An over ripe banana

Hello all. I have recently purchased a 1982 944 in a bit of a sorry state. It looks ok in the photo if you like the colour (which I do) but its quite rough close up. It came from Hong Kong many years ago and has been laid up since 2004. A few of the bits and pieces have been pilfered and there have been a few attempts at repairs. There are also some dubious mods like the running boards. Apart from the bottom of the front fenders and around the hatch locks it looks rust free. There are a million things to be done to get it back on the road. It is an auto and I would like to swap it to a manual and to that end I have obtained a parts car which generated a gearbox and a few more bits and pieces more of which will come up later. The motor is a non runner but that is, I think, due to electronics as someone has had much of the wiring apart. More on that later. I am a bit shy of starting this thread as I see so many projects start and never finish but there are so many questions to ask. I have a Lotus Elan in the works for 25 years and only just got it on the road. It was a burn out and in far worse condition than the banana. One of the things that I have noticed is what appears to be there is a larger gap between the rear wheel and fender between one side and the other. The amount is about 5mm. I have checked the wheel width, offset, spacers, and hubs and all are equal from side to side. Could the suspension be incorrectly set from side to side? I just had a thought that maybe the camber may be different from side to side. Is this possible? Also is there a way of extracting the seats from the parts car I have purchased as the runners are rusted solid? Cheers. Edited 8September, 2019 by Jaffar Correct grammar

Yikes is buying a clean running manual 944 a better option? For the suspension issue check and measure all the bits that hold up the car and compare from one side to the other.  You’ll find something that doesn’t match.

The discrepancy might be rectified by adjusting the ride height. It's possible to do so by about 15-20mm on each side independently by loosening, adjusting and then tightening the trailing blades. An auto to manual swap is ambitious and likely not worth the $$$. Everything in the drivetrain from the engine back is different. I'd just clean it up and enjoy as is. There's also a lot of extra fibreglass on that car. I personally don't mind it. Someone has tried to make it look like a 944 at some stage. Any chance of pix front on? As for seats, soak in penetrating oil, and try again later.

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I think that was done by the factory ... it is a 944 ...

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Maybe the added flares are not mounted the same left & right. Take your measurements from original panels first.

Thanks for the replies. Banana is a very early 944, chassis no 2795. The are no non standard panels apart from the running boards and a European diffuser. I could have purchased a manual 944 but that would be too boring. This is a project. I did not want to buy a runner and then make it into a non runner along the way if it all got too much. Re the gearbox installation, the parts car yielded all of the manual bits in about 4 hours work and was surprisingly easy.  Nice to have a car that has been sitting in a field for a long period of time and find no seized bolts. The extraction of the auto will no doubt take a bit longer but should be a bit tidier as I had the bottom cleaned before I picked it up.  The manual in will be longer again but the motor is coming out at the same time. The new trans is a 016/Z so all the bits are far lighter and more manageable. It also appears to have a few more bits and pieces available for it. Thanks for the replies re the suspension. The ride height all round seems high but I did not look to see whether it was the same side to side. Will pull the wheels off and measure accordingly.

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Ooops. My bad! Fair enough. I'd wager on quite a few extra hours to put the new trans in (and the pedal box, and clutch, and hydraulics, and wiring etc), but if I was in your shoes, that's what I'd be doing! Do you plan to remove the running boards? Soooo very early 80s!

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The difference in clearance side to side rear apparently not uncommon - I experienced it with my 968 and my '90 Turbo - and it annoyed me greatly!  There is some slotting on the pass. side (I think) of the torque tube mount, which may provide some adjustment.  But @Buchanan Automotive should be able to provide some learned insight.  Sounds like a challenging project, but as Bruce B said re swap projects, it's very good to have a donor car handy, so you're off to a good start there.  It's be nice if you could document the process with pics it would be of interest to many of us... ?

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Those seats are awesome! Stratos brand maybe?

They look like fancy recaros but might be copies / competitors.

Recaro C-Classic.

Can anyone explain how to remove the steering column. I notice there are a couple of sheer bolts which I do not want to disturb but I would like to replace the steering lock and get into that area to remove the pedal box. Is that possible? Also decided to ditch the Recaro C-Classics and going back to a set of standard early 944 seats modified to incorporate the sports seat bolsters and longer seat like this:

Those Recaro classics are a hoot! Especially the ones with the gradient. Not elegant like original Porsche ones but they must be hard to come by at this point. Looks like a TV remote built into the side

Someone will give you good money for the old recaros, no doubt.

Moving on, the major part of this venture will be the insertion of one of these under the bonnet. It is an Audi 3.2ltr FSI from a 2008 A5. It generates 198kw and 300 odd nm. The weight is about 50kg lighter, about 60% of the length and 20mm smaller in width than the distance between the shock towers. The height I think from a whole lot of measuring is just short enough to fit under the bonnet as it will sit so far back. I bought it for very cheap with most of the ancillaries attached and it has 47,000 klm. The major problems with using one of these are the alteration to the sump due to the crossmember being in the way, they are a DI motor and there will need to be a bit of an alteration to the firewall to enable easy access to the VVT covers without pulling the engine. It is in a way a bit simpler than the 2.5ltr and I should have a neater, cleaner engine compartment. I have been reluctant to discuss this as I note that most engine swaps in these cars tend to fail apart from the Chev mods in the US. Most of these projects appear to fail from lack of long term motivation and not doing the early homework. I did a lot of work on this before I purchased both the banana and the motor. The interesting thing is the buying of the 924 with the 016/Z gearbox makes the job somewhat easier as I can use the auto drive shaft by having it shortened and re splined in order to get the correct set back in the engine compartment. This also gives a larger drive shaft and bearings than the 924 set up. I will use the 924 bell housing with a concentric throw out bearing and just need to have a adapter plate and a flywheel made. There are further issues like engine mounts to think of but It looks like I will be able to revert to a configuration somewhat like that in the 924 and have the mounts on the front chassis rails rather than on the cross member. I can then use the Audi engine mount set up, heat shields and all. The process starts this weekend with moving everything to a place where I have room to move and make a mess.

Very interested to see how this progresses, please keep us updated.

awsome!

Nice swap, should be a hoot to drive when it's done. There's a guy in the US on the FB group 'Porsche 944 Outlaws' who's doing a similar swap with a 4.2 v8. Looks like he had to clearance the strut tower bracing a little, and also modify the firewall.

This looks like a very interesting swap. Definately keep us posted on the banana.

Cool project, After my engine mishap, I thought about doing a 3.6L Cayenne (VW VR6 lump) swap, but decided to rebuild

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Isn't a VR6 too tall? It would be nice to have Porsche script on the head. Where does the brake booster go? Imagine the exhaust routing? Being DI, makes sure you give the intake a good clean before you shoehorn that in there! So, using the 016/z manual, and a shortened auto torque tube? Won't that bring the bell housing back towards the tunnel too much? Engine mounts won't be easy, but I see that being less of an issue than the other bits. I wonder if us lowly '24 owners could benefit from your experience .... is there a 4 pot that has a similar bolt pattern as this engine? Great project! Watching keenly on this one.

The VR6 is taller longer and wider than the 3.2 fsi. The big problem that arises is the sump which has to be redesigned to clear the crossmember hence the use of the shorter motor. If it were not for the height/sump issue I would not bother to mod the firewall to get it all to fit. I will be using a tilton pedal box and moving all the master cylinders under the dash where there is heaps of room. It means I can also move the pedals a bit closer to the firewall which gets rid of a bit of the arms stretched steering wheel position. The booster will be remote. I will post a photo of the intended later. Yes will be cleaning the intakes while it is easy to do. There is a you tube video on this for the 3.2 fsi and it is easier than cars like my BMW as you get at them quite easily. I will be using the 016 torque tube but cutting down the auto drive shaft. This will mean putting new larger bearings in the 016 TT. Not being wedded to the engine mounts on the cross frame will make this a bit easier. but I will have to fabricate brackets to hang off the 944 frame to fit the Audi hydraulic mounts. I think the bolt pattern is similar on most of the VAG motors but each motor has it's own challenges. I liked this one because of how short it was and the oil pan issue was not such a big problem as others engines. It is also from the same group and the same unit is used in a Panamera (I think as the V6 tfsi) so feels ok as a swap motor.

This is great.  Always return to this thread if you need motivation to keep going. i love the irony of using an Audi engine when the 924 was panned for using an Audi engine back in the day. i was thinking the other day how a 924 would be fun to engine swap the basic car is there, just needs more go.  Getting a wide body and stuffing a v8 in is perfect.

Wouldn't it be easier to modify the sump than to modify the bulkhead?

Coastr: it is a V6. 944s2cab: the sump is in two pieces, upper and lower. The oil pump sits in the upper sump and is immersed in oil. The lower, smaller sump houses the oil pick up and oil level sender. I am not worried about loosing the sender as there is also a dip stick. I do need a low area for the oil pick which  is at the rear of the sump. These motors do not carry a lot of oil and the pump operates at low pressure for efficiency. I am looking at putting an accumulator in the post pump pressure side of the oil circuit to supplement the loss of some sump capacity and guard against starvation due to surge in the small lower sump, although I will also have some baffles welded in at the time. There is a oil cooler take off on the side of the motor which is on the pressure side of the circuit which I can use for the accumulator and a bigger cooler as well. The whole system being at lower pressure make the set up easier, I think, and the accumulator will protect the motor in case I have my thought processes wrong. Hence I think the firewall is the easier option. I think it will also look like it was planned rather than shoe horned in. . I have attached an image of the oil system in the motor from an Audi introductory presentation.

Update. Front bumper, spoiler and fenders now removed. That was quite an easy task. Where ever there was a Porsche installed bolt it was not rusted in. Where the bolts and nuts were from elsewhere there were some problems. Looks like the banana has not been in any major accidents, just a few parking dents. The front right fender had a little rust at the bottom but other than that and a bit in the passenger rear it looks rust free. If anyone would like any of those removed panels for a more than reasonable cost please contact me. Have now organised new temporary premises with access to lifts etc so the work can proceed in earnest, albeit very slowly. Have decided to put in a 924 Carrera GT badge panel to go with the CGT spoiler and fenders and managed to get the vents from the UK on Ebay. Now all I need is a fibreglass nose panel and apart from the hood all will be lightweight panels. A bit of extra measuring leads me to believe the engine mountings I planned to use may be too wide. Now looking for some bulkhead mounts, there are thousand to choose from just need the correct thickness and orientation.

Update before the Xmas layoff. Have stripped the interior, dashboard out and taken off the front panels. This has enabled a bit more accurate measurement of the engine fit. 1. A pedal box will be required for brake, clutch and may as well do the accelerator at the same time The motor is a bit too wide to refit the brake booster comfortably and place the clutch master in the correct location. Probably a better solution in any case and I will use a remote booster. 2. I think I will modify the front cross member rather than the engine sump. The engine will be mounted to the front chassis frames so this will reduce the load on the cross member so I think it can be re engineered to give the necessary sump clearance without loss of integrity. 3. New power steering rack has arrived. Have also decided to mount that on a separate cross member in order to correct bump steer when the suspension is lowered. Will talk about the rack separately. 4. Will probably have to go with a Motec ecu as finding someone in Australia to crack the Audi/Siemens ecu to deactivate the immobiliser is impossible. Most tuners do not know what I am talking about. At least the Motec makes the integration of the 944 instruments easier. Worst part about it is the ecu will be by far and away the most expensive part of the car. I would love to do this myself but at this time it has defeated me. No hurry but is looking a bit forelorn. 5. Have picked up the early 944 seats ready to be modified to resemble sports seats plus full like keyed lock set and other bits and pieces from the donor car I purchased. 6. 4  brake calipers and 2 discs are on their way from a PFA member. 7. Air conditioning was aftermarket and shot so I will replace it with a modern/compact system which weighs as much as the original heater system. New year will see the removal of the drive train.

Are you able to get it emissions certified with the motec? or is this just going to be a track car?

Just back from the southern ocean. The car is over 35 years old so should be ok with either. I just have to comply with all the safety requirements of that period. I think!! I am conflicted on the ecu. If I can find a 3.0 ltr TFSI motor and use that rather than the 3.2, then the Motec would be useful to extract bags more kw but with the with 3.2 there is little up side, maybe 10% and so the Motec is overkill, but it may be the only way to get the engine going considering the immobiliser. To get the 3.2 operating with the standard ecu would be very cost efficient. I guess it is not the most urgent decision. As an update I am now collecting all the bits for the drive line, alternator, starter, gearbox bits to get ready to renovate and do the swap over. Does anyone have any good advice for cleaning the corrosion from aluminium casings? I do not want to strip down the starter, alternator and a/c pump if possible. Also the engine needs a bit of a corrosion clean.

Joy, the Audi gearbox spacer plate turned up from the UK. This was the second attempt at buying one on Ebay. First purchased ended up in a refund. Moving forward can begin. I felt I needed it to sort out the adapter plate for the 3.2 to the 924 bell housing. Quickly got to it to see whether their were some corresponding bolt locations and yes there are enough. The CNC company can use the spacer and the bell housing to construct the adapter plate. First photo shows that adapter on the motor with 6 corresponding holes. Second shows 5 corresponding holes on the bell housing and third shows the whole lot matted together. I have 50mm to make up between rear face of the motor and the torque tube and will allocate 20mm to the Adapter and make up a 30mm spacer between the bell housing and torque tube. I will have to use a 30mm longer drive shaft and so will use the auto drive shaft cut down at the gearbox end and re-splined. Note that the bell housing still has the cable clutch mechanism installed. I will leave it there until I trial fit the motor as it is one of the options for clutch operation. A bit ancient but very positive. I have all the bits to install it including the sleeve that will need to be welded to the firewall. I intend to have the bell housing and the aluminium spacer welded together. I can get at all the engine bolts from the bell housing side. I have also been looking for a compatible, non dual mass flywheel. Eventually I think I have found a replacement in a VW Golf/Corrado/Passat VR6 setup. They have the same 10 bolt crank attachment and a similar diameter. I am looking to see whether I can find one with a flat back in order to mate to the Audi flex plate and thick enough that it can be machines slightly to accept the pilot bearing carrier. There are many available in lightweight chrome molly or alloy and capable of taking 450 lb/ft torque. They are essentially much cheaper than having a custom solution made. Tried obtaining some thickness dimensions from 5 manufacturers but it appears as if this is secret men's business. Next wait is for an Audi/VW starter motor to turn up from Germany. Note that the starter will be mounted in the normal location rather than underneath the car and mounted arse about face on the gearbox. Using the Audi flex plate and the starter in there normal position should alleviate any compatibility problems.

Hi Jaffar Your mention of re-splining a driveshaft reminded me of the @Jason E 944S2 when we replaced the TT bearings , shaft and TT because we were chasing a "ghost" noise (which didn't go away after the fix).  Because the S2 shaft has a lengthwise split, apparently to reduce resonances, and which makes them apparently unsuitable for "Black Sea" bearing replacement, we obtained a Turbo TT and shaft.  Inspection showed the spline on the engine end to be FUBAR so we thought we'd get the spline repaired and re-cut.  Not rocket science, right?  Wrong - no-one wanted the job, but one would have a go, no guarantees, for $1200.  We didn't do that, unsurprisingly, and removed the S2 shaft from its TT and used that.  I'll be really interested to see how you fare "over there" with a similar request.

Well that raised my anxiety levels a bit. Quickly got on the phone and confirmed they could cut the spline but could not harden it. Gave me the number of someone who could and they can do cut the spline and harden but not on a spline that has been previously hardened. That was a bit disturbing but then remembered that I am using the 944 drive shaft in a 924 snail shell torque tube which is 500mm shorter. The 944 shaft will need to be shortened and the new spline will be cut on the shortened end. All good, phew.

Just pulled the bearings from the G31 torque tube. What a beggar of a job. At least I now have some experience for the extraction of the drive shaft and bearings from the 944 tt. I found a rather large lump of cast iron with rubber retainers on either side in the middle of the tube. Can anyone tell me what it is for? When I see the You Tube videos of refurbishments  none look to insert it or discuss it. Received the starter and alternator from Europe. $150 for the lot with 5500 klm on them. Nice thing about VAG parts is they are plentiful and interchangeable. The starter is really small. I can now add the starter mounting holes to the modified template and send the template, bell housing and CAD drawing of the template to have the adapter made. Finally trying to get any dimensions from the ally flywheel manufacturers is impossible. Will have one custom made by the firm doing the adapter, found that I can use a Mazda RX7 pressure and clutch plate in this application. The plate has the same shaft and spline count as the 944. Very handy. These are cheaper and available with lots of different configurations.

Certainly no such lumps in S2 or 944T torque tubes.  We used a 2M length of threaded rod and a drill to extract and insert bearings in Jason E's torque tube.  A bit tedious and hard on the drill, but not exhausting in comparison with the hammering out method. Keep up the good work! 😉 Edited 4February, 2019 by Rob "not", not "now"

Had another fright when someone I was corresponding with in NZ mentioned that the TT on a 944 was larger in diameter than the 924 TT. Took a bit of research to ascertain the they were the same. If they were different then there would have been a few problems mating the 944 drive shaft into the 924 TT. All good. The spacer/template returned for a bit of modifying to get the clearing bubble for the starter sorted. That is now done and the whole lot is ready to go down to the CNC guys for the bell housing to be made. I took the gearbox to the repairers I had used on my Lotus for an inspection. They stripped it apart and here is the bucket of junk: There is quite a bit of work to be done including all new bearings, 3 new synchro rings, 3 new dogs and a shift sleeve, plus seals etc. All the gears, shafts and the CW&P were good. It was at the point of no return as the shift fork had loosened and was about to fall off. All the parts required are surprisingly available through Porsche or aftermarket. A firm called Catellus in the US can supply the whole lot. It is, however not cheap. The bearings are the biggest cost at nearly $US 2000 as they are Porsche items. I am currently contemplating whether it is worth proceeding with this gearbox or just finding a rebuilt 944 item in Australia. It appears they are up to $AU 5000 to buy and the rebuild will be a similar cost, if not more, but a lot sexier. I want to throw a LSD at it as well. I though the ecu would be the big cost but this is close if not more. Tomorrow is take the intake manifold off the motor day and see whether it looks like a 40,000 klm motor as I was advised when I purchased it. Will also clean the intakes, as being a DPI motor it will have some carbon build up and pull off the timing chain covers to see if there is any damage to the chains and tensioners. These are the big maintenance item on these motors. Change the oil regularly and the rest looks after itself.

A further look at the motor did not turn out well. One of the tricky intake cam shaft features (dual lobes to change the degree of lift) had seized and caused quite a bit of internal damage. Not worth trying  to save the motor considering what I purchased it for and so out it goes. And that is the reason why it was so cheap, could of at least told me. I guess I was a bit naive. I have been looking for alternatives and think the best bet will be home grown. Will follow up on that in a few weeks. The gearbox will end up being by far the most expensive single item of this project so before I pull the trigger on buying all the parts will look at the engine swap in some more detail to see if it is all worth the pain. Have mocked up the brake caliper adapters and that all seems to work. I will go through this once the bits and pieces are machined up but I am a bit surprised about some of the dialogue over brake conversions. Also have rough fitted the Carrera GT front end. That all seems to fit without too much pain. There will be some fibreglass repairs but not that difficult.

Things have been moving forward. See photo of front subframe and steering rack. As opposed to making up a complete new front cross member a little mod enabled the rack to fit nicely. Give the crossmember a shot blast and a spray of silver paint and you would knot know anything was done. The rack required the mounting lugs to be removed and a bit of grinding at some of the webs and it could then be mounted with the 944 saddles using the Mini bushes. The arrangement will need a bracket to stop any possible sideways movement, but there is a lug on the rack to facilitate this. I had a pair of new arm's made up to adapt the rack to the ball joints. Interestingly the whole lot was the same threads. The biscuit engine mount is from a Landrover and the steering U joint is from Borgeson in the US. I am replacing the whole of the steering shaft with Borgeson parts which then adapts to the 944 steering column. Their stuff is really nice. The front wishbone is Mazda RX7. Will be using a early 944 ball joint with fabricated alloy plates to hold them. The length of the front wishbone is correct and it looks like a Whiteline poly bush from a Toyota  Landcruiser  will adapt the wishbone to the rear wishbone mounting. Unfortunately one of the mounting bolts was sheared at the chassis rail. Does anyone know where I can get hold of the very heavy washers that are used on the rear wishbone mountings? Tomorrow the old motor comes out and trial fit the new.

Engine out, test fit crossmember and oil pan and all fits nicely.  In fact the pan looks lost in there.

One of the jobs I was not looking forward to was the replacement of the bushes on the rear torsion bar carrier (if that is what you call it). Ended up being easy, just heat it up as below and a give them a twist with a large set of adjustable pliers. I have read some of the most epic efforts of butchery to do this. Test fit of motor. The alternator was a bit close and needed a tweek to the bracket but the rest is pretty good. Purchased a tubular exhaust but found it needed a bit of adjusting with a oxy torch and a hoist. Exhaust still has a ground clearance issue and will require more brutal intervention. Next step is the adapter plate. I found most of the Porsche dimensions on US web site and only had to supply the clutch housing and the required thickness. Once I have ascertained the adapter plate is ok I will pull out the auto trans and install the manual and the refurbished rear suspension. Does anyone have any suggestions of sound proofing for the fire wall and interior? Edited 5September, 2019 by Jaffar Double up of photos

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I fitted some Dynamat I was given for the 912 (expensive), though the similar building stuff from Bunnings would be cheaper and do the same job And PLEEEEEASE edit the title of your thread to 'AN' overripe banana. It's doing my head in 😂 🙄 😫 😥

Not sure how to edit the title. Aggravates me as well, and I did it.

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😂 I'll have a look and get back to you, though I reckon just look for the edit button on your first post, and that might allow you to edit the title

Have you considered VEMS for engine ECU. Very popular in Europe. I have  plug and play setup in mine. Good chance they have been hooked up to these motors too as the V in VEMS stands for versatile and anything in Audi is common there(EU)

TITLE HAS BEEN EDITED!!!! I can now sleep again. Thanks @Jaffar 👍 👍

It fits. Adapter plate has been machined up and fitted to LY7 clutch housing. I used  an automatic housing as it was smaller and lighter than the manual and I am using a concentric slave. Engine fitted to the torque tube in 2 hours. Nice when all the planning for nearly a year comes together first time. The tolerances are a bit tight and will require a small amount of grinding at the crossmember and the top of the adapter plate. Motor mounts have been roughed out and are now being welded up. I hope they fit as well as this has. Have  been busy in the meantime also constructing a new inlet plenum (about 7kg lighter than the stock item and takes a 92mm throttle body), refurbishing the suspension and bearings and refurbishing the dash, centre console and sun visors. Next up is to swap over the gearboxes and drive shaft to the refurbished items and then get the car back on it's wheels. That will probably take about another 9 months although with the Covid - 19 issue things have gone along a bit quicker as I have a bit more spare time. I'll post pics of the sun visors as I think they are turning out very nicely.

Nice work. There's enough room in front of that engine for an extra two cylinders 😉

For sound deadening I'd go a MLV (mass Loaded Vinyl) rather than dynamat(btw never use the hardware tape, its not the same and stinks).  Dynamat type products(I recommend Dynamat extreme) are to remove panel resonance, so great for large panels. What you want on a firewall is a barrier layer and MLV is the go for that.

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Thatd be a helluva name for a punk band! 😁

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Funny, I thought exactly the same thing. Jaffar how do you know this stuff? I take it your not a wedding celebrant or dental hygienist for your real job? 😉 It spins me out how much knowledge some people have.

Well that's been a long time. The mechanicals and suspension are just about ready to go in. The delay is caused by a decision to resurrect the old 016Z gearbox by installing G31 internals. This means means a 25mm input shaft and reduced chance of gearbox damage from over exuberant accelerator usage. It also gives a reasonable spread of ratios but the final drive is a little short. If this proves an issue I can get a variety of different diff ratios from Albins. I purchased the internals on Ebay in the US and I am having new dogs and synchros installed by Cattelus Engineering in the US. Will soon have a complete low mileage 016Z trans to sell which I was going to originally install. The original auto drive shaft is being shortened and splined at present. God I hope I have got all of the measurements correct!!! I think I measured and re measured and drew a diagram at least 10 times and each time the measurements changed. The GM flywheel has been lightened from 17kg to 10kg and I am using a 944 turbo friction plate with the GM flywheel, pressure plate and concentric slave. Engine bay is just about rebuilt (apart from wiring which is next after the mechanical install) and I have started the tidy up of the body. The steel had two small issues of rust which I decided to repair by fashioning replacement panels from .5mm galvanised steel and gluing into place with steel epoxy and holding in place temporarily with rivets. The fibreglass front end is in process of crack repair and new mounts installed similar to those used for steel panels.Once mounted I will start on the body tidy up and painting. The majority of that is the small crack in the outer surface of the fibreglass. The new intake plenum is now complete apart from paint. I have attached a photo of the internals. I have done a bit of dash repair. I am not sure whether the wrap on the plastic is a bit too loud but can be easily removed and may add life to a very black interior.

Quotes source post: 277321

Great project .. love to see more pics details of the engine conversion egc cheers

Michel, Hard to know where to start. I was sure I neither wanted to install a V8 as that was a lead sledgehammer and a turbo motor was probably going to be beyond my skills, especially trying to get street tractability. A large capacilty N/A V6 would give good torque and HP, not cause too many fitment problems and retain the car's balance. An alloy V6 was going to be lighter than  the Porsche n/a motor and considerably lighter than a 944 turbo motor or a V8. After spending time looking at and measuring the Audi V6 I had purchased and the engine bay it was pretty clear that a motor which had it's oil pump and pickup in the front of the sump and an engine bay with a very low bonnet was going to be an issue unless you wanted allot of motor sticking out of the bonnet or some pretty serious mechanical work such as dry sumping. Luckily the decision was made for me a the motor was junk. The Audi was a 90 degree V6 which meant it was reasonably low but the said oil pump was the difficulty. I came to the conclusion I wanted to make the minimum changes to the base car and the GM Alloytec achieved that goal. It was a 60 degree V6 which meant it was a bit taller and narrower, but the oil pump was out of the way and thus the changes in that area were pretty minimal. The following photos show the mods to the sump which were the only changes to the bottom of the motor. Being a 60 degree V6 also meant that it was a bit smoother than the Audi unit and did not require a balance shaft. The GM motor is very simply for the somewhat high tech specification and an standard output of 195 kw. The route of the oil pickup had to be modified so just used some copper water pipe and brazed the whole lot together. I did also do a bit of grinding of the accessory brackets to bring the alternator and air cond compressor closer to the block as they are at frame rail level and i wanted a bit more maneuvering room in the engine bay. In order to keep the motor as low as possible I made a small mod to the cross frame which also helped install the Mini power steering rack. You can see from the 3 photos that I have taken away the upper brace on the cross member which was in the way and beefed up the lower part of the cross member to compensate. Note I have done none of the welding. The cut out of the oil pan removed about a litre of oil. I will install a separate header tank if required. The fit between the front of the pan and the cross member is very tight and the motor is very tight against the firewall, but there is a heap of space in front of the motor, which will be required for a pair of brake boosters and air cleaner ducting. . The 944 brake booster will not fit with the width of the motor. I did try a hydraulic booster but still too much of a squeeze so i made an adapter plate to fit the master direct to the firewall. Hence the use of 2 small boosters for the front and rear circuits. I wanted to keep the 944 master. The clutch master is fine. The GM intake was heavy and ugly and was going to give clearance problem so i have made a rear facing simple intake plenum which I am hoping with the removal of the stiffener in the centre of the bonnet will enable me to get away with no bulge. I have made a small glass bulge just in case but I will only find out the verdict when everything is installed. The new plenum is allot less complex, has a higher capacity and can take a larger throttle body as will as being 5 kg lighter so a bit of a bonus. I will go through the engine mounts, exhaust, clutch, bell housing, slave, adapter plate and torque tube another time.

Thx for the additional detail. Before you move on too discuss t/tube etc... you seemed to dkip a bit of detail on the ... I made a plenum.

"I made a plenum" has to be the PFA understatement of the year! Yes, I'm interested in the details too.

The reason for making the new manifold was weight, even though the original manifold is quite large it has only a small capacity as it is a aluminium sand casting and the walls are thick. The other problem was i was trying to eliminate, if possible, having to modify the bonnet. The plenum is fibreglass/epoxy with the dog leg to the throttle body being a piece of ally intercooler tube laminated in during construction. The whole build was a bit fluid as I changed tack a couple of times during the process as I figured out what would fit/work and what wouldn't. The size of the TB increased as I found I needed one of a particular configuration to fit at the back of the motor and the GM V8 version pictured earlier was a good fit. I started by calculating the capacity required for the engine capacity and added a bit more. I wanted to include the flap and the configuration (dividing the plenum into 2) that is used in the original manifold to increase and decrease the size of the plenum, closed for more torque at lower revs and open for more power at higher revs. I built two halves of a tapered box in a simple mold made of MDF and skimming plaster. A lay up of 3 layers of 8oz crows foot glass and epoxy was used. Crows foot is a bit easier to manipulate around complex shapes. I made the inlets from a couple of sets of inlet manifold isolator plates for these motors as the original manifold suffers badly from heat soak due to the heavy ally construction. I used 2 sets of isolators in order to make a sort of small air horn and increase the length of the intake runner. Also port matched the whole lot and gave the intake runners a bit of a cleanup. The whole thing just bolts on top of the intake runner, fuel rail and injectors pretty easily. I have attached some photos as it is a bit hard to describe all the process I went through to get to the final pre painted version. The original casting: Intake: Mid build: Flap: Before paint: Insulators:

Photos Alloy adapter plate on GM Auto bell housing. Flywheel and pressure plate from a Commodore whatever but is heavy duty. Plate is a 944 turbo. Repair work on fibreglass front end. I am trying as much as possible to replicate the original porsche mountings. Slave cylinder mounted Brake master cylinder installed without booster and tidied up fire wall. I will be using a pair of small remote boosters. Fuel pump and filter/pressure regulator installed. The pump is just an Ebay cheapo high pressure pump from a Raceworks. The filter/regulator come from a mid 2000's Corvette. A simple installation which only requires a return from the filter to the bottom of the tank. The bottom of the car was virtually rust free. Engine mounts manufactured from the original mounts with the aid of cardboard aided design. I am a bit worried about them being absolutely correct and if they are no good I will modify to use tubes (which I should have done in the first place). Finally the source of much boredom. Rebuilding the drive shaft and torque tube using the old 924 torque tube recovered from the 924 in the field with a modified 944 drive shaft installed. I used a large 16mm diameter threaded rod to pull the bearings through but it still took 2 evenings. I reinserted the 924 vibration dampener (a big lump of iron with rubber on the ends) just in case. Motor going back in this weekend. I am now the proud owner of a G31/02 (924 turbo) gearbox with Porsche 40% LSD. Was too cheap to pass up. It was much cheaper than just buying one of the Porsche LSD's as the 911 guy's appear to scoop these up.  It is going to Catellus in the US to be rebuilt with the bits I had purchased and then on to Australia.

This is all about one step forward, one step back. I went to test fit the torque tube to the clutch housing. Could not get the alignment correct, the drive shaft would not fit neatly into the clutch and thus could not properly attache the TT to the clutch housing. After much examination and self examination to see whether I was sane figured out the concentric slave did not have a square bottom and therefore was not centered correctly. It was interfering with the shaft. I replaced it with a GM v8 unit (which are really cheap) allot of grinding to get the fluid lines to fit and the whole lot fitted together without drama. Teaches me to use a freeby. So that is fixed and re install the motor. Next drama. All the clearances were shit and could not get the motor to sit on the centre line without touching the frame on the alternator side. Also a couple of webs on the clutch housing were too close to the firewall and a couple of bolts on the cylinder head were too close to the brake master cylinder. Clearancing time. The frame has a external bulge next to the alternator, easy just give the frame a hit with a hammer to turn the bulge inside out. Tried it but no joy, turns out there is a brace inside the frame at that location. Luckily it dented enough along with a little grinding of some proud edges on the alternator to obtain enough clearance. The clutch housing grinding required dropping the motor out of the bottom and the master cylinder was always going to have two outlets rather than 3 so a plug in the spare outlet and cutting that down obtained the necessary clearance plus counter sunk machine screws for the mounting bolts provided the rest. Air conditioning pump has lots of room to clear the frame but interfered with the engine mount in a big way. New engine mounts are the result. Luckily I can continue on while they are being welded as the engine sits nicely on a block of wood sitting on the cross member. Next in was the rear sub frame. If it looks a bit unfamiliar it is from a 924 with frames to support the G31 transmission.  It did not come with a rear sway bar so I made a couple of mountings from some U bolts and the mounts cut out of the old sub frame. Also started work on the interior with making sure the gear shift works, installing a 944 clutch pedal and cleaning the residual glue all over the panels in the drivers side. I have a few requests for those who are having a read. I am looking for a Recaro LM seat from the 70's or 80's to use as a drivers seat. I have a pretty abused LS for the passenger seat. I was going to modify the Porsche seats that I had previously obtained but sort of like the Recaro's better. Any condition is fine as long as the foam is still usable. I have a pair of early tombstones going very cheap.

Hey Jaffar, do you think it would be possible to run the original intake and still have the hood clear?

Def stick with the recaros - will be a good result

After 2 years the banana is back on 4 wheels.It's got so old the end has turned black. It is a bit of a nuisance as I had lots of room underneath to scramble around under but this enables the people I am hiring a little bit of space from to move it around. Still not very elegant but the suspension works and is completely refurbished. The rear sits a little low and will get even lower after the transaxle and bumper are installed and some gas in the tank. I will have to re index the torsion bars but will leave it until all the weight is in. For the moment I will use the standard torsion bars with a adjustable 19mm sway bar and see that goes. The front is a bit high but by the time all the rest of the stuff is installed in the bow it might come down to the correct height. I have put in adjustable perches and I got hold of a pair of early 911 GT3 springs for the moment just to tide me over until I figure out what would be a good spring rate. They are about 320lb and may be a bit stiff compared with the rears. They are however a lovely piece of kit and very long so there is lots of movement. Have also been working on the steering column. II It is a bit of a tangled mess with exhaust, coolant pipe, steering shaft and alternator and an engine mount to go in as well. The exhaust needs a bit of finessing (understatement) but it all seems to fit. I think I will either need to wrap the exhaust or have it ceramic coated in order to reduce heat to the other services. It will be very tight in there. Any comments appreciated as to what would be more effective? Nice thing is it looks like I will be able to use the GM radiator hoses to link up to the radiator which will be a cheapo Ebay offering. I was so surprised that the pipe that brings coolant from the thermostat at the rear of the motor easily cleared the steering rack and snuck in behind the exhaust. Next step is to install the brake pipes down to the front wheel wells by going forward rather than behind the motor and start on electrics while a few things get welded.

I will get a few photos off my desktop. I found the rear bumper had a large hole in it expertly filled with auto bog. I re glassed a section into the hole and has been faired. Wiring will be a long term job. I have peeled apart the motor harness and extracted most of the surplus stuff. I am trying to figure out the best way to connect the motor harness to the ecu harness, hopefully through a plug or series of plugs, as the motor harness is too short to lead into the cabin. At the same time I am looking at using a ecu from Baldur Systems in Iceland rather than the Haltech I intended to use. It is far cheaper, does a bit more than the Haltech, uses more proprietary plugs, has more wiring options and they can set up the VW CAN speed signal I require for the electric power steering pump. I have the Porsche engine bay harness harness now sorted although the photo shows the mess before unpicking it a bit and tidying up. I have also had a go at the internal harness to tidy that up a bit. Here it is when I started. I am also going through ands dipping all the terminals in vinegar to get rid of the corrosion. The hardest part would appear to be piecing together the heating and A/c wiring so I can use it for the Autoware Hurricane A/c & heater system. To prove the car has VW roots I have put some 50mm holes and bulkhead plugs in the rear 3/4 panel in order to pull out the torsion bars. They are really handy. The car was sitting a bit driver side low so i re indexed the drivers side in a rather hap hazard manner but got it done in an hour. Finally managed to get hold of a couple of very cheap and grotty Recaro LX seats. A great winter job is awaiting me to renovate and recover them in Black Alcantara and: Yuk.

Lovin your work also garish and gauche .. keep it up

At long last the motor is now sitting on a set of completed mountings. You will note a spacer between the mount and the rubber. I decided there may be a bit of settling in the rubber once the motor is operating and so enabled a bit more clearance at the sub frame. U Unbelievably a perfect fit first time after the failure of the previous botch up. Found a spot for the remote brake booster which does not interfere with anything. Just in case you are wondering about how it is going to hook up with just one inlet and outlet the intention is to only use it for the front brakes. I will probably need to sort out a balance arrangement to make it all work correctly. The booster is a cheap ebay rip off of an original 1950's PBR VH44 used in Holdens and Falcons. The smallest I could find. I think the car will only require a small amount of assistance. Can any one inform me of what the 2 air deflectors which sit under the badge panel in front of the bonnet catch are for? I pulled them off but I am now wondering whether I should have done so. Finally I have found out why one of the seats I purchased cost $140. It was in an incredible mess. The seat back was broken at the reclining mechanism and there  was a feeble and failed attempt to braze together the super thin Italian steel. I riveted and bolted a piece of rectangular alloy tube into the back which fitted exactly and that has stopped the whole lot from moving around, stiffened it up and hopefully it will be much stronger. The bottom was equally as badly molested with the mounting fixed nuts all being torn out. I I have tidied up the holes as much as possible and I think I have a way of repairing this without welding as the metal is just too thin to make a sold and safe job. Finally can anyone post a photo of an original early 944 N/A battery hold down arrangement?

Most expensive part of the car just made an entry. I wish i could move the car to better conditions. That rain water is not good especially with dust everywhere!! E Eventually found the courage to cut the hole in the bonnet. Also stripped the paint from the fibreglass and continued body repairs. And then built a bulge to cover the hole. Repaired the seat bottom as best as possible without welding. I placed 5 mm steel bars into the seat frame and tapped the mounting holes into them and then riveted some 3 mm aluminium angle to the outside to provide additional support. I think it is now stronger than the other seat and may do the ally angle mod to the other as well. Finally made up a pair of drive shafts up from the two sets I had on hand. There were 4 CV joints that were usable. Luckily 924's and early 944's have identical CV joints. Next up is a big clean, get the gear shift sorted, finish the brake system and continue the slow process of sorting out the wiring. I keep sighing with relief that this is an early car as has much less complex wiring.

A little bit more has happened over the last few weeks. It would be nice for the rain to stop so that I can spend a bit more time underneath the banana. I need to find the bitter end of the reverse light wires. I can trace them through the floor to underneath the car and attached to the fuel pump feed but from there on they disappear into what appears to be a frame. CV Joints and gear linkage are now in. I did make up a new ally gear stick and pivot arrangement. New rear calipers are also now installed. The calipers and rear disks came from a member of this forum. The disks are early 911 with a bit of grinding to get them to fit and the calipers are from 996/Boxter. I have also managed to figure out a reasonably workmanlike way of installing the fixed headlights. I tried all sorts of solutions in Ally and steel but brackets moulded from fibreglass and glued to the buckets was the neatest solution.

I have a bunch of photos on my desk top so here is an update. In the last exciting episode I installed the gearbox and gear lever. Well that was 2 steps forward and now one step back. I did not like the slop in the lever so I removed the gearchange end joint and tried to figure out how to improve the so called intentional slop that Porsche engineered into the fitting. See the photo below. Yes that is a new bush and the pin is to spec. I can imagine that there is a slight reason for a bit of slop as there is a bit of misalignment between the shift rod and the input into the gearbox on the horizontal plain, but that is rediculous. Others have stated that the fit is good with a new bush and others say that the fit is poor. This is definitly poor. Anyway I have purchased a brass bush which fits the pin in the middle and is a bit larger than the elongated hole. I will drill the hole out so I can slide in the bushes from either side and figure out a way of holding them in place. I may have to make the hole slightly larger for the miss alignment but not as much as Porsche seem to think! I cut a hole in the top of the transmission tunnel to access the joint which meant I did not have to have pull the whole transmission out and drop the sub frame in order to get at it. Also enables the two top bolts to be accessed if I have to pull out and re install the tranmission. I made a plate for over the hole which can be accessed under the rear seat. I trust it will not leak or have caused major structural problems as it is over the rear sub frame and that area seems quite beefy. Front calipers have been installed. Don't mind the spring not sitting in the perch. I will need to get some others that are re rated and a set of helpers. I am surprised a the length of travel. The whole brake/rotor package is a tight fit and may require some further adjustment to the adapters once the pads turn up. And now to the most mind boggling part of this whole swap, the electrics. Set to the job again and had a good look around the fuse box and relays. The lower fuse box and relays seem fine but have a look at this rat eaten shit fest. I am surprised the car did not catch fire at some stage. Still it has not worked for over 20 years so I guess this could have happened in the meantime. The amount of bare positive wiring was frightening. So the best thing to do was to get onto something else while I contemplate my options for this mess. A totally new fuse box and re terminate all the wires may be the answer. It is annoying that the current wiring is all connected straight to the fuse contacts, some other system that is replaceable would be great. That something else is this. The engine harness has sat in the loft for a couple of months now. I have looked at it and turned my back many times. The only way to get on top of the 128 connections was to itemise every wire on a spread sheet, give it a source and a destination either on the ECU or the Porsche harness and then extend wires, label and terminate. In some cases 3 or 4 times until I figured out whether I had got it right. That is not to say it will not be wrong when it gets re installed. Modern engines do have a lot of electrical stuff to make them work. I have also found out about pull up and pull down resistors, low reference connections, some sensors are 5v and some 12v. Some services are analogue and some digital and there is also some that are PWM. Low ref needs their own connections in some cases. DBW and the electronic throttle needs to be wired independently and have two circuits each. In order to make the Porsche instuments work I have decided to replace the GM oil pressure and water temp sensors with 944 items as the ECU does not require these sensors to operate correctly. They thankfully are a straight swap. The engine is all metric. I have to install a light for low oil level as I cannot use the dip stick. The sender is already in the sump along with an oil temp sender which I can use for the oil temp warning light. The speedo has a hall sensor behind it so I can hook that up to the ecu and program but the speedo will still be mechanically driven. I think I can even make the economy guage work through the ecu. The tacho can receive a signal from the ecu which can be programmed. And then the air conditioning ....... I want to retain the GM compressor and trinary which are 5v but the air cond plant I want to install is 12v so I have to reduce the voltage to 5v after the on switch so it will talk to the trinary and the compressor and then connect that low ref to the ecu. The fan side will be connected at 12v. I could do all this through the ecu but I only have just enough programable ouputs for the really important stuff such as the cam actuators, tach and intake manifold trim. I found the bitter end of the reversing light, there was none.The reverse light operated from the auto gear lever and was not attached to the gearbox. The spread sheet will soon go to the ECU manufacturer for an audit, after my 4 audits so far. Best thing to do is to walk away from that lot and go back to grinding and bogging the front end.

What an impressive build, Jaffar. Hilariously understated, and some extremely capable skills on display. I’ve leant quite a bit. My favourite parts include (but are not limited to) - -the front subframe and sump mods- who would have thought you can just braze up some copper pipe?! -using a snailshell trans - so cool - In other forums they indicate these are virtually unserviceable  (synchros out of production?) but you’ve busted that myth. And modding/resplining the TT is impressive - didn’t even know it was possible. -the aftermarket steering assembly and universal joints - looks really nice. Interested in if you ended up going ceramic coating or wrapping on the adjacent headers- the concept of ceramic coating inside and out somehow seems intuitively more effective, but be interesting in the facts. If there is some space to fold up and squeeze in a simple radiant barrier out of a bit of sheet steel, could be quite effective (a common go-to technique on flares and other heavy industrial equipment) And of course, nonchalantly dropping the fact you made your own intake plenum. Whatever, like everyone does, right? Hope the harness didn’t dishearten you and you keep us updated on progress.

Thanks for the props. The aim of this build has always been to spend the least amount of money as there is a big chance this will be a failure at the end of the day. I thought is would be interesting to own a 944 which had a bit more power and more direct steering. If it doesn't drive all that well after a bit of development then it will be worth nothing and therefore best not to spend too much. To that end I have  decided not to paint it until everything is well sorted. If I cannot get it to drive well then why waste time and money on a really good paint finish as it is the single most expensive part of the whole exercise. How good the car ends up will dictate how good the paint will be. If it is rubbish then a spray can job will be it. We will see whether the copper tube will allow sufficient flow and pressure. The fellow who did the soldering did clean the inside joint after each piece was put together but it was a bit of a trip into the unknown. The stuff up was that the re routed pipe got in the way of the dip stick and hence the use of the GM oil level warning switch. The switch is a simple and effective operation so should be reasonably fool proof. Part of the rationale for all the work is to keep metal fabrication work down as I do not have acccess to a welder and for that matter have never done any welding. I am also a bit obsessed with doing things with the least disturbance to the basic car. Some of the builds I have seen look like a exercise in seeing how many brackets and frames you can build and how many panels you can butcher. At present when you look under the car it still looks pretty much as Porsche built it, particularly in the rear axle area. Iwill ahve to put in some sort of heat control. I'm not a big fan of fibreglass wrapping as when it gets wet it can hold a bit of water and then rot the tube with the constant heat cycles. Maybe ceramic coating is the best way of dealing with that problem but is very expensive. This is the re built gear shift joint. It has got rid of all the slop in the linkages and all that is left is the slop within the gearbox. Hopefully the nylon bush that is left will absorb a bit of the vibration. There appears to be no binding in the shift itself. I have to sort out a way of ensuring the bushes don't fall out with vibration and use. I was looking at a clamp of some description but an even simpler solution may be a large rubber band made from mounain bike inner tube slid over the whole thing. Keeps the dirt out of the bushes as well. The engine harness is complete. It has been audited and audited again and the connections to the body have been changed a number of time. I thought I would only require 6 connections to the body harness but that is now 13 including a clean earth and 12v supply for the ecu. All the connections follow the original loom to the fuses and relays apart from adding a few more wires. All the wires are labelled to match the spread sheet. I will do a final continuity test on it before installation jsut to check again. I have also prepared a spread sheet for the relays and fuses. That has helped me to make the decision to replace the upper fuse box with a simple box with one live power in and supplying the same services as the original plus the ECU. The loom behind the dash is pretty ok and I just have to trace the old A/c stuff and get rid of that and that area is done. The only really bad area other than the fuse panel is the wiring in the doors which looks a bit of a mess as well. Also the only real wring problem at the front of the car is the cut off connections for the radiator fans which I am getting comfortable I can fix without to much of a problem. I will use the existing relays so the only additional relays I will use will be for the head lights and driving lights in the bumper. I have been looking at recycling as much as I can from the VW polo power steering tubing I received with the electric pump. That is the next major job apart from my continuing glassing, grinding and bogging. I am now happpy that the bonnet bulge will not fly off at the first bump. Finally I am really disappointed how little in the way of more specialised auto electrical bits are available in Perth. Most of the stuff has come though a crowd in Qld or Ebay. It is really disappointing as I do like to support the locals as much as possible but really they have only the same old stuff for wiring up trailer hitches and that is about it. If you want something that is neat  and reasonably matches what Porsche or GM wiring you have to go elsewhere. And much of that is China unfortunately.

The work continues very slowly. I have received all the bits to refurbish the in tank fuel filter. Rather than spending $150 for a new one I stripped out the plasic filter and installed one from a old Holden, held in by an internal circlip. Luckily the internal bore tapers outward and there is a groove in the back so the circlip fitted nicely and holds the filter in place. I also installed a new seal. It is all now serviceable. I have re started work on the seats. The worse part of the 2 Recaros I purchased was the driver side bolster. It was in really bad shape. I have used glass matt and contact cement to create a new anti wear and tear surface on the inside of the rubber over the steel supports  and will do the same on the outside once I have finished repairing the foam. The glass sticks really well with contact cement and does not stretch. The inside bolster I repaired by heating it up to return it to the original shape and then used wiring loom cloth tape and contact cement to hold it all together. I think I will use glass and contact over the outside as well to stop wear and tear and keep it nice and stiff. Over that will be a thin layer of polyester wadding to stop grabbing as the leather moves over the glass. I have found a crowd in the US who will supply all the covers for the both seats, except for the inserts, in leather, for AUS$420. I was going to try it myself but these are cheap enough to use and if it need a bit of tweeking that is ok. I am doing the inserts myself as they are quite simple. Headlights now have relays seen under the water tank. I now have to rebind all the wiring in that area which is the worst part of the job. I said I was going to replace the upper fuse box, That did not work out that well so I have now rebuilt the upper fuse box and have removed all the redundant wiring apart from the pop up lights which I will keep in case I don't like the fixed lights. Once again I need to rebind the harness once I add in the grey wire hanging loose for the A/c. I have had a bit of a dilemma of how to put in a water container for the windscreen washers as the area it is supposed to sit in now has an air filter and electric power steering pump in it's place. I have spent a considerable amount of time looking for something that will fit in the air intake plenum area and here it is, a coolant reservoir from an Audi. I saw it used in a 924 which was having a v8 installed. Fits pretty well with some mods and brackets and does not look totally out of place. The outlet is too big but I will plug it up and use a reticulation fitting to attach to the pump.It has an air inlet at the top so should work ok apart from being a bit small. Next weeks job will be to instal the new all aluminium ebay 944 turbo radiator I purchased for $142. I do not know how the Chinese do it. It probably will have a few problems but at that cost it can have quite a few.

Car has now been moved home and I can end the fight with dust and the long drives to get anything done. I may be able to proceed a bit faster than to date. 3 years and it looks like the car is in worse condition than it was when I purchased it. The bog and sand continues on the front end and is still a long way from finishing. I have decided to split the front clip into 3. The fenders and bumper had been glassed together but I think I can get it into a better state by disassembling and working section by section. The fuse box, relays are gradually being sorted under the dash. It is all being taped up at present. I have inserted a set of relays for the headlamps. Just need to tape it all up. Also sorting out the radiator hoses. I have replaced the GM transducers with Porsche compatible transducers. Throttle pedal is now installed after much mucking around and 3 attempts to get it right. The location and the intrusion at the wheel well makes it difficult to find a method of fixing without a whole lot of welding.  The pedal orientation is good and enables easy heal and toe down changes which will be required for the G31 transmission. I can alter the height of the throttle though a sliding arrangement. I have reused the auto brake pedal as it is not too large and there is loads of room in the footwell. I have removed one of the drip rails as it was damaged while in it's previous location. The removal was quite easy. I had looked at various sites for assistannce but could find no indepth discussion, there was an indication that there was either clips or double sided tape. There was neither. It is a light aluminium moulding which clips over the a lip as can be seen in the photo. It may be harder to reinstall than remove.

I thought I had not posted for a while but it is only 2 months. Lots has happened, and no, I haven't given up and thrown the heap of shit into the scrap yard (although i did contemplate it for a while). Firstly I negotiated my wife's Mini out of the garage and claimed the space for the banana. Sits along side the newly licenced Lotus. That took 28 years, I hope the banana doesn't take that long. Where I had it stored was becoming a problem. The dust from the CNC router, the smell from the liquid waste recyclers over the road and the 30 klm travel each way was making the whole process unacceptably difficult. Hence the thought of shelving it. My wife agreed to have her car outside until we move to a new house which has undercover space for 3 cars was a break through. Work is  now happening at a reasonable pace and I do not have to spend time cleaning the dust which stuck to everything with the help of a humid sea breeze or rain pouring through the shed. I still create my own dust but it is dry and easy to manage. Once the banana arrived home I decided to undo all the work I had done on the front clip and do it all again. The fenders and bumper/valence were all glassed together when I retrieved them from a paddock and when you put it on the car you could tell it was put under stress to sit in the correct position. So I cut it at the fender to bumper seams and it sprung apart. I have gradually been cutting and grinding out the joined areas and reglassing again so that they will screw together more like a normal 944. This also means it will be heaps easier to do work in that  area if required. Here is a good finished joint: Here are some not bad joints, just need a bit more finessing with the fixed light buckets which haven't been finessed yet: And finally here is a more typical shit job that will be dealt with this weekend.: Whilst I was executing the above I decided a nice undertray would be in order. I purchased some ABS to replicate the ally one which was junk but decided to improve on it so I now have a full ABS undertray down to the crossmember. I will be using the same attachment locations as the ally one but also attaching the front portion you see here to the rear tray with speed nuts and screws. I also intend to put in a skid plate at the cross member to protect the front face of the sump which sits a bit low. A product of the tallish motor and the interest of keeping the sump as close to full size as possible. Here it is from inside the engine bay also showing the radiator, fans and hoses all installed as well. It is hard to see as it is all black. I have also made a mud deflector for the drivers side as the early cars only had them on the passenger side and why should the passenger be the only one to remain clean. This photo was taken before I jumped into the gap finessing. I had been having second thoughts about the exhaust and considered buying smaller manifolds that would not be so difficult to fit. With my new found ability to sit and look at stuff from all positions and for extended periods I decided that the mods to the long tubes I purchased a few years ago will fit with the same amount of cost as the smaller set without the disadvantage of less kw and exhaust note. You can see from the  upper photo that I have had to put some heat proof covers over wiring and hydraulic and fuel lines. I will probably put covers over the top of the manifolds as well. In the bottom photo you can see that the steering column fits nicely between the tubes after a bit more modifying. I will insulate the exhaust in that area and the column as well. Now that the suspension and column are in their final location I am really please about the smoothness and robust feeling  of the steering column Borgeson parts. I have had a long standing battle with getting the clearances correct for the calipers, the Turbo discs and the steering arms and lower arms. I tried all sorts of spacers to get it right. I initially measured everything based on some diamensions given on the brake discs but they were about 5mm incorrect and everything after that was a compromise. I broke down in the end and purchased a couple of 944 turbo hubs from Canada and had the caliper adapters machined down by 3mm and they all now fit perfectly. The photo is of the passenger side which gave the major problem. The drivers side was livable. You can see a nice gap between the steering arm and the dust cover as it should be. I can now also re install the 944 NA dust covers. I can now install the rear pads and bleed the system. I have now a set of rebuilt 944 NA hubs with all new bearings installed for sale. Finally I have also started on the interior and put in  some new underlay and the cleaned and fumigated the original carpet. It actually looks ok, does not smell as if someone died at the wheel and rotted away and will look even better with some mats. I have advertised for some remnant black 944 carpet so that I can repair some of the rear carpet and hopefully I can find a good quality carpet for the luggage area floor.

A milestone has been reached. The brakes are now operating. After a bit of drama tracking down leaks at the booster, finding the m/c needed refurbishing and obtaining the correct seals and finally bleeding the system. The threads in the booster brake line connections had some rubbish in them and I couldn't seat the fittings properly and hence fluid all over the place. Bleeding was a sod until I ditched the reverse bleeder and just used a full reservior and tube from the bleed screw to a half full fluid bottle. Pump gently and then lock off when I could hear no further bubbles from the fluid bottle. Twice around and I had  a solid pedal. Now all that is left is to set up the all the pedal heights. I am hoping I can lower them somewhat so that the seat will be closer to the wheel. I have fixed the rusty area around one of the hatch pin recepticles. I vacillated between repairing it by beating a piece of steel into shape and having it welded in or making a thin fibreglass moulding from the other recepticle and epoxying a piece of that moulding under the ground out area and bogging over with epoxy. Looking at how the body is built in that area, welding would create a mess as you can't reach in behind to tidy up and I doubt you could fit the rubber seal back in the hole with all the welding dags hidden behind the panel. With the glass being so thin the seal still fits nicely. Also does not create areas which will rust again. This is one of the mouldings I made and you can see it glued in just above it. Here is the area after the epoxy has been filed and sanded away. This was the starting mess. I had also decided to re do the bonnet bulge. After looking at it in the garage I did not like the proportions and so I used the original as a mould and added more width with some expanding foam sanded to shape and some coreflue to create a bit more curve on the top. Here is the new mould. The moulding. The moulding trimmed and glued on. It looks better, is far less obtrusive even though larger, (the more rounded top hides the extra size) and the extra width stiffens up the bonnet skin substantially. The new mould was also lighter than the old one as it was moulded in one lay up of 5 layers of glass. All it needs now is a layer of bog and some sanding and it is ready to paint the bonnet. In the mean time i have been working on the interior to tidy up the luggage area, clean and re bind the rear wiring and get the rear lights operating. I am still looking for a piece of original black carpet to do some repairs if anyone has some. Next big job is to sort the evaporator for the airconditioning. I was originally going top use a Vintage Air unit but have drifted back to using a original heater & a/c package. The original set up will give fresh air ventilation while the heater is operating and also when neither the heater or a/c are being used. The weight is a bit more but is an easier fit.

Awesome work and progress.  I think you’re on the right track using an original evap box.  Always works out easier in the end if you can use factory parts.

I have spent the last 3 weeks working away at the interior. The luggage area is now cleaned sealed and I made good the bottom of the saddle bags behind the rear wheels. They were very dirty as much rubbish had settled in there over 40 years.The the tail lights and wiring have been cleaned and the lights now all operate. I had a piece of carpet from the 924 I had purchased and so that is now the temporary rear carpet until I can get something that is a better match. You can see on the drivers side the repair I made to the carpet from the bits and pieces that came off the door bins. Moved onto the  rear seat area and pulled off the pillar trims. The vinyl had started to peel away from the paper mache backing. this was pretty easy to repair apart from the area around the speakers. The vinyl had shrunk and there was no way to get it to adhere to the paper mache as that has become a bit powdery as well. That area will need to be done again now that I realise that I need to put sealer on the paper mache to stop the powdering and then the contact cement will adhere to it. Another time maybe. I pulled one of the windows out so that I could tuck in the head lining and trim pieces and created a whole lot of work that was not necessary as it can be done by just lifting the rubber with the tips of your fingers and tucking it in. Put in new oval speakers and new wiring and pulled out the odd bits and pieces of wiring which I assume were for a sub woofer. Moved on to the doors. The door cards were very badly fretted around the speaker area and the arm rests. After a bit of deliberation and experimentation I decided to rebuild them from a mixture of materials. The upper part remains the original paper mache(with some repairs using fibreglass, the card itself is corflute and the blister behind the armrest fibreglass. I once again had to seal the leftover paper mache to get anything to stick to it. The sealer was amixture of PVA and water. I made a mould for one of the blisters of paper mache and the other I could use the old card with some padding. The glass is 3 layers of 4 oz using polyester resin. Took the oportunity to see how the Recaro Lx seats fit and whether the driving position is ok.  The Recaros give much better lateral support than the original seat and are firmer. They are also somewhat lower which aids the clearance between wheel and knees. I also set the pedals so that the takeup is lower so that you sit a bit closer to the wheel.  I think they will be ok once they are re upholstered. The widows and door mirror mechanism were removed. The windows were straightforward. The passenger motor still worked ok but the drivers was a no go.  I pulled the motor off the mechanism and found lots of congealed grease. So I openned up the wheel enclosure, scrapped away the rubbish and it was off and running again. Cleaned the overspray from the bottom of the windows and put it all back together. A bit of advice here it is much easier to take out and re insert the lift mechanism if the motor is not attached. It is very easy to get the motor in afterward. The mirrors. What a dogs breakfast. The glass was siliconed to the motor assembly rather than using the original upholstery studs. I did not realise this until I removed the first glass. I think while doing that I cracked the rear glass which has the heater element on the first one and thus the heater is no longer working. The second was easier once I realised the bodge. Then the wiring was just appalling. Bits and pieces everywhere as someone had tried to unsuccessfully repair it. Any way I tried operating the whole lot on a bench and see what the electrical problems were. Turned out you can dismantle the switch which was not working properly. It has 3 cones in it which create the connections. One was not correctly seated . Once that was sorted the switch worked. Then on to the motors as I still could not get the motors to work correctly. They can also be peeled apart. Once inside I found a fork on the solenoid not set in the correct place. Once that was fixed then both motors at least did the same thing but still not working properly so back to the wiring. It turned out that the wiring in the car ( what was left of the original wiring) did not reflect what was in the wiring diagram.  I created the whole of the wiring on the bench to test all of the operations and many hours later both mirrors and the toggle are now operating correctly, at no cost. Unfortunatley I did not take any photos while I had the whole lot in bits, it was a bit of a saga which I thought might be the case from the start and I thought would end up quite costly. All that is left to do is glue the upholstery fasteners to the glass. I may also put a couple of velcro tabs in to hold it all together just in case. Door pockets. These are amazing. The carpet is fused to the ABS. When you take off the carpet, which in this case was shredded, you are left with this unbelievably rough plastic surface. That needs to be sanded smooth. That is easy until you get to the million staples that were used hold the vinyl edge trims. I have retrimmed the pckets in vinyl butting  and tucking under the new against the old but you can see little lumps from the odd slightly proud staple. The vinyl I used was very east to get around the corners and required no cuts. Once again if anyone has a piece of original black carpet please contact me. While all this is going on I am doing small repairs to the yellow paint in anticipation of touching up with rattle can paint. I have experimented with a small spot on one of the doors behind the door card and the colour match is good once the original paint is polished.  I think I can get a reasonable finish but I do not trust the longevity as I do not think you can get the thickness a full respray offers.

What is the old saying, A job is not complete until it has been done at least 3 times. This update is mostly about doing stuff multiple times and still not getting it right. I tried to re instal the Bilstein shocks that came with the car and wondered why the drivers side was a very tight fit. I had looked at the shock mount on the trailing arm previously and wondered why there was a slight difference between mounts on either side. Now I know why. There is should be no difference it was just that the drivers side shock mounting was bent from probably a major reversing into a kerb accident. I had to purchase a new trailing (second hand) arm as it was probably not worth the money to fix and would probably weaken the sshock mount in any case. So I rang around for another and the prices were shocking. They were throwing these things away when I purchased the car and in fact I threw two away myself. I tried for a set of early offset ally ones from the US with drive shafts. The cost was really reasonable but the shipping cost was far too expensive. Ended up buying another steel one on Ebay from the US. Cost about a third (incl freight) of what the locals wanted. I think Ebay has not updated it's shipping cost through their shipping program lately. My attempt at making a new webbing for the drivers seat was a bit of a failure. In fact some other bits of upholstering I have attempted have also failed. The common problem is using aerosol spray contact cement. It just does not set completely and does not have the holding power of the brush on variety. I have attached a photo of the overlapped material I used. There are 3 layers and I would of thought the sheer load would not be enough to create a problem but the glue had moved and felt sticky when I pulled the whole lot apart. I also had to do the same problem with the seat back bolster repairs. The spray on after a while appears to go soft. Any way I re did it with old fashion contact cement and looks like it is holding. Yes that is 2 oz fibreglass cloth impreganated with copious amounts of contact cement you are seeing as a re-inforcement. I also replaced the steel wire clips that hold the webbing to the seat base with cable ties. Works much better. You can get them to fit realy tight, adjust when they get a bit sloppy, do not rust and are much cheaper than new wire clips. I jumped back into the wiring loom to test all the services. It is all very well to make sure that there is continuity in the circuit but until you see if the service works it does not. So most of the services required further work including the most head scratching of the lot, the wipers (just as bad as the power windows and the mirrors). The intermitent function did not work properly and neither did the park function. I had checked the relay and the motor a few times but stil no joy until I found this. This is the after, after I soldered on a new contact made from a brass contact I stripped out of a fuse box. It is a bit dodgy and the first attempt failed after a few wipes as it was a dry joint but it proved my idea and  the second effort acheived a decent solder joint which will hopefully see it good for a while. Because the whole contact was missing I did not notice it when I originally opened it up to check if there was any grease or rot in it. The mising contact only effected the park function which effects the intermitent function. At first I thought the problem was with the relay so opened it up and replaced the capacitors at the princely cost of $2.50. The soldering was easy once I was introduced to the joys of solder wick, used to clean up joints and get rid of old solder. The wipers now work really well. If anyone is having a problem with the swirtches on their electric windows check this out. It is very helpfull. Managed to turn the motor over for the first time just to see that the starter motor and fly wheel ring gear mesh properly and when I turn the key that function will work as well. All that is left with the electrics is the A/c and heater, re installing the engine wiring loom and the ecu. I looked, for a while, at using a unlocked Bosch E55 ecu instead of an aftermarket job but by the time you buy all the hardware and software to talk to it and make the inputs and outputs work it is just as cheap to use a aftermarket ecu. Spent a couple of dirty weeks stripping the paint, clear finish, brake dust and corrosion from the Japanese knock off Fuchs wheels. Below is the before, mid strip and end product. I am not sure what to do with them. Whether just leave as is and give them a clear coat, paint the centres or get the whole lot powder coated. Powder coating is expensive and I am not sure they are worth it. I do like the way they are in the bottom photo. Suits the car. They have a bit of patina (in other words like the rest of the car they are a bit rough). I have spent more time on the body doing and re doing previous fixes. I have now modified the front fenders to accept side lights. Continued to tidy up the shut lines and all the blemishes and balls ups and glassed and glued in brackets for the turn indicators and driving lights. The bonnet bump is gradually getting there. I think I have used three pots of bog and 3 vacuum cleaner bags to get it to this. You can see the different colour bogs I have used. I also had another look at the exhaust manifolds while I was under the car re installing the exhaust hangers and looking for a small brake fluid leak. I made a couple of relieving cuts to a pipe on each side to see if that would help the fit and it did. The rear control arm carriers are the problem. The manifolds do not have to be shortened as they now fit nicely up under the floor and they do not need wholesale changes to obtain correct ground clearance. I was thinking that getting a set of "shorty" manifolds may be cheaper fix but it looks like these long tubes will work. Keeping the long tubes help the noise that comes out of the back dramatically and adds a few more KWs. The leak in the brake system came from the remote reservoir. Forgot to attach some clips on the connections to the master cylinder and you cannot see the bottom where the connections exit. That meant cleaning and re painting part of the engine compartment. I have also repainted the door shuts where the original effort was not that good. It actually looks ok now. As discussed previously I just used colour matched rattle cans. Next steps are a bit of painting going on at the rear of the car, A/c and heater when I manage to get hold of a system and the ecu and start her up.

Re the rims. Maybe just polished the outer lip and leave as is? Full colour looks a bit average to me

Time for an update. Once again there has been a bit of one step back and another forward. Most of the work over the last few months has been re visiting stuff and wondering if I can do it better, having a go at improving it and then having another go at it. As I have mentioned previously I have been vascillating over the heater A/c arrangement. I was contacted by a member who had an original  a/c but no heater and to buy the heater on top of the a/c the whole lot would be the same cost as a Vintage Air unit which would be far more efficient and lighter as well. The issue I had with the Vintage Air unit is getting fresh air in when the heater was on and then closing off the fresh air when the A/c was on, creating a recirculating system. I believe i have sorted the problem out.  I have found a SPAL vent which can be opened and closed and with a little bit of mucking around here it is. I used a central locking solenoid (which I found in one of the doors of the car) to open and close the vent. I can connect a 100mm duct to the ac/heater unit fan inlet and have a fresh air when required. The controls are all electric and are much easier to instal than the Porsche unit and because the heater and fan are in the same unit it is a far smaller package. I am a bit intrigued what the restomod companies are doing with these to enable a fresh air inlet as this seems to me to be very important. As discussed In the last update I found the shock mount on a rear trailing arm was bent. Rather than trying to fix it I have got another from the US. It came withing 2 weeks of buying and the overall cost was very good. You can see from the photo below the bent shock mount on the lower arm. I manged to instal it without having to take off the drive shaft and brake assembly. That was a bit interesting. I just couldnt get the bolt that attaches the arm to the subframe in no matter how many different angles I tried. Walked away and tried the following morning and it took 5 minutes. It is a very heavy job with a lot of loads coming from everywhere. Quite difficult if you only have one set of hands. Just for a record the steel arm bare weighs 6.6kgs  which is not much different to the aluminium arm. I think I can now finally pass on from that area of the car apart from some gearbox oil. Next revisit is the exhaust manifolds. Now that most engine bay services are in their final locations i decided to mark out the mods that still needed to happen to the manifolds and send them to the exhaust guy I had lined up to  do the work. Took the whole lot down to him and was greated with "too busy, making money out of replacing mufflers, no staff, cost too much, do it yourself." That was a bit disappointing as he asked me to hold back dropping them in for a couple of months while he got through the jobs he had. I have had a similar experience with some upholstery work on the Lotus. There is so much work and so few to do it that the trades are not doing the  stuff they used to do years ago and just doing simple things at high cost. I assume some time inthe future when work is down it will come back to bite them in the arse the same as in the building industry. I looked at finding some other manifolds that would do the job but all required just as much work as the the ones I had and would not be as efficient. Going back to the original cast iron manifolds was an option but I thought that was a step backwards. Anyway I got too and made a pair of jigs out of some scrap board I had sitting around and started to cut the manifolds up, relocate the collectors in the correct position and fit everything together. And here are the results: I managed to use most of the old tube apart from a new 90 degree bend as can be seen. All the gaps are less than 1mm after much work. It was in general easier than I expected apart from fitting the new 90 degree. Next problem is welding the  together so I purchased this: This is a DC TIG welder with a HF start function and a very low amp setting which is good for thin wall tube. Yes, I know that TIG welding is very difficult and needs much practice but how else am I going to get this done. I have a whole lot of left overs to pratice on. I am waiting for all the other welding, gas bits and pieces to arrive and I will start my first effort at butchering pieces of tube soon. The thing cost the grand total of $262 and had very good reviews so I hope this will end well. I have done some soldering, brazing and oxy welding but that was a long long time ago, at school to be exact. I found oxy welding quite easy and intuitive and TIG is about as close as you can get. Finally back into the engine compartment. wiring loom is in, PCV , breather, vacuum sorted and throttle body, MAF and air cleaner are in place. IO have ignored the ducting which I will leave till after the exhaust goes in. The only place I could get bends that would get the tube to run in the right locations was the Bunnings drainage section. I also decided to finish the steering set up and see if it all worked. First thing was to test the electric pump. Pump came from a VW Polo and I had a fear that the pump would require a CAN instruction to start. Anyway tried to start it in the manner that most of these pumps are tested, in fail safe mode but there was not a murmur. Did a bit of reading to see if there was a way of overcoming this but did not find any help. I decided the pump was not worth spending any further time on as it was quite cheap. Volvo V50 pumps seem to be used in the US so got hold of one at the local breaker which I tested in fail safe mode and it worked so I installed that. Was not to difficult as the frame was easier to use than the VW set up. Hooked all the hydraulics pipes to it after having to make a mod to a connector which forced me to have to take out the high pressure pipe. Not an easy job as everything in that loacation is very restricted. Also found I had to replace the Volvo oil tank with VW one. That was quite easy as they are both basically the same pump. It turns out most of them are just another version of the basic ZF/TRW pump. The one from the Volvo has FoMoCo all over it. That was from when Ford owned Volvo. Attached the hose again, jacked the front end up so I could swing the wheels to prime the system, turned in on , moved the wheel back and forth and dumped half a litre of fluid on the garage floor. Luckily the fluid was clean  so the floor won't be too badly affected. The hose I pulled out had to partially come out again. I had misunderstood how to tighten one of the fittings, what a mess. Anyway sorted that and another small leak and all good to go again. It works, and quite well I might add. Dropped the car back on it's wheels and the load for a 2.3 turn from lock to lock rack is not heavy at all, even in fail safe mode (about 65% of working pressure). I will be able to use CAN bus speed to adjust the assistance up to 100% and have found a  controller specific for these Volvo pumps which will also allow a manual adjustment through a potentiometer. I can set it for whatever feels best. As usual there is a bit of further work required here as the joint attached to the rack has a small amount of movement in it. I think it requires an ajustment to the shim in the joint. But the rest is really positive. Apart from welding the next big job is wiring the ecu and getting the thing started. Also will be ordering the new seat covers for the Recaros. This project has now taken 3 years and about a year of that has been wasted re doing stuff. I think it still has a year to go before it is in some stage close to being driven on ther road.

In the last post I ruminated on the second efforts for many of the jobs. Well not a lot has changed in a month. By trying to get ahead of myself has just meant doing stuff again. I had to relocate the power steering pump and air cleaner as they both interferred with the head light insert. That meant a new aluminium heat shield as well. The pump had to be lowered 50mm and the air filter moved rearward about 50mm. It did mean that the heat shield ended up fitting better than the previous version. I have also obtained some 100mm ducting for the air intake and found that the changes improved the route of the ducting giving better clearance with the aircleaner and MAF a bit higher up on the heat shield. It did in the meantime lose a complete load of power steering fluid all over the concrete floor. Luckily fully synthetic fluid evapourates away so there was no stain left which was helped by the fluid being new and with no contaminents. I have also found a small weep in the fluid reservoir of the pump which relies on a spiral clamp. It is very difficult to find a 120mm dia 9mm wide spiral clamp in Australia. Had to order it from the UK, which was handy because I also needed a bunch for the cold air ducting. While I was working in that area I decided that the wiring at the front of the engine was a bit disorganised using the original brackets. There are 9 sensors in that area so I ripped out the conduits, brackets and tape and had another shot at it. Looks a bit more professional now. Next up was the air conditioning evaporator. I purchased the Vintage Air Mini from a local supplier together with a couple of Y adapters for the ducts and a control panel and proceeded to instal it. It suprisingly was not that difficult. The hardest part was re organising the wiring and getting the middle face level duct to comfortably fit when the dash was installed. Here is a photos with just the evaporator in place with all the ducts attached. You cannot see it all that clearly but the unit sits comfortably in the middle of the dash without top much interference. I had to modify the Y adapter for the face level vents by heating it up and squashing it by about 15mm. I also had to modify the demisted duct I had made of fibreglass to allow a smoother angle for the feed to the face level ducts. You can see that there is space behind and in front of the unit such that I can sqeeze my hand in to get at the heater tap to service it if required. These are photos taken from the side of the unit, front and rear . They are not very clear but you can see the heater tap in the bottom photo and how much room there is behind the unit. I used a piece of the orange duct for the engine air intake to connect the outside fresh air to the evaporator. All worked qite easily. The final A/c wiring took a little head scratching as I kept the Porsche A/c heater fan relay as the main power source to the system and the system came with 2 further relays for the fan and the power as well. There are now two power relays for the A/c. Next problem was adapting the two cooling fan relays so that the original Porsche cooling fan system worked as well. All done in the end with pulling apart the wiring at the switches and relays a couple of times. I have lost count how many times I have wrapped and unwrapped the main interior harness that runs across the dash board. I also spent a day trying to figure out why the driving light switch did not have enough wire to reach it's location in the centre console. Turns out I had the driving light and the rear window demister switches mixed up and lost one of the plugs at the side of the A/c. Once they were in the right place all was well. And then I went through the whole dash again testing all the services. Looks like I could all be ok. The dash now only requires a small warning light to come for the engine oil level (the motor has no dip stick ), the A/c high and low hoses (which are really easy to get at and instal) and a radio. Here are a couple of photos of mid works and all in. The yellow is very roarcous. The interior would be like a coffin if I did not do that. That is my excuse. You can see the new controls for the A/c where the sliders used to be. They are all electric servo contols. They come in a little plastic underdash panel with some cheesey rubber knobs. I placed them into a new panel which also fits the radio and fitted some smarter aluminmium knobs. Chucked in the back of the car when I purchased it was a panel to fit under the glove box to cover the A/c evap came with the car. The cover fits nicely and hides the A/c hoses on the passenger side. At the same time I managed to fix the poorly fittling glove box lid by applying some heat to the lid with a heat gun and giving it a bit of a twist. Worked quite well. I think I will also instal a 60 mm long steering wheel quick release to move the wheel closer to the driver. It is a lot better than the  originally driving position by moving all the pedals forward about 20mm which got the wheel away from the knees but I think it wiil be more comfortable with the wheel closer which will also move it a bit higher. Here is a photo of the newly re installed throttle pedal and the ecu wiring. The ecu is the final large purchase. which will probably happen in the new year. I also found that the dead pedal that was provided with an auto was larger than that for a manual and interferred with your foot when depressing the clutch pedal. Luckily all Porsche did to make the auto version was to weld on an extra plate which was easily cut off. The ecu wiring is a bit of a mess at present and I think i will need to re pin some wires it to get the whole lot to fit neatly. Once again should have left that job until I installed the harness in the car. I have made some brackets so that the ecu fits where Porsche had the original located. The job between now and Xmas is to weld up the exhaust manifold. I am procrastinating on this job very badly. I have all the gear now all I need is the courage.

I finished off the previous post expressing my fear of welding, a fear well placed. I also notice I made some ghastly typing errors. I am gradually getting through the welding but it is a struggle. I created a rod for my back in choosing to TIG weld the hacked up manifold, but no one forced me to do it. I have realised that re using the old pipe just makes it harder as one of the golden rules of TIG welding is cleanliness and the next one is cleanliness. No amount of cleaning both the outside and the inside of the pipe can stop the imminent threat of blowing a hole at the end of the tube as a result of contamination. Ease off with the amps, arc up the argon to stop the blow outs and you do not have sufficient amps to get a good weld. Allied to the problem is my eye sight depth of field is poor and my hand eye co-ordination is not great. I have used an amazing amount of argon gas, which is not cheap, and my welding has moved from a moonscape to a line of dog shit. At least the welds are now deep. You will not be able to see them because they will be wrapped with glass to keep the heat away from the intake, wiring and a/c pipes. I increased my pain by deciding to route the two exhaust collectors next to the gearbox, rather than under the foot well, and from there to under the torque tube. Under the foot wells was a bit agricultural and I was also finding some clearance problems on the driver’s side with the rear mount of the control arm. So I cut the whole lot up, re aligned and shortened pipes and put them all back together again. Below are picks of the re hacked manifold (still a little bit of welding to go) and the journey around the bell housing. I did get good clearance in the end with the steering column as can be seen from the last photo. This has been the hardest part of this swap by a long, long way. I can see why this job would stop a lot of projects in their tracks. It would be very expensive to have someone else do the exhaust from engine to tail pipe. As an aside I am thinking, after getting the car going, of getting rid of the ice, t/t and gearbox and converting to a Tesla small drive in the rear. Then I can forget about all this stuff and worry about something else. Also I am going with an electric a/c pump, which will work with an electric conversion if I do It. Also is easier to deal with in making it work with the ice. The GM pump has to be operated by the ecu which is a pain and an electric unit is self contained. With the dash in I could test some of the instruments. Found that the fuel gauge was not working so pulled the sender apart and found one of the one of the wires broken. Did another bit of my ordinary soldering and the problem was cured. Speaking of the dash, a radio has now been installed. I am quite happy with this. It has blue tooth so I can use for phone calls and stream music from my phone and also digital radio. All for the princely sum of $48. I also think it looks a bit better than some of the usual makes and all functions work without any problems. Better than the $24 one I purchased previously. Funniest thing is I saw the same $48 radio in a very expensive resto mod 911. I have written previously that I was not able to use a dip stick because of the way I routed the oil pick up to the pump. I thought about it a bit and realised the problem was the dip stick was too stiff and would not move slightly aside of the pipe. Fixed it by swaging a new more flexible bottom portion of the stick (the one on the left) and now it works ok. Swaged in a couple of indicators of high and low to replicate the old end. I had ordered some seat covers for the Recaros from a firm in Sugarland, Texas. If you read the reviews 90% are good and the balance are scathing about poor service and leather quality. I can see the reasons why. I purchased new leather covers for the seat and backrest bolsters and the headrests. I will do the inserts separately as I am going to use Porsche script cloth. I received a parcel in January with the bolsters but no head rests. Also the seat bolsters were the wrong shape, even after they asks me to double check what bolster shape to use. They have sent through the head rests but not the seat bolsters. They then ask me to send back the incorrect ones and they would send a new set which are on their way. The leather is thin which is glued to a vinyl substrate but feels robust. Everything so far fits ok considering the repairs I had to do to the foam, they look alright and only cost $500 but boy are the suppliers difficult to deal with. The cryptic emails you get from them are very strange. You never really know what is going on and the best thing is not to get shouty. Next on the agenda is to finish the exhaust up to the catalytic converter and then on to installing the ecu and try to start her up, with the emphasis on try.

Quite the process, doing good work, keep at it 🙂

Love your work @Jaffar , and your writing style - clear and concise. Hope you push on and finish this project to your satisfaction.

6 months since the last post and I feel little has been accomplished. In the spirit of doing jobs multiple times, I have had to do most jobs more than multiple times, particularly the exhaust. The manifolds are now finished, painted wrapped and installed. The amount of times I tack welded the 3 into 1 collectors only to find that they oriented slightly in the wrong direction was a bit harrowing. Then to get them to fit to the two into one collector was just as interesting. I fear cracking will occur at some of my early welds. What I did find is that if I used a smaller TIG welder electrode and welding rod, even though the progress was slow, there was less chance of a disaster and generally the quality rose from shit to awful. See the picks below. Next is the cat and after cat pipes in stainless. 😞 Have more to post but it looks like I have reached my photo limit. The photos are a bit horrid due to being taken with a phone at very low resolution. Will have to renew my membership 🙂

Figured out the reason for a tea tray spoiler. A desk! More electrical checking happening along with ecu install.

I am now onto the mid and tail pipes, all from stainless. I ended up buying the cheapest 3" diameter Ebay cat and muffler I could find, total spend $180, both in 304 stainless and the quality looks ok. If the system is too raucous, I have room to stick another resonator or muffler behind the cat and under the drive shaft. Unwelded Cat and mid pipe. Here is the mock up of the rear section in situ, partly tack welded and partly clamped. When I put the final link piece in, between the clamp and the green tape, it slid in perfectly. My welding  may be still shit but my cutting up mandrel bends thas become pretty good. Now all I have to do is muck up the whole lot by welding it together. There is a requirement for some insulation near the CV joint boot. Looks worse on  the first picture than the second.

How'd I miss this build?!  Right up my Kirsty Alley!  Subscribed.

All finished and installed. On to the next saga. I decided to change from using the GM a/c compressor to an electric compressor. The main reasoning was that the late GM supplied pumps require the ecu to run them, similar to the alternator. The algorithm that runs the compressor entails information that the car does not generate as the Vintage Air a/c evaporator is pretty basic. Using a simpler set of parameters based on the ecu alone will not get it to work properly. The variable compressors such as used in the newer GM vehicles are on all the time even at their lowest operating state when the A/c is off. Old compressors have an electric clutch. An electric compressor is your traditional on/off operation and far easier for the layman to sort out. To install a traditional engine driven compressor would have been pretty difficult for my skills. I also liked the fact that the motor now only powers the alternator and the water pump. If I installed an electric water pump, I could look at just one auxiliary and then if I installed an electric alternator, I could get rid of all ancillary drives :-) Anyway, the electric compressor required a change to the electrics both for the fans and the a/c. The system now uses 6 relays to operate so I decided to take advantage of the added complication to add in a manually overridden high and low speed function for both radiator fans in addition to the 944’s high and low speed function for the cooling fan. So out comes all the previously installed wiring and in a new lot. Here is the wiring diagram for the fans. I have learned a bit about auto a/c through this process and trying to buy an electric compressor. This is all good info for 944 owners as they traditionally have a bit of an issue with their engine driven compressors. You can buy compressors from China for very cheap but some have too large capacity for small auto applications. There are a number of commercially available packages in Australia which use small capacity units. You are paying up to 10 times for the privilege of them sorting out the major conundrum of which one to use. The info in places like Alibaba is not very helpful but what you are looking at is a capacity of no more than 13cc. This appears to be the smallest available for automotive scroll compressors. The majority available are integrated packages and the unit is quite large. I was looking for a non integrated package with 13cc capacity. Eventually I found one after much tooing and froing with a number of suppliers. Cost was $331 delivered. The vendors were hopeless and the info received very sparse but I can see from the label on the compressor that it is the correct capacity and it is much smaller package than the integrated models. I had to sort out the wiring which was incredibly vague and used a full rainbow of non intuitive colours. Some of these suppliers specialise in obfuscation. I had to sort out the hose fittings: they are standard but what standard?? The positioning was a bit of do it again balls up as well. Initially I decided I would install it in the plenum on the driver’s side. Looked like just enough room. Not ideal for weight distribution but being further back in the car was a bonus. This entailed moving the windscreen washer bottle again after it was moved as a result of the power steering pump location. The a/c compressor just did not fit so back to the drawing board. Looked at a number of locations which all had a problem. Then a revelation came to me, why not instal it in the passenger side footwell to replace the foam kick board. I made a plinth to sit in on and under the plinth sits the inverter. This is all covered by the carpet in the regular location. As a location for the a/c system it is ideal. Cool location with short runs to the condenser and evaporator. For the car, the 7kg in total weight has moved to the middle of the car and down low. The wiring and hoses are also shortened and centralised. The only issue I see is the noise of the unit. I have quite a bit of sound deadening left over from the fire wall refurb so will use that and see how it goes. I do have a lot of room down there to work with. If it is too noisey I have an idea that I might put the compressor in the battery bay and put a couple of 6v Optima batteries (very well secured) in the passenger footwell. Yes, once again a further change but I’ve got used to that. The plinth you see in the photo is some 8 ply. Wood is good at absorbing the noise, is light and stiff. Will see how it goes. What you cannot see in the photos is a number of mounting brackets. The wired box in the foreground is the inverter. The iterations of the wiring for the fans and the inverter were staggering, but eventually after many blown fuses managed to get it all to work. Finally this is what happens when  you get wiring circuits wrong. Very easy to do.

Hey Jaffar! Loving your work. It's nice to see someone who not only does a ground-breaking project, but finds the time and talent to write about it in a concise, understandable way. Keep the reports coming and good luck with overcoming the various obstacles!

Thanks for the odd compliment gents. I try to be entertaining on some very dry subjects. Also helps me keep a sense of humour in the face of adversity. I have all this stuff prewritten in a Word document as it is much easier to edit and has a spell checker. The problem is I write it and leave it to later to post so it gets a bit old. I am up programming the ecu. What a circus. Using the ecu I have purchased means I have software which can handle heaps of complex services and any number of strategies but it is a bit hard to get a grip on for someone coming in from the cold. The biggest issue at present is DBW. Anyway….. Also required a more powerful alternator. Later GM vehicles were fitted with a 140amp alternator with the same bolt pattern as the earlier 100 amp. The added bonus is that it is smaller and lighter and readily available s/h for $50 shipped. There are heaps for sale. They are also clutched so they have a smoother operation. Photo of front of engine. Everything is much simpler. I also converted the alternator to stand alone operation for the same reasons as the a/c compressor. Although the ecu could operate the alternator I would have had to add in some more sensors and set up strategies in the ecu which was a pain. I found a stand alone alternator regulator which also monitors battery condition for the princely amount of $35 shipped from Texas. Pulled apart the alternator and with one solder joint and three mechanical joints converted the alternator. All pretty easy for even my shitty skills. Although I did wreck the original trying to figure out how to do the conversion. Could not figure out how to put the rotor back in without damaging the brush holder which I dually did. Too late I found an explanation on Youtube. Pictures of alternator and wiring hanging out from what was the original plug.

This lot has happened over the course of a month or so. The ecu arrived two months ago from Iceland. It is a very small unit. I chose this unit about 3 years ago as it could operate the required number of services for a 4 cam, DBW, VVT, V6 engine. Came in one package, I did not have to buy any other controller, all in the little box. This is a bit of an issue with some other manufacturers. This other nice thing is that the set up and tune is very transparent so you are not tied to the manufacturer for some settings like cam sensing and DBW. It sat in front of me for a few weeks while I summed the courage to attempt to make it all work. It uses Molex mini connectors which are incredibly difficult to use. As is usual when I sent my wiring spread sheet to the manufacturer, he advised that some of my wiring set up was wrong so I have had to re plug the connectors, which is a real bear of a job. I made an extractor tool from a very small piece of thin wall brass tube and this lasts for 2 or 3 extractions before it bends and I need to remake it. It is made by cutting and grinding the end of the tube to 2 points like a fork and they are used to push in the retainers on the connector. Here is the location, where the old ecu was originally installed. Used a piece of ABS as a mounting base on the Porsche bracket as it is light and flexible, so absorbs a bit of shock. The wiring is a mess but when I am confident all the services work I will tape it up and it will look a bit better. I have re done some circuits a number of times to get it too look a bit organised and did I say how I hate the little connectors. When you have to do a de pin and re pin you are in a world of agony. Very difficult to extract and re crimp, especially in situ. I do not know how many times I have altered my wiring spread sheets. There are 3 worksheets, ecu, under bonnet plugs and fuses and relays. Wiring, I think, is now ok but I am a bit scared of powering the thing up only to see the ecu fry. (Now powered up and no fry up). The manufacturer has had to work me through the process. It is (for me) new and very trial and error.  I have to date sorted out the following: Turn it on without burning out the ecu. ECU kill switch for emergencies, anti theft and quick reset when trying settings that do not work. Fuel pump relay turn on. Oil level sensor Oil temperature sensor in place of water temp which is all original Porsche. Drive by wire (need more shmoozing) Cam and crank location sensor. (done) Road speed from the speedo for the power steering. (bloody amazing) Lambda, MAF and MAP appear to work I think it will be able to get the engine started before Xmas. I hope. Update. It works!! First attempts the ignition was 360 degrees out of sync and the first kick sounded like everything had exploded. Took about 3 days summoning up the courage to try again after I got the cams synchronised with the crank and the ignition timing in the correct cycle. Idling is reasonable smoothly. And I have revved it to 2000 rpm without any visible issues. No oil leaks and good oil pressure. Motor sound solid and the feeling through the car is solid as well, no vibrations and tininess. I am glad I retained all of the interior sound deadening, and re did it in the engine bay. VVT is the next big adventure. Will put some coolant in and maybe take it for a little spin for the first time in about 20 years. Stop press, one radiator leak and one thermostat leak so no go. Most things for these engines are quite cheap but an O ring for the thermostat is $45!? One problem with using modern stand alone ecus on older vehicles is that the older vehicles use mainly high side switches and newer vehicles low side switches. I have a few services in the car that need a high side switch to operate so it looks like I have to power them through relays. Luck I ended up with heaps of mini relays when I purchased the motor. So rather than a pre Xmas start up I am on to a pre Xmas drive around the block. I am now up to date.

Hitting some sixes now Jaffar! Can't wait to read about the first drive!

The banana has turned it’s wheels under it’s own steam for the first time in 20 years. As usual a job isn’t finished until it’s been done 3 times. To let the motor run for an extended period I had to fill the cooling system and unsurprisingly, half an hour later it was empty. I had managed to put a hole in the new radiator’s core when I installed the radiator. Second fill found that the temp sensor was leaking and third time found a seal had failed at the thermostat. Lost two loads of coolant tracking them all down. Next problem was the clutch would not release. The pedal was good when I re installed it but I found the seals in the master had failed and when I wanted some clutch there was none to be found. Pulled the mc out and replaced the seals and after a fair old problem with getting it bled it was now releasing. To get a good bleed it was necessary to jamb the pedal all the way down for 12 hours to get out all the micro bubbles. Unfortunately, there was still some drag on the disk and I could not get the gearbox to engage 2 nd to 5 th while stationary. Took some advice from the fellow in the US who rebuilt the box and he suggested a larger bore master cylinder. I contacted a vendor in Texas who does kits for V8 conversions for 944s and he had a kit for AU$400 which seemed somewhat pricy. I ended up purchasing a $24 Ebay 7/8th inch master cylinder which had the correct thread on the plunger to match the Porsche attachment to the clutch pedal. The new cylinder needed an adapter plate as the attachment flanges were vertical not horizontal but that made the installation quite easy. In the end I needed an extender for the pushrod but that was easily found at Bunnings for the princely sum of $2.90. I have become quite proficient at bleeding by myself particularly with the clutch bleed screw next to the master cylinder. Just need to be patient to let the air bubbles pop out by themselves. When the bubbles stop, do up the bleed screw, push the pedal to the floor slowly a few times, jamb it to the floor (with a piece of tube and board set against the drivers seat and leave it for a few hours. Re do 3 or 4 times and the pedal comes up solid. With the bigger master the pedal has more meat which is nice. It is not heavy but you can better feel the take up point. This method of bleeding can be done in the same way with the brakes particularly if you have Brembos as they have the bleed screw facing upward at the top of the calliper. All you need is a bit of clear tube so that you can see the bubbles as they come from the bleed screw and a receptacle that does not fall over all the time (twice!!). Here is the new clutch master: Just to prove it did move about 50 meters here are some photos of the car out of the garage while driving it in 1 st and reverse. Most notable thing is (other than the horrific state of the paint, which does really make it look like a very over ripe banana, yellow on one end and charcoal grey on the other) the rear is too low. It was ok when in the garage but dropped 20mm after the short run up the lane. Looks like a German Shepperd with bad hips. Will leave it like that for the time being. I will need a pair of at least 25.5 mm torsion bars for the rear and will wait till I can find some before trying to reset the rear. Anyone got any? Next was to sort out why the motor was not running on all cylinders. One problem was an accidently cut injector signal wire. Next was a software set up issue. The last cylinder was very mysterious. I was trying to integrate the use of MAF and Map in the VE fueling. Way above my pay grade and every time I set it up the motor would either not start or run on all cylinders apart from 4. I went through the whole field of issue including DBW and then injection and ignition angles and when these events should be but still no luck. Back into the wiring again, no joy. Next was to compare the set up with a near equivalent car. Used a BMW n/a 6 as a comparison and still no joy. Decided to switch the fueling strategy from volumetric efficiency to air mass. That sorted out the rough running but not the 3 cylinders. Realised that the fuel map I was using was AM rather the VE. Bit of a dopey move. Borrowed the VE map from the BMW and went back to VE on the car and now it is running smooth but still on 3. It is surprising how a sophisticated ecu will just allow for all sorts of problems. Anyway, a bit more digging, pulling out the injectors and cleaning and testing them, swapping around the ign coils to see if they were ok and finally moved the plugs between cylinders and thought I found 3 dud spark plugs. New plugs installed and now running smoothly on all 6 cylinders for a moment and then back to 5 or would not start. Eventually went back to an early back up of software and bit by bit eliminated all the changes I had made until the one I though least likely was it. Every time I tried to implement the MAF into the fueling strategy the engine falls over or looses a cylinder or two. The MAF is nice as it covers the air mass info at low idle or when the VVT introduces overlap into the valve timing (manifold vacuum become weak). Since discovered that the MAF requires a frequency input. The ecu has one but it is being used for the crank sensor so I have to pass on the MAF until the software is upgraded to have more frequency inputs. The story does not stop there. So I now have 6 working cylinders but I cannot get the thing to idle less than 1350 rpm. Peering into the engine bay while the engine was idling I noticed that the intake manifold was now trying to suck itself into the engine. The top was too light and soft. So laminated some more glass on the top to stop the movement. That lead me to think maybe I had air leaks in the manifold which was allowing the engine too much air and the ecu was compensating with more fuel, more revs etc. So a new set of gaskets but still 1350 rpm. Back to the software. After a few more attempted fixes finally found the issue. I had the target throttle position at 2% per the standard  software, which equates to approx 1350 revs. Reduced the target to .1% and now it revs around 700 rpm. It is very satisfying to have a smooth running engine to the point I will not take it to the dyno for the time being but let the ecu learning function do it’s work once I get VVT, knock sensing, alternator charging strategy and the Lambda sensors sorted. I really thought I could not do this. I did enjoy the process of problem solving, which I guess is what I do for a crust. I am now starting to understand how these ecu’s operate and how to manipulate them. A dyno in the end will obtain peak power but I am surprised how well the car runs on the BMW fuel strategy, GM V6 ignition curve and a Chevy DBW set up. The interesting thing is the ecu will make the car run on 2 cylinders. It is quite amazing. One cylinder will not work but 2 is ok. A/c hoses and gassing and more electrics are next.

Patience of a saint. I would be chucking things. It’s getting there, keep up the good work.

@Jaffar Thanks again for taking the time to do a write-up of the latest work. There's still time to do a video of the remaining work - perhaps you should invite @MFX over for a joint presso?

Thanks for the comments gents. I will try something by video once I get it driving around. If I shot videos of what I was doing I would be  running the worlds longest and boringest Youtube vids as I do things soooo slowly. It really frustraties me watching me do things! This thread does not include half the  amount of mucking  around that happens while I  try to sort stuff out. All should be aware of that by my mucking around with wiring. You have not seen the amount of connectors I have cut off and re done because  I have made an error or decided to go in a different direction. I have taken to putting stuff straight into the bin quickly if it does not work out  rather than stuffing around trying to get stuff to work and gettting frustrated  with it. Big example is  getting  the ecu to deal with high side switches and relays. Just too hard. I  have given away trying to operate some of the Porche stuff through the ecu and  just installed  2 sets of sensors, one set from GM through the ecu and another from Porsche through the normal wiring. Much easier, just a bit of wire replication. I have lately considered changing tack and swapping the motor over to a later 944s2 or 968 DOHC motor. Would probably make the car worth something more than nothing, but then I  look at the cost, the extra weight and bulk, the absence of power and smoothness and all the hassle of getting the bits. The LY7 was so much easier than sorting out the original engine and getting a bit more power from it or doing  a latter Porsche engine  swap. But  people will just go "why did you do that abominaltion". Was a cheap car at the time, would have only been used for parts, and  was a way of  getting a decent uplift in power and torque. Anyway a longer update is coming. The problem is these days all I am doing is sorting small stuff. Bit like pulling  the wings from flies. When I try to get it to drive properly and I have to pull it all apart again that is when the fun starts with updates. Cheers.

You’ve come this far, would be a shame to go back to stockish. Who cares what other people think anyway!

So many little jobs and I feel like I have got no further on this thing. I have driven twice around the block and the second time the engine decided to revert to running on 5 cylinders after getting it up to 6 for a few days. Here is a list of the stuff that has happened over the past 2 months. Hand brake warning switch. The Porsche one is really ordinary. Mind you the hand brake lever is very flimsy so new switch from Altronics and slid a piece of ally bar into the handle which has stopped the thing from bending as you pull it on. Exhaust manifold crack – aaagh. Manufacturers weld cracked and the pipe broke near the head. Rewelded with shitty welds, painted and wrapped again to cover the evidence. ECU output for ignition light moved from one pin to another. Now works consistently. The ecu manufacturer cannot explain why. ECU pin dislodged – found while changing over the alternator light wiring. Fixed A/c compressor power and turn on wiring – found a short. Would have made a beautiful fire. A/c hoses installed- just ask me how hard it was to get the hoses through the bulkhead seals. Ready for gassing and then I can close up the interior and put the passenger seat in. New ignition electrical switch – just decided to give up. I guess it was 40 years old, but soft, I am older than that and still haven't given up. Re organise wiring behind radio and a/c controls – just a bit of a mess after going in and out of there a number of times. Additional positive bus near battery- too many wires on the battery with the a/c and the power steering pump. Now a bit better organised. New battery – with all of the above mucking around the 6 month old battery decided to collapse. At the same time secured the battery cover so that I do not have a unscheduled fireworks display. New oil pressure sensor – the previous cheap Chinees one worked back to front. Additional GM oil pressure sensor to ecu - for engine safety. Swap coolant sensor back to GM type connected to ECU – for engine safety. Additional Porsche coolant sensor for instruments – used to run the coolant temp from the ecu now have two sensors and I know the inst panel one is now ok and can be used to calibrate the GM sensor. New spark plugs – engine reverted to running on 5, wiring and coils all worked so tried plugs. Did not fix the problem and cost $100. New injectors - ended up being clogged injectors from sitting around too long and junk in fuel line. Flooded engine and had fuel coming out of exhaust. This could have been a real disaster. Also, lesson is do not by cheap Chinese micro filters. Instead, I bought some cheap Chinese injectors. They work! I now know how to test spark plugs and injectors on this thing. Intake manifold leaks - At slightly above idle the pressure differential was so high that the sides of the manifold cracked and engine went berserk and frightened everyone in the area (not for the first time). Also new gaskets required to settle down idle. Two efforts at making my own as the GM and aftermarket ones did not seal well enough. This motor generates a serious manifold vacuum at idle, I guess it has something to do with the 11.5:1 compression ratio. New intake manifold access plugs- blew out on backfire and engine went berserk again. They need to be screwed in rather than plugs. The leaks will be an ongoing chase down as manifold leaks affect idling and make an annoying whistle and everytime you find one another takes it place. Intake hose altered to make it easier to take on and off for above reason. Moved injector wiring out from under the intake manifold to avoid possible wear and shorts or current leaks from the tight fit. Tracked down parasitic drain on battery to power steering pump. Have to figure out how to put a relay in the system to enable the pump to be disengaged from the battery when the engine is off. This is a bit of a pain. Now found this cannot be done as the pump will go into fault mode, which is fine at present because it is not yet controlled by the computer but will be an issue once ecu controlled. This is canbus stuff and I have no idea what I am doing. Re route clutch hydraulic lines as too close to exhaust. Noticed this when I re welded the exhaust manifold. Re oil the a/c compressor as I blew out all the oil when testing it. The oil costs $50 for 250ml!! Changed engine oil again as I think I might have contaminated it when I had the injector issue and petrol out of the exhaust. I am not sure the Llamda sensors are working correctly. Will only know after I drive the car for a few klms at steady speed. Alternator control shifted to ecu although I do not know yet whether it is working correctly. I can see the ecu recognises the voltage in the system and I can see the ecu issuing a turn on command but only driving around will tell me whether this is working correctly. Adjust front camber and toe in. At least the front wheels do not look like the car is collapsing and fit nicely in the guards at 1% neg camber. Stripping the under bonnet paint. What a mess. Found the easiest way was with a propane torch. Engine is now working correctly, runs smoothly and revs cleanly apart from a slight revs dip when I quickly release the accelerator. I think it has something to do with the ecu idle control and the PIDs to control it or may be just instability in the very large throttle body. It runs a bit rich at low speed but only driving and the ecu learning will fix that as I do not understand the theory of volumetric efficiency enough to adjust the mixture and timing to sort it out. I cannot figure out whether the ecu process has been really difficult or I am just dim as I have had little help from the manufacturer in this fine tuning process. Waiting for larger torsion bars to arrive to finalise the rear suspension and new plugs for the intake manifold. I will then get a temporary permit to drive and take it for an extended run and see how much the tow home will cost.

Two and a half months and a further update is due. Not a lot has happened. I purchased a set of heavier torsion bars which led to resetting them to lift the rear. Ride height now is betterand alsodoesn't look like it is dragging it’s butt. Part of the process was to tap some threads in the ends of the new bars so I could drag them out without having to drop the sub frame, which in my case also supports the gearbox. I used some cheap VW Kombi 26mm bars from the US. As opposed to the Porsche bars, which were easy to drill, these would not have a bar of it 😉 . I was forced to weld some nuts on the end. Not the easiest as the nots would distort under the heat that was required to attach them to the bar. This was using TIG. Installed the bars, tested the height and still too low so pulled them out again. One bar came and the other, the nut came off due to a shit weld. That was just a bit of a problem. Tried TIG welding again but was not able to hold the nut in place, get the welder in and the filler rod as well, so tried stick welding for the first time. Once I realised that with stick welding you just push the welding rod into the spot you want welded it worked ok. Totally different to TIG. A couple of photos of the setup used to extract the bars without dropping the sub frame. The holes are a bit of a blight but they had them on 911s. Next was fixing the gearshift. The heim joint at the bottom of the shifter was a bit of a bodge up and the two rod system that the G31 gearboxes used was just plane sloppy as you can no longer get the bush at the front of the shifter. The heim joint system was far too mechanical. I installed a 944 shifter base and found the correct size ball end to screw into the gear lever I had made. I installed a couple of rubber washers between the shifter and the ball end in order to create a little softness in the action and it works really well. The movement is short, not too heavy but smooth. This was a worthwhile change. In the second photo you can see I have installed a foam block which moves with the lever and stops a lot of noise coming up from the torque tube. If the idle is not smooth the bearings rattle a bit. I applied a bit of TefGel grease to the top and bottom surfaces of the foam to make sure it does not squeak when moving. I also managed to get the Llambda sensors working and finally found the reason for my on again off again number 4 injector. Dry solder joints. I ripped out the under bonnet engine wiring around where I had soldered extra length wires to get the ecu under the dash. I tested the joints by pulling at them and some were not good. Re soldered, wrap the mess up again and all is well. See spaghetti junction. There are 64 wires going to the ecu and another 12 to the fuse panel. I have also managed to get the idle to settle down. I have had a problem with when you quickly let off the accelerator the revs drop to 300 or 400 revs and the engine wants to stall. If you let it off slowly no problem. There is a fair vacuum in the intake manifold and when you let off the throttle I think the vacuum overcomes the butterfly, closing the throttle. I think the problem is the cheap throttle body which is probably a bit big and not very responsive. No matter what I did in the PID adjustments I could not get the motor to die. The problem became worse as I cured all the leaks in the intake manifold. So I did what is done with carby engines with the same problem, I introduced a tiny air leak in one of the yellow plugs on the intake and that solved it. I think I will install a proper air leak valve so I can fine tune the idle in conjunction with the electronics. The ultimate fix is a genuine Delco TB but they are really expensive. Speaking of the yellow plugs, I used rubber plugs before this. The motor backfired once while I was starting it and blew out 2 plugs causing the motor to race out of control to 5000 rpm. Hence new, larger screw in plugs. While all this was going on I stripped the bonnet top as well as the bottom and decided to make a new bulge that could be mechanically fixed to the bonnet as well as glued. I could just see myself driving down the road and the bulge flying off if the glue let go. On the new bulge I created a internal lip which is then pop riveted to the bonnet. Worked really well in keeping the whole lot tight while glue was drying. I think the fit is now much better. I have sanded so much filler the vacuum cleaner is ceasing up from the load. Speaking of filler it turns out the bonnet may of had something drop on it by some small bumps around the edge. The amount of filler I took off it was extraordinary. Also, while all this is going on I am trying to make a decision about tyres. The tyres on the car are dated 1996 and 2004 so not a good idea to drive on. The rim widths are 9” and 8”. I would like to keep the same size tyre front and rear and the only size that really works in 245/45r16. I tried moving the rears to the front and the offset worked ok with the fenders but there was a bit of scraping on the drivers side at the front. Required a bit of surgery to the front bumper around the wheel arch. Cut away the wheel arch edge and re glued and glassed it taking out 15mm. When I measure the bumper it was a bit longer on the drivers side which explains the issue. The job turned out pretty good and the 245s fit ok on the front. See below. The problem is finding tyres. For the time being I think I will get 4 Nankang 245/45r16 tyres to tide me over until something better comes up. Below is the one of the 245s on the front. Fits ok. The tape and clear sheet are the template I made to cut and re site the fender edge. Finally after driving it a bit I felt the driving position was too low. The Recaro seats I am using have a thinner cushion at the bum than the Porsche seats and so you sit a little lower. I made a couple of sets of 25mm spacers of aluminium square tube to go between the floor and the seat rail. Works well and the seat slides back much easier. I think the spacers stops the seat rails from bending. The wheel is a bit closer to my lap which is not ideal but the sight over the bonnet is much better. I am now starting to sort out the drivability. There are quite a few little niggles that need to be addressed such as rattles. I think the exhaust is a bit noisey. There is a strange clunk feeling when you press the brake pedal which is also a bit soft. The clutch feels too light but it does take up ok. I also have to sort out the Canbus speed to the power steering pump to adjust the load. I think I can get her licenced in about 4 months.

I have noted a few landmark events through this rebuild process but none more important than the one that has just been achieved. I was always worried about whether I could get this motor to run somewhat close to how it ran in it’s donor. There is much discussion on the net and by tuners about how difficult it is to get a stand alone ecu to operate with these particular motors, mainly getting the crank and cams to sync and the drive by wire to operate smoothly. You need the crank sync to get it started and the cam sync to get VVT to operate. Without VVT there is a loss of about 30kw in power. You can use a cable throttle but you lose another source of addition Kw through a lack of tunability. I have managed to get all 4 cams to sync. I no longer get error codes. The above log is what you have to work with. This is a graphical representation of where the crank and cam teeth are over the 4 strokes and also the ignition and injector angles (firing points). It took about a month of head scratching to get the VVT to operate. For a long time, I had the double issue of trying to understand the ecu manufacturer’s sketchy instructions and not realising that I was using the crank cam tooth (the large vertical lines at the top of the page) as TDC rather than 74 degrees after that point. I have said it before this ecu has an amazing amount of capability but you have to work from a very raw base as a result. It is not like a Haltech, Motec, Lynx etc with dumbed down set up but limited capability. Once I realised what the manufacturer was trying to explain about setting up the sensors, I got 2 of the cams synced and then when I moved the sensing position to before the cam tooth came into view then that got the whole lot operating. All over it took 10 months from opening the box of the ecu to get to the point of smooth operation and all services working. I have now also been able to get hold of the manufacturer VE and ign tables. They are not complete but help to set up the tables at maximum load. This has assisted in making the motor run smoother. I then applied the smoothing facility in the software to the tables and that vastly increased the smoothness of power delivery and also cut down the exhaust noise. What I have also realised is that with the facility of VVT there is no real need to change cams as the VVT function will accommodate rather extreme overlaps at max load and mid revs. The overlap can be up to 96 degrees. The only thing that hotter cams will do is give a bit more lift but these motors are close to that limit in the donor car. You cannot change the VVT angles with a stock ecu and hence the use of aftermarket cams to introduce a bit more aggressive overlaps. The stock ecu on these motors is really well locked up and no one has been able to fully unlock them to adjust the tuning tables. Below is a diagram of the standard and max cam angles I used to understand what I was looking at. The other big thing that has happened is new tyres. The banana now looks a bit better than it did with the old odd sized tyres. I could only get Nankang 245/45r16 tyres at any reasonable price. The other choice was Pirellis at 2.5 time the price. The tyres are now square even though they are on 8” fronts and 9” rears. Does not look out of place and seems to drive ok. I also think I have the CANBUS steering instructions sorted. Will not know until I drive the car over 100kph but at rest setting is a lot more settled. I can see that the CANBUS instructions are being sent out by the ecu. I have decided the brake booster arrangement is not working consistently. I though this was a result of too much vacuum but after bleeding off some of the vacuum it would appear that it is the opposite and not enough. Hence, I have installed a cheap Ebay rip off of the late Commodore vacuum pump. It would appear that GM did not think the manifold vacuum was sufficient either. Update, installed the pump. Better, but still not consistent enough. More thought required. Up date, as time goes on the brakes are modulating better. This may be something to do with the booster being not very good quality and taking a bit to bed in. I have also found that a consistent vacuum also gives a consistent pedal so I have purchased a vacuum sensor to turn the pump on and off which will operate through a narrow band of vacuum and hopefully will get the pedal settled.

Update on the brake booster,  problem turned out to be crud in the booster hydraulic cylinder. Was blocking the hole where fluid flows through at the start of pedal pressure. Brakes still probably need new soft lines and the m/c bench bled as I think there is a spot at the end of the cylinder where air can get trapped. But the brakes are now useable and pull up very effectively. I decided that the car was too loud, just too loud. It did not sound particularly special, just loud. So decided to instal an additional silencer under the torque tube aft of the cat. Once again, a cheap Chinese stainless job. It has considerably silenced the car and the sound is somewhat better. Best thing about it is, after a long break, I jumped straight back into stainless welding and my efforts are so much better that all the previous. The break I think was good. I approached the job with less trepidation and the job was finished quickly and neatly. You can just see the welds where I split the pipe to make the fit tighter where one pipe slid over the other. The welds are straight and deep. I think stainless is easier to weld than mild steel as there is less oxidation from the heat as you weld. And this is what it sounded like before the additional muffler: 20240413_131839(1).mp4 Fetching info... At the same time, I installed some sound deadening I used for the fire wall over the aluminium heat shields. That helped the racket as well. The heat shields do tend to reflect a bit of noise as they are so thin. I decided it was time to take it for a longer journey. About 20 klm to a place where I knew there were friends who could help if I had an issue. Started ok but after about 5 klm problems began. I kept stopping to update the ecu learning but it did not improve and the idle speed was increasing all the time. Kept driving and it was more and more difficult. Not helped by a bit of overheating. Eventually only wanted to idle above 2500rpm and no ecu adjustment would cure the problem. Stopped and opened the bonnet and lo and behold: Intake manifold had imploded and was gradually self destructing. By this time the idle revs were 4000 rpm. I stopped and organised a tray truck home. I figure what had happened, in the first 5 klm, I had given it a bit of accelerator to see what it felt like and the additional load/vacuum sucked the sides in and split the glue line. There were 7 layers of 2oz glass on the outside but I think the use of polyester rather than epoxy resin and my ordinary first effort at gluing the top and bottom together (it was a blind joint) caused the problem. No amount of glass on the outside was going to withstand 1.1 bar of vacuum. All of these motors have cast aluminium or heavy moulded plastic intake manifolds. I wonder why ????? Modern engines can create up to 1.2 bar of vacuum under load. Anyway, after looking at what manifolds were available from other cars that use the same motors it was a tossup between the manifold used on a SAAB turbo v6 and a Captiva V6. The Captiva won as it looked a better design with larger chambers and a bigger intake diameter. It also has a design which will dissipate heat quickly which is a problem with the Commodore version. It uses the same throttle body as used in the donor car. I did want to swap over to the original 75mm Delco throttle body as the Chinese 89mm job was a bit flunky and needed a lot of programmed dither to stop stiction. The Delco is far smoother, needs no dither and less P factor in the PID set up. I could also use the MAF sensor from the donor. The dither causes a slightly rough idle. The manifold did need to be modified. The inlet was in the incorrect position so it had to come off, plus a whole lot more than that. The intention was to splice in a piece of 75mm 75 degree bend ally turbo intake tube into the casting. A cheap Chinese piece of tube and quite a bit of cutting, grinding and bending and both fit together ok. The only problem was fixing one to the other. A large ally casting and thin ally tube are not easy to weld as the casting will suck away the heat and so you have to turn up the current of the welder and that will likely blow holes in the thin tube. I thought about ally brazing as it is done at far lower temperature. Bought some MAP gas and ally brazing rod and had a go but could not get the casting hot enough to melt the rod. Looking back at all the You tube vids on this method they are all doing this with small pieces and no large castings. Arses. So JB Weld Cold Weld epoxy was the go. Clean everything thoroughly, grind a key on all the surfaces and lots and lots of epoxy. Leave it for 24 hours, clean the manifold and it seems to be pretty well stuck together. I made the splice so if the tube is sucked in under vacuum it bears against the casting. Hope it works. I did have to braze on a small plate on the bottom of the ally tube and once I got the hang of it, it worked ok. I also cut some tabs on the ally tube so it can also be riveted to the casting. Here is the final product after a successful test and before a coat of paint. It is waiting for the a trim solenoid to turn up which needs to be butchered in as well, hence the dodgy plug at the front. I also had to reverse the fuel rail resulting in the fuel line running around the front of the manifold. Another problem, was it going to fit under the bonnet bump? With a fair bit of grinding and cutting at the front and some 4mm washers between the fame and the crossmember it cleared the bonnet. At some stage i will have to pull the motor to track down a small hydraulic weep from the clutch slave. At the same time I will have 5mm skimmed form the adapter. This will drag the motor backward and increase the clearance to the bonnet. The 4mm washers can then be removed. I think I will cut the GM intake pipe as it comes out at the wrong angle and put in a bit of flexible pipe. I will have another try at making a glass manifold using the base and internals from the old one but use epoxy for the lay up, larger heavier joints and surfaces, a wider plenum and will stick with the 75mm TB. This ally one tells me what size I can go to and still fit under the bonnet. Note the change  in quality of the photos. Changed phone to a Google Pixel. The increase in quality is amazing.

Lots of time and effort but your closing in on the prize. Love the creativity! As for plastic on modern internal combustion engines, pretty sure it’s a cost saving thing. Problem with that is they won’t last. Throw away cars seem to be today’s standard.

Another great installment in your epic project, Jaffar! The finish line must be getting close. Thanks for making the effort to write up each chapter!

Posting something to savour. VVT works. Cams 1 and 2 are intake. 3 and 4 are exhaust. The PWM needs too be sorted to set a more consistent cam angle and will need to sharpen up the advance and retard cam angles through the tuning process, but it works. There are no errors while driving which was the big hurdle. Turned out the problem was  points of a degree to set a common 0 degrees cam angle for all 4 cams. Cam actuators also look like they need a clean as there are a few small glitches like the yellow one on the right hand side of the graph.

Thought I would have a few problems with the A/C but worked first time. Needed to put in a bigger fuse and power wire as the fuse blew first time the compressor went under load and was also suggested that I should run both radiator fans to make it more efficient, but that was it. Ths issue of the fans was interesting. The shop who gassed it up said that this was a big isssue with all cars they see come in, not enough air movement over the condenser when standing still or moving slowly. European and Japanese cars operate in far more benign conditions and so do not use all of the cooling fans for A/c. The electric compressor is pretty quiet and there is no vibration. The compressor is hidden behind a wall of underlay in the passenger footwell but there is no problem with overheating as the compressor runs very cold. Looks like I will be safe with the smallish battery I have installed. The power steering pump starts after 3 seconds and the A/c pump and fans after 5 seconds from when the motor starts. The 130 amp alternator takes them both in it's stride. I have switched the ignition light to be an under or over warning on voltage and it doesn't go on when they start. You can hear the motor labour just a bit at start up. Also replaced the upper fuse board as I had another fuse melt down. Those plastic fuses are a bit of rubbish. I would love to replace the lower panel with one of these. Would probably be able to dispense with the top one as it has high amp 12v inputs. Only problem would be sorting out the fuel pump relay but I could use the ecu to do that job and just use a normal relay. Next job in is another rewiring of the ecu to sort out the sensor grounds. The 12v sensors for water and oil temp and oil pressure need to go to their own ground on the ecu as they are jumping around too much. I am waiting for a de pinning tool to arrive as I am sick of the work required to de pin in the method I am currently using. I have also decided to put new side bolsters on the drivers seat bottom as I think they are too soft. New ones coming. Also car to be weighed in the next couple of weeks ready for it's trip to the engineers.

You're a pretty handy guy, @Jaffar . What do you do for a living, when you're not working on the 944?

Rob, I prepare reports on financial issues for litigation. I have no mechanical training or aptitude for that matter but I do like solving problems. In the case of the banana I make them and solve them. Much has happened over the past 2 months. The ally intake manifold, although not wanting to collapse on itself did exhibit some poor characteristics. I found from idle to 2500 rpm there was a bit of hesitancy in the throttle response and the car felt as if it had was not breathing very well. Also there was a consistent large difference in the stoich % between the 2 Lambda sensors and the stoich refused to move toward 1 and was stuck at .85. I assume these were a problem with the unequal lengths of the intake runners, the general off angles of the runners and the smaller throttle body. So I have rebuilt the old one. Completely. Rather than trying to re build it in one go I built it in parts and glued it together bit by bit thus ensuring every joint was good. I also made it a bit larger as I thought it may be a little on the mean side. Here is the inside being gradually glued together. And before reinforcement. And after carbon fibre reinforcement. Before the reinforcement went on I had another joint split open even though well glued. I have driven it around for 3 weeks after the reinforcement was put on with no problems. It has solved the large difference in readings of the Lambda sensors and with the larger throttle body and general volume is not as out of breath.. I will fill and paint it later, when I am satisfied it will hold together in the long term. Gradually the stoich is getting to 1 and the movement in VE is making sense. The ramping of percentage as the revs go up is quite clean. The next step is getting the idle to be consistent whist the learing process is happening. Every time I make an update to the VE the idle goes off a bit and I have to start mucking around with the settings to get it settled again. The biggest problem is when letting off the accelerator the rpm drops to around 400 for a moment and then up to 800 and there is a bit of chain rattle and general harshness as a result. It also effect the A/c as the supply voltage dips and the electric A/c compressor turns off and takes a bit to get going again. Adjusting the PIDs and duty cycle settles it but it is a bit tiresome and pot luck. I have spent some further time settling the sensors as well, including pressure,  temperature and VVT. They are now much more consistent. I also installed an engine error light which tells me whether it is an issue in the ecu if engine is not running correctly. Spent some time trying to find a power steering fluid leak. Started with the return fitting at the rack. Looked ok, went every where including moving the front cross member away to have a good look and could not find it. So I went back to the return and wrapped the fitting at the rack with teflon tape before screwing them in. All good at long last. I took the opportunity  to lift the motor a bit to get extra clearance between the rack and the sump. Did it with some rubber spacers which helps with the NVH. Bonnet clearance is a bit close but the lift makes everything fit much better at the bottom end of the engine bay. Yes everyting is gettig very dusty and the motor needs a clean as it has a very small weap from the crank seal. Speaking of NVH. I was thinking of changing to hydraulic motor mounts to try and stop the general din in the car when you put your foot down. After a bit of thought, as there really is not a lot of vibration coming through, the noise is the thing that make me feel the car is running harsh. As I am getting the tune sorted the noise is abating and the feeling of harshness is getting less pronounced. A bigger rear muffler may be in my future if it is still too noisy. Latest thing I am working on is putting adequate circuit breakers in place for the power steering pump and the head lights. Drove at night the other day and the whole lot stopped when I turned the wheels to full lock and the pump was working flat out. The 30 amp circuit breaker was not adequate. Put in a 40 amp for the pump and the 30 is now used just for the head lights. Funny part was I omitted to disconnect the battery and whilst I had my hand in next to the brake booster, I dislodged the loose power wire and it touched the brake line at the brake booster and welded a hole in one of the brake lines. Fluid everywhere. Had to re terminate the line and bend every thing to fit again. It has given me the opportunity to see whether I have an air bubble at the very end  of the master cylinder. The brakes are not bad but could be a bit less spongy. Speaking of master cylinder a larger one is coming for the clutch as I am still getting some disengagement problems especially when going for 1 st gear. The original was 11/16”, the update was ¾” and the new one is 7/8” bore. If this does not work then it’s transaxle and torque tube out and put in a new concentric slave cylinder as I have probably damaged the seal in it at one stage and it has a slight leak. So jobs for the new year: Clutch master and possibly/probably drive line out. Have the seat inserts reupholstered as I now have the cloth Wheel alignment. More tuning to get rid of the niggles and NVH. Canbus instructions for steering pump. Licence. Sounds like I am putting this one off. Then paint.

With your profession, I expect tenacity and thoroughness are required, and it would appear to be necessary in the project you are undertaking. Once again, well done and keep up the good work and documenting for our enjoyment.

Have been working on the NVH issues over the pasty two months along with some little stuff. I am getting closer to an acceptable NVH by continuing to adjust VE, VVT, the throttle and the setup of the injectors and ign. The big breakthrough was finding a dodgy solder joint on one of the injector wires. That sorted out the popping at idle and much of the coarseness on acceleration. It was a dry joint so there was some current running but just not enough for a proper signal. The difference was instantaneous. Many of the problems I had with the previous ally intake manifold came from the dodgy solder joint as I have now discovered. I have now lambda readings for both banks which properly follow each other. Lambda still moves around a bit but settles to 1 fairly quickly. Red and green are the lambda reading and 1 is the approximate horizontal lines at the bottom of the graph. You can see that engine speed is moving around a bit on deceleration but on acceleration is ok. I continue to work with VVT trying to smooth out the razor teeth under throttle. The green at the top is the target and the red the cam angle. I mostly following target but gets ragged at the top of the cycle. Just a matter of continuing to work with the frequecy, duty cycle and the PIDs. The accelerator is still a bit lumpy at times when you really put the foot down and does some strange things on the overrun. I am learning what adjustments works but it is slow. At times you chase your tail as inevitably a change will effect VVT, so you have to go back and work with that and then back to the major problem. The other big difference is the noise out of the exhaust actually sounds decent now, not like a truck. I feel I may be able to avoid a big bill at the dyno as I am getting rid of all the stuff that costs time to fix. I am having a little chase around with the gearshift rattle. I have made an adjustment to lengthen the travel to make the shift easier and more precise. This has also reduced the rattle. It is now down to a sizzle. I think as I keep working with the ecu I should get rid of the rest. If not, I think I will have to put a weight around the centre of the gear lever shaft to the gearbox. I have also added some more rubber between the torque tube and the gear lever pivot which has helped and I added a spring so the lever sits more positively in the 2nd to 3rd gear plane. It is spring loaded on the R & 1 st gear plane but there is little on the 4 to 5 th plane. That has helped with confidence in not missing down shifts to 3 rd . Overall the car is becoming quite nice to drive. There is certainly lots of grunt from about 1200 revs onwards. It can spin the wheels in 2 nd with little encouragement. Had the car weighed in anticipation of the engineer’s report and it came in at 1163kgs, with a quarter tank of petrol. The owner’s manual has a weight of 1180 kgs without air and power steering so the engine certainly saved a bit of weight. I thought the saving may be about 40kgs and that is about correct when adding in the power steering and a/c on the car. I changed the clutch master to one with a bigger bore to see if that helped the gear change. It is now 7/8”. It did help and is now far more positive and has good grab. Previously it was a bit wishy washy. The cylinder came from a Foton truck. I wanted one with vertical bolts so making an adapter would be easier. The adapter on the previous master had started to crack so I made the new adapter out of 4mm ally. The only problem is I have to replace the concentric slave as it has a slight weep. I have gained access to a lift so I can get under the car to drop out the exhaust, TT and transaxle. The guy also has a transmission jack/trolley thing. I hopefully I can get it done in a weekend. This time I will buy a good one rather than a cheapo from China. Circuit breakers for the power steering pump and the lights (oin addition to the relays). Sorting out the lumpiness in the motor is also helping the battery stay charged at a consistent level. New speaker mounts from MDF and carpeted the door storage bins as I didn’t like the vinyl and had bits of carpet left over when I got a new (old) piece of side carpet for the boot. I have spent a considerable time trying to fix the drivers door lock that keeps self locking while driving. Very frustrating. Gaiters on the front struts to keep the shit out. Used motor cycle front fork gaiters. Did it at the same time as I installed some on the struts of the Elan. The power steering leak turned out to be a front cam cover leek. That is another job to add to the list. Luckily it can be done without moving anything in the engine bay including the intake. Will do the timing chain, tensioners and phasers at the same time. The material cost is $1,000. These motors have such cheap parts. Finally sent it to the local Porsche guy to have the suspension set up. Car must have it in for anyone who works on it other than me. (Didn't like the A/c gassing guys either, blew a bunch of fuses). Broke the mechanics rear toe adjuster. So back it goes in a couple of weeks for another go. And then wipe down the clutch slave and oil weep and off to the engineers and licencing. I am looking forward to driving the old bus around now. I do think it may even be a good car.

About that time of the 3 months again. I have spent most of the time working on NVH. The ecu has had 87 changes over 67 days, most of them rubbish. The main areas of change are ign timing, VE and idle control. The aim is to get smooth acceleration and deceleration and then a settled idle. It is getting there although I think it is now ready to go on a dyno as I think I have gone as far as my skills can get it. A big breakthrough on NVH was ign minor adjustments around idle and also getting rid of a gear stick rattle. I purchased an early 924 4 speed gear shifter which has a very heavy and rubbery gear knob. I have modified the length and attachment method of the shifter by a bit of cutting and welding My welding does not look that good but at least the welds are deep. I also installed a heavier EPDM foam seal between the linkages and the body. Cuts down a world of noise. The seal moves with the shifter in the area above the foam pad on the TT. The result is no more rattle and NVH is much improved. Also the gearshift into 1 st and the other forward gears is improved, I think, as a result of the lever and the change rod being in the same plane rather than offset. The balance of NVH will probably require a shift to some softer BMW E30 motor mounts and a bit more tuning around the 2000 to 4000 rev mark. Suspension has been aligned and the height set to what I was looking for. This was not without its issues as I re set the rear height before I handed it over and it came back slammed. Spent a good few hours re indexing the torsion bars so it sat on the lowest setting on the spring plate adjuster but at the correct height so this would not happen again. The negative camber is now 1.3 degrees all round. Car feels ok when driving although the wheel is 30 degrees out of centre when on a heavily cambered road. Not sure what is going on there. I understand this should happen a bit but this is extreme considering the steering lock to lock is 2.4 turns. Also found a missing bolt in the bracket that stops the steering rack from moving side to side. One of the many bolts I have found I have forgotten to do up properly. Intake is now finalised and has not had any problems for the last 4 months so I assume the problems are resolved. Has a coat of paint to make it look a bit aluminiumised. Also tidied up the intake ducting which now sits firmly in place and is now easier to attach and detach. IOf you are wondering what the blob on the left side is, I had a problem with spit back which destroyed the previous iteration of the intake. I thought if this continues to be an issue i would put in  a cheap and nasty turbo blow off value from a Ford Fiesta to take a bit of the pressure out of the intake when it happens. Has not happened over the past couple of months as the tune is getting better. Was ignition timing. Too retarded at start. List of future works is getting smaller. I think the concentric slave has to be replaced as it has a very minor weep, centre upholstery on front seats, paint, bigger battery, minor oil weep from front timing cover and do the chains and tensioners at the same time (not particularly urgent), dyno and get to and licence it (urgent). Finally, another POS has joined the collection. In bits and in need of quite a bit of work but it has 1950/60s competition provenance. At some stage a car will have to go.

My goodness it’s quiet here. What has happened? The car has been for its engineering inspection in May ish last year. Took it there after I had the suspension set up. Before I dropped it off, I set up the correct rear ride height and asked for the rear ride height to be retained. Car came back with the rear at full droop. I would have been better off doing the whole set up thing myself. While looking at the steering they slightly displaced the wire that provides 12v to the ign and injectors. So, in the rain on the way to the engineer and on the way home the car would just drop dead. Mucking around in the engine compartment to see whether there was a loose wire, it would re attach again and off I would go again only for it to stop again. Luckily it did not happen during the inspection. Anyway, engineering brought the following: 1. Alternator light. Engineer did not like the way I had it wired to give a warning for over and under charge. 2. Steering wheel properly centred. 3. Exhaust hits rear mounting point of front control arm. Hence some of the previous agro over harshness. 4. Oil and coolant leaks. All down to a failed water pump which was also the cause of much noise. 5. Steering U joint grub screw end hits engine mount. Forces me to get a smaller and softer BMW mounts which also get rid of a bit of harshness. 6. No carbon canister. I have put in a 928 canister in the rear which has got rid of the stench of petrol. 7. Proof of previous licence or I will have to install side intrusion bars. 8. Stress test on dyno. 9. Front ride height too low. Now none of this is fatal and to some degree it helped me with issues I was having so: 1. The car has a modern alternator and ignition system. It does not need a 12v nudge to the alternator to get it to work. Hence, I did not need the alternator light circuit and thought I would program the light to be a warning for over and under charge. I turned it off until after licencing. 2. Steering wheel not centred. After looking at this innumerable times over the past year and wondering whether I would need to have the rack re built because everything else was ok. The simple answer was the nuts at the top of the struts were loose and the strut mountings are missing their stopper rings. Why the guys setting up the suspension did not pick this up I have no idea. 3. A mod with a tack hammer sorted out the passenger side exhaust manifold. If I had put the car on a lift I would have seen the problem. 4. I thought the racket from the front of the motor came from the timing chains and was going to fix the problem after licencing. Replacing the water pump was $60 and 2 hours. 5. Steering U joint is easy with the installation of smaller diameter mounts and once again a problem of not seeing what was going on. 6. Carbon cannister was a good call and I could use the old return line from the fuel rail to the tank to carry the vapour to the motor from the cannister I installed in the drivers saddle bag and had the wiring for the solenoid already in place to create the vacuum. The ecu can switch it on an off as required. 7. Licence is irritating as DoT does not keep records that far back and cannot confirm the car has been previously licenced in WA although it does have an old licencing sticker. The problem is if I cannot prove previous licencing then I will need to install side intrusion bars (and the carbon cannister) which is not the end of the earth and I have to go back into the doors to sort out an earthing issue. I have attached photos of the new bars installed. 8. The car has to go on the dyno anyway and it will go through a stress test in any case so no big deal. 9. I knew the ride height required a lift. I put in a new and much more professional looking skid plate for the bottom of the oil pan at the same time so no big deal. In effect the inspection helped rather than hindered and although it was over $1050 it was worth it to sort out the issues, which in hind sight weren’t all that much or problematic. Even the side intrusion bars are really not that difficult due to the design of the door surround in these cars. They were really quite easy to install. The thing I cannot get over was the sloppy wheel alignment work from the Porsche specialists. Other works are a new windscreen wiper motor as my soldering repair of the old one gave up after a couple of hours driving in the rain. The motor is for a Mk 2 Golf. A near perfect fit, just needed a new set of terminals and wires in the correct place. These motors are much cheaper and lighter than the original 944 version. All of this occurred while I was moving house.

Over the past 6 months I continued to work with the NVH. Decided to replace the engine mounts with those from a BMW e30 6 cyl. Perfect fit and quite a bit softer that the Landrover Defender item. Needed a bit of a trim of the mounting bolts and juggling of the front cross member and sway bar but all fitted and all much smoother. Went back to the ecu to see whether I could sort out the reason for the disparity in lambda values from one sensor to another. This problem kept resulting in strange adjustments by the ecu learning process and not really getting close to Lambda 1. I just assumed that was a problem of having a sensor for either bank. I had the learning set up so it would change 1% at a time. Turned the adjustment up to 25% (maximum) at a time and all of a sudden the strange movements in VE became chaotic. After a bit of thought I changed the sensor to cylinder bank assignment over and that was the problem. I had checked the wiring previously but did not do the software change over from one bank to the other as a test. The lambda sensors were working against one another. This has got rid of the over fueling soot and excess fuel consumption. There is still an issue with harshness over 4000 revs. I have spent considerable time with this and gradually getting there. One of the biggest problems was after a half an hour running the NVH was getting really bad and the engine would not idle properly. Turned out to be the intake manifold again. The composite construction just did not like the amount of heat being sent up through the lower intake manifold from the block and started to distort. This would break the gasket seal, let more air in, reduce manifold pressure and the engine would start to idle at higher revs due to more O2. Answer was to go back to the alloy manifold that came with the motor. After a bit of cutting and welding of the throttle body mounting have got it to fit. A bit more bonnet clearance work was also required. I had a bit of an under bonnet fire when I mucked up the wiring of the MAF. Had to strip down part of the loom and replace some wiring. Back to the ecu. I have now been adjusting the VE table rather than relying on the learning function. This has helped as the learning function puts in place incorrect VE percentages when other parts of the set up are incorrect ie ign timing or idle control which is adjusted through ign timing. This can send you down a rabbit hole of attempting to fix one thing and screwing up something else. The learning function compounds the problem. I have also placed this in the exhaust system hoping that it will reduce a bit of the volume. This is a Jetex decibel reducer. It does work at low throttle but there is really not much relief when you put your foot down. Had the seat centres finished by a local upholsterer and they look really nice. I thought I could do it myself but was just making too many errors and I was worried about wasting the very expensive cloth. Also destroyed my wife’s sewing machine as the plastic gears inside did not like the load of going through multiple layers of heavy cloth. Off to the engineers again and then licencing.

As always, a great read, Jaffar. Nice job on the interior too, looks quite plush.