Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi, after posting for the first time a couple of days ago on another thread I thought I would start another sharing the work I have been carrying out to my car. I fancied a car to do some track days with, as i approach late middle age but it had to be road legal as I wished to drive it too and hopefully back from the circuits. A 944 fitted the bill perfectly so i purchased a 1991 s2 about 18 months ago. It was a cheap car as I knew the sills needed doing but was not prepared for the extent of the rust over the rest of the car. So it was count my losses or attempt to remedy my poor car buying skills. I got a good quote from a local body panel shop and they started the work. Both inner and outer sills were replaced with panels they made up themselves as ome panels were not available at the time and the ebay ones did not have the proper return angles where they join the floor.
After pricing up on an hourly rate it was cheaper to replace both quater panels than repair with a seond hand one and a new panel than attempt a repair. The second hand panel also had the inner arch required to repair one side which fortunatly was not required on the other side. I was also able to locate a rear panel from a convertable they could use.
I was very pleased with the price and quality of their work, Paul Baker near Winchester. They also supplied a cd with photos detailing the work carried out.
I have posted some photos of the work from which you can see the thickness of filler and old repairs used to cover up the underlying problems. Amazingly this car had a month old mot on it !

A few more photos of repair

Is that Paul Baker out nr Fishers Pond?

I'm expecting a mot fail on a sill and been looking for a restoration guy rather than run of the mill bodyshop, what was the hourly rate and final bill like for the work you've had done there. Well done for hanging in there with the car that's some serious work.

Thanks. Yes thats him. I cant rember what the hourly rate was but the total for all the work he did to mine was just over £2000. He will do the work by the hour if need be. Highly recommended and he has a 911 himself.
Heres a couple of shots of the sills he made up and the rear panel sections cut in.

I stumbled on his website a while back and had him down for a visit along with another guy in Cranleigh, but Paul's a lot closer and it's good to see he's worked on a 944 recently.

I'm booking in for an early MOT next week in Hedge End so I'll give Paul a buzz and go see him straight after pass or fail

Having got the repaired bodyshell home it next went off for same paint to protect the bare metal. This turned into a big regret as I used a friend of a friend on his recomendation who unfortunatly suffered from depression and it was a whole 9 frustrating months before I got the car back ! During this time more surface rust was discovered around the screen so it had to be removed to tackle this.
Finally the car came home and i could start removing the the insulation from inside the car. This really is a awfull job.
Also i had decided I no longer had a use for the sunroof so purchased a fiberglass sunroof delete panel. This panel would have been fine for racing but I did not like the idea of using a flexible sealant to secure it .

Great photos! Makes you wonder just how bad our own cars are and what's been masked/patched up in the past. Scary!!!!!

Having decided I did not want a sunroof or the fiberglass delete panel "stuck" in , I chanced across a 944 without a sunroof in a local breakers. I bought the roof for £50 and had Nick cut out a panel to sit where the sunroof was. This would have worked but due to my impatiants and the car being immobile I used an untried mobile "master" welder from the web rather than wait and take it back to Paul Baker. He failed to follow the instructions I left about small welds opposite each other and the resulting warpage was horrible when I returned from work.
I managed to source another roof skin from a 924 and had the car taken for the interior to be sprayed and have the roof repaired. They stripped the old roof skin and replaced doing a great job. I even have the roof headlining bar fixings in place. Of course this meant the windscreen had to come out and go back in again. An expensive mistake on my part but the car is how I want it to be now.
Roof skins are available from Porsche but at just over £1000 I wouldnt imagine they sell to many.

I dont know if people are finding this thread of intrest but I'll keep going .
The car was now back home with the interior painted and I fitted the powder coated rear roll bar. I also changed the doors over with some newly painted second hand doors as there was some slight corrosion showing on the bottem seams. As for the front wings, they were in poor condition as you can imagine after seeing the rest of the car, so I have a pair of fiberglass front wings .As this is more track than road oriantated,using fiberglass wings doesnt bother me.
Having had to wait so long for the car to be painted it gave me time to think about the engine. Having gone this far i decided it would be nice to have a little bit more power than the S2 engine could give. So engine was removed and the engine bay freshened up to receive its new power plant.

It is certainly of interest, great work and a happy ending to the roof panel. I can't believe the mobile welder didn't know about the potential for warpage, had to be a bit of a numpty surely

Oh yes, very much so..keep the story and photos coming! We all like to see a good project worked through...!

Looking good. Re the fibreglass wings Ben had them fitted to WUF and I think it was a lot of work to get them to look right, the guy that fitted them said metal repair panels on the standard wings made a lot more sense, and I think Ben regretted fitted them in the end.

The wings I purchased second hand from a damaged turbo. Someone has already taken some time getting them to fit and after offering them up they seem like a reasonable fit. As this car is more for the track reducing the weight helps as well, but if I am not to happy with them, the original wings are in the loft space and will be repaired and fitted.
After comming across magazine articles about JMG's 3.2 turbo and then reading what Hartech had acheived with their 3 litre turbo, I thought I would try and copy them.After purchasing a spare engine (or two!) we stripped them down to check the bores. Of the three engines only one had bores that were acceptable and two of these cars were running prior to removing them. I then sourced a 2.7 head through ebay and replaced springs and valves with turbo items. The remainder of the bits required were bought over a period of months including a very low mileage crank from a 968 clubsport. This car also gave up its pistons which were sent of to Barry at Hartech to have the crowns machined down. With the connecting rods rather than use the s2 ones I found some Rarst rods from an early 944 as there had been some discussion on this forum about the s2 rods not being strong enough.
Ideally I would have bought both aftermarket pistons and conrods but for the moment the engine was being built to a budget.
The engine was built up using new rings,bearings and gaskets.

With the engine in situ other areas were looked at. All bushes replaced with polybushes, suspension changed for mo30 Koni adjustable suspension with alot of parts powder coated or zinc plated,fuel pipes replaced with oe steel pipes, fuel pump replaced for motorsport item and new fuel lines made up. While the rear beam and gearbox were out the underside was treated to a good coating of Dinnitrol .
With the gearbox, originally I was going to use the s2 box but a turbo s one came up cheap with a damaged first gear on the main shaft. So have had the box rebuilt using the s2 gears (I realise 1 and 2nd arent hardened) with the turbo housing, oil cooler, lsd and and cwp. Originally I was going to use the s2 cwp but with the extra torque thought that the gears maybe to short. Also i have kept the s2 5th gear which is longer but can be changed later if i need to.
The torsion bars were re indexed while fitting rear beam.

Nice work!

What are you doing with all those spare engine bits with scored bores etc?