Porsche 944: Actually there is a substitute

[sparkydog]

Dang! Solstice wheelbase is 95.1" and the 944 is 94.5". I should do this Halfbreed style and just shave the body off a Solstice and tuck the chassis up into the Porsche. Drive it with the Solstice motor for awhile.

Now I just need to find a wrecked Solstice where all that they damaged was the roof!

[Frizzle Fry]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

Dang! Solstice wheelbase is 95.1" and the 944 is 94.5". I should do this Halfbreed style and just shave the body off a Solstice and tuck the chassis up into the Porsche. Drive it with the Solstice motor for awhile.

Now I just need to find a wrecked Solstice where all that they damaged was the roof!

Now yer talkin! Or one with a blown engine in need of an LSX

Using one donor/make will ease the challenge of meeting CARB standards.

[Frizzle Fry]

Copart

and IAAI

Don't forget to include the Saturn Sky in your search.

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

Now I just need to find a wrecked Solstice where all that they damaged was the roof!

Guess that would be hard to find seeing as how a Solstice doesn't have a roof. Doh!

[Frizzle Fry]

Damaged top wouldn't save you much there, no

Another approach to consider (briefly mentioned earlier) would be keeping the 944 swing-arm IRS and just mounting a donor IRS diff (many to choose from) in place of the Porsche transaxle. Run your LSX with a conventional trans/drive-line back to it. Easy-Money.

[Jonboy]

After having an early CTS-V with the plain 6 cylinder aluminum diff, I wouldn't bother swapping one of those in. The 06-07 V's used an iron center section. The early ones were prone to failure. The one in my car was howling like mad when I got it at 30K.

[aussiejohn]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

(That's not a 944 in the movie. I think its a 924 or 928 but I'm def not a Porsche guru.)

sparky and Frizzle,

I have admired your work since I first stumbled across it. I spent (not wasted) several days looking at the Minx re-pop. Fabulous work. Now, as for that movie clip, that car looks awfully like a 928, the car that Porsche designed purely for the US market. They knew that Yanks liked a V8 in front, driving the rear wheels, so the 928 was the result.

From his book, "Corvette from the Inside" Dave McLellan says, "With its water-cooled, front mounted V-8 engine, rear transaxle, and two-plus-two seating, it represented Porsche's direction for the future. Unfortunately, it had none of the nimble, sharp, and aggressive feel of the 911, which had propelled Porsche to a position of eminence in the sports car market."

Dave drew on many of the 928's features when he designed the C4, including the torque tube that linked the trans to the diff.

A friend on mine in Australia has a right hand drive 928 with the factory three speed auto transaxle and is toying with the idea of replacing the engine when it dies with an LSx but is unsure whether to go with an easily obtainable engine mounted transmission (from a Holden Commodore V8 passenger car) with a Holden IRS diff, or try to find a transaxle that will handle the power.

An engine mounted trans will involve widening the tunnel, which will probably mean that different seats will be needed, etc. And then where does it stop?

As a coincidence, one of his sons has two 944s, both autos, and is in the process of restoring the better car with parts from the other. Once I show Roy this site, I think he'll be a regular observer, for both his and his son's cars.

Keep up the good, no, EXCELLENT work!

Regards from Down Under.

aussiejohn

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by aussiejohn

Once I show Roy this site, I think he'll be a regular observer, for both his and his son's cars.

aussiejohn

Thanks very much aussiejohn! I hope I can live up to your kind words. Here is the primary site I have been using that specializes in 944 LSX conversions.
http://944hybrids.forumotion.com/

There are one or two others as well.

There are also some threads on
http://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-hybrids-28/
that deal with 944 LSX (Holden) issues.

And if you want to get a feel for how many problems and issues there are with a stock 944 just browse through this place...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...chnical-forum/

These poor guys have to spend $1,000's to keep their cars running. But then again that's what made the car appear on my radar and allows them to be so cheap to acquire.

[sparkydog]

During the past week I finished off the carcass dolly. I also went hi-tech and fabbed up some conduit stunt struts so I could keep the hatch of the 944 open without risk to my life (it's heavy). Get used to seeing conduit bracing because it's going to play a main role in my suspension grafting activities later on!

[sparkydog]

I promised myself that before I pulled the motor out of the 944 I would create some kind of ride height & wheel location reference gage so here are some shots of what I did. I'm not sure I will need it later on but I didn't want to discover later on that I wished I'd done something like this after it was too late.

I even gave the gages names so I wouldn't forget them!

[sparkydog]

Then it was on to the fun stuff - motor extraction!

Apparently there is a Hatfield/McCoy thing with the 944 crowd on whether tis best to extract out the top or the bottom. I went for the top style. Along the way I noticed that it's a good thing I never intended to drive it as a stock 944 because it was missing motor mount bolts, 1 out of 4 crossmember bolts and the front sway bar was askew on the one side.

By Friday eve I had the top side prepped and was ready early Saturday morning for what I expected was going to be a simple completion of the final steps. But the Porsche had other plans - turns out the motor is seized so I could not disconnect the flex plate. 4 hours later I emerged the victor but along the way I had to drop the cross member, loosen the rack and pinion, remove the DS wheel, drop the DS shock tower and control arm and to a whole lot of wiggling. I lost track of all time. The place looked like a war zone. But - the damn thing is out now.

Can you spot the boat anchor in the last picture?

[sparkydog]

Next I cleaned up and re-positioned the 944 for rear-end surgery. I spy a transaxle!

[sparkydog]

Today's example of quirky German engineering: there are no junction connectors on any of the harnesses. For example - the engine harness is basically a branch off the main vehicle harness. So if you want to pull the motor you have to disconnect ALL motor devices (fuel injectors, oil pressure switch, alternator, AC the list goes on) and then snake all the wires out/off the motor because Brother there ain't no engine sub-harness!

Verrrrrry interesting!

But schtupid.

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

I promised myself that before I pulled the motor out of the 944 I would create some kind of ride height & wheel location reference gage

I forgot to mention that before marking locations on the gages I put the 944 hood, seats, battery, spare tire, et cetera back on the car. No idea how much gas was in the tank but will find out soon enough when I pull it out.

[Frizzle Fry]

[sparkydog]

Well the 944 gave up her rear suspension and torque tube without much fuss today. I had to get a little creative and use the motor hoist to drag it out from under the car while doing a group hug with the floor jack.

[sparkydog]

Then out came a surprisingly large fuel tank.

The fuel filler area looked like it had some kind of rework or hack - I've heard there were issues with fumes or smells on the 944.

I don't know what it is about me and critters but here you go - this black widow was PISSED OFF that I had to go and tear apart the car she was growing some kids in.

[sparkydog]

Now she's up on the carcass dolly and the front suspension is next.

Check out the size of the pads on the disks. This is why the stock 944 rigging is not good for V8 swaps.

Trying to figure out how to grab onto the rear end is challenging. That pretty much goes no matter what you're talking about.

[sparkydog]

I verified that the overall width of the rear of the car is approx 68" inside to inside of rear fender well lips. This is what Wikipedia had listed so now we know that anything on Wiki is correct! (joke) And the stock Porsche rear end was about 59.5" wheel hub to wheel hub (face to face). These two measurements along with the same deal from up front will be important in the donor vehicle decisions.

[sparkydog]

Option code sticker is located on the back wall of the rear hatch (where the tail lights are) and is best read by climbing in the front and stretching over the rear seat area and laying on the hatch area floor.

C03 = California emissions option
158 = Blaupunkt radio (long gone)
404 = Front and rear sway (stabilizer) bars
425 = Rear window wiper
431 = Leather steering wheel
454 = Cruise control
533 = Alarm system
650 = Sunroof
946 = Leather/Leatherette seats

[franken]

You have a Porsche?
You have a publicist?
What are these things?

[cAlvis165]

Looks like it's going well! Looking forward to watching the progress.

Chad

[sparkydog]

Front suspension is off and the shell is re-positioned on the carcass dolly. Now I can drag it under the shade and keep working on it. Engine bay is cleaned up and ready for surgery. After measuring key dimensions on the 944 and on donor candidates (more on this later) I decided that it was too close to call on whether the stock 944 HVAC module could survive the transplant sessions. So I decided to pull the dash so that I could pull the HVAC module.

Hole-E-Crap what an ordeal. Even with nice instructions off some of the Porsche forums I still broke some stuff and re-broke the same things some PO had done before me. (I am not the first owner to remove the dash.) As just a small example of what the dash removal entails - the sun visors have to come off. No wait - not just the visors but their clamps too. Here are some shots of how I spent about 3 hours today.

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by franken

You have a Porsche?

Schwing!!!

Originally Posted by franken

You have a publicist?

Yes in my fake internet world I have a publicist!

[sparkydog]

Friday I went to the wrecking yard with a clipboard and pen. (Not the normal tools you see there.) I was window shopping for donor vehicles. There are a few dimensions/shapes that I feel are important to understand prior to making the purchase of my donor car.

First is what I will call track width. This probably isn't the correct term but what I mean by it is the distance from wheel to wheel mounting face.

On the Porsche 944 the front is approx 60" and the rear is probably also 60" or maybe a tad shorter at 59.5" (hard to measure when it's all floppy and off the car.)

A 1998 Mustang measured out at 61" at the rear (with disc brakes) and 62.5" on the front.

A 1994 Firebird "Formula V8" (with an LS that nobody had touched yet) measured out at 64ish rear and 64" front.