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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

Four Speeds & Drum Brakes

By Tom Tate
NOR'EASTER Online - September 2003
Northeast Region Logo

It sure seems like summer is flying by, in more ways than one. While I've been pushing the pedal on a 46-year-old 90 horsepower ride, a friend asked me to check out their next ride before they put the money down. Now they're not buying an old car but a modern rocket with horsepower figures that look like phone numbers.
   
The car that I test drove was an Audi S-4 that had been tweaked by a BU student from Japan. He and his three buddies each had a 2000 Audi and had tried all sorts of chips, exhausts, and suspension setups. I guess that the S-4 has replaced the BMW M3 as the weapon of choice down on Commonwealth Ave in Boston. His car looked like the cars I see in European Car magazine from La La land but have never seen in person let alone driven. The car had been modified to produce 320 hp, up from the stock 250 and sat on Bilsteins wrapped in H & R short springs. The set of wheels and tires cost more that the last two cars I bought added together. The stainless steel exhaust had a better shine than the roof of this silver sedan. I was called in because I'm an Audi "expert" based on the fact that I have had six 4000CS Quattros over the years and probably put a few hundred thousand miles on them, many on the ice at Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. Of course none of those cars produced the power this car had at idle nor could they possibility keep up in traffic, let alone the open road. It was sorta like calling in the Wright brothers to test fly a new Boeing 7E7. I know the concept and once I get them moving I can get it to do what I want but it sure is different.
   
The ride around the block was easy, the car had a very light clutch pedal and the twin turbos pushed enough gas even at idle that I don't think a 17 year old could stall it. We were in the South End dodging potholes when the owner suggested that I point it at the expressway and shoot. Well shoot I did and the little rocket came off the ramp into traffic at triple digits. Opps! The trouble with modern turbocharged engines is that when you lift off the loud pedal the engine goes into a coast mode. There is no boost so the engine compression drops off to single numbers and there is no engine drag to slow the car like you would experience in a normal car coming down from an 8000 rpm red zone. In other words in doesn't slow down. That's when the Big Reds come into play. Did I mention why the car needed 18" wheels ? It was to clear the brake rotors that looked like garbage can lids hidden up inside the wheels. Well they weren't that hidden with the calipers powder coated in fire engine red. But aren't they all.
   
Back to the task at hand. Traffic is moving at a rapid clip and I'm coming off a rapidly disappearing ramp with a 50 mph speed differential looking for a hole to go to. What excitement, just imagine the owner who was sitting next to me. Actually he was pretty calm. I suppose, based on the way the car was set up, that this was normal driving for his crowd.  I so much hate to make the kind of mistake that I was in the middle of that when I was younger we used to have a brake light switch up under the dash.

It was used to hide any mistakes in judgment like I was experiencing. If you were dancing through traffic and the door slammed shut or you just misjudged your speed it was easy to shut off the brake lights, hit the brakes, slow down, and them turn them back on. Nobody behind you knew of your mistake. We also used them for other reasons (and even had another switch to turn them on) but that's a story for another day. But I was out of options and the brake pedal was needed. Boy did it do the job! With the stiffer springs and shocks the car slowed like it had run out of rope. No dive, no learch. no nothing, just fifty mph dropped off the speedo like I was on a dyno. Very impressive.
   
That maneuver, that took all of ten seconds, woke up a BMW M3 driver that was about ten cars back and three lanes over and he came up to see if I wanted to play. When I say that he "came up" what I really mean is that he went down three gears, cut four people off, came across two lanes, and triggered the antilock brakes as his front bumper reached the drivers side door handle. That's an old trick that we used years ago before tinted windows were in widespread use. You would pull up close enough that the driver knew you were there but not far enough that the other guy could actually see you. You knew that he wouldn't turn around and look at you because that just wasn't done. But here I was in someone else's car and I couldn't play so I just pretended that he wasn't there. That made him crazy and after only a couple of minutes he punched his 330 hp rocket and was gone. I was still trying to show the owner that I was concentrating on his ride and never looked up.
   
I have to say that this car was everything it was reported to be and then some. Fast, smooth, very stable and stopped without drama. Certainly a long way from anything with four speeds and drum brakes. Further investigation revealed that the expected maintenance cost of this rocket looked like the national debt of a third world country. Drive like a sport, pay like a sport. When turbos wear out (they are considered a maintenance item) the cost depends on how damage they do on the way out. If they fail internally and pump gas through the catalytic converters the bill can easily run over $10k! Apparently the car was built around the twin turbos and the labor costs alone would let most mechanics retire early. So much for that idea.
   
That size repair bill reminds me of the age-old restoration question. If an extensive restoration of a solid 356 runs approximately $20 k, how much can you spend to buy the car that is going to be worth $16k when you're all done? Unless you were born in the back seat of a 356 (or came home from the hospital in it) it's pretty hard to justify the numbers. But a five-digit repair bill on a three-year-old car would prompt me to leave it in someone else's driveway. I suggested to the prospective owner that they either get a very low mileage example or one that just had the turbos replaced.
   
After all that excitement, I had to go home and replace the flywheel seal on the Speedster. It sure felt good to spend a couple of hours in the garage replacing a $15 seal on a 46-year-old car. Sorta puts repair costs back in the correct perspective. Keep the Faith !
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