hinton

Hey everybody, thought I'd start a thread to document my current build. I am a new member of RL and the Porsche world. I started a thread when I acquired my 951 which can be found at the link below. There was discussion of whether the car was salvageable or worth investing time and money into. As a glutton for punishment and just a generally stubborn person I decided to take on the challenge.

https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turbo-and-turbo-s-forum/914174-new-951-owner-general-discussion.html

So, what's been done to this point? Well the car had what seemed at first glance to be some major issues. These issues turned out to be minor, thankfully. However, the further I progressed the more I uncovered.

I finally started working on the car the beginning of June (after an extensive honey do list including reno'ing a bathroom, new kitchen floors, landscaping, etc etc) with the end goal of participating in an autocross on July 16th.

In that month and a half I started by gutting the interior and adding the following:

Bosch Air Fuel
Innovate Wideband
NRG Quick Release Hub
NRG Seats
G-Force SFI 5point Harnesses
Weltmeister Harness Bar

I also removed all of the carpet, sunroof mechanism as well as the vast majority of the sound deadening material. The final result is pictured here.











From there is was time to start working out some of the mechanical issues. What was originally stated as a pinhole in the head that allowed coolant to leak onto the belts turned out to be a leaking upper radiator hose as well as a badly corroded coolant crossover tube. Both items were fixed.

Then, all of the sudden the starter stopped working. I ordered a used starter from Lart and installed it. When I went to to turn the key, nothing. Turns out it was the terminals on the starter relay being corroded. A little scotch brite pad action got that all fixed up, and now I have a spare starter. Ha!

Once I was comfortable that the leaks were fixed and I had a grasp on what issues there still were, I went ahead and tried to add a bit of performance for the autocross (and because why not?).

This consisted of:
eBay chipset (don't judge me, it was a $30 experiment)
Custom 2.5" straight exhaust
Race muffler
Dumped wastegate
MBC
3 Bar FPR

I also found an old thread explaining how to convert the stock WG into a dual port unit and did that mod. Here is a pic, but the moral of the story is I drilled and tapped a hole in the bottom of the diaphragm housing for a brass nipple, filled the holes in the diaphragm housing with self tappers and the sealed the bottom of the housing with ultra high temp epoxy. Picture is below, not pretty but effective, just like me.



So, I had extra boost, more control over said boost, more fuel, gauges to monitor everything and a less restrictive exhaust.

I buttoned everything up the Tuesday before the and went for a test drive. I was rewarded with lots of turbo noises, some major rear droop upon acceleration and an extremely rich fuel mixture (see eBay chipset). However, the real problem came when I pulled back into the garage and walked around the front of the car to a huge puddle of coolant. The water pump had let go.

In a mad dash I ordered a new water pump. I had already inspected the belts and they had recently been replaced so I decided to take my chances on those. Besides, my wallet was hurting and I was running out of time. I got the water pump second day aired and received it Thrusday night. I ended up going to bed at 1am but the car was ready to drive to work Friday.

I spent quite a bit of time Friday showing coworkers the car and doing some joyrides to see what all my work had done. The car was a blast. It was loud, pretty quick and just had a race car vibe to it that was a ton of fun.

Then, disaster, kind of. I let my brother drive the car that night (Friday, 12 hours before the race) and during a 3rd gear pull on the highway the coolant temp skyrocketed. We limped it home and popped the hood and found the evidence of a major coolant discharge. In my haste to get the car complete the night before, I had only gotten the expansion tank cap on halfway. She came lose and the whole cooling system boiled over.

I spent the next hour or so cleaning things up, refilling the coolant and trying my best to vent the air from the system. I had done everything I could and I packed it in for the night ready for the race the next morning.

Once arriving at the autocross my brother and I walked the track (he's got an 06 Cayman S). Our group got called up and I was the second car out in our group. I went in hard and ended up spinning in the 4th corner. I was all smiles and laughed as I put the car back in gear and took off to finish my lap.

Lap 2 went much better and I was starting to get a feel for the track layout. However, as soon as I finished I looked at my gauges and the coolant temp had skyrocketed again and I saw steam coming from the engine bay. I immediately pulled back into the pits and my day was done.

A month and a half of limited sleep and a **** ton of work came down to two 65 second laps (well, 84 seconds for the first lap). I was surprisingly not even disappointed. I had a blast and I was just so happy to be back behind the wheel of a sports car.

So, that's the story to this point. After getting the car home and doing an inspection o tracked down a pretty massive rear main seal leak. This was only happening when the car was running which is why I hadn't seen it leak over the last 6 months in the garage. It was at that point that I decided to pull the motor and do a complete reseal as well as some additional mods over the winter. My planned mod / maintenance list is quite long and ever changing so I will refrain from putting it all down at this point. I think I've been long winded enough. However, at the top of the list is all new gaskets, rod bearings, belts, fluids, brakes and replacing the DME / KLR with Megasquirt MS3. Here's what she looks like today, about a 3rd of the way into pulling the engine.







Thanks for reading and I look forward to documenting the progress.

Ifly951

Cool. You have gotten alot kinks worked out on the vehicle and delved into the 951 car. Because of their age these 951 tend to be alot of work to straighten out. If you can wrench, like you can then it keeps the cost down dramatically.

When you get the car buttoned back up and your improved engine management this car will reward you with a great driving experience. Enjoy it.

I know I look forward to my car being back on the road in about a month. I miss driving my turbo.

I do want to ask, as i will need one in 2017. Where did you get the Weltmeister Harness bar from?

Do you like the seats?

hinton

Thanks! I got the HB on eBay, which is where I buy the vast majority of stuff. I got it used for like half price so it was pretty solid find.

I love the seats so far, they are a fiberglass shell fixed back seat and are VERY budget friendly. I like brand names as much as the next guy but I just can't find it in me to drop 1k - 2k on seats, especially for a budget build like this one.

rlm328

IMHO if you are going with a 5 or 6 pt harness system you really need a roll bar as a minimum. This is about your safety, these things do roll over occasionally. A roll bar can be purchased on a budget for a little more than what a harness bar would cost.

hinton

The car will get a proper cage at some point as it is definitely going to be more track than street oriented (obviously, considering the gutted interior).

As for the existing setup I feel pretty safe for tooling around on the street and doing AX events. If anyone was wondering, I welded a nut to a 4x3 1/8" steel plate and then welded that to the trans tunnel for the inner harness mounting points. I felt more comfortable with that setup than the old hole and giant washer trick. The sub belts are bolted to the piece of 1x1 square tubing I used as the front seat bracket / spacer.

odonnell

Curious to see your MS3 plans, I'm planning something similar on my 951.

hinton

To be honest I'm going in completely blind. I've found a couple of old threads to use as a starting point but it will be a lot of trial and error.

I'm really looking forward to simplifying all of the wiring / coolant hoses / vacuum lines etc that came stock.

rlm328

The bolt with sub and top plate are the seat belt mounting procedure recommended by the seat belt manufacturer.

hinton

Quick update... The engine is out. This thing has been leaking from multiple places for quite a while. I don't think I've ever been as filthy from working on a car, and I've had my fair share of big projects.

I still need to get the bell housing, clutch and flywheel off so I can mount it to the engine stand. From there I will start the cleaning and disassembly process.


You'll have to excuse the poor cell phone pics, haven't felt like anything warrented the DSLR yet.

ekoz

Don't want to start this debate as it has been covered many times....more of a curiosity.

Did you pull engine out of the top or bottom?

hinton

I did it from the bottom using Clarks instructions. I got to the point where all that was left was the crossmember, suspension and steering shaft and seriously debated trying it from the top. However, after looking at the engine mounts and seeing how little room there was to get to the fasteners (at least on the drivers side) I just followed through with the bottom method. I also still had the down pipe and a few other ancillary items installed that would have made the top extraction more difficult.

I will say this though, once the engine was out I couldn't find a good way to to jack up the car from the bottom to slide it out. Instead, I ended up using the engine house to lift the front of the car the extra 8-12" needed.

One other thing that caused me some unnecessary trouble was the steering shaft. I loosened the bolt on the coupling and didn't fully remove it at first. The bolt keeps the coupling captive to the input splines on the rack and therefore it would not come apart. A simple thing that I just didn't think about and it cost me a half hour of messing around.

hinton

Check this guy out, looks like this little mild rebuild was much needed!

hinton

Looks like the budget build idea is shot. Time to drop back and punt. 2.85 build? LS swap? Low mileage stocker? Oh well, looks like this thread is going to take a very long time.

hp18racer

Maybe something like this?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Porsche-944-...9XfpfD&vxp=mtr

hinton

I saw that. Unfortunately almost all of the blocks / short blocks on eBay are local pickup only and most seem to be in the NE. However, I stopped by one of our local dealerships today to see who they used for a machine shop and the service manager has a 951 and said he had a couple guys he could reach out to about possible bare blocks for sale. I'm going to follow up Monday and see if he can track something down. Might be a bit better option for me than an all out Stroker build. Too bad the wife won't let me siphon home reno money into the Porsche build!