Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi Guys, MY name is Tim and I have had an interest in car since the age of twelve. I presently work for a company called Supreme Car Services in Peterborough UK. We specialize in Ford Cosworths, servicing, repairs and engine upgrades/rebuilds. I'm now in my early fifties and fancied doing a car for myself and as I work on Cosworths most days one of these was a no no. Has I have always liked the Porsche 944 I decided to look for one to play with.

I purchased this one thinking it was a good example.





When I got home and on a ramp for inspection, we found the underneath of the car was in excellent condition, but there was some areas of the bodywork that needed attention. The bottom of both front wings, a small patch on rear wheel arch and a small rust spot on the drivers side sill.
I decided to let my friend Mark at Autofix 2000 in Bourne sort out the bodywork and at the same time give her a coat of paint all over. I also added a set of GT3 wheels which I had purchased and she now looks like this









Now I do like the way she drives and handles, but thought she could do with a little more power. So I thought I would have ago at a 16 valve turbo build. Having been building Cosworth engines for sometime, sourcing parts was not a problem. Firstly I purchased two engines of Ebay, a 2.7 litre short motor and a complete S2 engine.






I stripped both engines down to the last nut, bolt and washer. I had all these parts water blasted and all bolts etc. re-plated so when rebuilt she would look like new.
I decided to use the crankshaft from the 2.7 engine, which as a 78.9mm stroke, this I had polished and balanced.




I had a set of ductile liners made and fitted, taking it back to 104mm bore. A set of pistons made by CP pistons in the USA at 8.2 compression ratio which should let me run some decent boost. The crankshaft journals in the block we drilled and tape to except a oil spray jet. A set of steel conrods purchased from Australia. I did away with the balance shafts and blocked off the oil ways with grub screws. This I assembled to give me what I think is a good solid bottom end.


















The cylinder head I ported, mainly just sanding away the sand cast finish and not opening up the port size as they are plenty big enough. New guides fitted, inlet valves as standard and a new set of exhaust valves made and fitted, which will except the extra heat involved. I had the camshafts re-profiled to a solid lifter setup, giving me more lift and duration.
I fitted the cylinder head using a new cometic head gasket. The biggest problem I came across was the cam timing, because of the inlet cam being driven by chain from the exhaust. I did consider buying split cams from Michael Mount in the USA but due to the cost of them I thought I would see how it performed with my re-profiled ones first. The cam timing I had to come to a compromise with, but once set I got the engine sealed up.












The inlet manifold we made ourselves using the S2 runners and a cast plenium from a Toyota Supra upgrade setup. The throttle housing is a Mitsubishi upgrade and as a 75mm butterfly and built in idle speed control.
I used the standard S2 exhaust headers and married these up to a turbo crossover pipe. For the dyno I cut the end off this and welded on a T3 flange, so as we could try various turbo's.











The inlet looks a little plain in the pictures, but when it comes off the dyno I intend to have it crackle blacked.
We then converted a bell housing to fit our Superflow dyno and loaded it on. The engine is going to be run on a Pectel T6 2000 ECU, which will read the 60 minus 2 trigger wheel and the hall effect cam sensor. A set of 1000cc fuel injector and 4 bar map sensor.
The wastegate is a 44mm Tial, hopefully this should be big enough.









Once we had got the trigger wheel set up done, she fired up and ran lovely. We ran her in for sometime and pulled her at various rpm points just to see how the turbo worked. We started with a Garrett Stage 5 turbo (T350 exhaust wheel, 61mm inducer and .82 exhaust housing) capable of 600 plus bhp. It came on boost quite well with 24psi @3250 417lbs ft/258hp. 3500rpm @ 32psi 513lbs ft/346hp.
5000 rpm @ 32 psi 511 lbs ft/487hp. 7500 rpm @ 22 psi 407 lbs ft/582hp, but at 33 psi back pressure.

We then tried a Garrett T04Z @ 3500 rpm 32 psi 505lb ft/332hp. 5000 rpm @ 31 psi 523lbs ft/498hp. 7500 @ 28 psi 472lbs ft/676hp.

The engine ran faultless, no breathing issues etc.
The engine is off the dyno at the moment, I have change the size off the crossover pipe, as I feel there was a restriction at the y section.
This all complete, ready for the final mapping session and when this is completed I will post a final dyno sheet. It may be two or three weeks as I have had an operation on my foot and off work for another two weeks.


I hope you guy's find this as interesting as I have doing it. The Porsche engine is a lovely bit of engineering and I think its well up to the task.

Firstly Hi & welcome That looks extremely impressive. Looking forward to hearing more about it & also seeing it in the flesh. Fancy bringing it to Gaydon for Sept 8th please?

Thanks for that Jim. Its taken me over a year to do it and there is quite a bit more to do and then I've got to squeeze it in the car.
I am really looking forward to driving it and hopefully a meet or two.

Cheers Tim

Hello & Welcome to a (seriously) tweaked 944.
Wow thats impressive stuff, lets hope the rest of the car copes with it ok.
Do watch the back end particularly in the wet.
Who have you insured with just out of interest?
Clive

Welcome, nice looking S2. I was enjoying the build up and photos and 472lbs ft/676hp! That is impressive.

Cheers Clive. The car is off the road at present (sorn) Not insured at present, except for storage

Cheer Tim

That is amazing. Realy nice build and quality of work. I have been planning a 3.0 16v turbo, but not at this level of build!

NICE but why didn't you use the 3.0 crank ?. I had a 87 Cosworth for 13 years and as impressive as the engines are the 944 chassis is much better. I've been collecting the parts for a 8v 3.0 . I think there may be a dry sump setup in your future.

A really interesting thread, looking forward to seeing the car one day

We build a 2.2 litre Cosworth engine running 32 psi of boost and see 725bhp and 600lbs/ft on super unleaded. Now this is going in a four wheel drive race car.
A 3.0 litre engine running boost would produce to much torque for a two wheel drive car. So I thought I would reduce the stoke, increase the rod ratio and bore to stroke ratio. The engine rev's better and helps keep the torque under control, but makes good bhp. She still had 634bhp/413lbsft @ 8000 rpm.

Your 8 valve 3.0 litre will make big torque but will struggle to rev, don't get me wrong it will still be a good set up.

I've done this build as a project and got a little carried away. I would love to put some serious camshafts in it to see what it could really do. Dry sump sounds good

Hi, I'm not a regular on this forum but it's great to read your write up and to see others around the world building up special motors for these cars. Your car looks great too.

I would have thought you'd see higher hp figures with all that boost you're running. The stock 16v heads flow pretty well although I believe the 968 head flows even better than the S2. What fuel were you running through it? The main problem you will have with these motors is the headgasket. We have been running the Cometic h/g for a few years now on E85 and they will split around the compression ring due to cylinder head vibration. Having the 3L block will help due to the siamesed bores but you still may have these issues depending on how/where you drive it. As a pure road going car where you're only on boost for short bursts you could be ok for some time. On the track with more sustained boost is where they come apart...but the beauty of the metal h/g is you can wind down the boost and still drive home in most cases. Been there, done that.

That's a pretty large Throttle body. Be interesting to hear your impressions of this on the road as far as transient response. Have you any more pics of the turbo mounted correctly under the intake? Nice way of handling the intake without going crazy. As for reducing the torque by design. Looks to be plenty at quite early in the rpms (but at pretty high boost). ps...nobody runs these motors at such high boost even though this is not super high nowdays. A few people have run without balance shafts but not all are super happy with the outcome. Keep us in the loop how you go without yours.

As others have suggested, you will need to attend to other parts of the car to cope with the extra grunt. Suspension and brakes might need a touch up. I'd also suggest putting in a trans brace to guard against lateral movement which will bring the CVs and driveshafts undone. Sorry, phone pics aren't the best but you get the idea. Just some cheap insurance. I've also got stiffer engine/trans mounts on the track car. Look forward to reading more of your progress. Thanks for posting.

ps...what are the Aussie rods you're running? Didn't know we did any down here for these cars?

I'll be building the engine for mid range grunt, not planing on running more than 18 lbs boost or revving over 6500. I'm only around 30 miles south of P,boro so would be interested in seeing the engine and talking about the liners/pistons etc.

Hi Tim, welcome to the forum

It's nice to see someone doing something slightly different to our cars and with your background it has taken you down a path not often travelled in the 944 community. Those boost levels scare the bejesus out of me, most of the modified 944T's never go over 18psi peak boost.

I can't wait to hear how she goes once the engine is back in the car so please keep the updates coming

Exactly Paul, that's why I was wondering what fuel Tim was using. Can't see it being UK pump from what I understand.

I don't see why it wouldn't be standard super plus. There's plenty of cossies, skylines, supras, etc running around with 500bhp plus on it. I know the 944 lump is very different with the top of the bores able to move a bit but if you can get enough fuel and air into the engine why not super plus?