The 356 Club of Southern California's Summer Concours event is an annual tradition that we never miss supporting as a sponsor or attending. This year's event was held at the picturesque Bella Collina Towne & Golf Club in San Clemente. 

While the event is 356-centric (of course) there was also a wide variety of 911 and 912 cars there.  The club has expanded the number of awards and this has certainly helped the variety.  There were even a few odd ducks out there, including a VW single-cab transporter. 

It's not often that you see three 356 Continentals lined up together. 

Rod Emory showed off his wild all-wheel-drive, twin-turbocharged creation. What a beast! 

This unrestored Speedster garnered a lot of attention.  

This stunning Bent Window Coupe in the Full Concours, finishing second. It is owned by Mike Nolte.

A stunning Black 356A Cab owned by Nick Clemence won first place in the Full Concours.  

The full results can be seen HERE. 

Stoddard's 32nd Annual All-Porsche Car Show and Swap Meet was held this past weekend, on June 7-8th.  We had vendors from all over the midwest and Canada present and visitors from all over the country here at our Highland Heights Facility.  Thankfully, this was one of the nicest weekends that Northern Ohio has seen so far this year.  

The Friday night literature and toy meet had some interesting finds. 

Like previous years, we served sandwiches and some pretty darn good cookies.  

LN Engineering was on display both Friday and Saturday.  

The guys from Restoration Design drove down from Canada to show off their "from scratch" Speedster. 

Adam Wright showing off his latest acquisition.  It was more of an arts and crafts project than a Porsche, but any 356 with a title is worth restoring!  

This BT5 looked like a decent driver.  It was for sale for $48,000 in the swap area.  

Our resident 914 Nerd,  Mark Taylor noted that there were at least 9 914s in attendance for the Car Show.  

One of our favorite cars was this Bahama Yellow 912.  No, it wasn't perfect, but it looked like a nice, honest car in a cool color.  

Deborah and Paul Bedford's RHD Speedster was shipped here from Australia to get some work done by Mike Immarino's Aircooled Auto.  Oddly enough, this car was once owned by Mike's dad!  This car earned Third Place in the Car Show. 

Jerry Payto's beautiful 1967 911 is always a treat to look at.  It finished Second in the car show.  

Terrence Orr's 1962 Twin Grill Roadster was Best In Show!  

Jesse Nolan from Across The Pond Restoration accepting the Best In Show award for the Roadster.  

Our friends at Nor Cal Treffpunkt has a organized a pair of Swap Meets for this Summer.

Please Meet The Stoddard Stainless Sport Exhaust System for 356 and 912!

A few years ago, we helped the TV Show, "Overhaulin'" build a custom 356 by supplying them with sheetmetal and trim items to complete the project. The Host, Chip Foose, did a lot of custom work on the 356 and our friend Rod Emory chipped in as well. The finished car included a pretty wild exhaust system that we loved.  

The exhaust system was engineered at Magnaflow for the TV Show—we then took that original design and adapted it for larger scale production to fit 356A through 356C cars with the included mandrel-bent tubes that slide into the stock bumper outlets.  We also created tips so that the all-stainless-steel performance exhaust could be used on a 912, as well as Sport tips for exiting under the bumper on a 356.  It's got a great, throaty sound and works well on stock and 1720cc big bore engines.  

The exhaust systems are constructed out of 400-series stainless steel with polished straight-through perforated-core mufflers. The design incorporates an X or Cross pipe design to boost torque, which is usually difficult from a packaging perspective on a flat-four engine.  
    

We took extra care to perfect the exhaust note of the system. There is no resonances or drone at speed—just a nice, throaty sound during acceleration.  Here's a link of the video of the sound during acceleration HERE.  You can also hear the exhast system idling HERE. 

Please give us a call at (800) 342-1414 to order or go HERE to order online. 

Question:

I have a 1963 356B coupe which needs new front brakes.I’m pretty handy working on cars and want to do the work myself. I see you sell new brake shoes and all the other brake stuff. Tell me what to watch out for with this job. - George B.,  Cleveland, OH.

Answer:

There are no real mysteries in the Porsche 356 drum brakes. So here’s a few words that should help you out. Obviously, the front drums need the most attention and the drums themselves wear out after all these years.  Any cracks in the drum linings are cause to have the drums relined – there are a couple of sources for that service in the US – call me for names. Plus, the Porsche factory has recently manufactured new complete drums. However, usually the drums are good and may only need slight re-surfacing.

 
Assuming your drums are good, then your major job will be replacing the shoes and wheel cylinders. There are three areas to pay attention to. See photos below of both brake assemblies. 

Brake cylinders – two of the cylinders you will receive will go in the upper location and two go in the lower location. Look in the photo of the right-hand assy: The upper cylinder has the adjuster on the left side and the bottom one has the adjustor on the right side. 
 
Brake shoes – all four shoes should be the same design. The new production shoes from Stoddard NLA are modelled after the last and best original version. Previous Porsche versions can be used as well but are not as effective. Check the position of each in the photos.  

Look at the shoe in the upper left in the right-hand assy.The thick end goes into the adjuster side of the cylinder and the thin end goes into the non-adjustor side of the lower cylinder.
 
Some shoes are slightly thicker and/or bent on the end and will bind in the slot. A little filing or slight grinding will take care of that problem. A very slight touch of anti-seize compound at those points will solve any binding.   
 
Springs – carefully note which hole the ends of the springs attach to. Those springs are four of the big springs in your brake hardware kit (the other two are used on the rear brakes). You’ll find that vice-grip type pliers are your best friend to get the ends of these springs into the holes! The other springs are the little coil springs which tension the end caps against the “nails”. Again, there’s no problem if you have the right tool.  Buy one like this at Pep Boys which will take the grief out of setting the seats against the springs.

That should get you started on doing your brake job. Give us a call with any questions.

800-438-8119.  

Regards,
Brad Ripley

A friend of ours has a very clean 71k-mile 1986 944 Turbo for Sale.  The 951 has recently undergone a full service and is very reasonably priced at $14,000. It wears all-original paint and the interior looks very pristine.  The car is located near Cleveland Ohio.   Please contact George Wojnowski at (440) 725-2181 

Question: 

I have a 356C. This Spring I’m detailing my engine – painting the engine tin and coil and so forth. I bought two tiny rubber plugs but wonder where they go. The part number on my invoice is 539-06-116. 
- John C.,  Sacramento, CA.

Answer:
Good question. The Porsche Parts Catalog and the Porsche Electronic Catalog (PET) just shows those little plugs off to the side of the fan house and no real indication of where they go. Take a look at the photo below.  In the background is the fact that the fan housings started out from Volkswagen and were modified by Porsche as the years went by. You can see some metal plugs spot-welded here and there which close up holes used in other applications, i.e., Pre-A and industrial engines.

You will need two of these plugs. Note, one of the plugs will be hidden after the coil and oil filter brackets are installed. 

Give us a call with questions any time.
 
800-438-8119.  

Regards,
Brad Ripley

by Cameron Taylor

Demand the best for your vintage Porsche brakes– Stoddard’s new production of quality 356 drum brake shoes. When the 356 was produced, it was equipped with drum brakes, which were pretty normal for the time. These function by expanding the pair of shoes into the inner friction surface of the drum to create friction to stop the car. In 1964,  with the introduction of the 356C, Porsche switched to the newer and more modern disc brake system. However, there are many older models still on the road, and as they are performance cars, albeit vintage,  braking is still of top importance. 

For many years remanufactured brake shoes were the only choice for the 356 owner. Just as it sounds, each shoe is stripped of its friction material and new material is reapplied. Now there is an option for higher quality and better performance. For the first time in decades, newly manufactured 356 brake shoes are available for sale. These new shoes are designed to fit perfectly and are a great value.

Stoddard brake shoes are made here in America using the highest quality components. Each new backing plate is laser cut and then assembled using state of the art computer-controlled TIG welding. The backing plate ends are finished with proper coining to better fit the cylinders. The friction material is bonded to our plates with asbestos free lining applied by the largest manufacture of brake shoes here in the United States.

An axle set of our brake shoes (4)  is a great value and will fit 356, 356A, and 356B models. There is no core charge as we use all new material.

Click Here to Buy. 

Our backing plate components are made from high quality steel

Our shoes are made using state of the art TIG welding for optimum fit and precision.

Here are some images from the 356 Club of Southern California's All Porsche Car Show and Swap Meet at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim, California on March 3rd, 2019.  The weather was awesome--the rains from the night before had all cleared out and it was pretty sunny most of the day.  Lots of neat cars, great stuff to find in the swap section and great people as always. 

2019 LA Lit Meet at the LAX Hilton on March 2nd, 2019.  We had a record number of vendors and the crowds were much larger than in year's past.  Here are some pictures we took while at the show.