Daily Slideshow: This 911 Turbo is Sure to Enrage Porsche Purists
If you guessed Chevy V-8, you're only half right—the half that's in the trash. This 911 relies on Honda power to reach Autobahn speeds.
Rear-engine Dreams
Not every import tuner kid was raised on The Fast and The Furious movies, just like not every Porsche owner was handed the keys to their very own 911 upon turning 16. Scott Girondo spent the 1980's with posters of 911s on his walls, all the while being surrounded by lowered Civics. His first hot hatch was a Honda CRX, which he followed up with not one but two Mitsubishi Evos. But dreams of the 911 kind are hard to kill:"I've always wanted one, [but] the fact of the matter is I could never really afford one," Scott confesses. "And even if I could, I'm not sure that's what I would've even bought—the pricing on them is crazy." The planets would have to align for this dutiful husband and father of three to fulfill his childhood dreams.
Desire Meets Opportunity
Maybe it was the planets, maybe it was the law of attraction, or maybe it was just the universe's way of keeping Porsches on the road, but at the same time Scott ran across a 930-platform Porsche on Craigslist, he had an unsolicited-yet-lucrative offer for his 500hp Mits Evo VIII Time Attack car. Scott relates the story: "Timing is everything, and I stumbled [across] an ad for a V-8-swapped '82 911 about an hour away from me. The next morning, I get a phone call about the Evo." Not one to argue with the universe, Scott set about carrying out its will.
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Trouble in Paradise
Scott summed up what happened next: "You get what you pay for." If the lousy paint, crummy faux-racing seats, and golf club shift knob weren't bad enough, the aforementioned V-8 conked out on his way home. "Two hours after buying it, it's getting pushed into my garage, and that night I told myself that this car would never let me down again," Scott vowed. "The wiring took its toll [on me]. I hated the [V-8]; I hated the interior. I kinda hated the car." After having moved from the posters on his bedroom wall to his garage, the 911 sat there for eight more months before he began to formulate a plan.
Patience and a Plan
The cast iron boat anchor small block had to go. Scott's experience with turbocharging Hondas and building a track day Evo helped hatch a plan. "I was joking with my buddy Nick about putting a K-series in it," Scott remembers, "neither one of us [had] ever done a K swap, so that was like fuel to the fire." Scott's only Porsche experience at this point was with the hurting unit sitting in front of him, and he'd never built a K-series before, but he had come this far and what did he have to lose? Scott sourced a K20A2 engine from a mid-2000s Acura TSX and he and Nick got to work figuring out the swap.
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Wired
Scott said that the actual engine swap wasn't the hardest part of the project. Converting the botched and melted wiring harness to work with the Honda engine management system was another story. "This was the most challenging thing for me. I never did this type of wiring before," he admitted, "and converting from torsion bars to coilovers wasn't the easiest of jobs." Scott used GT3-spec suspension parts to do the conversion, fitting HRE 540 wheels under the bodywork—which includes a modified 930 rear section, wearing a 993 wing, and custom side skirts.
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Patience Pays Dividends
In the end, the process of fitting the 468 hp Garrett GTX3076 turbocharged Honda K-motor took three years from start to finish, along the way gaining other bits like a Radium Engineering fuel system and surge tank, a custom-fabricated exhaust exit, Bride seats, projector headlights from an Infinity Q45, and a Vertex Fatlace steering wheel. Scott reports the results made parting with his Evo worthwhile, "It is indeed right on the line of being just a track car, and exactly what I built it for. This project taught me a lot—mostly patience. Many thought I'd never finish it and that it was a joke, and that kept me determined." A Porsche, patience, and Craigslist—the recipe for moving mountains, or at the very least, moving a 911 from a teenager's wall to his driveway as an adult.
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