The Wee Porsche: My first real project

Firstly, this is my first post on the forums. Been reading the magazine for a while. So, Hi.

I've always loved cars with a special bent towards rally and road racing.

Never had a chance to feed that love until recently. I was browsing ebay with the usual intent to look at cars I had no idea of purchasing and I came across this '81 924 2.0 that happened to be located 20 minutes away. It was pretty clean and it ran well. The guy said he would take $800 for it. I looked at my brother, a fellow gearhead, and said, "Wanna split the cost?"

So there's a been a little white (Oh yeah, it also happened to be my favorite color for a car) German in the garage for the past few months and now we will finally have time to do some work on it.

My mechanical experience is limited to whatever I've had to fix on my Lumina. Our resources are: Haynes manual, grandad who was an engineer for VW and likes to give advice, the internet, lots of enthusiasm, and a willingness to learn. I figure there's plenty of advice to be had on these forums as well.

Now the car: The electrics are solid. Almost all that stuff works. Pleasant surprise. The interior is ratty. Exterior is dinged up but solid. Runs well. New clutch. There is a bad oil leak underneath though, back-end of the oil pan. We figure it needs new gasket(s) there. First thing we did was pull the front brake calipers off cause the the bleeder screws were stuck. The plan is to swap the 4-lug hub to 5-lug with disc brakes on all 4 corners. It's waiting for us to acquire the parts we need for the conversion.

This will be slow and steady. The idea is to learn as we go and spend as little money as possible. We aren't sure if we should go for a semi-restoration and make it nice to drive on the street or just strip it out and make something that goes around corners as well as we can make it.

Here goes.

Welcome

I had 2 924s and actually loved them. Well balanced but slow cars.

But whenever you go to replace anyting, cross refernce the VW part number before buy a Porsche anything, lest you pay the "Porsche Tax."

If you have a pick in pull style junkyard, the 944s show up pretty regularly which should get you started on te path to the conversion. But I have never done one.

and good on ya for doing it with your brother. I would love to do something like that with mine, but we are seperated by thousand of miles and conflicting schedules.

Oh and pics are always better

Here's pics now that I've figured out how to do it. This was the day we got it.

There are some parts for sale here.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/200x-classifieds/various-porsche-924944-parts-for-saleheader-wheel-adapters-guages-etc/70213/page1/

Also if you find a 944 in the junkyard some of the suspension parts maybe worth getting depending on model and such. Some one here will probably be able to give more detail on that. Also IIRC there is a throttle body off an Audi (not sure which Audi) which can be help a little with power.

Looks good! I'm partial to white myself: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/my-79-porsche-924-journey/56036/page1/

One thing to keep in mind; the little 2.0 responds well to boost, so keep that in mind while you're working on it. A simple log turbo manifold can be built from cast weld-els, a few laser cut flanges and a good welder. Mount it up front between the engine and the radiator and relocate the alternator to the driver's side. Another person even built a 944 turbo style solution that used the stock exhaust manifold and mounted the turbo on the driver's side. There's also several supercharged 924s around.

There's a lot of great info on this board: http://www.924board.org/index.php

Also check out Ideola's Garage (he's not far from you as well) http://garage.ideola.com for 924 specific parts and pieces.

If you find a 944 in the yard (or better, buy a wrecked donor), be careful of the change in wheel offset as the later 944's had different hubs to push the wheels out to the fenders. The early 944's and the 924S used narrow hubs. You can mix and match hubs to get the offset correct, just keep this in mind when ordering brake components.

While you're grabbing parts from the 944, grab the central drive tube and transaxle to get the larger, stronger solution for future power upgrades and compatibility. The shifter is the same (and fails the same way), so there are short shifter kits available if you choose. The larger splined shaft can be used in your car with a common Ford or Chrysler clutch disc.

The oil leak could be the valve cover, the distributor housing, the oil pressure sender, the oil pan or the rear main seal. I would start at the top and replace the valve cover gasket after adjusting the valves, then work your way down until you find where the leak is coming from.

So I think I have a line on the parts I need. Besides paying attention to the offset does anyone have any tips on what to look out for when doing the swap? Maybe I'll finally start making some real progress something. Hopefully I can get moving on the suspension thing before highschool basketball season starts. I coach... so I have no time for anything November - March.

I've been going through the engine bay. Hoses are good, for the most part. Battery was sitting loose in the tray. The heat shield between the manifold and the spark plugs got rusty and the bolts no longer hold it. Got a new one from Ideola (with some bumper shocks since the front had been pushed in) but getting those old bolts out will be a pain.

I do believe I have narrowed the oil leak down to either the oil pan gasket or the rear seal (or the "smiley seal" as my grandfather calls it). It runs a steady trickle when the engine is warm.

Still amazed that all the electrics work the way they are supposed to.

That's all for now.

While I am looking for the suspension and brake bits we decided to start working on the interior. It was gross so the first step was ripping the carpet out.

Naturally the seats were also falling apart so those had to come to. Or maybe my brother and I were just in a mood to destroy things.

There really is only one easy way to get the seats out of a Porsche when the sliding mechanism doesn't like to slide anymore. Our method isn't recommended to anyone who hopes to use the seats again.

The best thing: We found $6.47 in change.

And now a little more background on the car and the project: Bought the car from a guy who had bought it recently, was planning to restore it but then had to get rid of it. Before he acquired it the car was mostly sitting for some number of years. I guess it was owned by someone(s) with "creative" ideas regarding exterior care. There are several spots where routine scuff marks have been daubed over with a brush, and not carefully. Also this:

The sunroof leaked so someone filled in around the panel with silicone, covered the whole thing with duct tape, and left it to bake in the sun. Not a huge deal since we are planning on an eventual repaint (or wrap) in the future but I found it to be entertaining.

At this point the plan is to fix it up into a semi-nice drive around for fun car although it could end up a rallycross-mobile. I'm posting stuff on here cause I figure doing so will ensure I stay motivated to keep making progress.

A kid up in BC bought a green 924 that someone had tried to seal the sunroof in place using bondo. Needless to say, it started cracking shortly after he brought it home.

For some reason people have a hard time dealing with the sunroofs on these cars. Mostly because new seals are expensive and unplugging the drain tubes requires a few brain cells that haven't been consumed by the drinking required before/during and after troubleshooting the CIS systems.

Racers tend to gut the roof panels and use body adhesive to hold them in place and then fix the panels in place with brackets bolted to the roof.

turboswede wrote: unplugging the drain tubes requires a few brain cells that haven't been consumed by the drinking required before/during and after troubleshooting the CIS systems.

Awesome.