My Martini RSR build project

[550Spyder]

I don’t mind being corrected at all.

Apologies if I have blended elements of R6 and R2 s history together. I read that 100 page forum post on the great Porsche Museum fraud on the ‘targa winning car’ that Starkey, yourself et al compiled. After 100 pages of analysis and conspiracy theories covering who killed Kennedy and the moon landings I clearly came away shell shocked and muddled. It was actually a very interesting post and I read it about 5 years ago so clearly have some of my wires crossed.

Not that I have a thing for Zag, but I think they were pretty blameless in the Australian replica. They had a customer walk in with the photos of the museum car who said “ build me one just like this” (which they did) as opposed to saying “do a Doug Nye style research project into weather the Porsche museum has been fraudulently representing a car as something it is not for 45 years“. 
 

anyway you seem to have the magic combination of motivation, means and conviction to build a R6 mirror image. There are such a wide range of “replicas” out there I can’t quite come up with a term to do the very through ones justice as they deserve something better than clone / replica / tribute. Yours almost qualifies for what the FIA class as a continuation.

good luck.

[patrick911]

Thanks!

Short update, as things are moving now. As I said in a previous update, I managed to find a set of NOS 2.8 RSR High Butterfly Injection stacks and had to buy it. It wasn't a smart buy obviously, as you can imagine these don't come cheap for a car of which only 55 were ever made, but anything that can make this car stand out is something worth pursuing i reckon, so i pressed the button and went for it.

These were delivered yesterday and seem to have survived the trip overseas. The other delivery yesterday were the 917/RSR style calipers I purchased from Zuffenhaus in the US over 16 months ago. Yes, they took their time, but they do look amazing! It's a shame you're almost not going to see them behind the spokes of the deep wheels. Getting them over here was even harder, because customs panic as soon as they see the word 'brake' or 'caliper' mentioned somewhere. And obviously the verification is at the importers cost and risk. Anyway, they're here now.

Finally, the housing for the fuelcell is ready; i just need to work out where and what to do with them next. I'll let you know once I know what's next for it. 

[P-Kay]

SEXY 😍

[patrick911]

ATL in the US is working out the bladder, plates and pickup, etc for the fuel cell, so more on that later.

For now, we're finalising the body, and that's not as straight-forward as you may think, because every time I research a detail, I run into something else.

For the fuel cell i looked into period pictures to make sense of how they did the pipes and pickups, etc, only to spot that the works car didn't have the standard fuel Bosch fuel pump setup all the other RSRs have. Of course not, that would be too easy, but what is it?

Thanks to Tuthill Porsche in the UK (landed there in my Google search for fuel pumps) I found this to be a so-called 'Messerschmidt' pump, used in the Porsche 908 and 917s, and by Tuthill for their rallye cars. Apparently Messerschmidt merged with Bosch or something, because more searching indicated Mercedes used these same pumps in the Pagoda (and other cars) as well. At least the good news is that that means they're still available; the bad news is that I already bought fuel pumps...

In the R6 Martini car these two pumps were mounted on both sides, just before the strut-brace brackets. That's why I now need to buy at least one pump, so we can  fabricate the bracket, and include it when we paint. 

Then there's this bracket in the engine-bay (top). It turns out to be a light, but which one did they use?, and if they had it at the 24hr Le Mans race (for which it makes sense), it doesn't mean the car had it when it did the Targa Florio  a couple of weeks earlier? Details that would be nice to have sorted out before we paint the body.

Then finally, the car has been prepped, primed, sanded, primed again and wet-sanded, so it looks almost ready.

Can't wait to put the white and silver on it!

 

[patrick911]

Not much to report, as being in Melbourne, in stage 4 lockdown for the last 4 weeks and for God knows how much longer, means that nor I nor Jason can travel or work on the car.

I did bite the bullet and scored a Bosch (Pagoda) fuelpump on Ebay, but it's been stuck in Chicago (USPS) for at least 12 days now.... hope it's Covid related and not that it's lost.

ATL in New Jersey completed the custom fuel-bladder and it arrived yesterday with the GRP casing Kevin Jeanette @Gunnar Racing put together.
There's still quite a bit of work to do to finish the thing, and we can't do that obviously until I can place the combo in the car and measure where the filler-necks, brackets, fuel-sender, etc, need to go, but since only a handful of 2.8 RSRs were ever fitted with these FT-3 120L safety cells, and after pursuing the only person I could find that had the blueprint of the original for 18 months to actually make me one, finding a company that would do the custom bladder, shipping the casing from Florida to New Jersey, and now having the cell here, it does feel like a huge accomplishment & big milestone for the project.

So other than this, the fuel pumps (or more specifically: their custom brackets), the engine compartment light and the metal-ring around the rev-counter (to fit a 100mm dial in the 110mm hole), the holes in the hood for the fuel-filler, the 3 lightweight balsa wood strips under the hood, the car is now very close to paint. 😀

 

[patrick911]

Next on the 'yet-to-source' list was the suspension.

Most of the items, like what bushings the factory used or what torsion bars were fitted, can easily be found in the various books or on forums, but what wasn't clear was if the works RSRs used coilovers or not.

Maxted-Page have recently restored the real deal Martini car, and they decided that the car apparently didn't have coilover springs. There's not a lot of period pictures where this detail would be visible, and because Porsche did increase the diameter of the turrets in the rear for the 1974 3.0RS but not in 1973 for the RSR, it did look as if they only ran with torsion bars.

But there was one picture of the original #107 car that partook in the Targa Florio practice, just before it was totalled by count Pucci and replaced b a 1972 mule.

In that picture, showing the car with its front left wheel off, it is clear that at least that car had coilovers. And since Porsche entered two works cars in group 4, would it not be likely that R6 (the car I'm building) would then have them too?  Then when I found the car entry notes for the Targa Florio it was clear - it did mention 'schraubfedern' (coilovers)  so that allowed me to put the list of parts together. Pretty embarrassing though that M-P got that wrong on a car that supposedly is now worth US$10M.

Delivery from Elephant Racing arrived today, and although I don't know if things fit and are - as discussed with the guys at ER - the best compromise for a street car, but they do look awesome. We kept the torsion bars as per the original (19mm front & 26mm rear), but re-valved the Bilstein shocks to match the selected springs. Kudos also for ER that they resprayed the front Bilsteins in 'green' after they relocated the spindle, as the RSR Bilsteins nowadays are actually yellow. but where green back in the day.

So most bushings are rubber, the only exception being the polybronze ones for the spring plates. We'll see how they go as experiences and opinions on those seem to vary wildly.   

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Now let's hope than Dan and Brett open up the state soon so we can start working on the car again; these parts are all just looking pretty and gathering dust in my garage....

[patrick911]

Things have started to move again, although not as fast as I'd like them to...

I went through the parts manual and made a list of all the remaining items I'd need for the suspension (bolts, washers, bearings, etc.). I then looked which items I could re-use from the donor car and borrowed a mate's sand-blaster to clean those. The remaining items were ordered from Pelican. I also scored the cross-drilled vented discs for the RSR (these turn out to be your standard Turbo discs from 77 onward) and did a bit on dry-fitting of hub, hats, rings, disc, caliper & 9" wheel to see if a spacer is required or not.

The answer is yes btw. There's not much needed, but the fins of the Zuffenhaus RSR/917 brakes do hit the spoke of the wheel, and sanding those would be a criminal offence in my view, so the factory must have used a spacer, as I used all exact dimensions/off-sets as per factory.

We also started work on the fuel cell; fitment was great once a few mm were cut off the lip (that connects the lower and upper half of the housing) and we can even re-use the standard fuel tank brackets to keep it in place. Next job is to create the filler necks and dog-bowls and find a way to use the NOS dry-breaks, whilst making re-fueling possible at the gas station. 

There's a few other brackets that need fabricating, but we're inching closer to getting it painted.

[LeeM]

 Those calipers are the mutts nuts

[patrick911]

The end of this year marks six-and-a-half years from the moment I bought the donor car and almost 2 years since I brought the car to Chequered Flag Restorations in Bayswater for all of the required metal work. Needless to say that this project by now is over both time and budget, but the quality is exceeding even what I set out to achieve when I started this journey. One out of three ain't bad...

Latest is the addition of these brackets that are on the left front inner guard in a 1973 car, there to hold the fuse-panel. Not available for sale anywhere, and not on my 1976 donor car, so I needed to fabricate those. Or better, have someone fabricate those for me. A few guys on a Facebook Porsche page reached out and offered help (in drawing and fabricating them), so these are now ready to go on the car. I like that about our little community.

Another important detail is the filler neck (x2) and dog-bowls for the overflow, that needed to be made up. The dry-breaks and fuel cell top plates are aluminum, so the piping and bowls needed to be alu as well. We even figured out a way that I can still refuel the car at the bowser, without the need to use the difficult dry-break mechanism. We also needed bespoke brackets made for the Messerschmidt/Bosch fuel pumps the RSR was fitted with. These pumps sit on both sides on the inner fenders, just in front of the strut-brace). We decided to use the coil brackets as a basis and I think we're very close to what the Martini car had. So a few little things are still required to get ready for paint, but I'm convinced that'll happen in the next 3 months. Exciting times, and I hope 2021 will be better than this year has been, for everyone i hope!

Have a great break all (here in VIC we're all thinking of you there stuck in Northern Sydney - we've been there and appreciate how hard it is, especially in this time of year!!) and let's quickly head toward a great 2021!  Thanks for reading, Patrick

 

[patrick911]

Getting closer to paint - last primer layer being wet-sanded.

The next update will see some colour on the body!

[patrick911]

Hmm, my last post was Feb 28, when I said the next post was going to see paint on the chassis.... eh, not quite yet.

I've bought a few neat parts (MFI pump mounting bracket & support, RSR handbrake cables, rear disc bell hats), rubbed the complete outside of the chassis, the engine bay and the front trunk, as well as half of the underside. So a little more to do, including wet-sanding the doors, fixing & rubbing the hood, fixing the filler necks in place, before we can go for paint.

And that will be a big job too. White all around, black for the dash and some other bits, then silver for the outside, and then the giant masking job begins to get the Martini Racing stripes and logos on. 

 

[Uncle]

And then?

[Raven]

I could do with an update also ..............

[patrick911]

Thanks guys, glad to see that some folks are following the project.

Things are still moving slow - the car is now fully sanded, ready for paint, with the exception of the hood. The Martini car had two fill openings in the hood so that needs to be replicated. positioning is done but we found that the 'dog-bowls' are too deep, so our aluminum guy has to make new ones.

So if anyone needs a dog bowl, I got 5 or 6 of them as for some stupid reason I thought they may come in handy...

So waiting for those to come in so we can weld them in place and finish the hood (the covers, balsa strips on the inside, etc.) before painting.

I am also planning to bring the engine to the shop one of these days to get that going. That will be a massive undertaking as well, and I'm very eager to find out if the mag case can be used or not. I sure hope so as it was one of the reasons why i specifically bought a 1976 donor car. (the 2.8RSR had a magnesium case, but when they bored it to 3.0 dimensions, the material and gaps proved to unreliable, so they moved to a alu case for the 3.0RSs and last of the works 2.8RSRs / with 3.0l engine.).

The car was driving great before i dismantled it, so it should be OK....I hope. 

Positioning came out pretty close, so I'm very chuffed with how it turned out.

I hope to be able to show more soon. Hopefully some paint on the body by then.

[patrick911]

much better:

[patrick911]

Finally some paint on it!

The underside covered in a lovely coat of grandprix white. Next up is the engine bay and rest of the car. 

As you may know, these works-RSRs were all delivered from werk-1 in white, and covered with the silver & Martini striping only on the outside. The underside, engine-bay etc, all remained white. 

[Raven]

 

Awesome , love it when all the hard work starts to pay off and the paint goes on 

[patrick911]

A few more, now the engine bay is done too

 

[patrick911]

I ordered the RSR carpet from a company in Germany, so eventually that will make it's way over here (it's already 2 weeks in Frankfurt - apparently DHL is not flying on Australia that often).

I got Andrew from Pictongraphics.com.au to make me the sponsor decals, because "IsayDingDong" didn't have the right sizes and their fonts and graphics were off too. Not sure if he's here on the forum or not, but Andrew did a fantasic job on this.

So whereas the Martini logos and stripes will all be painted on, there's proof in period pictures that Porsche used stickers for their sponsor logos and for the actual number on the doors and hood, probably because these would or could change between races. We know that even at the Targa Florio the Bilstein sticker was replaced with a bigger Shell sticker between practice and the actual race.

Other than that, the interior is now covered in grandprix white too, and the dashboard and other satin black accents (around the rollbar mounts, seat mounts, etc) will be done next week. It's almost a pity that the carpet & rubber mats will cover all of this.

  

 

[P-Kay]

Love it!!!

[Raven]

Awesome , great to see more progress ...............

[patrick911]

Dash and other areas in the interior covered with black, including messy overspray.... just the way the factory guys did it back in the day.

Or actually, i think Jason (Chequered Flag) has done it quite a bit neater than they did it back then in Zuffenhausen 

[Raven]

No further progress on your Build ....???

[patrick911]

Hi Raven,

thanks for checking; always good to see a project is followed. 

Progress is slow; too slow for my liking but the shop only has Jason and his apprentice, the latter recently sick for a week or two, plus there's other cars that are under time pressure and got prioritised. My car has now been there for 2 years so I'm getting a bit frustrated with the lack of progress, but then again, he is doing a brilliant job.

Anyway, works happening on painting the other bits; doors, ducktail etc, and the ducktail required a bit of repair work.  I'm still expecting to have the car fully painted before the end of January though.

Only other update is that I have received my interior carpet. The RSRs and RSH (homologation RS versions) received different carpets back in 1973 in order to keep the weight down. So there's no insulation matting on the floor, nor any of that sprayed on 'wurth' protection stuff, so its dimensions are slightly different. They also had rubber mats in front on top of the carpet as it was soo thin, it wouldn't last long with feet moving during driving. I ordered it in Germany (CarTex Sitzklinik) and the guy told me that the RSR/RSH carpet originally also didn't have the nice stitched edges. I trusted him on his word, as he did seem to know an awful lot about this stuff, but all of the RSRs I've seen have the nice edges. He said he makes them like that as well in most cases as it looks so much neater and all the restorers want it to look nice.

I've since seen from a few period pictures he's actually right, so there's yet another thing Maxted-Page missed when restoring their $10M Martini RSR.

And I also managed to find a solution for that Porsche 917/910 tacho that I wanted to replicate. I've been offered two real ones, but they are asking $10K+ for them so that was never going to happen. And that's not all, they were mechanical so the adjustment on the gearbox would've added to that as well.

When searching online, I found a guy here locally in Melbourne that after a little convincing wanted to take this on. It'll be an electronic tacho, which helps, but it will also mean that the actual revs will be displayed correctly; think that's pretty neat. And to highlight again how small this world really is, the guy has been involved in the restoration of the real R6 Martini car.

My carpet:

 

example of RSR carpet (with stitched edges) in a car:

[patrick911]

Top of page 3 is almost 2 years ago. Things have surely moved much slower than I anticipated.

Anyway, we're still painting the insides of doors, bumpers & ducktail, painting sills & door-jambs, and finishing the hood with the balsa strips and fuel-covers before that car can - hopefully before the end of this month - be painted silver on the outside.