Talat

Hello,

Now that I'm getting to the business end of my conversion I thought I'd start a thread documenting the build. I've always loved the look of the widebody 964 especially the 3.8RS and so a couple of years ago I bought a 964 Celebration with a view to converting to RS spec - all the bits where bought - RWD conversion parts, NB trailing arms, new rear wheel outers and inners to build the wheels as 11J to fill the arches etc I got to the state where I was having a chat with Cris at 911 Bodyshop about removing the sunroof and, in the process of doing himself out of some work, he convinced me that it would be a bad idea to use a Celeb as a base for such a project due to the value of the car etc. After this the car was duly taken back to standard and sold.

The hunt for the donor car was now on. I had decided to try and find a LHD car since the pedal offset in the RHD car coupled with the Recaro PP's had been giving me back pain in the Celeb on long journeys. The UK search proved fruitless - I missed out on a couple of cars, viewed a nice midnight blue car but the owner and I couldn't agree on the price. The cars in Europe where just too expensive due to the strength of the Euro. In the end I decided to try my contacts in Japan where I'd bought a few Jap cars in the past. I got lucky and bought this:

Talat

Ideally I wanted a C2 but when a non-sunroof C4 presented itself it was too good to pass up. It had some nice bits such as big reds up front and genuine Speedline wheels that I could sell to help fund the build.

The plan is to do the following:

- Convert to widebody using genuine Porsche parts
- Repaint - not sure on colour yet but it'll either be Signal Green, Maritime Blue, Speed Yellow or GP White
- Seam weld the chassis to base RS specs - not sure if this is worth the effort and so may or may not do this
- Strip the interior and fit Heigo half-cage/RS door cards/manual windows/manual mirrors/Recaro PP
- Polycarbonate rear quarter and rear screen
- Convert to RWD and install RS flywheel and clutch
- Fit RS manual steering rack
- Uprate suspension - KW Clubsports, Rennline top mounts, move front suspension outboard, polybushes, 3.8RS ARB's etc
- Lighten the car - nothing major just easy to do stuff such as remove aircon, washer bottle from front wing etc
- Get the rear wheels rebuilt to 11J using 4.25" outers on my existing RH Alurad wheels

The car is currently being stripped in preparation for its trip to the bodyshop next week. Pics of its current state to follow at the weekend.

GT2rainge

Wow that looks really nice.
I'm subscribed, the wide body 964rs 3.8 is one of my favourite looking porsches.
Thinking of building one myself.
Who is doing the work for you ?

Talat

Thanks. Bodywork will be done by Robin Dalwood and the mechanical bits will be done by a mate of mine at mates rates

GT2rainge

Cool looking forward to the build pics

boxsey911

Glad to see that you've finally got round to starting a thread on this.

Any engine plans? I presume it's not already a 3.8?

911Jetta

I was immediately drawn to the great pics of your car before I read your text...looking at the pics I thought you were done, and decided to go narrow body...

Even though Slate Grey is a super color on a 964 (I'm obviously biased...), I fully agree with your future "upgrade" plans! Thanks for sharing the project with us...looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

GT TWO

Subscribed for sure!

Talat

Nope, not 3.8. Engine leaks a bit and so we'll do a leak-down once it's back from the bodyshop to see what actual state it's in. Will probably rebuild in the winter but I'm not sure I'll go the 3.8 route since various threads on here suggest it's not the best bang for buck. Tempted to do a 9M stage 1 - will have to wait and see what options present themselves.

Talat

All the air-con stuff has been removed as well as the washer tank under the wing. Rewiring has been done so that the washer runs from the small tank in the boot. Intend to cut the air-con bracket in the engine bay at a later date.

Talat

Still have the removal of the sound proofing to look forward to.

ian89C4

Subscribed

Talat

Only bit of rust that we could find on the shell

Talat

Some pics of what it currently looks like before it heads to the bodyshop. RH wheels, DP Motorsport single piece rear bi-plane wing and H&S exhaust are hand-me-downs from my old Celeb Ideally I would have liked to get all the mechanical work done before sending it to the bodyshop but time/resource constraints have dictated otherwise.

V

Looks great Talat!

I love the idea of a 3.8RS rep. I am curious as to how you approached the decision on which donor to get. I've been thinking about this myself and people (Colin at 9M among others) have been saying that it can be cheaper to start with a 3.3 turbo for the OEM wide body work and then switch the engine to a NA engine. But then again you have the sunroof to remove and also the WB rear trailing arms. Changing the color is a huge project, but it will probably be worth it in the end. Are you stripping the car down to the bare metal for the complete inside out respray?

How much do you recon the WB panels+bumpers and bodywork (incl. respray) will cost? 10K GBP?

I agree that a celeb is not the perfect donor (being C4 and most with sunroof). It's a tough decisions. Maybe in the end a sunroofless C2 is the best way to start.

Are you doing the WB front axle or are you just going to space out the wheels to fill the WB front fenders?

Many questions, great project!