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A family man from Norway here. With an ambition to build a combined 944 spec racer, track day tool, ice drifter and road car. All-in-one.
I got my first Porsche and 944 in 2014. An '84 that I transformed to a spec racer and competed in the Norwegian 944 Cup series for 5 seasons. Won the series outright in 2019. However, due to various circumstances I lost motivation and sold that car entering the 2020 season.
But… In 2021 a fellow racer had an opening in the garage collective he was part of. Only 5 minutes' drive from my home. And… At the same time a suitable project car was announced for sale locally. And within short I was established in the garage collective with a non-running oval dash 1985 944 NA. Initially I didn't have a clear goal for the project, I just wanted something to tinker on. But as time went by, the project has escalated quite a bit.
I am a self-taught car and 944 mechanic. And everything I know I've learned from online web forums and old static web pages. So I am establishing this thread on Rennlist as I feel a sort of desire to give back and contribute to the continued hub of knowledge and insight in car culture in general, and to the Porsche 944 community in particular. I considered doing the same on FB, Instagram, Rennlist, Pelican or setting up my own blog. But landed here
The project has progressed quite a lot, so I'll start from the beginning and share some of the steps from the start to current state. And then continue from there.
Here is an image of the car as it sat when I bought it. And then a picture from a few days ago.
The registration papers indicated that this car had not run the last 8 years. So I had to use some brute force on the brakes to make the wheels rotate, then winch the car out of the garden.
A long day with the pressure washer, all brushes and cleaning agents available, the engine bay and wheels wells cleaned up nicely. Rolled the car into my spot in the garage collective.
Removed an aftermarket alarm system. Sprayed some engine preservation oil in the cylinders and rotated the engine by hand. Jumped the DME and ensured I got fuel delivery. Checked and/or changed ingnition components. New battery. New starter. Cranked the engine. No luck.
Checked the reference and speed sensor using a guide found on Youtube. Found the speed sensor to be dead.
The speed sensor didn't budge. Tried turning, oiling and whatnot. Ended up with a makeshift slide extractor using a vice grip, an M8 threaded rod and some suitable nuts and washers. No luck. See the carnage in the picture below. Realized I was not able to remove the reference/speed sensor holder without separating the bellhousing from the engine crankcase.
Got frustrated and left the car for a couple weeks. Landed on "F@*k it" and changed the plans. Dropped the engine and most other stuff forward of the windshield.
. Happy camper! New project rolling in Fake Speedline wheels. Before Aftter some elbow grease Aftermarket alarm system removed Makeshift slide extractor on the speed sensor The remains of the speed sensor on the left. The positioning collar between the sensor holder and crankcase in the red circle. With the remains of the speed sensor sticking into the bellhousing, the bracket was not going anywhere without splitting the bellhousing and crankcase. The project changed direction
Enjoy!
Had an '83 dual purpose street/track 944 for several years.
Still had most of the interior, and not too stiff with the springs....
Pluses:
Not too bad as a dual purpose car!
Swap track tires and brake pads, good to go either way.
Minuses:
Cage and race seat made it less than ideal for short trips around town
Depending on how stiff the spec 944 suspension is, might not be too comfortable either.
The project had now gotten the direction of being both a race car, but still being street legal. However the focus should lean heavily towards the racing side of things. The reason I still want to maintain steet legality is to be able to bring the car to trackdays both on tarmac and frozen lakes. And in Norway you need street legal cars to participate on (most of) those. This will of course lead to some compromizes. But I'll have to accept those.
I was putting AeroCatch pins on the hood, so the original hood latch bracket was removed. Similarly the holder for the power steering reservoir was removed. As I was de-powering the steering rack. Cleaned up stuff as I went along. Both the windshield wiper mechanism and fresh air blower got tidied up. Had to source a replacement aluminium wiper machanism bracket. As the original broke on removal.
Got hold of a later model oil pan and had an oil baffle welded in. Sourced new oil pickup/return tubes and dip stick to go with this pan.
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Becauseracecar The aluminium thredaded stud brok on removal New alu main bracket. Tidied up. Ready for the parts shelf. Cleaned up. Ready for the parts shelf. Some cleaning needed More cleaning Leftovers when de-powering the steering rack Ready for the shelf Oil baffle welded into the late model pan
I do know pretty well what I want to achieve when it comes to suspension and handling for this new project. As my previous 944 (#63) received quite a bit of abuse on the race track, and some use on frozen lakes.
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Keeping it street legal makes it super convenient!
No need to trailer it to the track just to find out whether that misfire under load is gone.
Etc.
If you aren't planning to use it as transportation at all, no compromises on the suspension!
I wanted to be able to use a smaller 12V battery for racing, and a full size one for winter use. So I fabricated a holder for the small battery that used the original holder bracket and threaded stud.
Sourced a (small) Porsche 964 washer fluid reservoir and fabricated a basic holder for that. Not certain where to put it just yet. Either in the same location as the original reservoir. Or in the battery tray, closer to the windshield. I want to keep things away from the corners of the car, to avoid more than just the necessary carnage in case of body contact on the track.
Was able to score a (replica) Porsche 944 Turbo Cup strut brace. Had to fabricate the holder brackets and weld/repair the two outermost mounting holes. As a previous owner had butchered the ends of the brace.
Don't criticize the welds. I haven't had the welder for very long. A bit of filler and it's fine. But at least; It is home built
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Suspension wise I am initially planning the same stuff I had in #63. As I know this works well, is in line with the 944 Cup regulations, and pass the requirements of the road authorities.
Front springs: Weltmeister 250Lbs
Front damper: Bilstein B6 (P30-0104)
Rear springs: 28mm Sway-Away solid bars
Rear damper: Koni Sport (Koni 8040-1035 Sport)
However the bushings and some other stuff will be more racing hard core. The rear torsion tube will be solid mounted. Uniball or PolyBronze in the control arm pickup points. Will be noisy
The ambition is to license the car for GT-racing. And compete in the 944 Cup class. Or Clubsport.
Suspension wise I am initially planning the same stuff I had in #63. As I know this works well, is in line with the 944 Cup regulations, and pass the requirements of the road authorities.
Front springs: Weltmeister 250Lbs
Front damper: Bilstein B6 (P30-0104)
Rear springs: 28mm Sway-Away solid bars
Rear damper: Koni Sport (Koni 8040-1035 Sport)
However the bushings and some other stuff will be more racing hard core. The rear torsion tube will be solid mounted. Uniball or PolyBronze in the control arm pickup points. Will be noisy
The ambition is to license the car for GT-racing. And compete in the 944 Cup class. Or Clubsport.
Why am I doing this cleaning, fixing and fabricating as I go? Rather than tearing the entire car apart, do the bodywork and then fix the parts & modules as they are getting assembled.
The reason is due to available garage space, as I only rent an area for one car. So space is pretty limited. My plan was to tear down, fix and assemble the front first. Then move the activities to the rear of the car. And the interior lastly. In addition I have to plan when I am using the two-post lift. And leading up to and during the 2021 race season, the two-post lift was busy all the time. So I had to work on what I could do, with the car sitting on its wheels.
Fortunatly I have since been able to establish some shelves elsewhere in the garage collective. So I have much more storage space available. If not, space would have been a serious challenge. Now that space is not that much of an issue, I am currently in the process of tearing the car down to a bare tub. I'll share some pictures later.
To continue the story; I wanted to clean up the engine bay to make it easier to work in there. And make room for a 3l oil catch can, as per regulations. Seeing some pictures online, some 944 S2-owners are placing a cold air cone filter under the front panel. So I planned on replicateing that setup, and ordered a cone filter online. The cone filter turned out to be massively over-dimensioned, for my 163 wild horses. But there was room for it. So I kept it.
Discarding the original air filter box, the Air Flow Meter (AFM) needed some mechanical support. So I fabricated a bracket to hold it in place.
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I don't believe air availability should be an issue Without the original air box, the AFM needed some mechanical support
At this point the project had escalated even further. And I wanted to make the car fresh and shiny, in addition to being "well made". Having seen numerous build threads and videos online, with very shiny projects, I wanted to try getting the nuts, bolts and hardware freshly plated.
This proved to take a lot of time, preparing and documenting in advance. Then shipping it all to a local supplier for plating. When receiving the shiny hardware, the sorting into labeled plastic bags afterwards took many many hours. And this was only the front of the car...
01-03-2023, 04:47 PM
944 spec racer & road car in one - Project thread
Fake Speedline wheels.
