Roland Kunz -- Monday, 12 March 2001, at 4:01 a.m.
Well the sportomatic is an semiautomatic and no fullautomatic. If you wantet to be fast then you had to shift and mix up the four gears. But most people put them in D like drive witch was topgear that runed from 0 - 230 km/h ( 2,4 S ). Well then most of the energy where send into the converter and underprssure operatet clutch and transfered into heat. Also giving very low ET.
Sportomatic is an very sophisticatet system but needs allways propper maintance as the unit runs with the engine oil and any malfunctions/missaligment ended in burnt clutch or overheatet parts.
Other low are unused cars that have slightly cracked vacuum acctuatorcanister only working under full load from the engine but not at idle or partially throttle. ( Sounding gears ).
An other reason for rarity is thjat some inerta from that transmisson are very usable for racing ( Gears, Shafts ).
Sportomatics and marked. Well in germany the sporto´s where allways downpriced by 10-20% rates compared to an similar manual. Only sought after from handicapded people, ( Especially after 1978 the last official 911 was delivered ) sporto lovers ( There are some around H.Bott was adicctet to sportos and got allways an sporto as Company Car, later he got PDK in his 3,2 L ) and people who where thinking as collectors.
Today the sportos are rare and prices where going up for the S-Types nealy equal. I see that the future will give an higher rate for sportos as rarity counts. Compare it with the 914/6 situation.
But buying an sporto is allways riskyer then an manual at least some parts are NA or damn expensive. I know some who bought an sporto and drive them as long as possible but buying all parts to restore the sporto and to convert it to an manual. Some are driving with an convertet car and wait for the day to retrofit the sporto.
Sporto and MFI is risky as bad adjustment and short distance driving will flow gasoline in the oil and then the sporto tourque converter can get damaged. So look for the oil and only buy an good maintanced car. PPI on sporto ? Well you anyhow have to find one machanic of the old days who knew how. Young sprouts who never had seen them will need same time to understand the system.
Well similar system where runing as Sachs Automatic on VW, Opel, Mercedes, Glas, Borgward, BMW but the Porsche was the last and most sophisticatet from them. But an good old mechanic from those brands still have the base knowledge.
Porsche needed a bit more time to make the sportos race durable. At least Porsche set some world records in the late 60´s. Some, the 48H run was long unbeaten. Read more about it at Paul Frere´s 911 Story.
As far i know the only tourque converter automatic with Le mans race history as Bruce Mc Larens Chaprall didn´t made it and the cadillacs had been stick shift. Bugatti or Talbot with Cotal Automatic doesn´t count as they have no torque converter.
Grüsse
Roland Kunz -- Tuesday, 13 March 2001, at 1:11 p.m.--
Hello
Sportomatik has two systems:
One is the hydraulic converter witch runs from the engineoilsystem. An left cylinderhead mountet oilpump helps keeping slug down by pre oiling.
The other system is an mechanical 4 speed + R transmission. This unit is shiftet by the handlever, the clutch is operatet via an switch in the lever. The clutch itself has only 180 mm size and is operatet from an vacuum powered/assistet system.
Right now where is the problem ? while shifting or while accelerating or cruising ?
The low on the coverter is that it costs power and gives an slugish (?) feeling at start off as it needs some time to move the car. Well car was not made for racing but comfortable driving in city and around city was the goal.
In the 60 Porsche co developed and testet an 3 speed full automatic for Volkswagen and some of them were adoptet into 911, 912 and 914. Well didn´t satisfy and for higher output engines and small displacement an full automatic was hard to handle then. Hence beffing up the max 90 HP units to withstand an 200 HP S would cost very much and made an much heavier unit ( Look at an Mercedes or GM turbo 400 of that age ).
An other bad behavoir of the full automatic was that they down or upshiftet while you drove an curve. And you never had the power in time if you had hassle in the curve. An full automatic setet to "safe" mode would had mad the car very slow if there was an solution for that anway.
Grüsse
