Anyone following the recent engine woes of Matt Farah's 911 Safari? Okay, I can only take Matt in small doses, but it's been interesting to me to see what's going on in the world of air cooled 911s not just in terms of car rices, but service and repairs too.
The first thing that didn't surprise me was the $20K cost of a top-end rebuild. Engine service costs of the various air cooled models has been steadily increasing for a long time, and today that hasn't changed. Not super expensive like some of the Pasta Rockets, but for an old car with a pretty simple engine design, they ain't cheap.
The shop he's having it done at is great, and they do a great job of going through the process, too bad Matt interrupts and talks over all the time. Send Matt home and just let the crew film the tech.
What really suprised me was the idea that the bottom end of the engine is amazing in that it can "reach 150K miles." WTF? That's not amazing. That's not even 300K-kms. A 3.2L bottom end should be good for much more than that!! Those old engines have huge tolerance thanks to being air cooled, but they're well made and the bottom ends can last a long time with care. Maybe since they're changing hands as guys try to make some dough on them, neglect is happening.
Overall though, I love the Safari concept and I'll out up with Matt to check it out.