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A few things to know before stealing my 914

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Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#201

Post by ourmandave »

bombcar wrote: post #52
quadrifoliate wrote: post #24

> Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed g…

The Deuce and a Half has an even more interesting one, just when you think you've figured out the dog-leg you find the last two are reversed again. HN supports shift pattern unicode! Ⓡ②⑤ |–|–| ①③④

Reminds me of the Terminator when he commanders the tanker truck and pulls up the schematics by scanning the shift lever.

They should have had a throwaway scene where he tries to steal a Deuce from an armory and it comes up, "File Not Found."

Or he's throwing errors and has to reboot himself trying to find 4th.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#202

Post by deltarholamda »

tclancy wrote: post #191
deltarholamda wrote: post #181

I laughed out loud several times at this. It's kind of sad that a lot of younger folks won't have this kind of experience. Muscling a 1973 Ford F150 around with no power steering, I learned many, many things about driving. Having to do hill starts with a 3-on-the-tree, I learned many, many more. A recalcitrant, finicky, or otherwise nearly broken car is a source of much distress, but also character building. And ofte…

Ha, yeah, with new cars there’s no reason to try to talk things out and reason with them because there’s no sense they are just being stubborn.

>with new cars there’s no reason to try to talk things out and reason with them because

...because there's a solid chance the car will talk back.

Welcome to the future! Your car will sass you, and you will like it!

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#203

Post by logifail »

optymizer wrote: post #65
quadrifoliate wrote: post #24

> Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed g…

What a blast from the past. I learnt to drive using a VW Golf, and I've always thought this shift pattern is just standard on German cars with manual transmission (at least in the 90s). One thing I don't see mentioned is that you first have to press down onto the knob, then shift forward, in order to shift the transmission into R. Simply pushing the knob forward won't go from N to R.

> this shift pattern is just standard on German cars with manual transmission

"Standard?" Hmm. We have two cars with manual transmission, a VW Sharan and a VW Up:

The Sharan has R at the top left, then (reading across) 1 3 5 with 2 4 6 below; so 6th is at the bottom right.

The Up only has 5 forward gears, but for some reason they decided to put R at the bottom right (so down from 5th... you can probably see where this story is going)

I have once, and only once, been driving along at motorway speed in the Up, in 5th, and briefly thought I was in the Sharan, and started trying to change up to 6th, except the Up only has 5, and you're heading for R, not 6th. Happily I didn't complete the change...

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#204

Post by IgorPartola »

giarc wrote: post #48
BayAreaEscapee wrote: post #8

For awhile I was into autocross. I remember one guy who would always show up in a Porsche 914 with racing tires, and he would run circles around us amateurs.

It's not always the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog. I knew a guy that was an incredible mountain biker, won all the races he entered etc. He used to show up with crappy bikes probably 10lbs heavier than everyone else... he'd still win. Sometimes you either have it or you don't, and all the equipment in the world won't help you.

I keep reading stories if people going to track day on their liter bikes and getting outrun by the instructor riding a 250cc scooter.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#206

Post by alar44 »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #189

I am rather glad that modern cars late 90's are so depressingly reliable and lacking in "character" and just works when I turn the key and all they needs is fuel, oil change, filters and fluids at intervals. I would choose an Audi/BMW if I wanted that sort trepidation in my life.

I would say for the most part, that's how all cars were up until the 90s. Post 2000 everything is computerized and there's not a ton a shade tree mechanic can do beyond swapping out parts.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#208

Post by pwg »

Johnny555 wrote: post #110
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter. The author could be bullshitting (he's not) but how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know?

how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know I think you just need to have driven a car from that era to understand this post and believe it -- the car doesn't neccessarily need to be that old. I had a '77 Civic in 1982 and it had many of these same "features" as his Porsche - any key (or screwdriver) could open the door or turn the ignition, it had a manual choke lever in…

> I think you just need to have driven a car from that era to understand this post and believe it

Yes, indeed. My first car when I turned 16 was a well beaten 1971 Cadillac that had it's share of rust and the like. The author's description of the gas pedal ballet for starting his 914 reminded me of a similar situation with that old Cadillac. For a cold start, all was normal, pump once to set choke and start.

But, for a warm start, one had to hold the pedal down /just the right amount off idle/ or else it would not start up for most attempts. And of course for a semi-warm start there was a decision process of "is it cold enough to need the choke, or warm enough to only need the "slightly off idle" setting". One got a "feel" for just what to do after a bit of time with it and it became no-big-deal, but for anyone new, the whole ballet would have been a very frustrating experience.

When it finally was retired and I upgraded to a car with a fuel injected engine, and no need to touch the gas pedal for any start, hot, cold or warm, a whole era of "being in tune with the car" disappeared.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#209

Post by hallway_monitor »

cpfohl wrote: post #190
skeeter2020 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you love this style and want something intentionally ridiculous check out the various writings at https://www.mcsweeneys.net/

This also reminded me of this delightful piece of writing: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/why-the-police-dont-pat... I can't find the original, but the copy there is exactly what I remembered.

That was some of the best storytelling I have ever read. Wow.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#210

Post by fosk »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #24

> Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed g…

It’s a better pattern for racing since you can more easily shift between 2nd and 3rd gear in a quicker way. Older Ferraris (I believe the Testarossa and the TR512, but maybe others too) also have the same pattern.
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