TwinSpark’s 1971 911T Carrera Rally Car “Silverado”
- January 2, 2010
- Historic Racing 911, Porsche 911 Rally, Winter Trial Rally
- Posted by Rick Bruins
- 4 Comments
In a few weeks Silverado will start in the 2010 Winter Trial. Under the skin this car is essentially a 2.7 Carrera RS. It has the suspension, engine and gearbox of that type, all mounted on a standard 911T body. The front brakes are S-type, it has stabilisor bars, but retains the narrow body, for now…. The rear torsion bars have been uprated to 26 mm Turbo items and this has all turned this 911 into a terrific driving tool. But it wasn’t always this great.
Silverado was my first classic 911, bought in 2003 and has gone through all the evolutions you can imagine. When I bought the car, it was a basket case, bog-standard 911 T with a carburetted 2.2 ltr engine. One the way home the clutch gave in and it all went to hell from there… The car was restored, taken apart again, due to the poor work done by a local dealer, and built up once more in 2008 to navigation rally spec. After 6 years I am now confident that it will be reliable, due to some draconian measures we have taken recently.
Silverado has run in a variety of reliability rally’s, sometimes with disappointing results, as yet another part broke, driving my wife to insanity with frustration, and making my investment in the vehicle ever greater. Three years ago I had a 3.0 SC liter engine on Webers put in, which made this one exciting little car to drive. The fun didn’t last for long as the gearbox lost a few teeth off the Crown wheel during a rally… Gearbox out, new one in!
When I acquired a ’74 Carrera with a shot engine, I decided to have this items restored to original spec, feeling that the the original 911/83 case warranted the investment. After a few iterations this engine is now in the Siverado and has turned it into a regular hand grenade. The final touch was the installation of a megaphone look exhaust, which we will start selling through www.twinsparkracing.com soon. The sound is civilised until you open up the throttle and really rev the engine. The snare is truly race car like and unlike any muffler I’ve heard on an early car.
We’ll be posting updates during the Winter Trial from the 23rd of January 2010 on, so stay tuned! Here’s some shots from last year’s Winter Trial, when we were running the 3.0 SC engine.
4 Comments
Leonard
That sounds just like my car, currently at Tuthills for a couple of cosmetics prior to the Spa Track Day on the 7th June – will you be coming down for that ?
You can find me on DDK – John knows me and the car.
Hi Ian,
Yes I will hopefully see and hear you and your car at the Spa track day! Not sure yet but I may bring Woodstock to that event, the yellow RSR which you find elsewhere in the blog. Thanks for visiting the blog and hopefully you will return.
And what Leonard forgot to mention (and probably erased from his memory) is the fact that the Siverado wasn’t all trouble free during last years Winter Trial: the additional lighting sucked the battery empty with lightning speed, causing us (I’m navigating Leonard during the Trial) with a few unexpected but memorable moments, like the time we drove down a 7 km long mountain road, with no engine running, and nothing but the moon to light our path. But that won’t happen again (we think).
“A regular hand grenade” – I love it. If this is regular, then the GT3 must be XL!