Forgive me if this question has been asked before: Considering a 9A1 engine for my '02 996 (six speed). What all needs to be changed? Computer, obviously. Clutch most likely. Transmission? Thank you.

 

No practical knowledge, so take this with a grain of salt... but judging by things I've read about other swaps, I would think the entire drive train and associated wiring harness(es) would have to be changed over. I suppose if you have access to a "cheap" wrecked 991, it could be done but... ... ... sounds like a world o' trouble

 

Do it !

Im of no real help but have thrown the idea around of a motor swap.

I would purchase wrecked car (either 996 or 997 chassis) to take required parts from and part it out upon completion.

Assuming, motor, trans, Ecu, cluster, ignition immobilizer, body control module and prob a ton of stuff I haven’t thought about.

For me, would not attempt without having the donor car to pull from.

 

" If it can be CONCEIVED, it can be ACHIEVED" !!!

Just throw out your budget number and I'll tell you if I think that is enough....

 

 

Here is the part I don’t get. Swapping in an LS1...easy. Swapping in an Audi V8.....not quite at easy, but doable. Swapping in anything from a later model 911.....oh that is impossible. In the BMW world swapping engines is just a Tuesday, everyone does it. Heck in the early 911s everyone swapped everything up and down the years. Why the heck is it so hard to get any kind of info on doing a 997 swap into a 996. This should be pretty well established by now. OK I am done ranting, hopefully someone will chime in with some personal experience on getting this done. I have been contemplating this myself in comparison to an engine rebuild.

 

​​​​​​The hard part is all the electronics. Sensors are different. ECUs are different. Immobilizer. Wiring harness. Valve timing methods and components. Etc.

Watch Hoovies videos on the LS swap. Getting most of the gauges to work was a challenge. Notice how I said "most".

 

The reason is that the market is small because porsche owners are mostly fans of originality and the cars and motors are pricey. When 70s air cooled cars were cheap and had rudimentary engine control systems, why not swap away. E36s and 46s are cheap and people modify the nuts out of them, so there is a market for tuners, fabricators, wiring shops etc to make kits for such swaps.

 

The Porsche swaps are difficult because they often made changes to the wiring, sensors, technology, even mid-production.

This has nothing to do with how easy swaps are in other cars. lol

Most other car companies usually didn't change too much throughout the runs of each model and many of the other cars in the manufacturer's line-up shared components. Porsche doesn't do that.

The LS swap became very popular because, for the cost of the engine and the power, it was worth fabricating engine mounts, etc.

Same thing happen to the Honda K20/K24 engines. Cheap, readily available engine that has tremendous potential, so worth looking into fabricating mounts into other cars.

Swapping these engines into other chassis is easier, too, because the cars' wiring that these engines have been swapped into are pretty easy to tap into.

 

I like the discussion here so far, but no one has chimed in with any actual experience swapping one of these. I know there are a few lurkers around here who have. Anyway, BMW, Audi, VW, Porsche and Mercedes all use common suppliers for the electronics so you would be amazed how all of them are alike. All of them changed valve/cam tech over the years. All of them changed security and cluster wiring . The ECUs can have the immobilizer disabled and clusters can be swapped over. Is it easy? Probably not, but it can be done and if there is a market for it, then it can be replicated. With the price of the 9A1 motors coming down from wrecked cars in comparison to a rebuild there has to be an emerging market for it. I would suspect the engine bolts right up to the the existing transmission. So the ECU, harness and cluster are all probably need to be swapped over/modified. Beyond that it can’t be rocket science. Heck look at a speck racer and that is all that is in the car is the ECU harness and a custom cluster. There is knowlege on this somewhere.

I built my own ITB setup and Megasquirt ecu to run my 71 911 with Ford EDIS. There was no harness to modify, I had to make one from scratch and figure out how to make it work with the car. Not apples to apples, but it took me 2 years to do. I documented every step of it and published it on Pelican. Heck I still get PMs about how to do it things or to share my ignition map. That was before PMO had a kit and before Microsquirt had a nice harness and prewired coil drivers. It would be nice to see someone jump into this and help out the community. With young kids and a more demanding job right now I don’t have to time to do it myself.

 

Lowpue had it done and loves it - I think it cost him a lot of $, but he had it done by a real pro (not a wizard ) - Dundon Motorsports.

 

I put a V8 in my C2. It was easy but I didn't notice any performance improvement.

 

Just like when no one wanted to share how to repair a 996 motor after a cracked cylinder head 10 years ago. It's bc those people that have the knowledge keep it to themselves to profit from for their business. Honestly the 997 isnt that hard of a swap and I cant imagine a 9A1 is either. Get the wiring diagrams and know what the ecu/sensors are looking for and have them wired into the system correctly. Having a piwis II is also very helpful for this.

 

Ok I'll throw out the first BIG stumbling block to this thread. The 9A1 engine does not bolt up to the 996/997 transmission. That said, that is not the biggist headache with doing this swap, you'll need to redesign/modify/improvise pretty much every system on the car, very modern cars are very integrated especially electronics wise.

 

A few thoughts:

- Someone mentioned BMWs and engine swaps and I would just point out that generally speaking the amount to gain or lose messing with even a 996 is a bit higher than trying to shove an S5_ engine in a non-M E46.

- I think generally speaking when doing a swap like this you need to think about what electronics you need to make the engine run right (usually ECU from engine donor Or something like mega squirt) and to make the Car run (ecu from the car); and then figure out how to make them run side by side happily sharing signals or dividing accordingly; along with all the other stuff in the car(immobilized, etc...). Or have some sort of programmed ecu. I agree with some the reason an Audi V8 might swap in more easily is that as someone pointed out above since the sensors are from similar era and manufacturers the signals and values tend to be the same.

- The transmission thing seems not too big of a hurdle; I’d be inclined to get a 997.2 transmission at least on a quick review the mounting points and methods look the same form the pictures I just looked up.

- I just don’t know what the return on investment is like for the swap- I have to imagine you could get rebuilt m96 for similar money and way less headaches. But there is a joy in figuring things like this out and I’m sure if you shared others would love to learn from it...