potent951turbo

Does anyone know the differences between the 86' and 87'+ turbo cup cars? It was slightly mentioned on the thread looking for all 9 87' U.S. turbo cup cars, but not in any detail and all that was said was that the 86' cars weren't modified as much. Obviously the 86' cup cars were running with the early offsets and fuchs, which would make me assume the brakes were probably similar if not the same as the road cars. Post what you know.

boost feen

As far as I have researched the '86 cup cars were all very early 951's made for the US so they have low vin #'s and that means they were made in early '85 like March -June. In turn this means they have early '79 - '85 sport seats, because the later Recaro high back seats werent in the factory yet! Of course they didnt have ABS and the 23 MM offset means they have fuch's but what most dont know is the fuch's in the rear are 16" x 9" and carry a 951 part # because of the offset, which makes them extremely rare one of the rarest Porsche wheels out there! The brake calipers are standard early 951 units, they had 220 limited slip, threaded body coilovers in front and 030 cars had harder rubber bushings and mounts!
Im not sure if the sway bars were larger than 26MM in front and 18MM in rear!
The cup cars all had black manual plastic non painted outside mirrors, Matter roll bars, fiberglass hood's, manual roll up windows, no stereo's, no air conditioning, lightweight wiring harness, less amperage alternator, lightweight battery, no glue under carpet, no soundproofing, no inner fender liners, no rubberized undercoating, lightweight glass all around, sunroof delete chassis, and of course the option codes would show something to this effect!
Check out this web site for a little info on '86 951 cup cars!

http://www.asarus.com/cup/recensement.shtml

potent951turbo

Good info! I knew about the usual cup car differences such as the black mirrors, sunroof delete, FG hoods etc. But did not know nearly as much about the mechanical differences since the later cup cars featured the larger brakes etc. and those are the cars you typically hear about over the 86' cars.

boost feen

There was a very special '86 951 for sale a year or so ago on E-bay it was red and was ordered new from Al Holbert Porsche in '86 it was basically a sunroof delete 951 with 030, matter bar, manual windows, 220 LSD, lightweight black sport seats, black mirrors, lightweight 951 fuch's and some lightweight body pieces and magnesium engine pieces. A very rare customer street version, I think it was in high $20K, but that was a rare car because it was basically a early cup car that Al Holbert was able to slip through the channels and get registered for the street! I gaurantee it had no interior glue, undercoating, and a 5/33 brake proportioning valve!

potent951turbo

I believe this is the car your talking about. I saved all the pictures from the ebay auction.

boost feen

Do you remember how much this car sold for or who the E-bay seller was?

potent951turbo

Not off the top of my head. I wish I had labeled the folder I saved all the pictures in better, but I didn't.

Looking at those pictures, I wonder if there was any extra brackets to help hold up the front fender ground effects or the batwing under the front bumper because the plastic wheel wells on the street cars help support both those pieces.

boost feen

I wish I would have pursued that car a little more because if I remember right it was way undervalued at the low 30K or high 20K mark! That is one rare clean 951 cup car, the latest panorama has a late one for sale in the classifieds its pretty clean $52K!

Oddjob

I think I have a copy of the ad for that car in hard copy somewhere. I recall it was forsale out of a race shop down south, maybe Hawk Motorsports... it was a name that I had heard of. First time it was listed with an opening bid of $62k, 2nd time it was at $52 k, and it may have been listed a 3rd time for $45 or so. I never saw anywhere close to 20-30k. The car had an unusual history, in that it was never raced in the Escort series, but in the SCCA Showroom stock series, and later claimed to have been converted to S2 specs and raced in the Firehawk series, then recently restored to original 86 Clubsport specs. I bet if you do a search on Escort/Clubsport you will find the threads discussing it on here.

There was an 87 944S Clubsport/Escort car that Bob Bogan had for sale for a long time, and the price on that did drop into the mid to low 20s. Not sure that one ever sold.

Main differences between the 86 and the later 87+ Cup/Clubsports is power and suspension. The 86 cars had the K26/6 turbo, and the suspension was softer than the 87+ cars. Different front springs, and they used a barrel type rear helper spring (same as the 968 M030 spring) instead of the progressive rate coilover spring on the rear shock. Rear shocks were not height adj. 23.5mm t-bars instead of 25.5. They did have the 21mm rear sway bar, but only the 25.5 on the front.

Brakes were already mentioned.

There were some differences between the German '86 Cup cars, and the handfull of US Clubsports imported for the SCCA Escort series. Moreso than with the 87 cars.

There is a rumor that the 86 Cups/Clubsports had magnesium transmission cases, but I have never seen actual evidence of one and its possible that the mag trans case was only tested as a prototype and no "production" cups ever used them.