Mahler9th

I remember that white car and the 968 turbo. I met Gary Stone years ago I think at the Porsche 50th at Laguna Seca that was the pre-cursor to rthe RR events

I live in the SF Bay Area and I am a 30+ member of PCA. I owned an '84 944, two '89 951's and an '87 951 that I bought from an Indy Car driver and modified quite a bit. My engione build for that car was featured in a two part Excellence article back in the day, written by the late Jim Pasha. Great guy and friend.

When I was running 944 family cars I got great advice and help from many, including the guys at Kelly Moss Racing (in my home state of WI) and Jon Milledge.

I first met the guys at KMR back in 1994! Spent a whole Saturday with Jeff and his late brother David. Great guys. They had been running 944 S2's in Firehawk, 964 turbos and at the time I met them they were running a custom 968 for owner Rich.

I started corresponding on the 'net about 944 family cars way back before Rennlist and all of the pre-cursors.

I have extensive experience with these cars and quite a network here in the SF Bay Area and beyond.

One of my local friends has a really nice '89 951 and an S2 cab that is fully converted to Turbo S specs. Beautiful cars.

Please send me a PM if you'd like to connect.

Mahler9th

I bet that Tom P. remembers me and I remember meeting him and Denny way back at Laguna in 1998! What a terrific experience!

Mahler9th

The author of that article is David Coleman. Also a local p-car friend. Middleburry grad!

He wrote a few articles on 944 family cars-- I still have all of them, and of course all of Pasha's articles. I contributed to several of them.

Great memories!

Mahler9th

If you need advice on a SF Bay area shops for mechanicals and/or body, I have some suggestions.

All old friends/PCA members with extensive experience and remaining enthusiasm!

Mahler9th

Somewhere around 2001, I installed a 968 transmission in my '87 951 (the car I bought from Randy Lewis-- he makes excellent wine now).

I got some help from Gary Stone and Jeff Stone (no relation) at KMR.

Around that time a few folks on the 'net asked me what I did.

Here is an e-mail I sent in response: This is a response to a few folks who have asked about installing a 968 gearbox into a 944/951 type of car, and wonder how to get a working speedo Make sure you buy the two halfshafts with the gearbox as they are different left and right and also different from 951 units And you must use the 968 shift rod and shift lever

As I have indicated, I have been able to "reverse engineer" the 951/968 transmission speedo solution first created by a KMR employee for Gary Stone, one of their customers. The employee moved on to an Indy Car Team, and Gary lost the schematic After some conversations with Gary, Jeff Stone (no relation to Gary) at KMR, and North Hollywood Speedometer, and some engineering of my own, I have mine working Based upon my wiring scheme and where the wires run, I get a little electrical noise at certain speeds that makes the speedo wacky, so I may wire the ERA box (see below) directly to the battery for both +12 volts and ground, and then use some sort of on/off switch Haven't had a chance to do this yet.

I am going to write up something more detailed, but for now this is it Please keep this information to yourselves, and remember that Kelly- Moss Racing and Gary Stone deserve all of the credit

There are probably several ways to do this, but here is the approach that I took. Please excuse the possibly overly simplistic description

To generate a pulse signal, I used a VDO sender product, which is a two wire magnetic/inductive type unit The VDO part number is: 340 020. I bought mine from a company I identified on the internet, but it can probably be bought from anyone who sells VDO stuff. Should be less than $60 or so On Gary's '89 951, this same part was apparently used by KMR



As an alternative, I suppose I could have used a Bosch abs sensor. Although my car is an '87, I have the Turbo S hubs and rear stub axles which have the rings for abs signal generation I decided not to go this route. Also, on an abs-equipped car, tapping into the signal going from one of the little sensors to the abs computer might mess things up. So I used the separate Bosch sender.



But I know this VDO part works, and it wasn't too hard to deal with. You can see a picture of it amongst the VDO items on the North Hollywood Speedometer web site:http://www.nhspeedometer.com/senders.htm. The sender does not come with any instructions.

The sender is attached to a custom made bracket. I made my bracket out of a piece of galvanized metal I found at a local ACE hardware. I just drilled holes for the sender and for attaching it to the transmission using one of the cover bolts. I have attached a picture to this e-mail showing my set-up KMR used a very similar approach on Gary's car.

To create the pulses, a metal item must pass by the face of the sender within a certain distance, which VDO Tech Support told me was 20-50 thousandths (I think) I used a small piece of metal that is stuck to the inner driver's side CV joint with epoxy. I did not measure the clearance. I just adjusted everything so that the metal passes the face of the sender as close as possible without touching.



Stone's car has some sort of clip arrangement, but is generally similar Each time the metal piece passes by the face of the sender, a pulse is generated at the outputs of the sender.

To translate the sender's pulse signal output into a proper shape and frequency, I bought and wired up a little black box called an Electronic Ratio Adapter Gary has the same thing in his car It is made by a company in Arkansas Here is their web site:http://www.atrol.com. I bought mine directly from the company for about $150.

Inside, the ERA has two banks of dip switches One (switch 1) controls the input and output signal "shape/size." The other (switch 2) allows you to change the ratio of the incoming and outgoing pulse frequencies You can see the ERA in the attached picture.

The ERA needs to be mounted in the car, so wires running to it must be routed from near the tranny up into the passenger compartment I put mine in the driver's side wheel well storage area I used an existing access hole near where the normal speedo wires come into the car.

Here are the switch settings and wiring scheme that I used:

For each off the connections, read them this way:

Existing wires in car from old speedo set up: Connected to

Brown wire (ground): did not use

Blue/red wire (+12 volts, on with ignition): connected to red wire on ERA, which needs a switched +12 volts

Green/Light green wire (goes to speedo): connected to ERA blue wire which is ERA output signal

And the VDO Sender terminals: Connected to

You choose color (I used white): connected to ERA white wire which is ERA input signal

You choose color (I used black): connected to ground stud in rear interior of car

So at this point, three of the ERA wires are connected (red, blue, and white)

And the fourth/final ERA wire: Connected to:

You choose color (I used black): connected to ground stud in rear interior of car

For the ERA switch 1, I turned on switches 1, 3 and 4 According to Abbott, this is a two wire sender setting that amplifies both the incoming and outgoing pulse signal For switch two, I used a setting that corresponds to about a 7.5 ratio Their instruction book tells you how to calibrate, and gives you a look up table of ratios versus switch settings Their web site has a bunch more, and they can give you custom settings over the phone The key is to start out with a unity setting, drive a known distance (say 10 miles), then not the odometer reading (say it only reads 1.33 miles) This means you need a ratio of 10 divided by 1.3333 equals 7.5 The right setting for any car depends on the gearing, including the wheel and tire combination For Gary's car, they used a GPS to set the ratios You can also go to a speedo shop, or use mile markers on a highway.

Tom Pultz

Ah yes, we all had a great time discussing Porsches and eating and drinking at the Baja Cantina in Carmel Valley. Good times for sure.

vaportrail

*I havent been posting but I have been hard at work - mostly cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.
*All fuel lines are replaced - with the exception of one return line at the tank.
*Oil changed twice.
*Horn fixed
*Alignment done
*Minor rust under battery addressed

Remaining issues:
*registration - thinking about Montana due to obvious issues in California
*need PDR guy to come back from surgery - I'm not very patient about this
*Have body shop check "frame" This car is currently in alignment.
*Getting a strange noise under full boost. I thought it was detonation, now wondering if I have turbo issues. Will inspect turbo this weekend.
*The exhaust smells terrible. Fumes get in the car. I have seen a few threads about this and will be tackling this soon.
*AC system conversion to R134 and potential rebuild

BLUE952

cool, thanks for the update

WOLF35

I noticed you said the car sat for 8+years, Is the fuel pump an issue since old fuel sat in it for so long? On the 900 Series show they had a 928 that sat that long and they said it was standard to replace the fuel pump, was not sure if this would apply to the 944 turbo? Car looks great.

liteitup

Any updates on the car? Sorry to revive an old thread...

vaportrail

I have been meaning to update - Car is finally running very well with just a few remaining big items. Put a wideband in and AFR is spot on.

Had the turbo rebuilt and installed a catch can to solve an oil blow by issue. Put an updated compressor wheel on and WOW - it's like a modern car boosting around 3k (instead of over 4k.)

Currently the charge pipes are blowing off - new silicone hoses have been ordered from Lindsey Racing and hopefully will resolve the issue.

boost feen

Have you pulled the intercooler out and drained all the oil out of it? I’ve gotten over 2 cups before on older cars that have sat forever

vaportrail

I am adding this to the to-do list. I am sure this is part if not all of the problem. Thank you.

vaportrail

January 2023 Update - car continues to run well. I do hear what sounds like pinging but AFR continues to be spot on. It's hard to tell while driving but the noise could be coming from the wastegate area. The car was tuned for 93 Octane and here in California we get 91 in most places. I have boost turned down as a result.

I still need to get the car to a body shop, and figure out how to get AC working again. Other than that, we're down to minor issues only.

vaportrail

Photos from a spirited drive in the mountains. This car is amazing!