My Martini RSR build project

[StephenAcworth]

Awesome start to a thread and thank you for posting this! I look forward to travelling with you on this journey!!!

[LongRanger]

. . . by Mike_Moore . . .
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...hlight=martini
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...hlight=martini
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...hlight=martini

Lotsa stuff, there . . .


. . . HtH



Cool project, yours. Looking forward to reading more!



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[patrick911]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

And yes, I’ve read Mike’s topic on his build multiple times; he’s put the bar very high and although I’m aiming for something equally correct, I’m afraid I will have to compromise at places. I will however use this topic to indicate what the RSR should have, to build a reference source, when and where I deviate due to budget reasons.

I’ve also followed Clyde’s green ST build closely, and have often asked him for advise or used his contacts. It’s great to learn from others and get motivated; This board has seen some great builds and I can only hope mine will eventually be rated amongst those.

So the first thing to do is to transform the body. Because I start with a G-series donor car, the first thing is to change it into a F-series car. Second is the modifications that are required to make it an RSR; think reinforcements and wider flares, and finally, there’s things that are works RSR specific. For example, the Martini cars were fitted with fuel cells in stead of the 100L plastic tank.

Using forums, books, Jason’s expertise and various topics, we landed on this list of things that needed to be done to turn the donor into an RSR chassis. This is an area where I hope you can help me pinpoint mistakes or inaccuracies; these cars varied though the season, and even restorations (including the most recent of the original R6 car) are often not 100% correct.

I will generally use the dates provided by Konradsheim in his awesome ‘Carrera RS’ book for changes made during that model year, taking into account that this project is building a car as it did the ‘recce’ on the 12th of May; So any modifications introduced after the 12th of May will not be implemented on my project car.

Things that I’m still unclear of for example are the battery boxes. I’ve seen pictures of STs and works cars that had blanking plates and those boxes removed, probably to save weight. However, Mike Curnow and some pictures of other RSRs indicate that they have either one or some even both battery boxes. I’ve decided to remove them both and put a single battery in the smugglers box as R6 had it.

Another point of contention seems to be the front flares. Most replicas use metal ST/RSR front flares, whereas a lot of the tributes or hot-rods use fiberglass fronts. Jason is convinced that the later series of RSRs, including the 1974 cars uses fiberglass front flares and metal rears. I’m not sure, but I decided to go with real RSR metal flares on the rear and use GRP ST/RSR fenders for the front.

With R6 being chassis 0588, it is likely it was still using the lightweight, thinner metal that was meant for the first series of 500 cars. (we know the factory kept on using parts until they ran out so exact switchover dates are difficult to determine). I will not replace chassis parts.

So this is the combined list of changes that need to be made before we can sandblast, prime & paint:



This is it for the introduction, from here on I'll focus on the progress and will highlight why certain things are done.

[Longballa]

Purple engine shroud?! That's fantastic. You should call the donor car Prince. Looks like a cool original color was hiding below.

[patrick911]

The previous owner painted the car in 'Morpheus purple', a Holden specific purple variant, that has sparkly flakes... not a good look for a 911.
What you can't see is that he actually spent quite some effort on the interior to give things like the door-panels and seats purple accents...

The original color was Viper green, as you can see. One wonders why he didn't leave it that. It's such a great color!
"Prince" is not a bad name to honor its past. Or "Joker", seeing the green/purple combo

[Longballa]

I hope you kept the engine shroud to put on the garage wall!

[patrick911]

First thing on the to-do list was the removal of some of the extra holes and slats that the G-series dashboard has, compared to an F-series car. On top of that, the donor car used to have air-conditioning sometime in the past, so those holes had to be filled up too. At the rear of the car, the G-series specific centre piece was removed and holes in the rear body panel that contains the stickers were filled as well.

Other items removed where those baggage loops in the parcel tray and the G-series specific seat mounts.

I already noticed that the chassis was in very good condition; I hardly found any rust and when I did find some, it was surface rust (like on the parcel tray) only. Jason also confirmed that this was a very solid basis that was very original; the still visible viper green color confirmed that the car had never been in a smash. Very lucky purchase indeed.

I ordered the RSR front and rear bumpers, the hood and the front ST/RSR fenders in GRP from Mike Tankard, who here in Australia is the go-to guy for these parts. I had already ordered the RSR rear flares a few years ago from Aase so brought those in to be fitted too.



Jason then removed the G-series bumper mounts and cut out the G-series front wheel-arch pieces, so they could be replaced by the correct F-series panels (Dansk). I had also bought a new front latch panel, so all of these could be welded in.



The next thing was to cut away the lower half of this brand new front latch panel, as the RSR had a central oil cooler which requires a duct to enable air-flow. Elephant Racing offers a duct they claim is based on the original one, so that’s the one we went for. Seeing the easy fitment, they were probably right…