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356 Technical Information

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The Technical section of the website contains a wealth of resources for members. All of the documents are posted in the website Document Library and searchable. These pages under the Technical menu organize the content in categories and groupings along with photos, videos and photo albums related to topics of interest. In summary here are descriptions of the sub-menus.

356 Literature Zentrale

Welcome!

It is our intent to share as many 356 era official documents as possible to benefit our members. Content is added each month, and indicated with a **NEW tag by the link to the page or document that is recent. We are pleased to have been able to coordinate this effort which we hope will be an invaluable resource of 356 Porsche information for all members of the 356 Registry to use and enjoy. To learn more about this project, click this link for a Letter from Trustee Jim Wayman.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the small committee that is scanning, touching up, and assembling documents and creating web pages. Those individuals are: Michael Branning, Fred Eiden, Craig Geiger, Brett Johnson, Lori Schutz and Jim Wayman. We are also grateful to members past and present who have been very generous providing original literature for scanning (or scans) as well as images for presentation. These include Jim Alton, Peter Bartelli, Charles Bennet, Rudy Bernhard, Michael Branning, Harry Burnstine, Curt Dansby, Jules Dielen, Andreas Dreher, Tom Drummond, Guido Eickholz, Albert Häfner, Spencer Harris, Victor Ingram, Brett Johnson, Tom Kaiser, Joris Koning, Tim Kuser, Robert Laepple, Mark Merz, Cem Ozbey, Michael Parsch, John Parsley, Jim Perrin, Fred W. (Bill) Rauskolb, Bill Romano, Maurizio Santini, Tony Singer, Vic Skirmants, Stu Stout, Jim Wayman and Don Zingg.

Technical Library

Porsche 356 technical resources, including factory documents, 5000+ magazine articles, and 300+ web articles can be found here

Technical Index

This page is organized much like Yahoo's web site from the early days of the internet. It's long and has lots of text, but that is a feature! You can easily search the page for keywords with your computer or phone using the "find" command. The links are nearing 1000.

Chassis Number History

The chassis number history is a database of 356 car information that is completed by members about their 356s.

Factory Numbers

When Porsche built the 356, as part of the manufacturing process serial numbers were assigned to major components by stamping them in to the chassis, the engine, and the transmission. The last several digits of the chassis number was stamped into body panels and marked in chalk on other components, to be sure those items were mated to the correct body during the assembly process. The chassis, engine, and transmission numbers were (usually) recorded on the factory Kardex records which were primarily a warranty record.

In addition to the engine numbers, Porsche numbered the case numbers of the various crankcase castings. These numbers are sometimes used to match the pieces of a crankcase or to check to see whether the stamped engine number corresponds to the correct casting for that engine series. Here is an article that describes the location of the case numbers.