1985 Porsche 911: A Look Underneath

dinobot666 called it.

My, what a big dent you have. Did one of the previous owners try to back over a boulder?

I drove a car with the directional tires on backwards for 2 miles. That's how long it took for me to figure out something was really wrong. Difference is night and day.

That exhaust system looks like a giant anchor. If it was mine I would go supermarket and save at least 100 off the rear axle!

After market not supermarket. Autocorrect Lmao

@bassrockerx thanks for the correction. until I scrolled down I was sitting here wondering what that term meant...uhh, does that mean open exhaust? Ha!

The underside reminds me of the bottom side of a hot wheels car. Anyone else?

is that a 2 x 6 bolted between the front wheels?

WHY ARE THE TIRES STILL ON BACKWARDS

-Rod

The tires will be rotating correctly (and leading the way) when that archaic pseudo semi-trailing arm rear suspension causes that heap to swap ends at the slightest amount of morning dew on the road while cornering and your headed into a ravine backwards.
The top side of that thing is not all bad though.

Ah... the tired old saw about 911s swapping ends. I drive my 74 in the wet and frankly, this is a non-issue. Probably happened to a factory feted drink swilling motor journalist on crappy bias-ply tires back in the day, hence the legend. I would suggest actually driving one? At least this sort of stuff keeps the price of these cars reasonable.

That said, I imagine this car would turn me off ever owning one if it was the first one I'd ever drove. Its setup is too far from factory. All it needed was 4 new shocks/struts and a SLIGHT lowering back to euro specs coupled with a 4 wheel alignment and proper tires. Maybe bushings.

Oh.... at least the dent is not robbing the car of performance as it is in the heater system.

And looking again.. I see that the front crossmember is pushed back on the left side of car(right side looking up). Possibly, the unibody is not straight from an accident.

These looks underneath aren't going to replace the suspension walkarounds, are they? Just pull a couple of wheels and shoot some more pics!

The exhaust isn't that crazy considering how the Flat 6 is mounted in the back (that dent is though)... rear trailing arm suspension does actually look quite primitive, and the bottom of the chassis is a very interesting... slab (with requisite strengthening grooves).

I'm sure you can improve performance and ride quality simply by swapping out those green dampers... and getting some new tires put on in the proper direction.

But that dent is in the warm air system, right? Note the polymer connectors - no exhaust going through there. No real performance hit.

"These looks underneath aren't going to replace the suspension walkarounds, are they? Just pull a couple of wheels and shoot some more pics!'

This is what I am wondering. These throw the car up in the air and take pics posts don't do much for me.

Scott,

Could we take a look at the Jetta TDI, please?

Thank you

One of the beautiful parts of a mid-engine/rear engine design is the ability of the car to suck air on top of the engine, combust it, and put it straight out the bottom - an efficient air pump design. Low mass, low restriction.

That exhaust system seems to ignore that principle. I imagine an awesome design would be a simpler, equal length header exhaust system made out of a lightweight alloy.

Gotta imagine the aftermarket has one of those....