Tedro951

I'm not a fan of the looks, but no handle will please everyone. Many listers have trouble installing 968 handles, this is probably worse. I'm glad there are people willing to try stuff like this, so I don't have to.

A group buy on a bauxite mine, a small foundry, and a machine shop is the ticket! We could have any handle we want

FRporscheman

I don't get why people are complaining that there won't be a DIY. They said they'd try, they tried, and it turns out to need some machine work. Hey, saves me the time of trying it myself and failing. Thanks guys!

Now, what about the older VW handles, the ones that look just like the early 944 handles but with the chrome insert instead of the faux wood? Those handles might plug and play, and they're probably a lot cheaper than Porsche handles. The chrome looks a lot better than fake wood too! And for the late 944s, the chrome insert can be painted black.

ramius665

Arash,
I'm going to try and pick up a set of the VW handles to see if the same piece needs to be replaced on them. If that's the case then we've solved two problems at once. I'll see what I can find, maybe there's a set in a junkyard near me that I can experiment with.

Olli Snellman

Found these Golf III handles from my parts supplier. From a picture looks like they need a bit modification. Good thing is very reasonable price

JohnKoaWood

Wow, those would require all kinds of modification to fit and make them work... more so than our handles..

ramius665

I don't think the front would fit in the factory cut-out. And the rear... Well, it just looks like a lot of work.

Shark_gts

We had to CNC an alum part to form the lever to actuate the lock. You disassemble the V-Dub handle a re-install this part. The CNC part is like a $20-25 cost to make. Any custom low vol parts are expensive. $50-1000's is not uncommon for industrial parts one-offs etc. Then there is the labor to make the swap. The travel on the lever was not quite the travel of the OEM handle but close enough to make it if....

The 944 latches had to be in good shape and adjusted properly. The mechanicals are really complex so to get everything working on our project car was a challenge

Mechanical/key locks
Power locks
Door poppers
& the Pull handles!

It was a minor miracle it did all work, but it needed to be lubed and in good shape. I would go electric locks and no key locks, that would be best.

I have about 10 of the CNC parts left plus some handles.

Note that the engineering required to design the parts/system and was about $7000-10K in retail hours and materials. That is what we would have billed it out as to an industrial client for example. We didn't nearly cover our costs on the 944S project/prototypes, but it was cool.

JohnKoaWood

I wouldn't disagree with that... not one bit...

If we have time this weekend, we will be integrating the central locking function into our handles, and assembling a few more sets!