Weekend with a 911 SC

[fastgerman]

Adam B said:

Wozy68 said:

Mario149 said:

drmark said:

Great car, but I struggle with the rear spoiler. Ruins the car IMO, but well aware others love it.
This is how I prefer mine

sorry but whale tail looks so wrong on anything other than turbos, where the flared arches and wide wheels keep it in proportion. Appreciate the stability point - at what speed does a non-spoiler car have lift issues?

(I would remove spoiler and drive slower personally)

Agreed that it looks cleaner but then I start focusing on the impact bumpers. 80's styling is all about excess so the big bumpers and spoiler works together for me :-).

Would be boring if we all liked the same thing.

[Moikey Fortune]

I like them

[uktrailmonster]

Adam B said:

sorry but whale tail looks so wrong on anything other than turbos, where the flared arches and wide wheels keep it in proportion. Appreciate the stability point - at what speed does a non-spoiler car have lift issues?

(I would remove spoiler and drive slower personally)

It all starts getting a bit light and vague above 60-65 mph. Not just the rear either, front lift is quite bad too. The front spoiler + tail really does make a big difference to the stability. Feels much more planted at high speed with the "aero" kit. If you are just bumbling around at sub 60 mph you wouldn't notice much, if any, difference. But if you want to be pushing on a bit on your favourite back roads or doing the odd track day then you really do need some sort of tail to calm it down a bit. Porsche never added the spoilers and tail for looks, it was a genuine problem as the car developed and got faster.

[uktrailmonster]

Moikey Fortune said:

I like them

Again this is the 'Carrera' tail, which I think looks far better than the 'Turbo' tail on a narrow bodied car. This is what the SC should have had too and some very late SCs did actually come with this tail, but most UK cars had the 'Turbo' tail. Not pretty at all, but very effective.

[hot66]

my 2.4S , no rear spoiler, front S spoiler ... feels fine, nice and planted up to say 100 - 110 mph ( on a track ) .. above that and it all gets more 'exciting'

cross winds and anything above 60 can be hairy

[uktrailmonster]

hot66 said:

my 2.4S , no rear spoiler, front S spoiler ... feels fine, nice and planted up to say 100 - 110 mph ( on a track ) .. above that and it all gets more 'exciting'

cross winds and anything above 60 can be hairy

It's all relative, but my SC (with front spoiler and Turbo tail) feels a lot more stable at speed than my 2.4S (S spoiler and no rear wing like yours) ever did. Or my C3.0 (no tail) for that matter. When I spoke to Tuthills about the pros and cons of removing the SC tail they did mention that several of their customers had complained about braking stability after removal. I haven't actually done a back to back on the same car, but it's definitely not just for show and was introduced to solve a well known aero issue with these cars i.e. they do produce a lot of lift.

I'll tell you what I'll swap your 2.4S for my SC

[Adam B]

uktrailmonster said:

It all starts getting a bit light and vague above 60-65 mph. Not just the rear either, front lift is quite bad too. The front spoiler + tail really does make a big difference to the stability. Feels much more planted at high speed with the "aero" kit. If you are just bumbling around at sub 60 mph you wouldn't notice much, if any, difference. But if you want to be pushing on a bit on your favourite back roads or doing the odd track day then you really do need some sort of tail to calm it down a bit. Porsche never added the spoilers and tail for looks, it was a genuine problem as the car developed and got faster.

wow, that is quite a low speed I would have to keep to

[uktrailmonster]

Adam B said:

wow, that is quite a low speed I would have to keep to

Well they don't actually take off above 60 mph, but they don't feel very confidence inspiring either

[Paul Dishman]

I left the wing on the back of my 911 SC when I had it, thinking that Porsche fitted it for a reason and they knew more about the car than I did

[TB993tt]

Pistom said:

It's funny to read posts about people not using these as a daily driver.

I was thinking the same thing,calling it a PITA ? I was daily driving one of these 27 years ago ? They were fun, Knees braced on the steering wheel at indicated 150 on the Autobahn car moving around on its own despite the turbo rear spoiler. Kids now days are way too soft

[hot66]

I've found my 2.4s very sensitive to suspension geometry and tyre pressures ... As,all air cooled Porsches are

I had the car fully set up by Center gravity ... Before that it felt very unstable at high speed in a straight line ( never took it above 115 as it was scary ) .... After the suspension set up, whilst testing on a private road that I happened to be passing, I took the car up to 130 gps and the car still felt good whilst on the throttle .

[uktrailmonster]

In that case maybe Porsche should have taken their cars to Centre Gravity instead of fitting wings and spoilers then

[drmark]

uktrailmonster said:

Well they don't actually take off above 60 mph, but they don't feel very confidence inspiring either

60? Mine - 2.2s and the blue 3.2 - felt fine up until 85 ish. At least with a full tank

[hot66]

uktrailmonster said:

In that case maybe Porsche should have taken their cars to Centre Gravity instead of fitting wings and spoilers then

.... Not saying they're the one and only, just that our non spoilered cars if set up well are not as bad as assumed . At anything over 100 my car is always going to be 'exciting' but at least now I don't think I'm going to die ! , my 964 proves the benefits of later aero additions as it will happily cruise at the high speeds without me breaking into a sweat :lol:

[drmark]

uktrailmonster said:

Well they don't actually take off above 60 mph, but they don't feel very confidence inspiring either

60? Mine - 2.2s and the blue 3.2 - felt fine up until 85 ish. At least with a full tank

[g7jhp]

I ran both a flat lid and the standard 3.2 Carrera tail on my 3.2's.

The other option would be a ducktail. They're easy to swap on and off!

[TB993tt]

The level of anorakism on this thread is appalling some of you guys need to put down your cleaning cloths, put your reading glasses on and start studying Paul Frere's excellent book which will give you most of the data about your car's aerodynamics so you can see some real Porsche development numbers and stop guessing how fast you can go and what is safe.

I had a quick peek and gleaned that on the H series Carrera, without the spoilers there is 180kg of total lift at 152mph and with them there is 17kg total lift at 152mph.

There are lots of coefficient of lift numbers so you can see just how safe you are popping to your next polishing meet at 60mph

[uktrailmonster]

drmark said:

60? Mine - 2.2s and the blue 3.2 - felt fine up until 85 ish. At least with a full tank

Very subjective, all depends on what you consider fine. Of course I drove my tail-less 911s well beyond 60 mph, but you do become aware of the inherent lift and it's not a great feature of the car. You just can't get away from it without adding spoilers and wings as Porsche themselves very well knew.

[uktrailmonster]

hot66 said:

.... Not saying they're the one and only, just that our non spoilered cars if set up well are not as bad as assumed . At anything over 100 my car is always going to be 'exciting' but at least now I don't think I'm going to die ! , my 964 proves the benefits of later aero additions as it will happily cruise at the high speeds without me breaking into a sweat :lol:

You can optimise the mechanical setup as much as you like, and clearly you should, but the aerodynamics do play an important part too and my experience of these cars is that they drive better with wings. My cars have been set up by Francis Tuthills, who also know what they're doing, so it was about as good as they get. I'm not suggesting for one second that you should stick a tail on your 2.4S, I certainly wouldn't either, but in the same vain I would be reluctant to remove a tail from a later car just for looks. Believe me I've debated the latter option many times and in the end I always go for the best drive.

Edited by uktrailmonster on Thursday 9th July 10:41

[g7jhp]

TB993tt said:

The level of anorakism on this thread is appalling some of you guys need to put down your cleaning cloths, put your reading glasses on and start studying Paul Frere's excellent book which will give you most of the data about your car's aerodynamics so you can see some real Porsche development numbers and stop guessing how fast you can go and what is safe.

I had a quick peek and gleaned that on the H series Carrera, without the spoilers there is 180kg of total lift at 152mph and with them there is 17kg total lift at 152mph.

There are lots of coefficient of lift numbers so you can see just how safe you are popping to your next polishing meet at 60mph