Sorting handling on a '67

Hi - I've had a 1967 912 for a few years now and since I got my '72 911S the poor old dear has been left in the garage.

I've decided it's time to give her a new lease of life, but how.
I need to improve the rather floaty handling first and improve the weak braking. It's still on the old steel wheels and has not been lowered at all.

I'm guessing that the layout and options should be the same as for a 1967 911S so any suggestions ?

Bruce Anderson listed 5.5inch fuchs. I've also been told to go for 67 911S vented brakes (if I can find/afford them).

What about lowering it ? Will I need to roll the arches in.

Many thanks
Andy

Andy-

I have 6x15" Fuchs wheels with 205/60 tires on my '67S with no rubbing and no rolled fender lips. They should stick even better on your 912 with less weight.

The '67S brakes are no different than yours except for the ventilated rotors. Rebuild what you have and they will be fine. I don't know what you mean by "weak" braking, exactly. Is the pedal spongy? Bleed them and try SS-sheathed flex lines. Do they not stop fast enough? Try another brake pad compound with more friction. If you have a fading problem in heavy use, duct some cooling air to them and go to a hi-temp pad compound. Can you lock up the wheels by stepping on the pedal hard? If so, you have enough brake, you just need to tune them up.

The most important thing you can do if you want to improve the handling is get the car lowered, aligned and corner balanced by a shop that knows Porsches. If you're feeling "floaty", you may have too much toe-out in the front end. This can make the car turn-in really well, but feel darty at speed. Check your shocks and make sure they are still damping out the bumps.

If you're just looking for a better street setup, that should be fine. If you're going to track it, a more aggressive alignment and bigger torsion bars (higher spring rate) and anti-sway bars (less body roll) would help, as would 205/50s on 7" rims (but you may have to roll the lips, then). This will compromise your street ride, however. It's all a trade-off.

Good luck,
TT

Hi Andy, saw your question about a set-up for your 1967 912, here is the set-up fron my 1965 911. It is a compromize set for street use and weekends on the track.

The car has been driven from the mid USA to Riverside in California and east to Mosport for the drive and race at the tracks. Brainerd is the home track and it holds a PCA time trial class record at 2:06, set in about1994. Not that big a thing, the car has been one of the last of the shortwheel base cars to come out and play. :-( As a comparison the PCA club race 944 I cars are now running a lap in the 1:58's (midpack with the G class 911SC's).

Car set up info given by the local hot shoes and pros ranked the importance of order as: tires, suspension, brakes then horsepower. That was tempered with Driver Skill.

Tires
I'm on Yokohama AVS 195.60 street tire on 6" x 15" Fuchs. These were also my track rain tires....good stick -wear like iron. They are about a 40M mile tire. The sticky DOT tire for street and track are Toyo or Komhos. The track tire is Hoosiers.

The Fuchs is about a 14Lb. rim (a Panasport 5 1/2" Mini-lite rim is about 18.5 Lbs with most other rims moving up from there in weight) Less weight is better. The front fender lip will have to be altered to about 1/4" deep for a portion of the opening (actually if looking at the drivers front wheel the only tire contact is at about the 10 to 11 o'clock position- passangers side is the 1 to 2 o'clock position) Turn the front wheels to almost full lock see where they will touch the fender on a bump rebound and tap up the lip in that section.
The rear fenders will have the closest encounter at the rear of the tire (about the 1-2 o'clock position on the drivers side of the car and the 10-11 o'clock on the passengers side) roll or tap up the lip at that point. The rear track can be widend with the 1/4 " wheel spacers. Look at the specs -the front track is wider than the rear and will grow when you increase the front hubs to accept vented rotors.

Suspension
Lower the car to Bruce Andersons spec's, 25" at the rear fender opening and 25 1/2" at the front. If you lower the front too low, and have Koni shocks, they will bottom out and ruin the shock (they hammer the adjustment lugs - no more adjustments). Lowerd front without raising the steering rack will induce bump steer. If you lower the rear too much the body will bottom out on the axels...say goodby to the CV joints.
Torsion Bars
Street and sport bars are 23mm front and 27mm rears. Race bars will go WAY bigger on the back.
Anti roll bars (sway bars)
Front 19mm adjustable, Rear 16mm adjustable. ( I had a better lap time in a race at MId ohio with the rear bar disconnected, and a soft rear setting at Heartland)
Shocks
The stock Boge's with the uprated bars is a good soft/firm ride for the street. The Koni's even adjusted to the softest settings is a hard/bouncy street ride. For track, set the front Koni's to 1/2 turn off soft and the rears to a half turn from hard. (Your settings may very etc, etc.) Did you know that the heavy duty Koni rear shocks from the 69-71cars bolts onto the early car?
Alignment
Front: 0 toe, 1 degree neg Camber, (try to get) 7 degrees caster
Rear: Toe in 15 to 20 min. (18'), 1.5 degrees neg camber.
Track Alignment: more neg camber -1.5 front, -2 (or more) rear.
Corner balance (readings from the scales)
Front left 116, Front right 116, Rear left 213, rear right 205. LF and RR =321. RF and LR =329. 1% diagonal difference. 36% weight front 64% rear - not very good, (car balance stock is 40-60). Front fender lip at 24 1/2", rear fender lip at 24 ". (That's a little low for street duty but you get use to driving out of driveways and over speed bumps at a diagonal).

Brakes
Front hubs come in three widths. Non vented are the narrowest at 32mm. The widest 48mm (or so) bolt up to the 1969 (and later) vented rotors. 67 thru 68 (vented rotor) calipers are a bolt on.

Brake pads
Metal masters - street. Ferodo AF - street and track (a little noise and a little more dust). Performance Friction - track (and street), good stop but noisy everywhere except on the track, very dusty - clean daily or they will etch the wheels- don't let dust stand on wet wheels.

Cool the brakes
Front: I made custom attachment plates for the front hubs (concave construction vs: flat and 4 bolt vs: 3 bolt attachment). Start with a set of CoolBrakes and modify. About 20 hours each.
Rear: made one piece scoop to clam shell for cooling rear nonvented rotor. Construction time about 50 hours each side.
Pad use was cut in half - bled brakes once per day rather than after every track session. Wear two sets front pads to one set rear. One set per 5 race weekends (Road America and Brainerd) one set per 2 race weekends (Blackhawk, etc).

Your 912 has two advantages over the 911- because it has better balance front to rear it can turn-in cleaner at a higher rate of speed (less trail throttle oversteer too), and with less weight it takes less brake to get the job done. Combined that means the 912 will get into and through the twisties faster.

To much rambling on my part but you get the idea.

If anyone has different (or better) set-up let us know.
Bob

Thanks guys that's more help than I could have hoped for.

I'm looking for a good race shop to do the work on the car now (UK). I'll take print outs with me.

However I've recently been wondering whether or not I should just trade the 67 912 for a 67 911 (probably not an S - cost and availablility) - do you think the gain in power is worth the trade off in handling/braking.

The 912 feels like a go kart even on standard settings but that engine sound like it's going to grenade as soon as it reaches 4k rpm. I'm probably pulling 90bhp and would need to spend about $6k to rebuild it and get up to 110bhp.

The only 911 I've driven is my 72S so I've no idea how the really early cars pull.

thanks

The correct setup for a 912 is - Set it out front with a for sale sign on it and get a 911.