurley said that to him it felt like driving in the rain when you got up to the higher speeds. As a result they regrouped and created a speed run on the dry lake that allowed them to control the top speed so that they could save us from ourselves. Since Hurley rode with all of us they were trying to save him as well. I think that it was really that they didn’t want to have to call our wives, girlfriends and what not and tell them that they had killed us off. The original plan was to have a course that was four miles long and just leave the speed up to each driver's discretion. 

As it ended up the speed run was still a lot of fun, but not as much fun as it would have been if we had been turned loose. What they did was shorten the course that we were to run on to three miles total. We were told to run the first mile at about 100-125 M.P.H. and then accelerate through the second mile and maintain that speed through the third mile and see how fast we went. Our speeds were measured through the third mile and given an average speed through the mile as well as a speed trap at the end of the measured mile. So as you can see it was a controlled top speed run, it really depended on how early on in the run you really got into it for serious. This was pretty obvious to some and they were the ones who went the fastest. 

They had a course laid out that was about fifty feet wide that was marked by a string of orange pylons on each side. We each got one practice run to the side of the real course at a speed limited to a speed of about 150 mph. Because there had been so much traffic up and back on that side of the course there were a lot of ruts on that side. I don’t know about the other side I never went over there. As a result of the ruts on what we used as a practice course it was actually pretty scary. We all dutifully did what we were told on the practice course for fear that they would not let us take our official run on the real course if we misbehaved. Because of this you really didn’t know what to expect on your real run. Between this really unstable surface for the practice run and all of their concern based on their running before we got our turns they created a high level lot of anxiety in all of us.

It turned out that the real course was smoother than our practice course had been and it was a lot more comfortable to run and a lot of fun. About half way through the first mile on the real course Hurley told me to get on it, and it dawned on me that there was actually a way to control our top speed through the run. The guy who ran after me was clever enough to figure this out by himself and took off right from the beginning on a tear. Sure enough, he beat me by a mile or two per hour. 

USAC (United States Auto Club) actually did the timing and gave us a great-framed Certificate of Performance for our run. My run was 177.165 mph or 285.120 km/h through the speed trap at the end. As I said I was not fastest, one of the other guys went a mile or two per hour faster. Since after our group ran the word was out on how to go faster and since it is really a rather subjective thing I am sure that by the time the other three waves made their runs that others were also faster. My average speed through the measured mile was 173. 871 so it is obvious that I could have been faster if I was allowed or clever enough to get into the throttle earlier in the run. 

I would have liked a second timed run because after my first run I was comfortable with the whole process and no longer nervous. One of the other journalists did get a second timed run because they had missed his time on his real run. At the time he did not seem to share my enthusiasm for the second run idea, he turned a rather ashen color when they told him he would have to run again. However, after his second run he thought it was a great thing and also felt more comfortable with the whole thing. 

There were only four of the new Turbos in the press fleet so there were only four for the ride and drive portion of the event. The number of cars was what limited the press numbers to eight for each wave and there were to be four waves so by the time they are done 32 members of the press will have had a crack at the rather arbitrary high speed run. I was hoping to break my own personal existing speed record which was 300 Km in one of Ruf’s cars on the autobahn a few years ago, which translates to 186 mph, but it was not to be. I had a great time, but no new personal speed record. 

I left Reno at about 4:00 PM Tuesday afternoon and came home through Kit Carson Pass. I got lost once and stopped at our family ranch in Linden, CA for awhile and arrived home at about 9:00 in the evening. The trip up and the trip back plus getting lost a couple of times put almost exactly 650 miles on the Boxster S. I still love all versions of the Boxster and particularly the Boxster S that I drove up to Reno in. However, after driving around for two days in the Turbo I really missed the extra performance of the Turbo. You had to think more about what you were doing when you thought about passing, because the difference in passing distance is very noticeable. I think that my biggest impression of the new Turbo is the stunning acceleration at any speed. The car is wonderful, if it were in the budget I would order one today.