Porsche 951

Started on May 21 by Dan G

This is my 944 turbo, or 951 in P-car speak. I bought a non turbo at the end of high school which sealed my fate as an eventual 951 owner. I'm a sucker for their styling, handling, and bang for the buck.

I bought this car in July '05. I picked this particular car because it already had a huge list of parts that I would've selected to install on my own. The value of the extra goodies easily exceeded the purchase price of the whole deal. It also had a complete repaint by a guy that owned a body shop, it looks outstanding. It was an Arizona and California car so while the galvanized bodies on 944s don't typically rust, this one doesn't even have rust on the bits and pieces under the hood and out back.

The big price break with the car is that it does have a little higher mileage (170k) and the engine was dead. The seller was quoted that it would just need new bearings and be good to go. I do ALL of my own work, but I decided to swallow my pride and send it to a shop for a quick rebuild so that I could enjoy the car right away. The shop tore into the motor and found it needed the cylinders re-honed so it would be twice as much. Then the pulled the motor and found it actually needed either a new short block or more involved cylinder work, then needing some still unproven aftermarket oversize pistons, of course, double the price again. At this point, I told them to park their wrenches. Paid my uber-expensive "diagnosis and engine pulling" fee and towed it back to the parent's garage.

My engine choices were pretty simple:

• Buy a freshly rebuilt shortblock
• Buy a used shortblock and rebuild it
• Part the car, (probably still come out pretty far ahead)
• V8 swap
• Work with my existing shortblock, except with a couple of improvements

I chose the last option. An experienced 951 engine builder and racer had been designing and testing a new sleeving system on his personal cars, and had recently converted a few other owners cars. The 951 block is an open deck, similar to hondas. The all-aluminum block is prone to a bit of weakness, and high boost levels can make the cylinders wiggle around a bit and cause headgasket problems. There are other fixes for this, but since my cylinders were already toast, I figured I had the perfect candidate. The sleeves are from Darton. The design is called MID or modular integrated deck. This means that the tops of each of the cylinders now physically touch each other, along with the sides of the block. They're also "wet" sleeves, which means they are exposed to the coolant and the entire original cylinder is machined away except at the base of the block. They have a big following with the boosted Hondas, as well as LS1s and Ford 5.4s. They're made of ductile iron, which is an extremely HARD material with excellent resistance to surface abrasion (cylinder scoring).

Here are pictures of a stock open deck block...

Compared to my MID sleeve block...

An interesting writeup of the full process used by my engine builder is on his page here... http://www.944enhancement.com/html/engine_machining.html

Ok, enough background, here's the fun stuff...

Engine

• 2.7L (2682cc) - 104mm bore
• CNC'd block to fit Darton MID (Modular Integrated Deck) nodular iron "wet" sleeves
• JE forged pistons
• Total Seal rings
• Hybrid 2.5/3.0L head gasket
• Griffin AL radiator
• Evans NPG-R waterless coolant
• Late NA camshaft (a bit more lift & duration on exhaust)
• Calico CT-1 coated main & rod bearings
• Ishihara-Johnson crank scraper and windage tray
• Flapper door in oilpan, collar welded around oil pickup
• 1000 cc/min fuel injectors

Turbo

• Garrett GT3576R
• TiAl SS turbine housing
• Innovative Turbo Systems 51mm IndyGate wastegate

Electronics

• Megasquirt 'n Spark-Extra2 stand alone fuel and ignition management MS Extra2 Features:
  • Coil on plug ignition
  • Electronic boost control
  • Proportional water injection control
  • Knock sensing ignition retard
  • Wide band O2 input
  • TargetAFR control
  • Traction/antirev control
• Innovate Motorsports LC-1 wide band O2 controller

Drivetrain

• Fidanza lightweight AL flywheel
• Kennedy Engineering Products 3800lb (Stage 2) pressure plate
• Sachs 930 clutch disc
• Factory limited slip differential

Suspension

• Turbo cup Bilstein coilovers w/500lb springs
• 30mm rear torsion bars
• Koni yellow rebound adjustable rear shocks
• Weltmeister adjustable front and rear swaybars
• Weltmeister front strut tower bar
• Kelly Moss Racing camber/caster plates
• 968 caster blocks
• Rennbay race balljoints

Brakes/Body/Wheels

• 13.1" 993tt xdrilled rotors
• 4 piston 993tt calipers
• A.I.R. front splitter
• 968 TRS replica wing
• 968 mirrors and door handles
• Autopower roll bar
• Corbeau A4 seats (added P-crests)
• 6 pt harnesses
• Class I hidden receiver hitch
• Track tire/equipment trailer
• 17x8.5 FRH Int'l 3 piece twists front, 17x9.5 rear

I'm looking forward to the Megasquirt project, as I've used them on multiple vehicles in the past and they keep introducing newer, more powerful toys and features to play with. I've started an MS-biased DIY Standalone informational thread for 951s over on 951forums.com.

Now for a couple of highlight photos...

Here's a few shots of some of the new stuff coming together under the hood...

Innovative Turbo Systems 51mm IndyGate

Most of a $1750 order from EBS Racing...

I-J Crank Scraper/Windage Tray...

The freshly sleeved shortblock from 944 Enhancement...

104mm of beauty!

If you'd like to see more, I have pictures posted here... http://evilengineering.com/gallery/v/gielamonster/eVil951/

My goal for this car it to keep it 100% streetable, capable of long trips and sitting in traffic, but also be a beast on the track. I'll update with more details and news as the build goes on. I'm sure there will be a number of changes and additions.

9 comments on this ride

You must be registered and signed in to comment.