Porsche 944 Racer Project

[mike@af]

My buddies and I just picked up a sweet find for $100. A Porsche 944. The plan is to gut it, and sell as much as we can from it. The goal is to turn it into a road racer/autocrosser. I'll be building a full rollcage and secondary tube chassis for it. The engine will be bored to 3.0L, and may be supercharged. Most of the body panels will be replaced with fiberglass. So on and so forth.


Here's the Porsche as it stands currently. Started the teardown. Front fender was customized by a dear, but its in amazing shape for 20 year old car and will prove to be an amazing piece to start with.











Much more to come. Tomorrow we'll really start ripping it apart and pulling out the engine.

[Markgase2000]

Hey Mike OMG did you rescue that pretty machine from a abusive previous owner? Great project man a friend of mine has 2 944's one turbo one NA they are both Auto X cars and wow are they fast and fun.
Good luck and have a ton of fun brother oh and from what I hear they arent easy to work on pretty sound cars body and engine wise. Awesome!


Mark

[mike@af]

They definately arent easy to work on because its German Engineered.

Started tearing out the interior and trunk. We found $3 worth of change for the build, a knife, a pack of cigs, an oil lamp, a few bugs, a behive, a tire compressor, and the remains of a sub woofer wiring. I got the front fender off, and found a beehive. I had to cut the fender in half to gain access to the firewall bolts. Pictures tomorrow.

[TheSilentChamber]

Oh behive!...

[mike@af]

Oh my God, I am having so much fun with this project. I've always liked working on cars but this is just beyond fun. So we've stripped it out, and these pictures are 2 hours old so theres even more stripped out now. There is a wiring jungle we need to sort through and figure out what to lose and what to keep.






The door latches have been removed as well as the seat brackets. So we cranked the car over today, duct taped the doors shut, through a seat in the car sitting against a battery, and hand threaded the steering nut on and my buddy took it for a spin. I dont have a death wish so i didnt ride in the death trap.

There's no muffler, only a cat (for now) and the thing is loud as hell and shoots fire. MAF sensor is busted though so we're fixing that this weekend.

[ImolaEK]

Your a pimp. You know your doing it big when you get your hands on a Porsche ! just kidding.

[TheSilentChamber]

Just make sure whatever you do is going to be legal for whatever autocross class your planning to run in.

[bigfrit]

IDIOT!

YOU DESTROYED A PORSCHE !

JK mike, love the work, seems like big plans for this ballsy car, great work in it too...

Oli

[CBFryman]

damn you...i want one...im thinking about asking my neighbor if i can have an old boken down 260Z limited edition...it still runs but the glass is all fogged up and the interior is wet and its sitting on the dirt because all 4 dires are poped...but it would make one hell of a project car...
keep the pics comming.

[Cbass]

Top of the list

Glad to see another one saved from being parted out!

[CBFryman]

OT: i like the siggy CBass..

not that im a porsche Nazi or LS1 hater...

[mike@af]

Wonderful! Just got home from the Porsche Factory Race Teams' shop. Talked to one of our buddies over there. Turns out our car is a crap because of the suspension components. So this car is going to be parted, and we'll get an 86 944 Turbo for the racer.

[Chevy4life1985]

Originally Posted by GTmike400

Wonderful! Just got home from the Porsche Factory Race Teams' shop. Talked to one of our buddies over there. Turns out our car is a crap because of the suspension components. So this car is going to be parted, and we'll get an 86 944 Turbo for the racer.

All that work for nothing?

[Cbass]

Who told you that? Just because it doesn't have alloy trailing arms doesn't mean it's no good. In fact, the alloy front control arms are NOTORIOUS for bending, so you have either buy billet/fabricated arms for $1000+ or convert to original STEEL arms. The aftermarket can take care of any suspension needs you have, the only real disadvantage is is slightly higher unsprung weight, and the lighter body of the older cars more than makes up for that.

www.paragon-products.com are yout frieeeends. 250# front springs and the cheapy coilover sleeve kit, 19mm M030 rear bar and Koni yellow's all around and you'll be set. This is an awesome street/autoX setup.

A better setup if you have the cash is to fabricate a new rear crossmember, ditch the torsion bars and go with alloy trailing arms and rear coilovers. This will save rougly 40-50lbs, and offer much better rear spring rate options, as well as easy changes of ride height. I'd recommend this option over bigger torsion bars, althouhg it's a little more expensive and a bit more work, you'll never have to reindex the bars, which is a major PITA.

That and a set of very stiff front springs will give you an awesome handling car. The only production car that even compares is a Lotus Elan.

You'll do much better investing in that 944 NA that you got for free rather than building up a 944 Turbo.

944 Turbo(951)'s get expensive really fast. '86 is the first year for the 951, and it had the early style offset, makes wheel fitments tricky, the '87+ are a much better bet. Best to look for are the '88 S, or the '89 which is identical to the S. Limited slip diff stock, M030 stock(very good struts and brakes, pretty good spring rates, adjustable ride height), overall a VERY competitive car in stock form. It also makes 250hp stock, and takes very little breathing on to make more power than that. 951's aren't cheap though, especially if you want to go racing. If you do find one for cheap, look for serious mechanical faults and signs of accident damage.

[mike@af]

Originally Posted by Cbass

Who told you that? Just because it doesn't have alloy trailing arms doesn't mean it's no good. In fact, the alloy front control arms are NOTORIOUS for bending, so you have either buy billet/fabricated arms for $1000+ or convert to original STEEL arms. The aftermarket can take care of any suspension needs you have, the only real disadvantage is is slightly higher unsprung weight, and the lighter body of the older cars more than makes up for that.

www.paragon-products.com are yout frieeeends. 250# front springs and the cheapy coilover sleeve kit, 19mm M030 rear bar and Koni yellow's all around and you'll be set. This is an awesome street/autoX setup.

A better setup if you have the cash is to fabricate a new rear crossmember, ditch the torsion bars and go with alloy trailing arms and rear coilovers. This will save rougly 40-50lbs, and offer much better rear spring rate options, as well as easy changes of ride height. I'd recommend this option over bigger torsion bars, althouhg it's a little more expensive and a bit more work, you'll never have to reindex the bars, which is a major PITA.

That and a set of very stiff front springs will give you an awesome handling car. The only production car that even compares is a Lotus Elan.

You'll do much better investing in that 944 NA that you got for free rather than building up a 944 Turbo.

944 Turbo(951)'s get expensive really fast. '86 is the first year for the 951, and it had the early style offset, makes wheel fitments tricky, the '87+ are a much better bet. Best to look for are the '88 S, or the '89 which is identical to the S. Limited slip diff stock, M030 stock(very good struts and brakes, pretty good spring rates, adjustable ride height), overall a VERY competitive car in stock form. It also makes 250hp stock, and takes very little breathing on to make more power than that. 951's aren't cheap though, especially if you want to go racing. If you do find one for cheap, look for serious mechanical faults and signs of accident damage.

My buddy and I are friends with the US Director for Moton suspension, so we went over to a performance center who builds cars for Porsche Factory Race team. He was telling us for our application, road race with NASA that we should move up to an 86 Turbo. He was saying that our motor would require extensive machining, welding, filing, water passaging, and rebuilding to turbo charge with massive power. Whereas the 86 Turbo Motor already has a lot of that done to it and what we would have to do costs less money.

He was saying the suspension is junk from stamped steel. He said many times thay fail coming around turn 1 and turn 12 of Road Atlanta. You get what he calls the "death shake".

Moreso switching over to an 86 because of the engine. The tech also said to stay away from 88+ for track racing because of the ABS.

Any thoughts to this before we buy a new car? Thanks Connor.