Tell us the story about your first Porsche and the tree in the pic in a separate thread pleasssssssee

 

Wow, I still can't get over how quickly those Pirellis disintegrated -- 1500 miles is not even break-in period for many cars! Looking forward to hearing how the new tires work.

 

Just came back from a 950 mile road trip over some of my favorite northern California/ southern Oregon roads and just turned 6,000 miles on the 3.9, so thought I would give everyone a short update. The motor is still smooth as silk and I have experienced no problems of any sort, other then an increased tire bill and some serious brake wear! I just recently took the car to James for a “check-up” and he gave the brake system a nice flush and some fresh race fluid which made a huge difference and brought everything back to life. One amazing factoid is that this motor has yet to use any oil! I have changed the oil twice now and will do so again this week. I asked James about this and he told me that Kermit doesn’t use oil either. Must be the LW pistons!!

The motor just keeps getting stronger and stronger, I really noticed it at around 3000 miles and on this drive I had a chance to really wring it out in 3rd and 4th gear which I don’t often do around here locally as I run out of road. Until you get a chance to drive one of these you can’t really appreciate how these motors pull all the way to 8800!!

One more thing; I find myself leaving the car in third gear on many of the corners I used to down shift to second to make better use of the added trq. I did install a new set of MPSC’s about 400 miles before this trip so I had plenty of grip and it made for a very fair comparison as to how the car preformed on my last trip over these roads as a stock 3.6. This is a trip I make several times over the summer and have done in many different cars but always in the summer months and never in the winter. When the car was a 3.6 I averaged right around 15 MPG some times high 14’s or low 15’s but always consistent. I was rather surprised when I looked at the trip computer today when I got home and saw that I averaged 16.1 for the entire round trip. I think I can contribute this to the fact I can use a higher gear in a lot of the twister section with the added trq and HP. (hopefully it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact I’m getting older and I’m losing a 1/10 or 2!)

The car is a real pleasure to drive and I am looking forward to many more of these trips. I actually have another scheduled in about two weeks!!

 

Great to hear. I was lucky enough to get a ride in Kermit with Alex last summer and my stomach still feels a little uneasy from it... the acceleration just did not let up all the way up to 8800.

Must be great to own a 3.9 for yourself!

 

Road trips in an amazing car . . . there is nothing better! Thanks for the pictures and stories mate, keep them coming.

 

Great stories sir! Love your car

 

Took the 3 to sharkwerks to have James flush the brake system and give the car a once over. He enjoys inspecting my car and making certain I'm worthy!
For those of you who have yet to visit the new shop here are a few pix:

 

Another update on the SW 3.9. I was driving past Infineon on my home when I decided to stop and top off with some 100 octane race fuel. Hehe, what a difference that 9 octane makes with the 3.9!! Once the ecu recognized that it was processing 100 octane the fun started. Of course I had to take the long way home over my favorite stretch of coastal roads. This was wed. and the temperature was 102 degrees when I hit the highest elevation of the drive. The oil temp never surpassed 240 and coolant stayed steady at 175 and was doing a lot of high RPM, low speed 2nd and 3rd gear driving. However at this point things were getting a little slippery so I stopped to check the air pressure before continuing as my very favorite section was coming up, a lot of second gear tight stuff so I wanted as much grip as possible. The rears were up to 44 PSI and the fronts were up to 41 so I dropped them both by 9 PSI and continued on. This settled things down nicely and between the lowered PSI and the fact that the ambient air temperature was dropping as I ventured closer to the coast it was a safe and stable ride the remainder of the way. That is until I came to some road work, ditch cleaning, about 8 miles from the coast, and had a 10 minute wait. As soon as the tires started to cool the TPS started giving it’s warning about low tire pressure! All in all the trip was a real pleasure and the 100 octane will be sourly missed once I run out.

I now have just over 8,000 miles on the 3.9 conversion and the only downside I have observed is the increased tire wear and maybe a decrease in MPG when driving hard, which in my case is pretty much all the time and I seem to be using up a lot more brakes!. I still love the 3.9 and hope to enjoy many more trouble free miles with more stops for 100 octane; I just wish I had a little closer source as it takes about 4-5 gallons to get to the fun part!! I no longer buy the Corsa systems, strictly MPSC’s for me, I feel they are the best bang for the buck for me and my style of driving I just have to take a tenth or two off on damp mornings!

 

Thought it was time to update my Sharkwerks 3.9 conversion as I have just recently turned over the 11,000 mile mark on the new motor. I swear this thing seems to get stronger as the miles mount up! Last month James and Todd made some tweaks to the tuning and believe it or not came up with another 10 HP and added some trq as well. The bad news is that I have only been averaging about 2700 miles per set of rear MPSC’s, down from just under 3200 miles per set with the old stock 3.6! But trust me, it’s worth the added $$. Adding to the new decrease in tire wear may be this terrible habit I have of stopping off at Infineon every chance I get and topping off with some Sonoco 100 octane. The problem is it takes nearly ½ the tank just for me to get home!! I have also installed a new set of Bilstein, GT3 specific, dampers at around 46,000 miles. The stockers were pretty much shot. What a huge improvement this was! I am very pleased with the Bilsteins and highly recommend them as a replacement for those of you who wish to maintain the option of sport or normal ride mode. Next up will be new LSD as that has been worn out for some time and then a new set of the RSS rotors and I should be set for this summers drives. Still loving it and with absolutely no regrets. Many thanks to Alex, James and Dan for providing me with this great motor and looking after all my needs after the build. I just wish it would stop raining soon and give my roads a chance to dry up.

 

Good to hear from you again! Sounds like you might need a larger fuel tank how un-GT3-like would that be?) so you can enjoy the 3.9L/100 octane combo for longer distances.

Will you be doing any track/circuit events with your car?