Category: Porsche 911 RSR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gat1PpdtUH4

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking Woodstock, our 1973 S/RSR out of the barn to pick up parts at our client Blankemeijer. The engine loosened up considerably over the course of the day and although I didn’t rev the new 3.0 RSR block too highly, it felt great. It was a rainy day, there is no heating in this car and I was wearing a woolen hat, gloves and thermal underwear to be able to put up with the temperatures… Thank God all that was enough to stay warm. The engine is relatively mild (as far as RSR engine can be…), as we have used S cams, but torque is already massive. In traffic on the Rotterdam ring road I stood on the throttle in 2nd and I fishtailed towards the next car!

The Mechanical Fuel Injection set up on early Porsches was allegedly derived from the need to fly upside down. In the Second World War aerial combat developed into serious forms of aerobatics and there was an advantage to be had by those pilots who could manage their throttle and therefore acceleration, irrespective of the position of the plane. Traditional carburetion was inadequate as carburettors rely on gravity to keep the float chambers filled. Trust the German engineering cadre to come up with a solution. Their Messerschmidt aircraft could pull negative G’s thanks to this technology and the British Spitfires could not follow their trail without stalling their carburetted engines.

The constant fuel pressure combined with excellent fuel atomization, leading to a maximum fuel burn ratio in gasoline engines, had Mercedes, Porsche and later BMW, apply this expensive and complex technology on their race and production cars. MFI was overtaken by Electronic Fuel Injection only 20 [...]

The Brits say: “Once you’re in the hole, stop digging”. This, now wonderfully handling car, is another example of an intuitive purchase and a restoration gotten out of hand! And it’s not over.

The Hulk is a 1974 Carrera, which came with the Carrera RS 2.7 911/83 engine. It was originally registered under Ben Pon’s name and was delivered in metallic Viper Gruen. The car was sold not too long after, and ended up rusting away merrily for several years. The then owner decided it was probably better to make something special out it, if it was going to be resurrected anyway and had Van den Berg turn the car into an RSR chassis shape, using a donor body shell. The chassis number was transplanted to the donor and the result was a dead-straight, lightweight 1974 RSR clone. The car went into storage again, was sold due to the then owner’s ill health and was [...]