PORSCHE KREMER 930 STREET RACING
The PORSCHE KREMER 930 STREET RACING
Cast your eyes past the glass cabinet of Porsche Possessions and up the stairs beside the receptionist and if you are a model car buff, you will be transfixed by the 53 1:43 scale model Porsches in bright racing regalia. So someone at Kremer collects models of racing Porsches? Correct, but all of these models either represents a car that Erwin Kremer has raced under his own banner, or the company Porsche Kremer Racing, has prepared for a client. And, according to Manfred Kremer, there are many more.
Porsche Kremer Racing is the Motorsport division of E & M Kremer. The two brothers, Erwin and Manfred have been in the Porsche business for nearly three decades. They celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their company in October 1987, which places the start of their Porsche servicing business with the 356 cars, a year before the birth of the 911 on which the company's racing fortunes was built.
It is unusual for any tuner to be able to hold a Porsche franchise, but in recognition of the tremendous effort that Kremer has put into promoting the success of the marque in international motorsport, this hurdle and another rather more political one were removed by the powers that be at Stuttgart. Normally, to gain a Porsche franchise, one must first prove oneself as a Volkswagen-Audi dealer. From the original network of 210 Porsche dealers in Germany, there are now only 80, following a rationalisation in the late 1980s. Kremer is the only one who is purely Porsche. An accolade has been bestowed.
Kremer's racing successes began 22 years ago when they campaigned a short-wheelbase 911 2.0 litre and emerged winners of the European Touring Car Championship. Every year since then, up to 1985, a Kremer prepared Porsche of some description from 911 to 962C has figured in the winners circle of motorsport events from German Sportscar championships to Le Mans in l979 and IMSA a year later. Kremer prepared the Leyton House sponsored 962C that started 11th on the grid at 1989's Le Mans. But in that fateful race which was won by the Sauber prepared Mercedes cars, all the 962C's were retired after two cars suffered serious engine fires thought to be caused by faulty fuel system components. Such a racing pedigree is bound to be called upon by customers who want their road cars prepared by a company who really know what they are doing, and it was natural for Kremer to call on their competition experience to oblige.
In view of the huge amounts of money that can change hands in the course of commissioning a special car in Kremer, it is surprising that they do not produce a glossy brochure unlike the various BMW, Mercedes-z and even VW-Audi tuners that proliferate in Germany. But if you stop to think about it, most of these other tuners also do a wide range of body styling additions on which they can base a glossy catalogue. Suspension and engine bits can be hung around these as a matter of course. Serious engineering based tuners like Kremer and Ruf let their reputations and the performance of their cars speak for them and as the permutations of engine modifications for just 911 engines, let alone other Porsche models is vast. Kremer only mention three or four typical examples and ask the prospective client to discuss their individual needs with the firm. They speak of 235bhp as a simple conversion for the 3.0 litre 9I1SC and offer up to 410bhp for a road going 3.3 Turbo, but we were shown one flatnose car belonging to a customer that had a Group C 962 engine with nearly 680bhp lurking under its hood. "This cars' engine has Le Mans specification cams in it, "explained Achim Stroth, Kremer's Customer Relations Manager, "and this 'soft' state of tune for endurance racing makes the car docile enough for street use, but only in the country-side. City driving would be asking too much.
The car that Stroth had arranged for us to photograph on this visit was some way short of this ultimate road car. It was going to a Japanese customer who lived in Tokyo. Now those of you who have been to Japan will realise that traffic conditions in downtown Tokyo are somewhat worse than central London at rush hour. The chances of being able to open up a normal 911 let alone a tweaked monster are just about nil, but in Japan, prestige is all that counts. Thus, the car was to be visually one of Kremer's less subtle efforts.
The front of this jet black 911 Turbo is dominated by the huge oil cooler intake which is integral with a deep front air dam of the rounded shovel variety. This blends into the huge front wheel arch flares and continues along the sides of the car to meet the rear arches. The wheels are Porsche Fuchs alloys but of massive 9 x 15 inch and 13 x 15 inch dimensions, chromed but with gold centres. These are shod with Pirelli P7 rubber, 225/50VR15 in front and 345/35VR15 at the rear. Compared to any other Wicked 911 you have ever seen, the Kremer car looks as if it is sitting a mile up in the air. This is not a mistake on Kremer's part, but simply a ploy to get past the Japanese car import red tape which dictates bumper and headlamp height. Once the car is imported and certified, it will be lowered to its correct height and will cease to look like a cartoon caricature of itself.
While the car is street driveable, it will spend some of its life taking part in club sport events. Hence a full roll cage, racing seats and race harnesses have been installed. Aftermarket suspension tuning in Germany has not progressed to the degree of sophistication offered in the United States. The Weitmeister fully adjustable suspension components offered by companies like Precision Porsche in California are in fact available in England through Stuttgart Connection, but very few people know about them. Companies like Kremer and Ruf still rely on the older style of suspension tuning for 911s using bigger torsion bars and anti-roll bars and updated dampers to adjust their suspensions to higher performance needs. Beyond that, they convert the cars to coil springs.
The engine is the most interesting part of this car however, and to get the 410bhp (DIN) that Kremer claim, they have had to do some serious work to the major components. This was a new car to start with and the motor was completely stripped and checked. All the components were blueprinted and balanced and the engine casing had shuffle pins installed to prevent case movement under the huge internal pressures. The heads were gas flowed and the ports matched on both intake and exhaust sides to their respective manifolds. A Kremer four-pipe exhaust system is used which is worth 15bhp in itself, and this makes full use of the hotter cams.
A lot of the engine's staying power comes from a huge intercooler that sits on top of the engine and necessitates the larger rear spoiler on the hood. This is a recommended part of any high boost turbo conversion and together with a specially machined 1(27 turbo, gives 75bhp extra on a stock 3.3 Turbo engine. In conjunction with the four-pipe Kremer exhaust, this extends power to 390bhp com-pared to the stock European 300bhp output. The conversion also removes a large part of the turbo lag and endows the car with better low speed response with boost starting at 2,500rpm.
If you can get your eyeballs past the huge intercooler, you will see that the engine has twin ignition coils and a 12-plug distributor to help it burn all the fuel It is fed at high rpm. Trace the plumbing back to the cockpit, and you find a large knurled knob resting next to the handbrake. This is the boost control knob. Kremer slightly understate in their catalogue when they describe this device as being "used to correct weather influences as needed etc to adjust the boost in case it's too low or too high!"
The finishing touch before we could take the car away for photography was the application of gold coloured decals to the running boards which proclaimed 'Kremer Street Racing,' a contradiction in terms if ever there was one!
Starting a 410bhp 911 Turbo is no different from a stock version, but the noise when the engine catches is. The four pipe exhaust gives a deeper more purposeful note and when you blip the throttle, it reminds you of a toned down 934 racer. Because the car was due to be whisked away to a ship bound for Japan next day, we could not take it far and certainly not fast. In any case, the mechanics wanted to complete their final shakedown and adjustments to make sure it left their hands perfect. The short drive we had though was enough to show that low speed throttle response was indeed no worse that stock and while 300bhp may give you a hard shove in the back, 410bhp is more like an enormous wallop.
Achim Stroth emphasised to us that Kremer are much more geared towards their racing activities than building modified road cars for customers. Certainly you can expect the same level of component and build quality in a Kremer road cdnversion as you would get if you commissioned a Group C Porsche from them. Kremer have no plans for a spectacular road car to challenge the likes of the Ferrari F40 or Porsche 959 in top speed shootouts. For them, their efforts are channelled towards maintaining the lead in sportscar racing that they have acquired and held for nearly three decades. You can hardly blame them - it is what they do best.
Kremer 930 Street Racing Porsche Turbo - owner MCP Motorsport
The name may be well known but the sight of a Kremer Racing Porsche is still an uncommon one on the roads. Best known for its all-conquering racing cars, the Cologne-based company has been a cornerstone of Porsche racing success for more than 30 years, and much of that time has been spent collecting silverware at Le Mans.
As a result, Kremer has justly earned a formidable reputation when it comes to tuning Porsches, and a little of that racederived magic has been fettled into its roadgoing conversions. Unlike other post Stuttgart factory tuners, Kremer doesn't exactly brag about its product. Instead, the onus is on the customer to approach the company with a brief on what they wish to acheive with their car. Consequently, Kremer doesn't produce 'models' as such, at least not in the same way as manufacturers such as Ruf.
In this particular instance, the 930 Turbo had a relatively mild makeover, raising horsepower from the standard 300bhp to around the 340bhp mark. Engine work undertaken in 1979 started with the classic 930 modification of replacing the original turbo with the larger K27, that's good for a 20 to 30bhp power hike on its own. Kremer's own exhaust system was also included and, of course, the out-size intercooler that dominates the engine bay.
That incredibly large 800cubic inch cooling device also has an effect on the metallic blue exterior styling, too. Because of its bulk, the onlv way to accommodate it is to swap the standard engine cover for a replacement with an integral wing, the latter again being far bigger than the factory unit. The only other significant change is Kremer's front spoiler secured beneath the bug-eye nose.
However, these original changes were only the first instalment in this car's evolution. On arrival in the UK, it spent the best part of a month with 930 turbo specialist Colin Belton and his appropriately named company 930 Motorsport. Despite being basically sound, Colin considered this example " a bit tired and in need of a good going over, as many of the cars we see here for the first time are".
To gain a baseline figure from which to work, the first step was to put it on a rolling road. 'It's very easy to lose power,' revealed Colin so it came as no surprise to him to discover it was well down on horsepower, below even that of the standard car's output at 288bhp. 'The turbo was actually in pretty good condition,' he continued and it was only after further investigation that a leaky exhaust and a cracked and poorly maintained intercooler, the brackets for which had distorted, that the missing horses were accounted for.
Re-engineering it to operate at its optimum level were just the beginning of the servicing work, though. The injection system was stripped out and rebuilt, the rocker covers removed and valve clearances adjusted, and the ignition timing and fuelling set up on the rolling road. In addition, all the usual suspects, such as gaskets, filters and plugs, were replaced as were numerous odds and ends around the rest of the car.
But the ace card had yet to be played, the 930 Motorsport replacement headers. Colin explained: "With the standard 911 exhaust system, the gas has to come from the cylinder to the front of the engine, down the side and then all the way to the turbine. At its longest, the path is six feet, accounting for huge heat loss and velocity. With our headers, the gas goes straight back to the turbo on a short length small bore pipe,which keeps velocity and heat high. We keep the left and right sides separate where they meet the turbine housing so you get strong pulses from either side, spinning the turbo up 1000rpm earlier than a standard 930's.'
The net effect is twofold. First, you greatly reduce turbo lag, which may or may not appeal depending on how much vou enjoy the all or nothing delivery of a stock 930. Secondly, and equally if not more significantly, power soars up bv a further 40 to 50bhp. Combined with a wastegate spring upgrade allowing boost to run at that, power is now a heady 389bhp, and that was achieved on a rolling road where warm air slightly reduced the maximum output. On the road, you could reasonably expect a little more.
With all that power being laid down only by the rear rubber, coupled with a standard Turbo four speed gearbox, it's easy to imagine a few traction problems. But, despite a heavyish clutch and very responsive throttle, you can sense if you're heading for trouble. Besides, it doesn't take a wealth of experience to work out that you'd have to be either a hooligan with a penchant for repair bills or driving on a circuit to give it any real stick. A solid prod of the loud pedal soon gets you shifting through the ratios, and you can't help being impressed by how pleasant changing ratios is. Despite the long throw action the car's layout demands, each gear is found with a smooth snick of the longish lever.
Once on the move you can really start to probe the full extent of this incredible machine's potential. And there's masses to be discovered. As your right boot pushes the throttle, you simply can't believe a 22-year-old road car can still be one of the fastest you'll ever drive. Acceleration is shattering, and until you've become accustomed to it, driving at full chat is more about hanging on and keeping it on the tarmac rather than pushing the boundries of the car's, and more importantly your own ability.
The one boost to your confidence as you approach each bend is the knowledge that you've got the turbo spooled up by the 2500rpm mark, above which power arrives more progressively. Consequently, feeding it in as you clip the apex can be done without the fear of an unexpected loss in traction.
Of course, it's more than capable of handling itself through the twists, you're just not sure if you can. Clearly, it's not glued to the tarmac in the same way as a modern 911 but the addition of Bilstein shocks certainly contributes to a more sure-footed feel than you'd find in a standard 930. The 9-inch-wide rear tyres do their best to reassure you that they"Il hang on in there, too. All the while, the non servo-assisted steering gives you enough feedback to know when things are going to start getting interesting.
For extra reassurance and as another concession to the modern motoring world, 993 spec callipers have been included in the 930 Motorsport upgrade. Even though they still do need a good prod to get them going, their stopping power is unarguably streets ahead of the originals and a welcome complement to the engine's 21st Century power levels.
Clearly, you still need to concentrate if you hope to keep out of trouble, a point Martin Pearse, owner of both the 930 here and MCP Motorsport, suppliers of such rareties, is well aware of. "When you approach a corner too fast in this car, youhave to remember not to back off the power at once or you'll be in even bigger trouble,' he warned.
So why would a man who makes a living from selling cars buy such a focussed model, and one that needed a fair amount of work into the bargain? 'it is unusual for me to buy something this rare,' he admitted. 'I did know it needed work when I bought it, just not as much as it turned out. I have never bought a car and spent so much money on getting it up to scratch, but there are so few of these cars in the world and Kremer are the masters of Porsche tuning."
It sounds very much like a labour of love, and although a successful businessman would never admit it, that's probably what it or not, but his head won the battle over his heart. Still, you have to expect to face these dilemmas when you sell cars you lust over owning and driving yourself.
Martin finds most of these cars through his contact in Germany, a man he met by chance years ago. 'Buying cars in Germany is just as difficult, if not more so than it is here. You have got to know the language, and then all the usual things like whether it is stolen etcetera. if you don't speak German it is fraught with danger, but I've never had a problem with any of the cars I've imported.'
As with many of MCP Motorsport's cars, this one was found in the showroom of Martin's German source of such machinery. "It just happened to be sitting in the corner but before he found it, it was just sitting in a collection, which is never good for them," he recalled. "It was obviously a Kremer but it didn't have any paperwork to prove it. So I took it to the factorv in Cologne for them to verify its provenace' he continued. Once the car was back in the UK it went straight to 930 Motorsport for a once over and any necessary work. 'Naturally there was a bit of work to do which meant I had to wait a while before I could get behind the wheel' he continued.
In today's world of heady 500+bhp, twinturbo 996 Turbo's appearing on daily basis at least that's how it seems - it comes as a refreshing change to experience an example of yesteryear capable of delivering 2002 levels of enjoyment. A car such as the Kremer makes an even stronger point for itself when you consider an example could be parked on your driveway for a reasonable £21,995, it's not only the Kremer's heritage and performance which will sell it to you.
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