David Floyd

DUKE!!!!!

David Floyd

disaster man's ride

michaelmount123

These pics are from 1989. Car was 1970 lbs. wet. Pretty quick for it's time... It was upgraded later with better aero. Lots of FTD's.

Crazy Eddie

I Remember that car very well at Summit point...brings back memories
Good ones
Regards
Ed

EliteThink

looks great, is that a square tire set up?

michaelmount123

Yes, tire set-up was square.

David Floyd

333pg333

1970lb wet?? Was this n/a Michael? Was it tube framed? That's stupidly light. 600lbs lighter than my car seems incomprehensible !!

Humboldtgrin

This is a nice 299 RWHP engine. But when I do a 928 s3 head swap I'll update progress. I think that the 928 4V head will be a a great mod when it's done.

michaelmount123

Yes, near incomprehensible, but the path to achieving the flyweight 944 was actually pretty easy at the time. It started with a 933 chassis prepared by Porsche for U.S. SCCA D/Production at a reported development cost of $500,000. (more than $1.5M in today's dollar). Once obsolete after rule changes, these cars were available at give-away prices. Here's quite a bit of information for those unfamiliar with the original project: http://www.titchati.be/porsche/933.htm Let your browser translate the article to English.



At the time, all the quick Porsches were 911's and I aways found joy and challenge in taking an alternate road. I converted the car to 944 power, originally 2V, but later 4V since the heads were available. With the light weight, very good HP/Liter, and impressive engineering (for it's time) it would dominate in PCA racing, and was the finest race car I've had the pleasure to drive. It was NA, (I know this is a turbo forum, but no one reads the NA stuff), and I was tempted many times to convert to turbo but the car was embarrassing the turbo cars already.

I later went with another chassis based on a 924 - the GTR. This car started as a tub Heimrath Racing 924GTR that Heimrath evolved into a tube frame after the tub was destroyed early on. The drive train, corners and GTR accessories were used on a well engineered, simple, and very lightweight (under 1900 lbs!) CrMo tube chassis car. I again went with NA power since my direction was always to keep it light and keep it simple. This, BTW, is a direction that always served me well and I believe many others should strongly consider today.

Pics are the Porsche prototype D/P from their files, my GTR (#79) in 2001, and my 933 tub car (#78) in 1993.

lart951

Wow, would be nice to sit down with Mr. Mount and chat a bit about the history of those cars and much more.

333pg333

Yes, great story and thanks for posting that Michael.

What c/r were you running in those days? Can you give more details of the engines back then? Did they retain the 931 gearbox or did you also convert those to 944?

michaelmount123

I ran 13:1 or a little higher compression. I always used the 3L block for its strength, and both 944S and S2 heads - big valves and solid lifters in all of them. The 55mm carbs made good power and avoided an expensive ECU required for EFI. The tub car was 2.7 and then 2.8L using a 2.5L crank (2.8L limit in the class). The GTR was 3.1L.

The tub car ran a 931 gearbox with a 911 LSD and 911 axles. It was a TERRIFIC box and there were lots of gear ratios available for it at the time. The GTR used the 931 based GTR box with internal spray bars for the gears, a clever internal 1st gear lock-out, and a pump for an external cooler. It was another great piece.

Not sure if the detail will show, but the engine exhibits some of the effort to keep the car as light as possible.

fred27

Very impressive, thanks for sharing

disasterman

I would love to run a fast 4 banger NA Porsche motor in my chassis. Raetech has won 3 SCCA Championships in his GT2 944 with nearly 400 HP.