The 911SC Chronicles, Part V: Crispy
Almost 3 months have passed since I bought my "new" 25 year old car.
The weather has warmed up considerably and the rain has washed
the salt off the
roads. I can now drive the car a bit more confidently, as the low
pavement temperatures were quite a concern for me. These older
911s have a
reputation of being rather wicked on curvey roads should the driver not
respect the car. The razor-sharp edge of the traction envelope
was not
something I wanted to experience on a car I am not very familiar with,
plus
the tires were new. The silver lining in this cloud is that I had
an
opportunity to spend some time in the car and its controls before I
unleashed
it around a bend.
This 911 is a fun car, there is no doubt about that. I can see
why many owners of older 911s call them toys, but that does not keep me
from driving the 911 a lot, especially now that the heater works.
I will try to quickly describe the driving experience in two
categories: the sensory experience and the handling experience.
The sensory experience has to deal with the stimulus the car liberally
showers its driver with. This is a ever-present, almost
regardless of speed. With the current gentler air temperatures, I
have been able to roll down the
window and listen to the engine's sound even better as I am driving the
car. The shortened diameter of the 930S steering wheel this car
came
with(compared to the diameter of the original steering wheel) appears
to
accentuate the manual steering feel of the car. It is elementary
physics,
the lever arm's length is shorter with this steering wheel, hence more
force
is required to apply the same amount of torque. One can feel the
undulations
of the road around the corners and that feel changes as the weight
transfers from the front to the rear (foreshadowing about the handling
experience
section). I have already talked about the shifting of the 915
transmission
and heel-toe, so I will not repeat that here. The brakes on the
car
are very good, by the way. Having the engine over the rear tires
must
have allowed the Porsche engineers to allow for a lot of brake pressure
in the rear brakes. The brake system does not seem to be nearly
as
front-biased as it is on most cars. The braking feels very stable
and even at both ends of the car.
The handling experience is the part that was a new and welcome
development to me, as I had hardly pushed the car through a road's
curve in the past. What is prominent is how much the attitude of
the car changes as a function of the throttle input. I have not
tried (nor plan) to go sideways through a corner on a street, but I
have been playing with affecting the rear
tires' slip angle using the throttle. It really is a lot of fun.
A
friend had mentioned the crisp throttle response of an early 911 he had
been
in and I think I now understand what he was talking about.. Under
load
and below 3500rpm, the engine itself is not necessarily characterized
by
a very crisp throttle response. And yet, that response is still
enough
to produce a noticable (crispy) effect in how it affects the chassis,
the
weight transfer, the oversteer and understeer of the car. The car goes
from
its usual understeer to mild oversteer fairly easily upon extra
throttle application.
To highlight the effect, I feel like I need to be driving my 951 fairly
quickly
to feel the effects of throttle transition at the levels I feel them on
this 911. This makes the fun factor of driving my 911 a lot more
"accessible". One does not need to go "screaming" around the corner to
be able to play. When road conditions permit, I can play with the
placement of the
car in a corner's entry, how I reach the apex, how I "power" through
the
corner. The very direct feeling of this car seems to tell me
exactly
how well I have picked the line. The 951 is certainly a fun car,
but
its fun factor through a corner revolves around completely different
parameters
as the 911 requires a lot more attention and active effort to go around
a
corner. I feel like I need to steer the 911 around the corner.
In
comparison, one feels the 951 corners with hardly any drama or effort.
I
would expect that one would feel the same difference if they were to go
around
a corner first in my 1987 951 and then a 2004 996, making my 951 feel
the
more involving of the two cars in the driving process.
I have strayed very little from the factory recommended tire pressures
as I prefer (for now anyway) a somewhat understeering car. Once I
learn the car a bit better, I might change the pressures to see how
that affects the car's behavior in the corners. I can see how
this 911 would be a lot less forgiving than other cars if I were to
change my mind in the middle of a corner. It seems that one would
have to choose a line
through a corner and commit to it, failing to do so might lead to an
off-road
excursion. The car is not as down-right wicked as my 951 was
before
it got its proper alignment, but I expect a stable and controllable
four-wheel
drift might not be as easy to achieve(with my current driving skills
anyway).
I have not been pushing the envelope hard, so I can only get
glimpses
as what the car would do if provoked. I generally strive for
smoothness
while driving, so this might be "masking" some of the chassis'
responses
in extreme trailing throttle, trail-braking, etc situations.
Being
able to heel-toe ever since adjusting the brake pedal's height has been
instrumental in making much of this playing possible, by the way.
Speaking of corners, one of the implications of having lots of engine
weight on the rear brakes is that I feel like I could possibly go
"deeper"
into a corner than I can with front-engined cars before the rear end
steps
out due to the forward weight transfer. My concern is that at
some
point that rear weight will start behaving as an inverse pendulum,
resulting
in a majestic spin. I will have to slowly explore this aspect of
the
car's driving characteristics. So far, it seems that on dry
pavement
at legal speeds, there should be no inadvertent tête-a-queue.
I do not know yet if ultimately this car can be as fast through the
corners as my 951 is. I am not ignoring the fact that my 951 has
stickier tires
than my 911 does. Stickier tires would probably tame some of the
willingness
with which the chassis switches from understeer to oversteer, but it
might
also make edge of traction conditions a lot trickier. Being able
to
discover the car's limitations at slower speeds is an opportunity that
I
welcome. The 951's MOMO wheels with their Z-rated tires would fit
the
911 perfectly, so on a nice day, I might just install the MOMOs on the
SC
and see what the car is like with stickier tires.
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Last Updated Fri Mar 9 12:10:49 CST 2004