jc85G

Pm sent.

V996

Can you say what region? Eastern Ontario, Northern, GTA? You can PM me if you want, mum's the word.

jc85G

Ditto.

jc85G

Mack,
Tons more info pm'd.

MackDSM

Thanks for all the PM'd info guys. I stripped the car down a bit this weekend but didn't get as much done as I would have liked as I lost a day traveling with a friend to buy another car.

I also ran into another issue. The passenger door lock is broken and no manner of homemade "slim-jim" seemed to be able to open it. I progressed from finesse to brute force, but still no-go. My original plan was to save some of the stripped parts of the car and sell them on eBay to recoup some race money, but it looks like the passenger door panel is going to have to be cut out. Shame. The drivers side rear taillight also has one stud that is just spinning in its housing, rather than loosening the nut, so I'll probably have to massacre that was well.

I also replaced a faulty DME relay thanks to Jonathon Rolstin and was able to make sure that the engine ran well before I take the entire dash out.

Unfortunately my phone's camera was having trouble auto focusing, so I didn't get many decent pictures of the progress.

Van

Funny that the model badge is on the left... It's likely been repainted and the body shop put it on wrong.

Here's a picture to inspire you.

MackDSM

Good eye Van! We noticed that the car had been repainted, as even though it was a good job, you can notice small flecks of dust in the paint that you don't usually see in a factory job. But as of last night I am 99% sure that it was in a minor accident on the passenger side. Nothing appears major or structural but there are non-factory tack welds on the interior panel behind the passenger door.

A few small shards of broken safety glass behind the interior panel is also a bit of a giveaway.

Thanks for the inspirational picture!

Scott at Team Harco

We have been RallyCrossing a 911 for two years now. Does that count? Maybe not - we have to turn right, too!

RoyaleWithCheese

IIRC 928 Wintercult wheels are pretty rare these days and can go for a bit of money. They are popular with the VW crowd too so maybe post them on one of their forums. Last time I looked I think they were going for around $1500 a set.

Do you have any pics of them on the car? want to see what it looks like on a 944.

MackDSM

Thanks for the heads up Royale. I also noticed they were going to the Volkswagen guys for a pretty penny. These ones need a good refinishing and center caps but otherwise seem decent. I'll snap some pics when I can but unfortunately they don't look right on this particular 944 simply because they're the wrong offset for early cars and are sunk way into the wheel wells.

MackDSM

It's been slow going, as other projects keep getting in the way, but I am at least making some progress in getting the car stripped down. Just finished pulling all the A/C junk from under the dash, which has led me to another question;

From what I've read, the 85.5's on have separate plugs/wiring harnesses for the motor and chassis but I don't seem to be able to locate any such plugs on this early car. Is it safe to assume that they do not have separate harnesses and that all the wiring goes to the fuse panels under the dash? I was hoping that eliminating this mess of unnecessary wires would be easier but it looks like I may have to identify which circuits I don't need and actually remove them individually from the fuse panels?

On another note, I've purchased some steel racing rims to try fitting and should be able to give that a shot as soon as I've got a couple tires mounted on them. Unfortunately I couldn't find any made with proper stock backspacing/offset, so they're going to stick out further than stock. Luckily it's not as much as the few threads I've seen where people have fit early wheels on late offset cars, so hopefully I won't have too many clearance issues.

Van

The engine wiring harness is its own harness - it has a large plug at the DME (Computer under the steering column) and the plug above the brake booster in the engine compartment (this is for power and the instruments, etc.).

MackDSM

Thanks for the info Van! The car needs absolutely nothing other than what is needed for the engine itself and the radiator fans will be manually activated by a switch. Therefore; looking at the fuse panel diagrams for early 944's, it would appear that I only need fuse #2 (fuel pump) from the upper fuse bank, nothing from the lower fuse bank and only relay #2 (fuel pump/DME) from the bank of relays.

Do you know of any reason that I can't put a single fuse holder (or smaller fuse panel) in for the the fuel pump fuse and wire the DME relay directly without the rest of the fuses/relays, deleting the panels and wiring?

Van

That's a very good idea... saves weight and makes it much simpler.

The wiring diagrams are available as PDFs, and it's all pretty straight forward.

Here are 2 different cars I greatly simplified. They still have things like wipers, radiator fans, lights, instruments, data systems, cool shirts, etc.

MackDSM

That's a huge help and pretty much exactly what I am hoping to do. Are all of the fuse boxes on the car powered? Judging by your first picture it would appear that both of your aftermarket busses are powered but I wasn't sure if either of the stock ones might be the pass-through type?

Also, have any of the cars you've modified the wiring for been equipped with an alarm? I am not even sure if mine is functional but it doesn't appear that there are any fuses associated with it in either of the boxes. I'm tracking down the wiring diagram PDFs but thought you might have some insight into how they can be removed.