71 E -> Gentleman's RSH thread

Plenty of items to update, but I figured I'd share a cool little upgrade for the "stock" RS Fiat 500 plastic door pulls. Yes, when the car is in its full RS clone mode, I'll probably go back to plastic, however...

this happened in the first week I had the car with its new RS lightweight interior.

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Just stupid me leaning over to open and close the door which may or may not have been rattling as I was rolling down my driveway. The plastic repros are fine, and I promptly ordered a replacement, but I also looked for an alternative...sadly the Ti porsche parts guy on pelican's replicas are too large for the correct mountings on our doors, so those don't work. But these looked promising...

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Unfortunately, they are from the UK, and the price isn't as nice as the plastic ones...but I paid the porsche tax and bought for inspection. In person, they look reasonably nice and are a good alternative. However, there is one glaring difference. The RS pulls are black and these are chrome! So...I asked my shop to send them off to be stripped of chrome and painted/anodized matt black. So I'll let you decide.

The originals today.

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And the metal replacements today.

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Might not be good enough for a Karen, but Karen will be fine with them for the time being. If anyone wants to make these, or make these better...might be a good product to sell. No chance anyone looking into the car knows the difference. And they are infinitely more durable than the originals. All about the details in this car...and yes, almost all of the details above are wrong, but the main purpose of Karen for now is a DE car and in time the details will be sorted.

It has been too long since I posted to this thread. Short story is the '22 driving season with Karen was fantastic and she went off to Automobile Associates last November after the last DE of the season to have more "incremental" work. The idea had always been to use the car as a DE and racecar for the street during the driving season, and use the winter to chip away at all of the little things needed to make the car into a M471 RS. This winter was supposed to be tidying up the front trunk area and installing a 110 liter tank as probably would have been specified by any sort of gentleman racer in period.

Well...turns out a rust-free car is not a work-free car and the front needed a ton of work because a prior shunt was inadequately repaired, and prior front clip replacement due to battery acid was...inadequately repaired. I suppose that is a lesson for buyers of these cars - though admittedly this car would have been fine for street driving as it was and the "needed" repairs are really about getting everything perfect and having a car that is 100% capable in the future. Just because a car is rust free doesn't mean it won't need work...they all need work!

Needless to say, the results of the redone front-trunk area are exceptional. It will look perfect once sprayed gulf orange and the rally tank is dropped in.

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The real reason I decided to post was to see if anyone can explain what was replaced in the below photo, and why the sheet metal is now consistent with a '72/'73 car rather than the '71 that I started with. Apologies for the bad orientation, I am a tech savvy person and I can't figure out why this website flips images randomly.

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In any case, such are the "repairs" to a car when you are making a true clone - from having a 911/83 case and 019 pump to having all of the sheet metal look correct just in case someone peers up into the passenger wheel well.

The 71 had the front cooler lines bulges in the joining panel. 72 didn't because the lines ran under the rocker panel.

Ed, you spoiled the fun! Exactly right. I find it amazing how much these cars evolved in the first eight years of existence.

I figure it is time for my once a year update. Such is the process of restoration, though to be fair that is less a reflection of progress on the car than my distraction with other parts of life.

For those of you who follow my instagram, you'll know that the process of assembly and painting has begun. Before we get to that, some more details.

Unlike those who came before me (Olive Tart, among many), there isn't novel ground to cover around the RS "sport" or lightweight or M471 specification. There is a book and more knowledge on this board than I have, thus, this is mostly about details that I find interesting.

This is a relatively unremarkable photo of the car that has been stripped to bare metal for repair and paint. The good news on the donor car is that it was straight, and relatively rust free (being a "California car"). Relatively is a key word because the car did have rust - mostly minor stuff around the windows and in the rockers, but it is a reminder that these cars rust even in the dryest of climates and even the most honest and well-intentioned inspection of a car will never be able to suggest a car is rust free unless it is taken down to bare metal, resprayed, and never sees the light of day (or moisture). My mother laughed at me when I asked if her 912 had any rust, and responded that it had rust bubbles after the first winter of living in New England. If you actually use these cars, rust is fine, so long as it is minor and non-structural...but the point is for those unacquainted with an early 911 is that the most honest marketing of a car is more likely something like "no structural rust" as opposed to the disingenuous marketing of every California car as rust free (to the extent that it really is and hasn't just completed a restoration, I'd probably be worried about mechanical reliability for lack of real world use).

Distraction aside, keeping with the theme of details mattering, have a look at this photo to see the change made to make a '71 frame into a '73:
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A close-up makes it more apparent.
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The '71 and earlier cars had the lighter in the middle of the three dash holes. In '73, the lighter was moved to the rightmost position. Other than an excessive willingness to pay to get trivial details correct, I will be proud to say that this sort of attention to detail is what separates a "clone" from a "tribute."

More important than the lighter location is the broader attention to detail required in replicating the M471 specification of the RS. As many posts on this forum document, the '73 model year cars were painted body color throughout - that is in the wheel wells, the engine and trunk compartments, and the floors inside of the cabin. When restoring a more ordinary '73, attention to detail on the metal work is somewhat unimportant because soundproofing and undercarriage protection serves to mute the details of the original bodywork. However, given the M471 was made with minimal soundproofing and undercarriage protection (only a small strip in the wheel well), every last weld is visible on the car..

Thus, you go down a rabbit hole of making certain your floor pan is perfect. All insulation is removed from the body, all dents meticulously removed. If your are exceptionally detail oriented, as is Auto Associates, you might even take the center tunnel cover off the car to hammer out the dents and then reattach it perfectly so that the car retains as much of its original metal, but presented in its original form, as possible.

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In person, the result is art. I have every confidence that this car will be rebuilt better than factory. That is not to disparage the factory, but rather to recognize that the attention to detail we lavish on restorations is some order of magnitude greater than that bestowed on the assembly line in the early '70s. The shame, or indulgence, of this process is that the car will be used. Because of the environment and my penchant to drive my early 911s as much as possible, that will entail driving in the rain, on dirt roads, and most importantly, on the track. I love my S/T racecar - the high-strung 2.5 ltr engine is a joy to drive - but the downside is that trailering it to the track is an ordeal and given I live a few miles away from Lime Rock, the worst aspect of having Karen in restoration for the past few years has been my inability to grab my helmet and hans, drive to the track, and do a few laps. At least I'll try my best not to dent the bottom, but this paint...

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to say nothing of what will happen to the wheel wells, though the detail of the welds is exceptional.

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At least with a tracked car, you pull up the floormats and see the bare floor...so I'll get to appreciate this level of detail.

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You can always fix the paint...

WOW!!!! Love your attention to detail!

Thank you. Though it isn't so much my attention to detail as the good sense to give the folks at AA the encouragement to deploy their skills and knowledge freely. On details, one of the "bigger" questions we faced thus far was was how to deal with the wheel wells. As preface, anyone with a passing interest in early cars, and certainly with the intent to build a 914-6 or RS tribute/clone/hot rod should go out and buy "the book." I frequently have it at my desk or on my nightstand, and have read it several times.

To grossly oversimplify, of the first 500 homologation run, all started life as a RSH which was really a car meant for the scales and FIA and not the road. The next step in terms of building a useable car was the RS "Sport" package, or M471 code (or frequently referred to as the lightweight). Thus, the M471 car is basically all the specifications of the RSH plus the incremental specifications of the M471 sport package.

It is best to read the full book, but below is a snapshot of the basic specifications of the RSH:

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For the purposes of this post, we're interested in Additional Body Panels and Equipment, number six - "No undercoating except for 2-3 kg (spatter area around the wheel wells, muffler skirt, seat panels): forward trunk bay, engine bay, inside of front hood are not sprayed with PVC-UBS-301."

Then, if we flip forward a few pages to the conversion from RSH to M471, we see ten items that civilized the car somewhat (or more appropriately, helped form the basis for Porsche's first "production" race car for the road):

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And again, for the purposes of this post, the item of interest is number nine - "partial undercoating supplemented with Tectyl L." While this is minorly helpful - the cars didn't have much undercoating and only in very specific areas - you don't exactly have a great sense of what was done in the wheel wells. Once again, expertise is critical insofar as you can get someone who has seen and restored the real cars. It turns out the undercoating is ~12-14 inch strip on the same axis as the wheel (if that makes sense) on the wheel wells. You can see it here:

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Or perhaps not. I certainly didn't see it at first. Instead, my eye went to the spot welds and the candy-like surface of the inner wheel well

The close up helps illustrate the rougher surface of the undercoating. Hopefully looking at the above photo in the context of the below photo helps to illustrate where there is, and is not, undercoating. It is also an illustration of why the execution of the metal work on a RSH/M471 is so important - the lack of undercoating makes everything so much more visible on this car compared to a normal '73 911 or even the touring iteration of the RS.

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In the end, the car is going to be built as a mis-mash of an RSH, M471, with a few bits from the RSR (chassis reinforcements and roll cage). There will be no coat hooks.

Like I said “ love your attention to detail” ;)

But, blasphemy …. A coat hook-delete RS??? :D

Always thought these must be one of the rarest body panels!
“Longitudinal support and middle tunnel in the English version”
It rather illustrates the lengths the engineers went to for weight saving by using .8 nor .88 steel and also how much in the depths of the chassis the weight saving reaches in the original basic cars

There were only about fifty rhd in the quota planned when thr 500 were conceived — that’s not many of those particular panels!

Commissioned these thinner lighter panel for use at tbe the hart of the welded monocoque when only around 50 examples in rhd is paying attention to weight-saving detail. This is not new here but reposting to provide context as to how few they commissioned at first:
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Of that quota referred to in the British Motorshow news snippet of October 1972 only a handful were ordered as M471 Sport but all regardless of M471 or 472 conversion were correctly identified by the knowledgable journalist as being lighter in weight.

While understood at time this is a fundamental point that seems so often to be missed (or misrepresented?) despite the millions of word written since these earliest words about the model. No mention of third series in the snippet and why would there be as 500 (plus 500) were the numbers in fia rule book. Beyond that spec is irrelevant. That point is the weight saving was due to homolgaton rules and the interesting work to save weight at the very core of the monocoque chassis of these earliest RS —clearly much the engineering focus was there not the final conversion choice of customer. . Lighter in weight for purposes of certification is intrinsic in monocoque of basic RS not trim that bolts in/on relatively easily at conversion. Lighter weight is intrinsic to the basic RS, so is something these early RS had and each chassis actually carry that forward though-life regardless of the conversion to M471 M472. Segmenting by series is conversion is important but these days the fundamental understanding of 911.744 is often completely missed.

As touched on in the prior post Porsche didn’t actually use the term “lightweight” to refer to M471 in period the it is the “M471 Sport”. Also Porsche nomenclature is “basic” not homolgation

This image is the nomenclature in Porsche documentation that came with my first series car that terminology was important and carefully used by them so frankly still should be used by knowledgable enthusiasts as it is very clear and has precise relevance to the RS story:

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The author of the RS book told me he had once seen it but didn’t actually have it! I also have material neither he nor the factory have that he wanted for the second edition book but did not get.

Note in the day terminology is basic vehicle not “homologation”. That’s what Porsche used in the day and with good reason as it was important to finesse the certification.

Sometime folks who now bandy term like “lightweight” actually sometimes reveals their lack of understanding of what this model was actually all about.

After homologation was achieved 9th April Porsche issued an internal memo with instruction to banned tbe bulb protocols. Essentially saying not to bother with many of the things that make the model way is is —the 911.744 was by decree no longer to be built to the true specification required to achieve homologation

Weirdly for a car that is a limited edition special the market often-times doesn’t recognise that from that they are different. Effing strange if think about it. Later example with possibly a few exceptions essentially became production cars much more ans increasingly like the regular production series TES both in spec and method is construction. The U]basic[/U] core no longer even conforming to the carefully honed homologation specification. Simply put the basic vehicle became heavy at the core not just the .8 panels but other things they did to reduce weight to get homologation became unimportant. Ironically omitting the oil pump from transmission was a thing that made it lighter but hardly a positive change ans rather signals that cost out and profit margin were now the order of the day not more-so than sporting matters.

In fact not just things fizzled out but model was actively changed by a decision made and captured in the memo such that there wasn’t hence forth a lighter basic RS . Essentially just reverted to a normal production and by no longer being a limited edition special sales and marketing and the bean counters could commercially exploit the unexpected success bit without revealing that in many ways although still Carrera was watered down compared the ones that had to pass scrutiny. There are a few they might have had features like revised suspension mounting or different casting materials but this memo clearly shows that Porsche were cynically changing the approach to the RS model eliminating many the very things that made the model a limited edition special.

For folks undertaking a homage the question is where to pick in tbe lifecycle. A freedom to pick and choose what like to have. Perhaps generally speaking is easier to ape a Carrera RS from the third series than one of the first 500 as the FiA group 3 and 4 rules didn’t really apply. Arguably that’s just what Porsche cynically and quietly from April 9th to make some profit out of the model once it didn’t matter how the basic RS got built to certify each with FIA so the sales and marketing folks who had been snubbed could get back in the saddle and perhaps if look at how things evolved above the nominal 500plus 500 more it was generally not for the better for folks who appreciate such things :)

Steve