Cultural Appropriation: 1984 Porsche 944 LS1

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is gonna be fun.

For the record, I didn't hack the car up haha. I basically bought parts for it, and when I realized that it needed more work than my time allowed, I passed it on.   

I didn't know it needed so much, but it doesn't surprise me. I disclosed everything I knew about or suspected. 

I'm glad someone as anal as me, but with more time than I have took it over. 

AngryCorvair said:

my V8 944 was dark teal.   when the engine was out, i cleaned the engine compartment and applied gloss white Interlux Brightside boat paint from West Marine using foam brushes.   like you said, easy to spot leaks and it really made the underhood POP.

Thanks for the idea; that might be a lot easier than trying to spray the engine bay without overspraying everything else, especially under the cowl area. Did the paint lie pretty flat with the foam brushes? While I'm not looking to make this a concours build, I do want it to look pretty nice when it's done.

Also, I'm kind of surprised there are so many people here who have had V8 944s. I have to ask, what made you guys sell them in the end? (i.e. what don't I know about what I'm getting into??)

corsepervita said:

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is gonna be fun.

That's high praise coming from The Jalpa Guy! 

DrBoost Said:

For the record, I didn't hack the car up haha. I basically bought parts for it, and when I realized that it needed more work than my time allowed, I passed it on.   

I didn't know it needed so much, but it doesn't surprise me. I disclosed everything I knew about or suspected. 

I'm glad someone as anal as me, but with more time than I have took it over. 

Thanks for commenting; I meant to say something about that here - after seeing the car and talking to you, I knew (or thought I knew...) what I was getting into, and my expectations in buying a legacy of projects are that I'll find all kinds of crazy stuff along the way. I know you told me everything you knew about it, and you were absolutely right in suggesting that I just take it apart and start over with it.

Its state as a giant question mark actually has turned it into a cool opportunity for me. It's like working my way up the food chain of projects: I've fixed broken cars (Z28, SVX, and others), then modified and developed cars (E30), then did a major engine management/forced induction tearup (also the E30), then a full ground up from-scratch engine build (Caprice wagon), and most recently a LeMons endurance car build (a different E30). This car, though, is the next step up the ladder: it composites all of those other builds and becomes the first ground-up, start with a bare chassis build that I've ever done. After this, I think the only other rung on that ladder would be to build a kit car or custom locost-style car from the ground up. It's also not so nice that I feel bad about making it my own or taking it too far, which has been the case with some other cars.

Anyway, another quick project update: I drilled out 37 spot welds and got the nose off the car, which will allow me to finish pulling what is left of the body harness. I'll probably end up putting a bulkhead connector in the firewall and wiring in the spare harness that I bought from TedRoach. The bead roller also showed up, so I can start making battery tray and firewall patches.

I also did some further inspection of the engine. It's actually not a Corvette LS1 - it appears to be a mid-1998 F body engine as the intake has an EGR provision. That also means perimeter bolt valve covers, a slightly different cam, different (thinner) liners, and a different PCV setup. Since I don't intend to go crazy with the power numbers, the engine's provenance isn't really a big deal, though I will need to replace the intake. I need to do a little more research on this, but I'll probably end up with an LS6 intake rather than just plugging the EGR. This also explains the mechanical throttle body, and means that it's a bit easier to bypass the ECM's security features.

Unless I get feedback here that I should do otherwise, I don't think I'll change the cam. I think I might be better off building the car with ~350 wheel horsepower (headers, tune, LS6 intake gets there pretty easily) and keeping a pretty solid reliability margin to baseline the car rather than throwing in a cam and adding 60 horsepower right off the bat. My main concern is really how well the transmission will hold up during track use, followed by cooling and braking capacity.

In case anyone wonders what a nose-less early 944 looks like, here's a pic. There don't seem to be too many online. I will probably fill in the extra visible holes along the top, but will leave the unused lower holes open. The spot welds are right on the edge of the panel, so the spot weld bit was catching the edge and making a mess of everything, thus why they're all drilled through.

Holy cow man!!!  I just said pull the engine md check the torque tube!  

I'm really glad to see you progressing with this. 

350rwhp with a stock cam probably isn't going to happen.  With a very mild 228/228 cam I made 337rwhp, a better cam got me up to 375rwhp.  This was with shorty headers and an LS6 intake.

gearheadE30 said:

In case anyone wonders what a nose-less early 944 looks like, here's a pic. There don't seem to be too many online. I will probably fill in the extra visible holes along the top, but will leave the unused lower holes open. The spot welds are right on the edge of the panel, so the spot weld bit was catching the edge and making a mess of everything, thus why they're all drilled through.

 

Porsche 924 guys do that quite often when converting to the 931/924 Turbo vented nose panel.

BTW, those openings at the top we’re used on the 924 to cool the alternator (there was a scoop that fed air to the back of the alternator) or to help feed air to the intake of the 924 Turbo.

on the 944 Turbo the nose panel is slightly different and they mounted the intercooler in there.  The nose panels are also bolted on with the later models.

I wouldn’t leave the lower holes open with the upper ones closed, you’ll have a lot of high pressure air with nowhere to go, and I suspect there is some benefit to having some air going to the engine bay via that route, at the very least, it could help feed cold air to your air intake.

In reply to gearheadE30 :

Add a transaxle cooler/pump and plumb it in to help the transaxle live.

There is also a chrome moly bearing retainer plate that can be added to help save 3rd gear.  The GT40 and Lambo replica guys do this with their Audi 5000 FWD boxes to stand up to the abuse of their V8’s.  Still won’t survive drag launches for very long, but for track work it should be ok.

In reply to gearheadE30 :

I sold mine because I was working out-of-state after a layoff, and it was just sitting there in the way of my wife being able to park in the attached garage.  3 day eBay auction, no reserve, sold for $1925 and the dude drove it onto his trailer.  I definitely had a sad over that, but life goes on.

DrBoost Said:

Holy cow man!!!  I just said pull the engine md check the torque tube!  

 

I'm really glad to see you progressing with this. 

Yeah...things got a little carried away. It's never going to be easier to make everything right than it is right now!

docwyte said:

350rwhp with a stock cam probably isn't going to happen.  With a very mild 228/228 cam I made 337rwhp, a better cam got me up to 375rwhp.  This was with shorty headers and an LS6 intake.

Okay, that's really good to know. Not that I expect to really need more power, but that's within what people say these transmissions can handle, so I may end up doing that with the engine out just because it would be difficult or impossible to do in the car. That is still very up in the air though, since a springs and retainers would be a good supporting upgrade at that point as well. I'll keep thinking on that one. There's so many overblown power claims on the internet that it's hard to sort through what is real and what isn't.

Stefan said:

BTW, those openings at the top we’re used on the 924 to cool the alternator (there was a scoop that fed air to the back of the alternator) or to help feed air to the intake of the 924 Turbo.

on the 944 Turbo the nose panel is slightly different and they mounted the intercooler in there.  The nose panels are also bolted on with the later models.

I wouldn’t leave the lower holes open with the upper ones closed, you’ll have a lot of high pressure air with nowhere to go, and I suspect there is some benefit to having some air going to the engine bay via that route, at the very least, it could help feed cold air to your air intake.

I was wondering what that ducting was for; that makes sense.

I was not clear at all with which holes I was talking about. I intend to keep the large holes that are in the panels there, since they are picking air up from a very high pressure zone right next to the bumper. Airflow through that area probably does help keep fresh air moving through the engine bay, and I do plan to use that airflow to feed the intake. I was talking about filling the little 1/4" holes I had to drill to take the nose panel off.

Stefan said:

Add a transaxle cooler/pump and plumb it in to help the transaxle live.

There is also a chrome moly bearing retainer plate that can be added to help save 3rd gear.  The GT40 and Lambo replica guys do this with their Audi 5000 FWD boxes to stand up to the abuse of their V8’s.  Still won’t survive drag launches for very long, but for track work it should be ok.

I do already have a small cooler (was in the Caprice before the manual swap) that I plan to use as a transaxle cooler. Placement is undecided at this point; I doubt I'll address it until I get closer to actually having to put the transmission in. Everything will have a cooler on this car (PS/brakes, transaxle, and engine oil) considering what I intend to use it for.

Good call on the retainer plate; I'll have to look into that. I've pulled my halfshafts apart and they are currently in good shape, however I've also heard that 80's Vanagon axles are a decent durability upgrade at the expense of some articulation. I'm historically pretty gentle on equipment, especially driveline components, so hopefully with adequate cooling that will take care of these weak points.

AngryCorvair said:

I sold mine because I was working out-of-state after a layoff, and it was just sitting there in the way of my wife being able to park in the attached garage.  3 day eBay auction, no reserve, sold for $1925 and the dude drove it onto his trailer.  I definitely had a sad over that, but life goes on.

Ah, yeah that would be tough. Selling a car with a lot of time and effort into it is never easy, but at the end of the day you're right - it's just a car.

Yeah, if you read on LS1tech, the 228 cam I had should've gotten me to the 375rwhp level.  In a Camaro, not a 951.  The exhaust on the 951 is a real bottle neck, until you get the Kooks long tube headers.  Eventually I did get the long tubes, but I never swapped cams to take advantage of them.

LS6 intake, stock cam, shorty headers, tune and either a single 3" or dual 2.5" will probably be 320rwhp

I know there haven't been any updates in awhile - I was on vacation for a few weeks for Christmas, and have worked on it since getting back, but it's not really been anything exciting. I've also done a ton of research, and the bill of materials is getting steadily more complete as I learn about LS engines and 944s in general.

Since the last update, I've finished stripping the engine bay. The body harness has been removed and pushed back into the car, the hood latch has been removed, the broken part of the firewall has been cut back to good metal, the passenger side fenderwell patch is almost done, the battery tray area has been cut back to bare metal, and the remaining suspension and steering parts have been removed. I've pulled probably 25 lbs of cracked and failing tar insulation off of the firewall, and have cleaned up a lot of the unneeded brackets, tabs, and studs. I've also welded up all of the rivet holes for the shoddy firewall repairs, making that the first step forward in actually fixing something!

I believe I've also gotten the car as torn down as it will need to go with the exception of the rear suspension and some engine bits. As it turns out, the front of a 944 gets pretty light with nothing attached to it, so I had an exciting teeter totter moment after removing the front brakes. Those rear jacking points are pretty far forward.

Hopefully, I'm also at the end of my disappointing discoveries. I pulled the flywheel housing, clutch, and flywheel off of the engine because it was all stuff done 2 owners ago, and everything that person did has proven to be shoddy so far. It was a good thing I did. 3 of the 6 pressure plate bolts were loose and one was stripped. The pilot bearing is a cheap chinesium part that's already notchy, even though it's new. One of the flywheel housing locating dowels is missing, which would have probably led to an early torque tube death. The flywheel was also missing its drive pin. It has been used at some point, possibly on this engine, and all six flywheel bolts are damaged because they were taking the engine torque instead of the drive pin. Those would not have lasted long on track, and I have no interest in testing that SFI rating.

Those were all annoying but unsurprising. The big letdown was the inspection of the clutch release cylinder. It's a nice RAM part, but some buffoon had tried to twist it onto the bearing retainer with pliers....on the seal surface of the cylinder. The scores aren't big, but in an anodized aluminum piece, they'd tear the internal pressure seals to E36 M3 in no time. I'm not interested in pulling this all back apart once I've done final assembly, so I guess I'll have to buy a new one. What a waste of a nice $200 part.

No pics worth posting at this point. Next steps are finish the wheel well patch, finish the battery tray patch, update the firewall for the BMW hydroboost and Wilwood clutch master, and work on fabricating some new engine mounts.

In reply to gearheadE30 :

congrats on the continued progress.   and yes, it's still progress even when it's not easy to see.

Its usually the boring stuff that takes the most time. Not exciting but it makes a much better car in the end!

Yeah, I suppose any progress is good progress and it's all moving the project forward. It's basically been like a second Christmas at my house recently. Rebuilt steering rack, BMW H31 hydroboost parts, brake and clutch hydraulics, engine mount fabrication parts, replacement pedals, and all kinds of hardware to replace the missing or incorrect stuff on the flywheel and bellhousing.

Once the engine mount isolators and the new steering rack shows up (power rack is bigger than the manual rack that came with the car and may interfere with the pan; can't get a clear internet answer on it), I can hang the engine and start fabbing up new engine mounting arms to replace the crappy ones that were on the car. I'm going to try to move the engine back another inch from where it was when I got it, because the transmission bellhousing/torque tube were all the way forward in their mounting slots. This will also add hood clearance and give more space behind the cooling package to evacuate airflow. I'm going to mock everything up in the car without the subframe spacers, because I'm not 100% convinced they will be needed based on some incredibly rough measurements. This is pretty ambitious, but if everything shows up, I'm aiming to have the engine mounting done by the end of next weekend. This has taken priority because I need to have the engine located before I can finish the firewall - coil pack clearance dictates placement of the hydroboost servo, and since the firewall is all cut up anyway, I have some freedom to move everything over closer to the shock tower.

Progress continues! One step at a time.

You need subframe spacers.  Only way you can get around not running them is if you run the IFC Racing Cowl induction hood.

PS rack will fit (you need subframe spacers!) but it's a tight fit.  I always knew when my motor mounts had failed because the steering wheel wouldn't self center because the oil pan was sitting on the PS rack.

I moved my coil packs, used a different bracket and longer wires.  I can't remember the part #'s but they're in my build thread on 944 Hybrids.

How is it coming so far, I just checked back in on this. Keep at it man. The LS makes it all worth it!

also plan on getting that thing to LSFEST in september, thatll give you a hard date to try to make. 

https://www.lsfest.com

Not sure your location but ill be at the bowling green, ky one. 

https://www.lsfest.com/bowling-green/

IT IS EASILY THE BEST EVENT EVER! DRAG, AUTOX, DRIFT, ROAD COURSE AND CAR SHOW

I'm still making steady, slow progress. All of the panel patching takes awhile, but the battery tray and firewall are now fixed and waiting for paint and seam sealer. Hydroboost, clutch, power steering, and various other parts have all showed up, so that's starting to come together. Have some more firewall holes to from unused things like AC, hood latch, speedo cable, etc. With that done, I'll bolt the engine back to the torque tube and get it hanging in the right place. I have a bunch of plate steel and some isolators to make engine mounts, along with the correct steering rack and uncut crossmember to get everything mocked up; it's just a matter of timing now. I'm hoping to be able to support it from the bottom with a jack or something so I can set the hood on it and make sure everything clears before finalizing engine mounts.

Engine mounts will be a big milestone, since that will let me lock in everything else (hydroboost location, wiring, hydraulic lines, etc). Once that is done, I'll have to organize my thoughts to figure out next steps. At this point, I'm thinking that I'll get everything installed and mounted before painting the engine bay, since there will be some welding and holes involved in mounting additional fluid coolers, restraining brake lines and wiring harness, and cutting away some of the tabs and studs I don't need.

I haven't been updating much here partly because there's nothing particularly exciting to post pictures of. It'll pick up when there's more to see; panel patching is just a lot of cutting, grinding, sanding, and wire wheeling since everything has to be super clean to weld on a galvanized body. Unfortunately, because so much of the body and firewall are actually two layers of metal with a gap between them, there's just no way to do it well. I've gotten into the habit of saving all the welding for the last part of the night, so I do my welding and then get out of the garage to minimize the potential for exposure.

LSFest is in the plan, but I'm not sure if I'll make it this year or not. I'm also working on building the E30 (no build thread for that one), and the Caprice has been having a steady stream of strange electrical issues. I'm in the garage every night, but I'm not always working on the 944.

What, a real update? Yes, time for more pictures!

As mentioned before, I've been working steadily, if slowly, on the car to bring everything up to snuff. I looked at it the other day and realized that I'm actually a lot further along than it feels, since the unpainted engine bay makes it look very incomplete. I think I've also undone most of the hackery from whoever started this project, since I've now disassembled literally everything (aside from the oil pan, which will come off soon) that they had touched. That is a very good feeling, since I don't believe I can think of a single thing that was done entirely properly. This post will document even more of those things...

The parts list is also looking more and more complete. This is great news, because even though I haven't spent all the money yet, it means that I've made decisions and have a reasonably clear path forward. It has taken many, many hours of research to get that far, and it really helps bring the final product into focus. That's always good for motivation.

Here's what the firewall looked like once I got all the rivets drilled out. It was actually "reinforced" with two thin pieces of what appeared to be siding flashing riveted together...

I cut out most of the holes with the cracked section of firewall, but it was still a lot of welding and grinding to make it look like they had never been there.

Turns out the clutch/pressure plate had been used with this engine when it was running (block casting number shows it as an early 1998 F body). New disc, used pressure plate and flywheel. Seems to be in decent enough shape. Unfortunately, that fancy RAM hydraulic release bearing is trash. Brand new part, but that previous owner struck again - it looks like the cylinder sleeve that the release hydraulic seal slides over was grabbed with a pair of pliers to try to install or remove it at some point, so the hard-anodized sealing surface was shot. It would not have lasted long in the car, and the depth of the scoring made it impossible to repair.

When I was comparing crossmembers, I also discovered that the engine mounting holes had been slotted to get everything to line up. Because I'll also be making a custom trans crossmember (late trans in an early car), I have quite a bit of freedom in where I put the driveline. Should be able to fix this, while also moving the engine rearward about an inch from where it was when I got the car. You can also see what an E30 engine mount looks like, though I have poly ones that will be used for final assembly.

Battery tray is in. I did finish welding it and ground everything smooth, but didn't take any pics yet. The battery mount is also not shown, but sits between the ribs.

The garage is a complete mess right now, but this pic shows a lot of the patched holes, and you can kind of make out the repaired firewall and clutch master cylinder mount. I have not modified the firewall for hydroboost yet.

Also did a bunch of work on the wiring harness. Somehow, I have two partial harnesses. One is a GMT800 truck harness with the ECM connectors hacked off, and the other is most of an automatic-transmission early F-body (2 connector MAF). I will be using the F body harness, but someone already started tearing it apart, so it's been a challenge to remove some of the excess and reinstall some of the stuff I need (O2 sensors were all removed, for example). At this point, I've finished the engine section of the harness, and now just need to repin the connectors and work out the car-side connections.

Currently, the engine is back in the car and the bellhousing/torque tube are mounted. Clutch and flywheel are not installed, allowing me to check the pilot bearing depth and make sure that eveything is aligned and concentric (it is!). However, someone installed the pilot bearing with a hammer on the inner race and it's trashed (in addition to being a cheap no-name bearing), so that needs to be replaced.

I am mocking everything up without the subframe spacers for the moment. This lets me check everything at minimum clearance and make as much space for myself as possible. F-body intake manifold lets me set hood/throttle body clearance with the EGR port bolt:

Engine is sitting on the subframe, again checking minimum clearance. Manual steering rack clears fine, and all my measurements tell me that if you're running a manual rack, you can just barely get away without the subframe spacers. Everything clears when spaced out by about a quarter inch, but you have to be right on the money with engine mount height for that to work. With the larger diameter power steering rack, the oil pan would need to be C-notched to clear. I haven't had it off yet to see if that's even possible, but it doesn't seem worth it to me. I want power steering, so I'm using the frame spacers.

Someone did a crappy job of clearancing the hood (you can see it two pictures above this one), and cut it in the wrong place, so I cleaned it up.

Same with the throttle body. Fixing all this little stuff has been surprisingly rewarding.

Of course, I neglected to take any zoomed out pictures to show the whole engine bay, but it's looking a lot better. Clearance with these perimeter-bolt valve covers is going to be incredibly tight for the hydroboost, which will be fitted when the engine mounts are done. The wiring harness will run through the passenger side firewall, and the ECM will be under the battery tray. I've got a plan to take care of the cable-controlled heater valve, since 944s don't have a blend door and rely on controlling coolant flow for more or less heat. Body harness will be thinned out - I believe there are 15 wires I don't need that can either be removed from the harness entirely or can be run inside the cabin rather than going through the firewall.

Once those few tasks are wrapped up, I'll figure out all of the coolers so I can fab up mounts and such, then it will all come back apart for painting and seam sealing before final assembly. Still a lot of work left, but I'm happy with where it's headed so far.

Great progress! I have been following along in case I want to drop an LS into my 944 one day. If you need a hood, rear hatch, or doors, let me know. I will be heading to Indianapolis in a couple weeks for a wedding and could possibly drop them off.

In reply to tedroach :

This is what I get for not checking back here very often.... if the wedding hasn't already happened, let me know. I don't really need any additional body parts at this point, but you're more than welcome to stop by and check it out.

No other real updates to speak of at this point. I've been prepping the motorcycles, as it's getting close to harescramble/trials/adventure riding season in addition to track day season. I did at least make new spacers for the front end - the steel parts that came with the car would have been fine, but for a few bucks and a couple hours of my time, I was able to shed quite a few pounds and make everything fit a little bit better. All of the longer hardware showed up as well (the subframe was held on with stock bolts and less than 1/4" of engagement...) so the engine is that much closer to installation.

And this is the project that was sucking up my time. Converting the front end of my old TY350 to disc brake so I have some hope of being competitive against the modern bikes in Sportsman this year. The local group got rid of the air cooled mono class, since it was just me and one other guy...

Wow, 2 years with no updates.... well, now that we're all supposed to be home, I guess it's time for an update.

I still have the car, but got a bit derailed by an opportunity to race bikes in Morocco with KTM and do some other events here in the US on my KTM 950, so that has taken center stage for the last few years. Definitely an unexpected change of pace to life there. I drove across the country 4 times last year alone to get to races on the west coast, which meant working on the race hauler and the bikes got top priority.

To be honest, I've barely been on GRM at all. Too much going on in the bike world, I guess, and trying very hard to simplify my life. My 318is still doesn't have an engine, we didn't do any lemons racing last year, etc.

I did do one GRM-esqe build, though it was also of the 2 wheeled variety. Built this scrambler for a cheap bike challenge competition. Started with a 1980 CX500, and ended with an 800-mile dirt bike trip to hit trails, go camping, etc.

The start:

The finish:

About a year ago, I picked up a 1986 951 parts car that popped up locally. There were a lot of things I was finding on this 944 that I really needed some other obscure parts to fix or do the way I wanted, and this 951 was a good way to get some of those parts and offset a good chunk of the build expenses. 84,000 miles, still ran and drove, but had gotten punted in the rear with a ~40 mph speed differential and twisted the car all the way up to the B pillar.

This gives me a bunch of lighter aluminum early offset suspension parts, a spare 951 transmission, a plastic fuel tank to replace the rusty tank in the red car, 951 bumper and fenders (undecided if I will do the conversion), 951 core support, and all the nuts/bolts/lines/hoses/wires for trying different things as I put it all together. I've got this car mostly stripped down now, and have been spending a lot of time listing and selling parts. No pics at the moment, but this car is currently down to just the engine, suspension, and torque tube. Going slowly to catalog everything, since there is a lot of stuff in the garage right now. I'm hoping to have the car completely blown apart in the next 2 weeks with the body cut up and ready to be taken to the scrap yard whenever they reopen.

Somewhere in the last few years, I also picked up a bunch of '87 951 suspension parts. I will more than likely go to late offset to open up budget-friendly wheel choices that fit over the massive brakes, plus there seems to be some parts availability benefit. I've also got a stack of late-offset aluminum front control arms now, and there is some demand for the 1986 early offset parts to fund the build

So, not a ton of progress on the original 944, but it's something! The bikes are largely stable now. 950 is pretty solid, 450 rally bike got a full frame off refresh over the winter, etc. The plan right now is to get the 951 out of the garage to make a bit more money back, finish rebuilding the 318's engine so I can drive that car again and get some more garage space back, and then dive back into the 944.

Seems like some interesting developments over the last couple of years.  Is there a thread somewhere on the cheap bike challenge & build of the CX?  Seems like it would be an interesting read. 

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

There isn't anything posted on the cheap bike challenge, but every year a group of us here does something different. Last year the rules were $1500 budget, exempting tires and fluids. Bike had to be sold originally as a street legal bike, and had to be street legal for the trip. Challenge route was something I put together, which included riding from Indiana to southern Kentucky and riding part of the kentucky adventure trail, camping, and coming back. We had bikes ranging from mine to 3(!) honda Helix scooters, Ninja 250 and 500, Honda VF700 Interceptor, etc.

The CX500 build is posted more or less in its entirety here: https://www.cx500forum.com/threads/1980-cx500d-dual-sport-build.108387/

Most of my bike and car shenanigans also get posted in some form or another on Instagram @lc8adventures. I'm not a big social media guy, but sponsors for the bike racing stuff basically demand having some kind of online presence.

In reply to gearheadE30 :

i love what you did with the CX500!