Sorry for the lapse in uploads, I'm currently rebuilding my house from a fire and when I get more time the regular upload schedule will resume. Thanks for all the support over the last 12 months, I wouldn't be able to get through all this without the subs! Much love
The 930s were actually famous for spinning out while letting off the gas or braking through a turn. Not under acceleration. Accelerating through a turn, even when the boost hits, they have incredible grip.
Exactly, all the weight over the rear, under load on throttle these cars grip. Its when you lift off mid-corner, and the weight transfers to the front, the rear can step out, and not mentioned here.
I think the issue about the boost lag is the inexperienced driver starts adding too much throttle too early in the turn, boost hits, backend gives an unexpected shove forward and a little sideways, driver overreacts and fully cuts throttle, rear end briefly tucks back in as traction catches up but then swings very wide as the weight shifts to the front end and the engine-heavy rear pendulums all the way around.
Owned an '86 930. Hway On-ramps were like taking off from an aircraft carrier. Lifting mid-turn was suicidal. Gas tank in front so traveling across Texas at 140 mph was scary when the tank was near empty becuase the front end would get very light.
Worked for a used car dealer. Morning time I get 2 dealer plates and a address in Brooklyn to pick up a 86 Turbo. Im 18 at that time. I go in bus and subway. Reach the house, install plates, shake hands and start driving back to dealership in Long Island. Drives ok, get on highway and all hell broke loose. Got off the next exit, summertime temps in mid 90's, I get out of this car with feeling sick to my stomach, im ice cold and my knees were wobbly. I almost called my boss and told him I cant drive this thing back but came to an silent agreement with myself to not let revs get above 3000. Made it back. Now I'm 52 and have yet to match that car. Seriously, WHAT THE HELL were the engineers thinking when they created this monstrosity. Driving this car will definitively scar you for life.
The handling issue with the 930 was NOT the boost suddenly coming on mid corner. It was lifting off the throttle mid corner and the weight of the rear engine would cause the tail to swing out. Mid engined cars and rear engined cars do this. If you know how to really drive these cars, you can use this “feature” to steer with the throttle. Go into a tight hairpin, lift off the throttle for a split second, as the tail starts to come around, hit the throttle again to regain traction and direction.
Interesting how today’s Porsche Turbo more than doubles the original’s power, but due to traction control and other advanced technology is much safer to drive near the limit.
My dad use to work for Porsche and he said they are like boats the way you have to drive them. You really can only take corners if you hold your foot in the gas as much as it feels it doesn’t want to grip it will, it’s when you let off and the rear end unloads and lifts it takes all weight off the tires.
It really takes me back in the day when my friend’s dad warned him about the limit handling of his air-cooled Targa and had my friend practice in a large empty parking lot. Talk about balling in the 80’s. 😊
Drove a 87 930 Turbo for a few weeks. It was insanely fun. When the turbo kicked in the force of acceleration pulled you back into your chair. My friend who came for a ride in it compares it to taking off in a jet. A lot of rear engined cars have the pendulum effect when the arse end will overtake the front end if given half a chance. You just drive accordingly.
Had a 73 911T, Guards Red, car was a rocket. Reminded me of my days of go kart racing. First car I broke 125 mph in fully pegged 5th gear and .8Gs too. Front air dam, exhaust. Fuchs Alloys pirellis, built bosch injection. And believe me had 12 chevy muscle cars but that 911 was on rails and pulled hard!
I was ten the first time I saw a 911 Turbo. Between the flares and the Whale Tail, I was in awe. It was an amazing machine. It is still one of the amazing vehicles I have ever seen.
The funny thing with rear engine is when I had my first car which was the 850 cc fiat. While driving it with smooth rear tyres in the rain I used to imagine I was in the turbo porche. I used to absolutely love getting it sideways and it was very controllable. I think porche should have made a special effort to retrain the 911 new owners of the turbo in how to handle it.
The Porsche Turbo was not the widowmaker. Unskilled drivers were. A friend of mine owns a 993, has owned it for some 12 years and still is slightly afraid of it. That's how you survive in a Porsche. Same goes for F40, Countach, Cobra, Dodge Viper, any super sports car. They are bonkers. You have to be the one with the sanity at the wheel for you definitely can't expect it from your car.
When you do the 959. Can you remember to point of the fact that it took Porsche till 1997 in the form of the 911 Turbo S to “match” (not beat) the 959’s performance . Truly an amazing car
The 959 I think is the best car ever created. There were so many things that car had in the 80’s that most cars didn’t get till the 2000’s. There is a guy that continued the the r&d of them from the 90’s on and he’s been able to get them to I think like 3.3 second 0-60 and like close to 800 horsepower. Off same platform and engine. They really were the first super car. Such a damn shame the us market never was able to get them. My dad says he remembers working at Porsche cars of America in Reno Nevada in 84-86 and he said he saw when they brought over a couple for track day cars.. they never were allowed to stay cause the whole crash test controversy. But he said he remembers seeing them unload a few out of a truck one day at work.
The thing about the 930 was that you have to stay ON the gas when the ass-end starts to come out. It's counter-intuative and it takes a lot of skill and trust in the car to keep the rear in check.
Awesome video mate. Spent the first 10 years of my career as a tech working at a speed shop that specialised in Porsche, I've yet to find ANY mistakes on any of your Porsche related videos. I usually pick up a few here and there from much larger channels. I always wanted to build a matte black slant nose, but the prices have gone insane now I have a bit of money behind me and I'd hate to cut up a good car. Keep up the great work.
I seem to remember Porsche showing up at Watkins Glen with a 2.0 liter turbo in 1969 for the 6hr race. There was a story that a mechanic had installed a wastgate backward which doubled the boost. They remedied the mistake wihout damage to the engine. As the story goes, for a brief time the little 2liter was putting out around 800hp. That's what I heard anyway. I think I was there to cover the 6hr and Can-Am races for a publication and learn the track for my first SCCA National race the following month.
Dude, this content is slick with enough technical detail to keep a real enthusiast interested. This content could easily be on commercial tv. SUBSCRIBED!
Everytime I’m on acid I find myself on ur account watching video after video till my phone is dead😂idk what it is cars jus make me happy n I smile hella watchin these
Absolutely phenomenal work. I have always loved the quality and depth of your videos and once again you have raised the bar. As a 911 Turbo S owner myself, I can’t wait for your next episodes!
What 911 turbo s do you own? My uncle has a 964 man I love that thing I just can’t stand hearing 911 I want to know which one not talking you down or anything just curious. I pray it’s not a 996
I've always loved the 911, it was one of my poster cars as a kid in the 80's. This is really well done, you really get into all the key details of the history of the 911 turbo in a video under 15 minutes, that is impressive. I enjoyed it.
I believe the second production car to be turbocharged was the International Scout 80, it had a 152 or 196 cubic inch 4 cylinder with a I believe a Garrett turbo. Unfortunately most systems were uninstalled at dealers after most people realized that the tech wasn’t quite there. I have a 196 Scout 80 and one day I’d love to do a turbo system “justice” with efi and a modern turbo, to be clear it’s not gonna be fast, I don’t want to make a racecar but the added power of a turbo will help with drivability, if you’ve driven up a steep grade on a 60s 4 cylinder you would know why id want a turbo.
Man this is the first content I see. The production is right up in my lane, the music, the visuals, the...everything. Sorry to hear about the fire. May peace be with you and your family.
You neglect to mention that Cynthia Files entered a corner with signs stating the max safe speed was 25 mph at over 60mph. And that she had been drinking. That case was a farce. And Porsche settled out of court for publicity reasons as much as for anything else. The moniker 'widowmaker' added to the 930's mystique. But in reality it is over the top. The 930 was no more 'deadly' than other very fast cars unleashed on the public. Some people just shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of cars like this.
Lots of doctors and lawyers spun these in corners because of the heavy rear and light front end, leading to the nickname "hammer ". Slow into the corner, fast out was the mantra.
Phenomenal work!!! I'm beyond grateful to have discovered y'all's channel! You don't play, the detail, technically correct points, and historical references are exemplary! Y'all gwan be hurting a lot of feelings with this level of work, Props and Respect!!!! 🙏
I owned a 2003 Porsche GT2, one of the "Widowmakers" and the real reason they were such a handful was that the factory in their wisdom, decided that in order to stop people crashing the rear-engined Turbo cars, they'd dial in quite a bit of front end understeer. Well, all that did was to make it WORSE. The car would plow at the front, then all of a sudden, the front tires would grip again, and all those forces would cause the rear end of the car to unweight and then you'd spin. The fix, was to dial in a lot more front camber, change the caster angle a little and make the front grip properly and also turn in better and faster; that solved it for my car. I used to track my car at Laguna Seca, Thunderhill, Sears Point/Sonoma Raceway and others, and once the suspension was really dialed in, as well as setting the ride height to Euro specs, not US specs, the car was transformed - I was regularly 2 seconds a lap faster than the GT3's at Laguna Seca. I really regret selling that car, I miss it.
Great video!!! Your free-flowing narration along with great video footage (for reference) made this absolutely wonderful to watch. I'm looking forward to your next segment.😊
Great video and enjoyed it very much. One other thing is the 930 Turbo has slightly wider front fenders as well. Once thing about these is the grip is excellent with modern tires so in street driving you would would have to be going very hard into a turn and then make a mistake to have a problem. IMO back in the day, the tire compounds sucked and inexperienced drivers that experienced boost in a turn panicked and lifted off the throttle abruptly causing the oversteering. It would be just like the people crashing when exiting cars and coffee, but at higher speed.
Yo! I love your content. The production value is fantastic. The audio and visuals are solid. Your voice is always on point and your script is well written. I appreciate the effort you and your team go through.
I still own a drive a 1983, 911 Turbo Carrera in Red and Black with the full European body flair package. 430,000 original miles. Bought her brand new and have never regretted it and she still turns heads
Another freaking awesome video. Your storytelling, research and presentation are tops. Thanks so much for the videos, I am always looking for your next!!!
Back in 1987 I went to a Porsche dealer to finance a new car but my insurance company would not cover it. I went across the street and bought a 1987 Buick Grand National. Strangely they had no problem insuring that vehicle. I still have it.
I have an 82 930 with some mods and about 400hp. It commands respect but that’s what makes it exciting. I do not drive it as aggressively as many of my other sports cars.
this channel is great and phenomenal deserves deserves 1,000,000 subscribers at least for the great storytelling and research that must that must go into this channel. I also esthetically liked the little 3D car renders as well they're very nice touch to the video. the man of effort that you put into your videos deserve so many more subscribers to your channel! I also liked the little act that I had heard about when how when the Bugatti engine for the Veyron was being made that the engine in testing created so much heat that it almost burned down the building while it was in tested and tuned like absolutely mental how crazy that can be.
Yes and no. That induces snap oversteer which is particularly prominent in mid engine cars. However if this was the only issue then all 911s would suffer the same flaw. What made the 930 dangerous was the addition of unpredictable power delivery which didnt occur when lifting off throttle.
@@johnlucier5654 The 011/930 models are rear engined, not mid engined. The tail tends to wag the dog resulting in a cornering/throttle technique different from front or mid engine cars:)
@@johnlucier5654 It’s the lifting of the throttle mid corner that is the problem. When the boost come on with these old cars, it came all at once, catching a lot of unsuspecting and inexperienced drivers off-guard.
Mark Donahue is the engineer who perfected the turbo porche engine. When Metzger first showed it to Donahue, it wouldn't idle and "The throttle was basically an on/off switch". Read "The unfair advantage". It's mark Donahue's autobiography . He spent a summer at the porche factory perfecting the Bosch fuel metering system. Made the 917-30 a legend
God tier edits, man. Great fucking music. Wonderful sound design, complete with engine sounds interlaced with on screen specs. Grown up narrator. Sick channel.
Truly scary cars. My dad bought a 1976 911 from a guy he knew in 1998, but the kicker was that the car had a 1994 911 turbo motor swapped into, when the '76 motor died. The motor was not stock, due to the fact that my dad being a mechanic, and he friend being a massive gear head. The car had upgraded brakes and wider and grippier tires, and was insanely quick for its time. Even as I was growing up, in the early 2000's, the car was faster than just about anything on the road, due to the power to weight ratio. My dad sold it in the 2010's due to the economy and the price of parts for the vehicle. One of the few Porsche's I've had the pleasure to experience, but by far one of the most raw, and sinister vehicles I have ever seen.
Most interesting in this story is the way contemporary normally aspirated road cars in Europe immediately increased power to beyond that of turbo-charged cars without increasing displacement or decreasing reliability. Indeed, most modern road tuned sports-cars eschew turbo-charging whilst small "economical" engines are now the main recipients of a turbo-charger.
I had a 1984 3.3 911 (930)whale tail turbo I bought from my brother-in-law when he had to leave the country quickly ;). I had been racing in amateur & professional road course competition for over 15 years & was professionally trained with a comp license, so I wasn't like the usual owner. I had also previously raced a '79 911 SC, so was familiar with tail-frisky cars. It was called the "doctor killer" because they could afford it, but didn't know how to control it anywhere its 10/10ths limit. Aside from not understanding of the steering geometry & tire patch management required to drive fast, the rear-drive, rear-engine monster had 2 interesting ways to put you off the road backwards into a tree. It was highly susceptible to even slight drop-throttle oversteer with so much weight in the rear. If you entered a corner a tad too fast & didn't know not to lift on the throttle, the weight would shift forward & lighten up your traction over the rear wheels just as you were diverting more traction to the turning wheels in front. Oversteer broke the back end loose & that's all she wrote. Also, in tighter corners if you let the turbo close down & then really got on it approaching the apex, the extra horses in the apex would be an unpleasant surprise as the handling changed radically just as you tried to track-out of the turn. Oops! I very much liked driving it to it's limit, though always with a tad more adrenaline than my usual competition car setup. In 1987, I sold it & got a 1988 BMW E-30 M3. It's straight 4 was originally designed for the 1983 Beneton F1 car & though only 199 bhp stock, was designed to be turbocharged. I sent it to Dinan to race modify it & it became the best car I ever had. Its 50-50 weight distribution made it so easy to drive at the limit you could throttle-steer it through some corners. It felt almost like being in a kayak in fast rapids, where you felt like all you had to do was twist your hips to control it. It could also run for full races at Lime Rock, a tight momentum course with 2 hellish corners with no brake fade. Big Bend is a double-apex hairpin with a blind second apex at the end of the main straight & you didn't have to feather between apexes with the M3, saving important tenths. The Diving Turn, a 4-story dive into a 90° right hand corneronto the main straight could be taken foot to the floor in the M3, relying on the suspension to load up at the bottom of the dive at the turn-in. Perfect car for the perfect course. I still think about that whale tail now & then, though.
The Turbo was ok when driven by responsible people, but it made you want to try driving it faster, and somehow the needle on the speedometer kept going higher.
I loved my 1989 930 and miss it to this day. What a beautiful car with the wide body and a great stance and presence on the road. Sorry I let it go. After a 1960 356B, a 1969 911E, a 1973 911S Targa and a 1985 911 Carrera, all of which I loved , the 930 was much more powerful and fun to drive at PCA events and on the road.
Lift off oversteer, snap oversteer. A lot of the demons in the chassis got exorcised in the 993 style Turbo. The air cooled twin turbo Porsches were absolutely awesome, and Ruf furthered the legend throughout its existence.
300bhp from the 3.3L turbo notwithstanding, we have to remember the 930 didn't have all the "nannies" to keep that power in check (traction control, ABS, etc). A beast of a car - widowmaker indeed.
So much hardwork you put into making these Videos , its evident in its superiority, I appreciate the quality work , thanks for Existing 🦅 Superb Work 🐦⬛. bless You Fam.
Great video. A wonderful summary and overview of probably the most influential engineering aspect (turbocharging) to permeate future 911 models - both forced induction and naturally aspirated. If you haven't already, I suggest reading Paul Frère's, "Porsche 911 Story" - any edition - for a comprehensive, inside engineering perspective of the 911.
I had got used to the sudden power peak of my then old Honda Elsinore CR 125 -75. First moped power, and after certain rpm, a sudden mindless increase. The 911 Turbo was similar, but it was only driveable in the summer, dry asphalt. Even wet could cause problems, as when the power came in the corner, and someone panicked and lifted the throttle completely, that was literally the final nail to the coffin. With both motorcycles and cars, here in Finland we call the result "solisluu siksakki", "collar bone zigzag". That is why owners usually did not allow anyone else test drive their Turbos...
... who brought a safe turbo to the masses ??? SAAB !!! I drove my first turbo in 1978 ... the Saab 99 Turbo ... I surprised many other drivers w/ that funny looking car!!! And I still have a 900 Turbo sitting in my driveway ... I will never sell it ... NEVER !!!
That jury verdict about the manufacturer being at fault even though the driver was drunk and reckless really makes you wonder if we should ban the large/lifted trucks/SUVs that make it dangerous to be on the road at all in any kind of actually interesting enthusiast car, let alone normal affordable vehicles that aren't gargantuan battering rams either.
I purchase one in 1976, had my sister keep it in Germany for a few months and then shipped it here. I was a great car. My late wife sold it in 1995 for 8 times what I paid for it, with 134K miles on the car. Same motor, still running strong. It took a while to learn its secrets.
