Kriska

Hi everyone,

I am looking to get a project car, and I am set on a 944, mostly because of the looks, but it I can't figure out which 944 best fits my purpose, that purpose being building a drift car. From just a bit more than a week of research I figured out several things:
1) I am choosing between 944 Turbo and 944 S2, unless N/A 2.5L Porsche has some secret I am unaware of.
2) Benefits of getting 944 Turbo is in the transaxle (better gear ratio and can handle more power), and the suspension, but it comes at a higher cost of the car.
3) I have a short list of performance upgrades that I am confident that I want to do:
- Performance crankshaft
- Limited Slip Differential
- Coil-Overs
- Angle Kit
- Hydraulic e-break
- Stock look
- 400+ HP from Porsche engine (no LS swap yet) (as an end-goal)

These are the big things from the top of my head. I'm pretty inexperienced with car builds, so these are just some things that I know are useful for drifting. I know that 944 Turbo comes with the transaxle already w/ limited slip diff and (duh) a turbo. The S2 however has a larger displacement if I'm not mistaken, and I am unsure whether you can slap a turbo on that engine and it will handle it. Again, I would still have to change the transaxle to handle extra power.

With that being said, I'm starting with the budget of a little under $6,000 (what I've saved so far), and obviously I'm consistently earning money, so I want to invest in total of around $15 - 18,000. I was thinking I can probably find a Turbo model that isn't running because of some simple issue, and fix it, but get it for cheaper initially.

Any suggestions as to where to start with this project, what model 944 to get in my budget?

Below are some of the cars that I am considering.
944 Turbo, 200k+ miles
Expensive 944 Turbo
944S
N/A 944 (In case it just might be good)

V2Rocket

- only a small portion of 944 turbos came with LSD, it was NOT standard equipment.
- you can turbo the 944S2 but you need to be careful with tuning, ideally you'd drop the compression but it's a bit of a rabbit hole to go down.
- no such thing as a "performance crankshaft". they come in either 2.5 or 3.0L flavors and some folks have offset-ground the rod journals to get more displacement. stock crank is perfectly fine past 600hp.
- angle kit + e brake makes me think you're intent on a drift car? try contacting drifta944 or F2_Iceland here on RL, they both have done a lot of that.
- 400hp is doable on a stock 951 engine but you'll need a better turbo, 3" exhaust, and a MAF conversion on the stock ECU with tuning capability (or aftermarket MAP-based standalone).
-- check with Lindsey Racing for MAF conversion and go-fast stuff, they sell kits to get you to 340whp = ~400 crank.