My 79 Porsche 924 journey

So, time to drag this back to life, kicking and screaming as it were.

As you can see, I've been driving it! Legally even! I've been working on the tuning and solving problems along the way.

Burned myself pretty badly when the back half of the exhaust fell down on the way to work and I stupidly tried to put it back up.

Throttle position sensor died, turns out it shouldn't have worked anyway, so swapped it out for a Ford sensor with the proper rotation.

Got tired of using a shopvac handle to hold the hood up when I needed to adjust the idle, so I installed some hood props:

Snazzy!

Added some restrictors to the vacuum lines to steady the MAP signal so that my timing doesn't jump around so much (use Alpha-N for fuel with MAP controlling timing). Really helped clean things up, I suspect moving the restrictors to the individual feed lines would help steady the fuel pressure which might be the final piece of the puzzle that I'm missing.

Finally here's a little video of the car as I'm leaving work one day :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XgLYJVX3gQ

The next day this happens on the way TO work:

Stupid clutch arm slipped on the shaft. Didn't find out until I pulled the engine. Oh well it gives me a chance to get the header ceramic coated so that may it will stop melting control arm bushings.

Oh and while I had it out, this happened:

BAE Turbo manifold and Mitsubishi TE04H turbo. Should provide enough boost when combined with the big 'cooler leaning against the bench in the background. Now to build a plenum for the ITB's and collect a few pieces and I'll be ready for MOAR BOOSTS! hehehe

Cool thread! I missed it the first time around... thanks for updating it. I love the fiberglass and headlight treatment.

I'll be watching for updates.

Thanks! Its been an eventful journey so far to say the least :)

DUDE!!! Lovin it. I almost brought home my own basketcase 924 once upon a time. . . but it was an auto and just too far gone. I'm in love with your project though. . . looks to be moving along quite well with all the important stuff getting all the attention it needs. I can't believe this is the first time I noticed those 2.0's were a crossflow head

Way to bring this awesome car back to life. I'm sitting here reading your biuld in an empty room by myself and i'm still saying berk yeah! out loud and nodding my head to all the awesome pics. keep em coming! This thread rules

Heh, thanks. Looking forward to taking it to the Portland Historics this June to meet up with a bunch of local 924 nuts, plus see some awesome vintage cars running.

BTW, a buddy of mine is selling his wife's 79 924 down in Remond, Oregon. Its in great shape and ready for a road trip aka fly and drive. $3500 obo and it is yours:

http://www.924board.org/viewtopic.php?t=37984

Some euro bumpers, US reflector (aka zits) removal/fill, ditch the fog lights, lower it slightly and add some decent width rubber and you'd have a pretty damned fun car to drive. The relatively low compression ratio motors used in many of the US 924's take well to added pressure to the induction system, the trick is managing the grounds and CIS system to keep it reliable.

Looks great! Lots of good work there.

Wow, quite a project.

Verrrrry nice!

Doing a little cleaning and tidying. Fabb'd a mounting plate for the regulator and an AAV to help cold idle a bit.

Unfortunately, I found a broken bolt in one of the TB's, so I'll pull them and drill it out on the drill press.

One step forward, one step back....

BTW, anyone know of a source for inexpensive 2.5" springs? I need a set of 225-250lb springs in 14" length.

try browsing around the jeep/4x4 parts dealers. A while back I found a few places that would sell 2.5 inch coils in a variety of rates and lengths. The absolute cheapest place would be the ebay coilover kits for hondas starting around $30 but no way are they 14 inches long. Do you really need a spring that long though?? My audi had a pretty tall stock spring but the 7" ebay springs work great. I can go higher and lower than stock with my current setup. just my 2 cents.

I cut the spring mounts off of my stock struts, so the adjusters are at the bottom of the struts. To have a decent amount of travel and adjustability I need to something between 12-14" The 10's I have now are a little too short as they are at the top of the adjustment range of the sleeves (actually have two stacked together to make it work, but I don't like it and the spring rate is too high for as light as the front end is now.

If you go to summit you can search coilover springs by size and spring rate. I know qa1 makes a bunch of different ones and the last time I bought some the price was good. ($40 each for 2.5" x 7")

Yeah, I was hoping for cheaper, but I guess that would be the shortest, inexpensive route. Thanks!

Quick update:

Also:

Yup.

$67 shipped.

The proper '86 turbo uprights and rotors are nearly 3 times as expensive

I love the Intake man, can't wait to see that finished. reminds me of my own intake project, still not finished 6 years in the making. . .

not trying to thread jack, I just have a deep appreciation for fab work of that magnitude. party on!

In reply to 2K4Kcsq:

Thanks! Yeah it's a ton of work, but lots of fun though ;)

Looks good, right? Yeah, I thought so to!

Then I tried to close the hood. Berk.

So now I get to chop it up to get it to fit and I need to swap the thermostat outlet over to one from a 924 turbo. Oh well, at least the car is running better and better.

More importantly, after three years of trying, I finally made it to the Portland Historic Races with my car to meet up with some fellow 924 dorks. That's a major accomplishment for me and a huge goal ticked on the list of things to do.

Oh and I let my dork show a bit too ;)

Some of the other cars there:

968 powered 924S, very awesome car and awesome owner from Idaho:

Yup it is a sick car.

My buddies built 924 Turbo, aka Shagg-E:

951 brakes, Koni's, 28mm torsion bars, camber plates, lots of ceramic coatings in/on the engine, liquid to air intercooler, lumper camshaft and ported/polished head and manifolds. It's a beastly and reliable car. It's also for sale! $7.5k/obo and its yours.

A 19-year old from Seattle built this Carrera GT replica for his High School project:

Did the bodywork and paint himself. he picked up a 924 turbo donor to complete the replica. should be fun! He's a smart kid and he's going to do well in whatever career he ends up in.

The funniest part? We invited lots of 924 folks and the guys who made it were either driving highly modified cars (us 4) or brought their DD's because their stock 924's were all broken. The ones that didn't show had other commitments. This generated a new term: nine-twenty-poor.

Nice group of cars there at the meet!

oh...this build is awesome! keep it up man!

that's still got to be the most diabolical collection of 924's seen together in along time. . . very cool. thanks for sharing all the sweet pics

Yeah, diabolical is right!

Here's some footage from the drive the next day. I couldn't make it due to work, but they had some fun :)

http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/xanderdeg/media/VID_20130630_080822.mp4.html?sort=3&o=

http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/xanderdeg/media/VID_20130630_082110.mp4.html

and some muffling frivolity ensued apparently:

http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/xanderdeg/media/VID_20130630_142121.mp4.html

More pics from one of the visiting canucks:

http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/xanderdeg/library/?sort=3&page=1

Ever since I bought this car, the cooling system, specifically the ducting for the radiator has bugged me. The radiator had several gaps around it that allow air to flow around it and there wasn't any ducting from the nose to the radiator. This resulted in the engine running a bit warm and taking a bit of time to cool down once moving.

I finally fixed those issues....

Looking up from the ground between the radiator and the nose:

Looking through the nose at the upper duct that connects the upper opening with the bottom of the frame rails to reduce air hitting a brick wall and to guide it into the radiator opening:

A better look from under the nose:

Looking through the nose at the radiator:

Basically added side plates to join edges of the radiator with the opening I the nose. Sealed the gap between the bottom of the radiator and the bell pan. Sealed the gap between the upper opening and the front of the chassis frame rail. Added foam around radiator edges to better seal gaps.

The parts and pieces were picked up at the local hardware store. The pattern was made using cardboard and transferred to the sheet metal and cut out with snips. Aluminum angle was used to join the side plates to the chassis.

With this complete, I can start designing a front splitter. Hopefully my cooling issues will be improved with this solution.

Some glamour shots with the new wheels and tires:

Basically I had two sets of 17" wheels, neither of which anyone seemed to want (odd, I know) so I took the good tires off the wheels that came off my CSX and put them on the other, wider wheels and voila! I'm not entirely happy about the stretched tires (215/45's on 8.5" rims) and the fact that the rear suspension isn't even or that the alignment is any good, etc. but for pixxors, it isn't bad.

Which reminds me, I need to find/make some center caps.

So I've not done much with the 924 (haven't even driven it really) since I bought the 951S. Mostly because it just doesn't run quite right yet, there's an oil leak from the sender and its just not a very comfy car to drive as it is pretty much a race car now.

So since it is a "race car" I might as well go nuts and finish it off properly with more power after trying to fix a few of the other drive-ability issues as well as get it out on the the track and do some autocrossing with it.

1) I'm going downsize the ITB's from 45mm to 40mm. I figure the low compression 2.0, just isn't able to take full advantage of that much throttle body and tuning around it will never be satisfactory.

2) I'm going to reconfigure the MegaSquirt with a fresh tune file, carrying over only a few settings to try and resolve some issues I noticed with the Enrichment settings among other issues, etc.

3) Need a rebuilt radiator as it just can't quite stay cool in the summer and that will be a problem when I reach the next stage.

4) once the above are done and the car is running better, I'll work on converting it to turbocharged using the following parts:

Should be fun!