New car!

[berettafan]

Sorry, no pics yet but will get them tonight

The bad news is things took a lot longer than expected on Monday and that combined with the 8 hour drive i had ahead of me kept me from getting a chance to meet the guys in Atlanta that helped me out. I do want to state again for the record that i am absolutely amazed at the closeness of the Porsche (particularly earlier cars) community and i am excited to be a part of it.

So on to the trip; left Peachtree City, Ga approximately 3:30pm on Monday and arrived at hotel in Rocky Mount, NC approximately 11:30pm. BIG thanks to Keith for pointing me to the Hampton Inn there No BS it was one of the nicest hotels i have stayed in. Pillowtop mattress, down comforter and a big arse flat panel on the wall. And i will tell you i was ready to be comfortable. As it turns out later model non-sport seats are not meant for broad shouldered folks. Stefan if you are reading this you will be hearing from me very shortly.

Left Rocky Mount 8am and made it through Va. Beach/Norfolk without getting lost. That my friends is a major accomplishment for me. Pitiful sounding i know but it's true. Made it home by 2:30pm or so.

Oil temp was a steady 190 deg. the entire trip. Did not creep up even once. Oil pressure floated around 30 while on the highway the entire time. This car really is happy cruising on the highway at 3k rpm. I never ran it higher than 80 as i didn't want to draw the attention of LEO's and waste 1/2hr getting a ticket. The neat thing about spending 13 +/- hourse in a car when you first buy it is you compile a pretty comprehensive list of things to do. I have two immediate issues and a smaller than expected list of winter projects. The immediate issues are a strong gas smell in the cabin and backfiring/possible exhaust leak. The webers definitely need to be tuned and i found that one side was wet at the base where it meets the head. I am hoping i can just torque the bolts down a bit more and stop the leaking. If not i guess i'll be pulling the whole damn thing off and might as well rebuild the carbs while they're off.

Oh there is one other immediate project and that's seats from GTS.

Winter projects are the suspension bushings, brake job and other minor things that will hopefully combine to tighten things up. the car did handle pretty nicely, rode very nicely actually, but was not as tight as i'd like on lane changes. I was happy to learn the car does have front and rear sway bars as well as the big arse S brakes. Brake pedal felt very firm although heavy braking wasn't 'smooth'. Rotors maybe?

Here's a neat little part of this story; the owner had asked me if i wanted some old parts that he had for the car. i said absolutely thinking that if nothing else i might get a few bucks for them to offset costs. Well i was thrilled to find out 'old parts' consisted of the previous muffler setup (not sure what type but is a '1 out') a grill for the rear decklid that he was polishing up (it was black) that looks to be in excellent condition and a set of very nice looking door pockets. As i will be going with RSA or RSR door panels and the car already has a nice grill on the rear deck these are extras and should do nicely to fund my seats

That's it for now. I will put up some pictures this evening if i can and of course will have a million questions when i start my projects.

Erik

BTW, i L O V E off ramps and on ramps

[berettafan]

Oh yeah, my 2 1/2 year old's first word when he saw the car in our driveway....'Fast daddy!'

my wife's first comment when i took her for a quick spin before the rain got here was 'i like how loud it is when you accelerate'

[ErVikingo]

Good going Beretta, you finally found a worthy one !!!!!

Cheers, Juan

[fryardds]

BTW, i L O V E off ramps and on ramps

Yeah me too, but wait till your in a tunnel!

Congrats on the purchase. I know you have been looking for a long time. The winter will be a good time to improve the performance and appearance of your new ride. Let the spending begin.

[berettafan]

I got to go through THREE tunnels on the way home (Norfold and the Bay Bridge Tunnel)! Oh yeah, it is NEATO! The car sounds absolutely bad assed pulling past 3.5k in third gear!

Shifting into third gear under hard acceleration is an amazing experience by the way as the car positively jumps.

[Cornpanzer]

Congrats! All your coworkers are probably "Hey, whats he been smiling about all week?"

RE: gas fumes. A lot of these early cars get pretty stinky when you fill them. The fix for mine was to only fill it 3/4 tank. One of this winters projects is to replace all of the tank hoses and seals.

[Paul Schooley]

Job one when I got mine was a total redo of the fuel system. Never had a gas fume smell in all the time I've owned it.

[pu911rsr]

I'll echo the gas smell comment. I don't know if it is the canister in the trunk that goes bad or hoses.
Congrats,
Phil

[ennisk1]

Erik,

Happy to hear that you had a good trip and that the hotel was suitable. As a piece of advice, since I'm in the process of working on my car now, is to look at the carbs and ignition system together. You need to get the timing, coil, distributor, etc. working well and then start messing with the carbs. Don't forget about the plug wires, too.

A good source of info for all these projects is to pick up the book "101 Projects for Your 911". I purchased it when I bought my 911SC a few years ago, but have found it to be very helpful with my '71, too.

Good luck!

[70SATMan]

my wife's first comment when i took her for a quick spin before the rain got here was 'i like how loud it is when you accelerate'

Sounds like you found TWO great ones. Glad to hear that your search is over. It's not really over though, you know that right? You'll still be crusing EBay and Auto Trader and Craigslist and looking for parts and saving pictures of cars till your hard drive bursts .

By the way, have you posted pictures yet?