1985 Porsche Carrera

[myUsername]

Can someone please give me the performance numbers on a 1985 Porsche Carrera? I've googled it, but cannot find any numbers. This guy at work thinks he can outrun all of our cars here at work.

 

Although I think that it's a nice car, he's just got so much ego. He called me in the middle of the day one time just to tell me that he beat a Dodge Magnum. I asked him if it was the V8, he said he wasn't sure.

[wunderkind]

I believe an 85 Carrera is a 3.2 flat 6. Producing about 215hp. Unless it is chipped, even so, I highly doubt i will out run a Legacy GT. Then again, you have 5EAT. So I don't know. Those things feel really fast and fun.

[melayout]

This http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/Spec_Glance.aspx?year=1988&make=Porsche&model=911&trimid=-1&src=VIP&tab=2&sub=0 should give you some idea since it is for the 88 model.

 

The curb weight on the NA Coupe is 2756, while the Club sport is 2601, both come with a 3.2 214HP monstah. Hehe.

[myUsername]

Thanks guys. Any 0-60 or 1/4 mile times? I asked him if he wanted to do an autocross event with me. He started laughing and said that his car wasn't built for autocrossing because it's so powerful that it would just fishtail at each turn...yeah, sure!

 

BTW, his car is non turbo, but wants to get a supercharger for it. It's too bad because the car is poorly maintained.

[AWDxBOOST]

dont worry...its not that fast

 

maybe 0-60 in a litter over 6s and mid to high 14s....thats new though

[fancub]

I remember a Car & Driver road test with 5.1 sec 0-60 time for a 1985 911. At the time it was the quickest North American car available as the turbo was not offered for some period in the eighties. This is all from memory, but this data should be available somewhere online.

[godwhomismike]

Wouldn't his car equal our 5EAT's in terms of performance?

[HansGT]

http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/0-60times.html

 

1984 Porsche 911 Carrera 6.2 14.6 (sorry no '85 listed)

 

http://www.netoffice.co.uk/carrera/hist.htm

 

http://www.gldomain.com/accelerationcalc/

 

(get the AP and flash to stage 1)

[fancub]

I thought the hp rating was closer to 207 as well. Car & Driver numbers are typically lower versus other automotive publications and even official Porsche listings. In fine running condition, a mid-eighties 911 should easily be a match for an auto LGT.

[warnoldscu]

stage II leg's can hang with NEW carrera's... I think a poorly maintained 85 will have it's hands full staying with even a stock lgt

[rfd425]

I remember when the '84 911 Carrera came out, replacing the 911SC, and it was the fastest thing around at that time by far. I recall a 0-60 time for the '84 of about 5.4 seconds, which was quite impressive for it's day. This is when 928's were doing it in about 6.5, and 5.0 liter Mustangs were north of 7.0 seconds.

 

It should be able to smoke a 5EAT LGT, but about even with a stock MT LGT. Getting an AP stage 1 should end the debate.

 

I would imagine the 911 feels faster, though. It's lighter, lower to the ground, and has a tighter suspension. I used to have a '66 912 (same body as the 911 but with a 4-cylinder), and it felt a lot faster than it was (it was actually rather slow).

 

Incidentally, the power to weight ratio of the 911 Carrera seems to be slightly better than the LGT's, based on Melayout's numbers.

[don_d]

As an owner of an 86 carrea, not much different than a 85, I stay away from trying to out run other's from the stop light. Mostly the clucthes on these cars don't stand up to this worth a crap. I have included an image from Feb. 1984 from Road & Track 0-60 time of 6.2, quick at the time. From a rolling start these guys pull like a truck, lots of low end grunt. Road & Track quoted hp is 200. Not likley to keep up with an LGT on the street, on the track is where these carrera's come alive. As far as auot crossing in the right hands quick, in my hands I get passed by the rear end way to much.

 

hope this helps.

[don_d]

the 84, 85, 86 carrera's are essentially the same car

[Whitestar Pilot]

As an owner of an 86 carrea, not much different than a 85, I stay away from trying to out run other's from the stop light. Mostly the clucthes on these cars don't stand up to this worth a crap. I have included an image from Feb. 1984 from Road & Track 0-60 time of 6.2, quick at the time. From a rolling start these guys pull like a truck, lots of low end grunt. Road & Track quoted hp is 200. Not likley to keep up with an LGT on the street, on the track is where these carrera's come alive. As far as auot crossing in the right hands quick, in my hands I get passed by the rear end way to much.

 

hope this helps.

 

 

Thanks for that graphic! A rare bit of info there.

 

I believe those acceleration numbers for the Corvette are for the Crossfire 350 (1984), and they are the only numbers I've ever seen for that car. 15.6 1/4 mile is about right.

 

That's also the exact info the guy needs to compare the Porsche with, although its a 20-year-old car now, and then there is the clutch issue you've mentioned...

[rfd425]

Wow, amazing that our Suby sedans could smoke all those cars. Heck, even my '98 A4 2.8Q could have beaten the Vette.

 

I wonder if today's tires would help the acceleration times of those cars much.

[05LegacyGT330Ci]

Tires definately help would help these cars, I would be bold enough to think that you could shave 3-5 tenths of a second off the times with some of the best modern tires available. This would also help out a lot on the lateral G loads.

[Xenonk]

Can someone please give me the performance numbers on a 1985 Porsche Carrera? I've googled it, but cannot find any numbers. This guy at work thinks he can outrun all of our cars here at work.

 

Although I think that it's a nice car, he's just got so much ego. He called me in the middle of the day one time just to tell me that he beat a Dodge Magnum. I asked him if it was the V8, he said he wasn't sure.

 

 

if you rebuild a 911 to a spec track car, you are looking at a boxer 6 twin spark motor with the "BIG" 3.8L making 600 to 700 hp along with a chassis that weighs in around 2200 lbs.. that's where the EGO starts.. wouldn't you like something like that for your LGT??

 

besides, don't think Porsche isn't slow for an old car, it's fast, especially on the road course. Granted that buying a Porsche is also like buying an ego too.. but the real deal is to ask him if he knows how to drive the car, a car is nothing without the driver.

[rfd425]

Granted that buying a Porsche is also like buying an ego too..

That's a rather unfair generalization. I knew a number of guys -- very good drivers -- in the Quattro Club who switched to older Porsches for their track cars simply because they wanted to go beyond what they were capable of doing in their Audi Quattros and Taurus SHO's (the SHO Club kind of piggybacked on the Quattro Club here). It was not an ego thing at all. Also, I owned an old 912 at one time, because I had read that it was a good choice for a low-priced, fun used car. Driving that $5,000 25-year old 4-cylinder car around didn't pump up my ego much, but it sure was fun.

 

I agree with you though that a car is only as good as it's driver, and sometimes I wish there was more attention paid on these forums to "modding the driver".

[Xenonk]

That's a rather unfair generalization. I knew a number of guys -- very good drivers -- in the Quattro Club who switched to older Porsches for their track cars simply because they wanted to go beyond what they were capable of doing in their Audi Quattros and Taurus SHO's (the SHO Club kind of piggybacked on the Quattro Club here). It was not an ego thing at all. Also, I owned an old 912 at one time, because I had read that it was a good choice for a low-priced, fun used car. Driving that $5,000 25-year old 4-cylinder car around didn't pump up my ego much, but it sure was fun.

 

I agree with you though that a car is only as good as it's driver, and sometimes I wish there was more attention paid on these forums to "modding the driver".

 

Don't get me wrong, a lot of my teammates own and track their Porsches and race with and against them as well.. it's just the ego that one buys one for the "status of having a cool car" vs "status of driving the car as it's designed to be driven".. for those that don't know how to drive the car, they'll tend to stay on the "this car makes me a fast driver" notion for a long time. What they fail to realize is that it's a professional driver who are putting those benchmark numbers in the magazines for them to read, it's not what you can do with the car if it was in their hands.

 

I was with the Audi Club of North America this weekend and there's plenty of track guys that buy the older Porsches to get better in driving. Even my instructor has an older 911 and there are just things you have to learn as a driver to make the car perform the way it was meant to be. It's not easy making a car go fast, it really isn't. There's a lot of fundamentals that anyone would need to learn just to get the car to a normal range or near-limit of operation, the hard part is getting that final 10% to 15% of the car to transmit into something that yields the fastest lap time.

[don_d]

Xenonk hit the nail on the head, especially with these old air cooled Porsches, it comes down to who is driving it. They can be a hand full.

 

-dd

[rporter]

Can someone please give me the performance numbers on a 1985 Porsche Carrera? I've googled it, but cannot find any numbers. This guy at work thinks he can outrun all of our cars here at work.

 

Although I think that it's a nice car, he's just got so much ego. He called me in the middle of the day one time just to tell me that he beat a Dodge Magnum. I asked him if it was the V8, he said he wasn't sure.

 

I coming into this thread late, but I can offer some perspective as someone who takes all of his cars to the dragstrip for tests.

 

I owned an '84 911 Carrera Cabriolet for 8 years (regrettably sold it late last year to a friend...but I have right-of-first-refusal if he ever decides to sell....pic below on the day I sold it, with the new owners plates on it, with my then-new LGT and soon-to-be-sold SHO in the background)).

 

It had less than 50K miles when I sold it. the only mods were a short shifter, and a Weltmeister chip. The primary purpose of the chip was to help throttle response below 4K, as this was a very early MAF system without dual-stage runners. High rpm HP was seemingly unchanged. Remember that chips don't do much on n/a cars.

 

Anyway, my best time was a 13.98 at 101. It didn't have limited-slip, and was hard to launch. Shifting was also very slow, especially the 2-3,so an easy 1-2 tenths are lost there. Also, the cab was the heaviest of the 911s at about 2,800 #s. A coupe would be 100#s less.

 

Anyway, a well-driven '84-'85 (same car) would be a dead-even race for a well-driven LGT 5MT. and the top-end speeds are around the same (140-145 or so).

 

With my AP, I could dust the old 911. In fact, the guy who owns it was supposed to be out for our Gingerman - Lapeer Dragway weekend a few weeks ago, but he had a last-minute cancellation.

 

Nonetheless, the obvious question is: "What car do I like better?"

 

The 911.....hands down.

 

But...the 911 was never my daily driver. As a daily driver, the LGT is the best that I have ever owned. I will always miss the 911. And another one is one my list once I get all of my "house stuff" completed in the next year or two.

 

Also, cut out the "ego of 911 owners" crap. If you are a car enthusiast, you are seriousl missing out if you never drive or own a 911.

[rfd425]

Nice write-up, Ron!