Well, we just had the weekend from heck at Nelson Ledges. To be as brief as possible, we wrecked the car the first lap of practice. Spent hours getting it straightned, qualified 14th overall, unk in class. Kept breaking stuff in the radiator area, and dropped out after 7 laps.

Car is really crunched, so I am going to go ahead and finish the 1987 944S for SCCA ITS. Here's my need for help. With the early car, I run Fuchs in both 15x7 and 16x7. (7 inches wide is the max for SCCA) The 944S has phone dials, which I dearly hate. I tried to mount the 7x15 Fuchs on the car, and there is a posiblity that 15x7 with 225-45-15's will fit in the back with a little rolling of the fender lip. But, no way will they fit in the front.

Somebody told me you can take the 15x6 or 16x6 Fuchs that go on the front of either 911SC's or early Carrera's, and cut the back side of the wheel off, and bolt back half of BBS three piece wheels on the Fuchs front. Has anyone done that? Or does anyone know of anyone that has done it. This supposedly will make a Fuchs that will fit late offset 944S. Anyway, if that doesn't work, I could use Boxster 7x16's I guess, though Fuchs is my favorite wheel.

Thanks for any help.

Bill Seifert

1983 944 Crunched Race Car
1987 944S Seriously under construction.

 

Dammit Bill, thats really bad news. Sorry to hear that your car is that badly damaged, but glad to hear that you are OK!

Lindsey Racing is the crew that manufactures three piece wheels using Fuchs centers and BBS rim halves. Jack Olsen uses them, as do lots of others. Details at http://www.lindseyracing.com/Merchan...Code=944WHEELS

This may be a more expensive route than someone like CCW, who could give you a set of custom race wheels for something less than Lindsey. There may well be other solutions as well.

Good luck with the new build, and please keep us posted on progress.

 

Tony,

I wasn't driving at the time, but the guy that was driving wasn't hurt, though for a few minutes I wanted to hurt him.(Just kidding) The car wasn't by any means totaled, it was just krinkled a whole lot, and I figure it is best to put the money in the new car, so I can be a little more competitive in ITS. Thanks for the info on the wheels, I'll let you know if it works out.

Bill

 

Keep in mind the 928 (flat dish) wheels. 16x7, forged & cheap, due to their dubious asthetics.

 

Do belive you can fit 23.3 mm offset wheels to a late suspension. How much negative camber on them?



I'd want to stay away from 16" wheels due to the gearing dis-advtantge from them.


This car i beleve is running 23.3 mm offset 15x7's with 225/50 on a 87 "Late offset" chassis.

 

Stef, thanks, not a bad idea, I'll look into it.

M758, I am not sure I understand the offset numbers. I just know that the late wheels have more wheel toward the inside, and early wheel has the disc inset, and less wheel toward the inside. Also shouldn't negative camber help, because it puts the top half of the wheel more to the inside. Anyway, the use of the 6 x 15 or 16, has the disc of the wheel toward the outside edge, so when you put a 7"BBS wheel half on it, it has about the same offset as the late PhoneDials. Or so I am told. Like I said, I am not sure I understand I understand the whole offset thing. All I know is that if I put 7x15 Fuchs, with 225-45-15's on the car the rear looks like it may work, but the fronts have about an inch of tire outside the fender, which would rub like heck, and would illegal in SCCA.

About the 16's, Hoosier told me I can duplicate the 225-45-15 size by getting 215-40-16's.

Do you know the guy that owns the car in the picture, if so, please get me his email address.

Thanks fellas

Bill Seifert

 

car owner is Tim Comeau from San Diego.

Bill,
I will PM you his email.

 

Bill, I race a 87S in PCA so I use 16 x 8 all around. Advantage of 16 x7 phone dials is that they're cheap! If your car doesn't have abs, have you thought of putting a late 85 or 86 suspension in (or even your 83 suspension)? Then you could run Fuchs. I ran Fuchs on my 84 and they looked so my better.

 

jim3

I know phone dials are cheap, but I don't like the look. One other problem is that at Enduros the Phone Dials are hard to change fast, because the lug nuts are harder to put on, but after last weekend I feel my Enduro days are about over. If my idea about the 6 inch Fuchs made into 7 inchers, then that is what I will do, cause I already have 8 Phone Dials.

I know the 83 suspension would work, but I plan on selling that car, so I can't get rid of the suspension.

By the way, how do you like the 944S, some people have told me it doesn't have as much torque as the 8v. I won't finish it for a couple of months or so, therefore I haven't driven it yet. I bought the body from one guy, and the engine from a junkyard.

Any way, thanks

Bill

 

It really has very little on 8v cars and has to weigh more. The gearing hurts acceleration a bit as well. One advantage is that you can hold 4th longer due to higher rev limit. I really struggled the first two years. I put the same Koni sport shocks, same 260 lb front springs, same 26.5mm rear torsion bars, swapped in the 27mm front Turbo S sway bar and swapped in the 22mm weltmeister rear sway bar and I couldn't get the car to handle like my 84 8v. Eventually I stiffened the rear bar enough that I could get it to turn in. The real secret has been to brake lighter, longer with a higher entry speed and get on the gas all the way at turn in. Really makes a difference on the longer straights. My car is a street car that I drive to the races (except for Sebring) change tires and go racing. Did a 2:24.1 in the Glen which was the fastest 944NA time in the race. Bill Johnson's 924S did a 2:24.3 with a Milledge 200hp 8v and the 944 that finished behind me did a 2:25.1 but said with clear track he couldn't stay with us.

 

Not to hijack this thread entirely and acting as proxy for another interested party, how interested would you guys be in a 5x130 13lbs. 15x7 race wheel w/ the correct offset and say under $200 per wheel? Is this something that would get interest only with the SCCA Club Race crowd or perhaps the NASA, PCA, POC crowd as well?

 

Bill,
Unless your Fuchs wheels are really trashed I think the smart thing to do would be to sell your Fuchs and buy some wheels in an offset you can use. That would be definitely less expensive than cutting up the Fuchs.

Adam,
There would be a limited interest in those wheels. Drivers of early offset cars like me would use cookie cutters or Fuchs, 944-spec drivers are limited to phone dials or cookie cutters, and autocrossers would want to run the wider wheels. Not to say some people won't want them, but right now the market is pretty small.

Bill,
To pull this off track in another direction I'm assuming from the time of your first post you left before the race was over. But if you didn't some friends of mine were running the 07 ITA Honda, wondering what happened to them to put them down so far in the running.

 

Rockfan,

I did leave early, but some of our team did not. They said your friend won the ITA class, I am not sure where overall, but I could find out tomorrow. We remember him because he won the Gingerman 10 heur Du Mon last year overall.

Adam, yes I would be very interested in those wheels you speak of. Please email me at BillLSeifert@aol.com or send a private message, and tell me all about them.

Thanks fellas.

Bill

 

Actually, Bill is prevented from doing this by the rules. He must run the suspension from a 944S and that precludes the early offset suspension.

The NA is another case altogether because all of the 2.5 8v NAs are listed on the same spec line so suspension may be swapped between years.

 

I called up Bob and they won their class in the 11 hours and 15 minutes of Nelson, but not 12 hours. They were leading overall after the second hour, broke a hub, and when they tried to change it they couldn't get the halfshaft out of the transmission. 40 minutes later they had that fixed. Ran without major incident until the 11th hour when the transfer pump failed. Somehow the driver made it back, they thought they fixed it but the car stalled again in turn one. That was about the same time the 61 car rolled in the carousel so they remained stranded until the end of the race.

Kurt