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Life has been busy so have not had a chance to share, but finally have some downtime to work on my new toy. I found a 97 c4s this spring that has a nice 3.8 euro spec RS motor, re-gear, and RS suspension. It is an original paint survivor with 57K miles and a stack of receipts from speed shops S-car-go Racing in San Rafael and Jerry Woods Enterprises in Campbell, that far exceeds the value of the car.
Original owner was a car enthusiast and a dot com millionaire and as such maintained and upgraded the car with an open checkbook until his attention turned other fast toys. The car was eventually sold to a close friend in Colorado, who then owned the car for the past 16 years until I bought it. The PO rarely drove it and was stored in a warehouse with some other fast boats and bikes, so I guess it would be considered a barn find!
Car has a great build sheet and came with a pallet of parts so will be selling off items that I don't plan on keeping as my storage is now too full with parts.
Build sheet is as follows:
Suspension: (Built by Jerry Woods Enterprises in 2002... he previously had PSS9s and JRZs before landing on this setup)
Bilstein RSR coil-overs
Mode camber plates and rear hats
Strut brace/bar
RS uprights
TRG anti roll bars
RSR/EVO tie rods
Transmission: (Built by S-car-go in 1999 and further upgraded by Jerry Woods Enterprises in 2002)
Steel synchros and shift forks
Motorsport close ratio gear set
RS LWFW
GT3 clutch
Engine: (Built by S-car-go in 2000)
Factory 3.8 RS "X51 power kit" (The OE kit you could get in the late 90's)
3.8 P&Cs
RS heads (larger valve ports)
RS valves, solid lifters, & titanium valve retainers
RS cams
RS intake (larger intake runners, larger intake manifolds, modified intake distributor, larger throttle body)
Single pulley
Carrillo rods
K&N cone filter
GT3 oil sump
GT3 crank and knife edging
993TT S auxiliary oil cooler (backpack version that bolts on next to the A/C condenser)
Custom 2.5" headers and catless exhaust by S-car-go
My plan is to first "project rehab." The car sat for most of its years so it is not running well. Rehab will be to address a long list of deferred maintenance items, repair the drivetrain, and reverse the emissions mods so I can smog and register it as a street car in California again.
Then turn my attention to cosmetic work on the body and interior. I have not decided yet to keep it stock looking as a sleeper or put some aero on to make it more business since it is a hot rod. I have a new FVD 993 RSCS splitter (AKA taco holders) and a NB bumper in my stash so if you have a nice GT2 spoiler please let me know!
Interior has some tired Sparcos, schroth harnesses, and a Das bolt-in roll bar, which I will reverse into something more appropriate for the street and for my kids who want to ride in it. Seeing all of the hot rod custom interiors at Rennsport and Werks, I am leaning toward refreshing the interior into something different since it is already heavily modded and will never be for the purist.
Given the car is unique with its extensive go-fast mods, I searched and found a Porsche tuner to give a proper PPI. Thanks to Rennlister @il pirata he helped me connect with Chris Cervelli of Cervelli Technical Services out of Golden, CO do a PPI. He used to race 993s back in the day and now does DE/race car engineering so was extremely helpful to find the key issues and negotiate the right final sales price.
Here are a few pics of the car... car's paint is in really good shape since it has been stored more than driven for so many years.
The Fikse FM10s (which I have two sets of) are 17x9 and 17x12 and WB offset barely fit in the rolled wheel wells. I will be selling them as the only tires I can find are hoosiers. Car was sketchy driving on 15 year old tires... luckily I have some spare parts collected from my blue 993.
Did some basic work to get the car drivable so installed some OZ's and some spacers to fill out the wheel wells. Car was at cup height and was too low to get in and out of my driveway without ramps. Raised it to RS height and also installed some RS ARBs as it was stiff enough to loosen a filling with the TRG ARBs it came with. Lastly, the cat delete wouldn't pass smog, so put the stock exhaust and cat back on. I had a pair of Fister 3s and since it is a WB, my NB wide ovals wouldn't work so used some Laguna track fangs that worked perfectly. Eventually the free flowing exhaust will go back on... maybe a GT3 center muffler setup
The layers of fine Colorado clay has been a "pleasure" to clean up. Below is a pic of the modded engine. The heater has been deleted. I put the stock airbox back on and a remote bleeder on the clutch.
First major project... fix the intake vacuum leak, valve adjustment (car has solid lifters), replace the clutch, replace the torque tube, reseal some leaky seals and gaskets, and rebuild the LSD with a Guards clutch pack. Pics coming soon!
Thanks guys. @chsu74 Idling issue is still there. I built a paint can evap smoker and pumped some smoke in the evap port and found some smoke coming out deep in the back of the engine bay. I couldn't see the source and don't know the engine well enough so dropping the engine earlier than planned to take a closer look where my damn vacuum leak is on the intake along with the drive train repairs.
Will share a how to make one of these. Looked at a few youtube videos and came up with the version below. If someone wants one I have some extra materials to make another one... works great and at least I know I have an intake vacuum leak to sort.
Congratulations! It’s great to finally see pictures . Can’t wait to hear your driving impressions once you’ve got everything sorted and have some time behind the wheel.
08-20-2019, 02:59 PM
3.8L C4S X51 hot rod barn find and build
