New to Porsche and 911s: 997.1 4S content

[Flyingelburro]

Hi all,

My name's Rich, I live in Warwickshire and after many years of wanting a 911 I've just bought a 997.1 Carrera 4S.

I've owned a bunch of performance cars before including a blobeye Impreza, an Evo VIII, several 6 cylinder BMWs (most recently an M140i) and a Renault Sport Clio R27 F1 Team. I always had a soft spot for Porsche and 911s and was determined to own one at some point.

Skip to Christmas just gone and my mother-in-law mentioned she wanted to sell her 911 and that I should make her an offer for it. As the M140i wasn't being used and was waiting to be sold I figured I could use the proceeds of that to help fund the 911. Having been in and around it before I knew it would suit me. I made a slightly cheeky offer which was accepted on the basis that it would be an easy and straightforward transaction on her part.

This weekend I went down to London, collected the car and took it to Parr Porsche for a PPI including borescope. The results of this were positive (I'll share details of this in a later post) so I transferred her the cash, insured/taxed it and drove home.

The car is a very late gen 1 997 4S manual with circa 37k miles. It doesn't have many options except for a sunroof which I reckon is a nice to have for a road car. The car has been well looked after from a servicing point of view but has been used very sparingly and kept outside. Paying mates rates for it means I can justify some mods to bring it up to date aswell as get it in tip-top condition - more on that later when I cover the Parr PPI report.

Anyway, enough waffle, here she is:

 

[T8]

:welcome: to 911uk and to 911 ownership. :thumb:

 

[CardinalZeus77]

Congrats and welcome :thumb:

 

[Flyingelburro]

Onto initial impressions...

I drove pretty gingerly back from London up the M40 to Warwickshire, getting used to the general feel of the car. What hit me first was the fantastic ergonomics and brilliant almost wraparound visibility. Everything is exactly where you want it to be and even though it's a low car you have a great view out and to the sides, these things immediately made it feel friendly. When I got home I couldn't believe it was mine parked on the driveway.

On Sunday I spent the morning giving it a good clean before topping up with Tesco 99 and heading out for a good blast around Edge Hill, Banbury and Southam.

I adore the sound of the engine. I love how complicated it sounds, like there's just loads of complex engineering happening really fast right behind your ears. It has the standard, non-PSE exhaust and I've already decided that I want something a bit less subtle to make the most of it.

The steering is wonderful. There are no dead spots, just an even weighted balance to it with loads of feedback but somehow damped so that things are not too busy/edgy. This seems to be in perfect balance with the suspension which is firm but nicely damped and not rock solid. The whole car just carves and flows down the road and feels planted. The gearbox is slick once it has some warmth in it. All the controls are similarly weighted and predictable, feeling like the engineers spent ages calibrating everything to work as a complete package (I guess they've had plenty of practice with previous generations).

I love the way it looks, all simple and sleek with Shakira hips but without loads of fussy details of more modern cars.

Can you tell I like it yet? :?:

I can already and easily tell that this is the most complete performance car I've owned by a long way. This makes sense given it was designed as a sports car from the outset. I know that a C4S with a sunroof is not the purest's choice but I can't believe how good it is as a fast road car and I've only just scratched the surface. I can't imagine how good a GTS or GT3 must be :bandit:

 

[Slayer]

Nice to get a good example at a good price. Enjoy and welcome to the forum!

 

[jonttt]

Welcome to Porsche :thumb:

Ps nice weed free drive as well :grin:

 

[pzero]

Congrats on purchase OP.
I can feel another "what's under the tarp" competition coming on. :?:

 

[Tobyone]

Lotus Elise?? :?:

 

[Phil 997]

Nice write up Rich , yes many say the RWD cars are the best driving cars , but after having had both the AWD gives so much confidence in those bends, my mates with RWD when in my car as a passenger always hit the invisible passenger brake pedal as we hit those bends lol. and then theres those wide arches . once your used to it and ready to improve it there are so many really good things you can add to make it even more perfect . :thumb:

 

[Flyingelburro]

Lotus Elise?? :?:

:thumbs:

It's actually my partner's car, it's an S2 Elise 111R in yellow with black Viper stripes 8) . We both get annoyed when everyone automatically assumes it's mine rather than hers. It's cool her being into cars nearly as much as I am.

 

[Flyingelburro]

Nice write up Rich , yes many say the RWD cars are the best driving cars , but after having had both the AWD gives so much confidence in those bends, my mates with RWD when in my car as a passenger always hit the invisible passenger brake pedal as we hit those bends lol. and then theres those wide arches . once your used to it and ready to improve it there are so many really good things you can add to make it even more perfect . :thumb:

Thanks Phil, I'm all ears on making it even more perfect! I started a readers cars thread on PH and thought I'd do the same here, sharing the words between both. Is this the best place being in the newbie section? I just updated my PH thread with the PPI report details and would like to share on here too and keep this thread alive but I don't know if it's the best place?

 

[Flyingelburro]

Some more photos in the meantime:

 

[Flyingelburro]

and another (I'll eventually get the hang of uploading photos):

 

[Phil 997]

Rich , if you PM member T8, Terry is a Moderator and explain what your planning he can move the the start of your readers cars thread to the 997 section and leave the newbie welcome bits in the newbie section , I think thats the best thing as you will get more input in the 997 section as many members head straight to that bit and dont browse the other sub forums :thumb: :thumb:

car looks great in the pics , you know a cars loved when the floor mats have been stripped :grin: my gardener can get my lawn like that but my car valet cant get my mats that good :grin: :thumb:

re improvements start with the simple ones that are easily reversed should you ever need to , resonator delete silicon pipe and bung kit with a BMC air filter, that will get it reving and breathing more freely and adds a nice subtle intake growl , semi solid engine mounts , lowering springs and spacers to suit. that with get it low and flat into the bends and the mounts will stop the lateral engine sway that the rear engine hanging from 12/14 yr old engine mounts will have. if semi solids seem a step too far then at minimum put new OE engine mounts on unless you know they have been done in recent years.

I assume you have read all the things you should do with a 997.1 like fully warm it up under 3k revs before hooning it, change the oil to either 5w40 or 10w50 depending on the miles the cars done and ideally use millers nano plus oil. do oil changes every 10k miles or yearly not at 2yr or20k as Porsche say as they are wrong on that point .fit a magnetic sump plug when you change the oil. these are all best practice things for owners of these cars. :thumb:

I am sure over the coming months you will find more things you can do but this is a good starting point. and the guys on here will always try and assist. with advise and some friendly banter , but I cant remember the last time I saw a thread go bad with abuse on here which is why so many come here instead of some of the other sites where they forget we were all new to the marque once and had to ask questions without expecting to get a bunch of abuse about it being a stupid question or a repeated question . :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

I have a gen2 now but my previous gen1 started out looking like yours and I started to play and well you know what happens then :floor: :floor: heres a before and after pic of my gen1

 

[Flyingelburro]

Rich , if you PM member T8, Terry is a Moderator and explain what your planning he can move the the start of your readers cars thread to the 997 section and leave the newbie welcome bits in the newbie section , I think thats the best thing as you will get more input in the 997 section as many members head straight to that bit and dont browse the other sub forums...

Thanks Phil, all good info and yes I'm familiar with what I need to do to look after it with regards warming, more frequent oil changes etc. The resonator delete looks a great value way to improve noise before I get a new exhaust. I like your before and after pics, that's the definition of project scope creep :mrgreen:

I'll ask T8 Terry to move this so I can continue my ownership story.