dirtyTurbo

I just picked up a beat up 84 n/a with the infamous blown timing belt head damage. The car came with a "new" head that the PO got from a Porsche shop that went out of business.

So, is there any room for improvement on these parts in my hand? Is a wide fire gasket worth the extra money? I read as much as I can and it seems like camshafts aren't very popular but having the head ported and polished might be worth while.

I'm also planning on doing the oil cooler seals and maybe an a/c delete down the road

Thanks! I'd post some pics but there isn't much to see at this point, just another neglected 944 begging for some love

pettybird

get the late cam as it's worth some minor boost in power

wide fire not necessary on an NA application

do the oil cooler seals as it's a LOT easier to get at them with the head off.

you can see an improvement in the head, but it's not a ton, and you can royally screw it up if you don't know what you're doing.


do a search and you'll find dozens of murky, contradicting answers to your questions. there's no huge power waiting to be unleashed with simple mods...

FRporscheman

There's basically nothing you can do. The best place to get power is from bringing the engine back up to snuff, and getting all of that factory 148hp. Just in case you weren't already planning to, I suggest you get the valve guides and seals replaced, get a simple valve job done, get the head resurfaced, and clean the tops of the pistons. Don't scratch the cylinders. I have noticed a slight bump in power after every head job I've done!

Congrats on getting a 944 and good luck with it.

dirtyTurbo

How much would a shop charge for something like that? I really hate throwing money at a car that might never run

The wide fire was for....nitrous...but we won't go into that here

ZR8ED

Simple easy and safe. Match the intake and exhaust ports to the manifolds. Use your old gasket as your template. Remove any rough casting marks, and make the exhaust ports as smooth as you can. Combustion chamber work is not for amatures, but can yield significant power. Combustion chamber work is quite complicated so I would recommend a simple inspection and look for roughness, or nicks etc before deciding on more complicated work. Welding and reshaping the combustion chamber for increased compression, and improved flow past the valves is where real power can be had.
Disclaimer. I'm not talking about huge improvements, but anywhere from 10-40hp can be made.
If I had my head off, this is exactly what I would do, and have done in the past with very noticeable improvements.

The first 20-40hp is the "easy" part, and gets the most bang for your dollar. After that the dollar per hp gets way out of control.

Raceboy

Get Euro pistons, that way your engine will give you healthy 163 hp.

FRporscheman

I've heard that most of the euro's hp is from not having the 80's USA cat. Probably switching to a modern high-flow cat will give some hp, but it's not really engine related.

How much are euro pistons anyway?

Rudeboy42

About $1,600 new aka not worth it at all

dirtyTurbo

I doubt I'll be putting my welding skills to the test on the head, too scary.

I have no problem "replacing" the cat though

FRporscheman

Captain Planet says if you run a test pipe, you will give babies lung cancer.

On an NA, you need a little bit of backpressure or you'll lose torque. Even a new cat will probably flow too well but still good for torque and hp. And it'll save the air.


Anyone know what a used set of euro pistons are worth?

Crackership

There are some things you can do to make a bit more power out of an NA, and most of them have been mentioned above.

I'm gonna be the voice of reason for a second though.... "while you're in there" you should replace things like vacuum hoses, power and ground cables, coolant hoses and anything else that looks like the years have been unkind to it.

These things may not actually give you more power (but then again, they might... depending on how bad things are), but they will make the car drive better, and be far more reliable.

The one thing I will say that was not mentioned above, it's a lot easier to take weight out than put power in... and furthermore, an NA will never (without extreme measures) be fast because of it's bhp figure, but if the engine runs well, and you invest your money into handling and braking, you'll be faster than most in the bends.

V2Rocket

backpressure is always bad. what you want is to size the pipes to keep flow good but keep exhaust gas velocity up, since as exhaust pulses move along quickly they leave a vacuum behind them which helps pull the next cycle's exhaust out of the cylinder...scavenging effect.

pjburges

Things you can do that I know will give you more HP on 8v N/A:

Knife edge the crank, Lighten the flywheel, delete the A/C and power steering (go to manual rack), install a late model 951 oilpan with windage tray, remove balance shafts, good valve seats, aftermarket engine management, high compression euro 944 pistons, grinding the base circle of the cams down for more lift, delete the cat.

Remember the 928 Euro S has identical bore, stroke, and cylinder head. Difference in camshaft profile, it had log headers instead of nice tri-y's like our 944's - and it had high compression 10.4:1 pistons. These engines were the bees knees and considered "as hot as it gets". A Euro 944 makes 163HP, and considering mechanical efficiencies of the V8, the numbers about line up because the 928 makes 300HP. Everything I mentioned above might net you 10-20hp max. Probably more like 10hp for ALL THAT WORK.

The best thing you can do to make it faster is to MAKE IT LIGHTER!! My car was stripped out and used to be powered by a 83 944 engine. It did the 0-60 is 7 seconds flat on 225/50/15 tires.

dirtyTurbo

That's what I was thinking. A lot of time and a LOT of money might give me 15hp, but making it lighter is cheap

ritzblitz

I have a webcam that I got used. If you can pick one up for a decent price I'd give it a shot. I got mine for $150.

My engine has a very flat torque curve with this cam, peaking at 118 wheel. It also made 123whp@5900 but that was with a problem in the AFM.