Went to Infinion Raceway on Sat. Here are a few of my favorite pics

Favorite old porsche

Favorite New Porsche

S#*T

The brakes on this car are 3x the value of my whole 914!

Favorite old motor?

If anyone knows much about these speakup!

Cleanest (GT40)

What I can afford.

Type 547, AKA "Carrera four-cam" or "Fuhrmann four-cam". Hellishly complex DOHC Bug motor (sorta-kinda-maybe-but-not-really) putting out an improbable amount of power for the day from a little displacement. They ranged from 1500cc up to 2000cc, and put out anything from 100 HP to 200+ HP. The lesser-powered ones were motors for street cars, the big numbers were for motors built for the factory racers.

The Abarth Carreras all had them. The 356 Carreras did as well. Most of the Spyders did (the first couple got pushrod motors as the four-cammers weren't done yet; a later experimental Spyder got one of the 8-cylinder Formula 1 motors and possibly there was a Six put in one). The 904 was designed to take the 547 or the new 911 six-cylinder. Pretty much all of the zoom-zoom cars that Porsche built up through about 1964 or so had these engines.

The dual overhead cams were driven by layshafts with beveled gears. Two distributors because the engine was twin-plugged to run higher compression. Usually the powerband was waaaaay up high. Shim-and-bucket valve adjustment, which took even a factory-trained mechanic roughly forever. I recall hearing that it took a factory-trained mechanic 80 hours of work to assemble the motor. IF nothing went wrong...

Good example of the German trait of, "Ve vill make zis as complex as possible--und ve vill make it verk very, very gut indeed!!"

--DD

Thanks Dave

The guys working on this one had it running well it sounded very healthy and smooth. It was in the Aarth in the 1st pic.

Oh, and what Dave didn't tell you is they are hellishly expensive! A good motor is easily $50 - $75k.
There aren't that many guys left that know how to build them either.

I met a guy who thought about selling his 58 GT and was trying to help sell it for him, but it didn't happen.
All I wanted was just to hear it and drive it once.

Oh yeah, forgot about the $$.

A local guy, Bill Benz, has a 57 Speedster with a four-cam motor in it. Amazing thing. He brings it out and autocrosses it occasionally, which is just a joy to see. That car is not a museum piece, it gets flogged quite hard on occasion! "The concours guys all look at me funny, but I tell them that I only have $17K into the car--apart from the motor, of course." Uhhh, Bill--the motor is worth more than your Carrera 2 cost brand new!! But is sure is nice to see (and hear!!!) it zoom around the cones.

There's a company now in Germany that is repop'ing the four-cam parts. You can build yourself a 904 two-liter race motor out of all brand-new parts that never came near Zuffenhausen! Purdy kewl, that. Definitely some demand there.

--DD