Well, my ol' 1984 944 that i purchased 2 years ago for 1500 bucks off of the columbus craigslist. It's finally all gutted and prep'd for the track and I am headed to Mid Ohio tomorrow to do HPDE with NASA.

Please cross your fingers that the motor does not blow up and that my home done alignmnent is spot on ! (or that no other gremlins come out)

I only say this cause the car runs like a top but not knowing much of any history on it, ya just never know what will happen.

Am taking my go pro hero cam so if I get some cool video, will try to you tube it or something. for everyone's entertainment.

Tom

 

Have fun! Mid-Ohio is an awesome track. You will love it.

Good luck with the car. And keep the shiny side up.

 

nice! good luck!

and find a hook up at a tire place to get yer alignment checked even if u gotta bribe the guy $20 to just put it on the rack and check the alignment.

fingers crossed for yer motor! i know mine's gonna blow up pretty soon...but still gonna keep on going until it does.

u got good brake pads and good fluid right?

 

good luck dude! have fun and take a camera with you to shoot some videos!

 

I've raced sportbikes around mid ohio ever since the mid 90's so I know the layout no problem. I also did a PCA DE day there two years ago in a boxster and it was in the rain and still had a hoot.

Yep, I've got steel braided brake lines all way round, metalmaster pads and high temp pads. I've pretty much got it to almost 100% race car tech passable. Think the only thing i need to finish to pass a race car tech is to run the cable for the battery kill and to put some hood pins on it. HPDE tech is way relaxed vs race car so I'm not concerned about any issues there. I went over the whole car just a few days ago so everything is tight.

I've ran the **** out of the car on the street but ya just never know when to track a car. If it survives this weekend, i'll be trying for two more Mid Ohio de's in august, then i'll replace the rod bearings this winter. The motor has a cam, bursche headers, BBB 2.5mm overboard throttle body, chip'd DME, cold air intake setup, and I've hacked out tons of unneeded wiring and all the ac and heat stuff. It's still the original silver paint, with several dings here and there. a typical craigslist special !!

Tom

 

Cool...good luck! I've heard Mid-Ohio is a fun track.

 

Quick update on my first track event in my 84 944. I had a BLAST !
Both car and I survived, had no off course excursions, it was a total hoot and I'm already signed up for the next event in august ! Think I burned close to 15 gallons of gas over the two days. Camped in my trailer at the track and luckily it was cool at night and only rain on saturday for a hr or so.

Side notes:
I need better brake pads like hawk or something(any suggestions for the 84 style calipers)
I need stickier tires(I have the cookie cutter 15" rims, any suggestions)
I'm planning to swap my strut springs with some from a turbo, which should lower and stiffen it up.

and wow I got smoked by hondas and miatia's n such in the streight a ways(so much for having oodles of hp!)

Tom

 

hawk hp+ have done me good so far. dusts like crazy though. i hope u like having gunmetal grey rims

street tires ? or are u going to for rcomps? streets, bridgestone re-11 and yoko advan ad08's if u got the dough. if not, get falken azenis rt615's

some of those civics might be running my daily driver motor hehe. k20a2 swap into civic is so popular now. NA tuned, 220whp can be had with boltons, even more with cams. NA 944's won't outpower even a modded b18 civic. honda love

 

Check your oil level between every session. Nobody knows for sure what kills the #2 bearing, but you should not let a low oil level put you at risk. I keep it at the high dipstick mark at all times. I'll use a full quart in a two-day session.

Mid-O is on my short list of tracks-I-must-drive. It's a great 944 track.

 

I did end up adding some oil, although it was always between the upper and lower ranges. i'm going to change it again before going back and I'll make sure to check it after each session this time. Don't need the motor going south for lack of taking 20 seconds to read the dipstick.

Krystar, Right now I have street tires, just cheep performance rated ones but I'd like to get something more track oriented but I hear race tires are just insaine price wise.

Tom

 

the re-11's and ad08's are this year's hottest ultraperformance street tire. they're not bad price wise. like $130 a pop.

azenis are yester-year's ultra street tire. still good. i think u can find em for under $100 a pop.

 

+1 on the oil...

I check mine every morning before the runs begin and again at lunch....and I too burn just under a quart during a hard track day.

glad you had fun !

 

Speaking of fun, how was your DE weekend ? did you trailer the car or pack the hatch to the hilt ?

Tom

 

sounds to me like you have a nice 944 spec build candidate right there.

As for springs. Turbo ones are not much of an upgrade. However depending on what you plan to do with the car you should pick your choices around that. The 944 spec set-up uses Koni shocks and up to about 400 lbs springs with ride height adjutment front and 30 mm t-bars in back is great budget minded set-up for the track. Good enough to push it really hard and have the car respond, but not so expensive that it breaks the bank either. It runs about 2k for all the bits, but considering that you do it once and let it be it works out well. Stock spring rates are 110lbs or so and you really need 250lbs or so on the track even with a stripped out car. Otherwise the body roll really takes over hurtting tire life, grip and make thing the car slower to respond. Once you look at spending the $$ to get to 250 done right with t-bars too going to 350-400 which is the max for Koni's is not much cheap. Plus with the front ride height kit you can get a nice track ride height and then be able tune the car. Then get camber plates which actually pay for themselves by being able to dail in enough camber (aroud 3 deg at least) to ensure even tire wear. Too soft a spring rate and to little camber kills outside edge of the front tires long before the inside.

The only downside to 350-400 lbs springs and 30 mm t-bars is street ride especialy on stripped car is not all that nice. However if this is a track car first then that is a fair compromise.

If you want to run 944 spec you will need to go back to stock cam, headers, chip and throttle body, but the changes are a day or weekends worth of work and you can probably swap parts even money or put a little in your pocket.

 

A stock 944 ought to keep up with (or gain on) a stock Miata in the straight sections. Maybe those Miatas weren't stock!