Fuel problem Part... ??? fixed?

Another fun weekend of wrenching and general mayhem. The kids continue to love the cars and simply refuse to ride in the Benz any more. Who am I to force them to do that? :) Torture of ones kids is seldom a good course of action.

A couple of projects were completed in the 964 this weekend. The 993 did duty as a funmobile for a couple of drives but stayed put most of the weekend as I'm still deciding it's future as a street car (so sweet to drive) or a track pig (so much more powerful than the 964... ). Onto the projects.

PROJECT 1 - Euro Pre-Muffler:
I'd wanted to make this mod ever since I installed the home-fabbed Cup primary muffler bypass. The primary muffler bypass really added some rumble to the car and also stripped 15 lb. off the rear of the car. But.. with 2 mufflers and a catalytic converter there was a lot of room to play with the exhaust.

Sunday morning I put the rear of the car on jacks and started the install. I'd figured this would require the replacement of serveral bolts that would certainly break on a 16 year old exhaust.

Happily the broking of bolts never happened. Instead within less than 1 hour I had the cat out, heat sheilds removed and the new pre-muffler installed!! This time the Fabspeed part fit correctly (the part was used.. probably made back when they had better quality control). It was very simple to install. I did not even have to lossen the rest of the exhaust.

How did it sound afterwards. Well... it's louder! :) But in an obnoxious Ricer way. It has a great burble/rumble at idle and a wicked groan as it accelerates. All of it easily mitigated by rolling up the windows and turning up the stereo a tiny bit. Hard to say if the butt-dyno is measuing more or less power but it sure does sound great! And it took another 13 lbs. off that ass-end of the car. A Win-Win for sure!

PROJECT 2 - Fuel cut-off valve replacement:
The parts arrived last week and I got around to installing it Sunday. I was not planning on tearing into the fuel tank under the bonnet yesterday, but the pre-muffler install went so well I have lots of allocated time left over. So.. back into the opposite end of the car to install a repair part (instead of a performance upgrade).

That repair went very quickly as well. As much as I tried to drag it out.. it took less than 15 min to swap the parts. These cars are pretty fun to work on! I'm sure I'll sing a different tune when I get around to the suspension, but for now, it's all fun and games.

So, did it fix the problem? Maybe. This morning I was queired at the petrol pump by an older gent about the car (I often get queried at the petrol station about the PCar.. almost every time). He'd had a 911 several years ago. It was a nice conversation. Except I'd lost track of how much fuel I'd put in the car. OH OH! I was over the 3/4 mark (the magic point where it pukes fuel and runs like a turd). Oh well!! Much to my surprise the car fired right up, idled normally and drove like a dream despite having nearly a full tank. The drive into work (40 miles) was also smooth! Hm.. could it have been that simple to fix!?!? Time will tell. In fact I'm going outside right now to see if she's leaking gas in the parking garage. I hope all is well.

In Conclusion;
Another week starts. Today I drove the 964. Traffic was horrid. With the IPod cranking out Delerium I putted along, amazed at how low my stress level was and how incredibly streetable such a sportscar is. Owning PCars has been a REAL eye opener!