Porsche 944?
 

Anyone ever own one? Thoughts?

I know it's not the best car out there, but yet another growing popular spec/cup racing car that has a "reasonable" entry price. Been seeing more of them pop up for sale locally and itching for another project car. I know you need to have a well documented vehicle, especially for the belts b/c the interference engine. I'd imagine maintainence is not fun, but I've also heard that they are really fun to drive even in the (gasp...blasphemy) non-turbo versions.

a first gen RX7 is cheaper and probably more reliable. A few of my friends have owned 944s and not a one of them has kept the car more than a year because they kept breaking down.

"The most expensive Porsches are the ones you can afford"

Helped work on a friend-of-a-friend's...wasn't all that much fun to work on; lot's stuff crammed under the hood of the turbo model.

I had an 83 944. It was a great car.

The 944's dominated the Firehawk racing series back in the 80's. They raced the likes of the Corvettes and what not. The 83-85 were the same, the interior changed in 85.5, the 952 was introduced in 86. The 944S in 87 and the S2 in 90 I think. The 952S was the baddest of the bad in 88 and 89, 89 being the most powerful. 247hp from the factory.

50/50 balance, torque tube, rear mounted tranny. 2.5L 4 cyl, balance shafts to quell vibration. A little slow off the line but are very quick once they are going.

Maintenance is key. The early 944's had the battery near the windshield cowl on the passenger side. The are can be rusted. These areas are known to leak when it rains, the problem being that the DME(computer) sits right under the that area.

The motor is an interference motor, so cam belt changes are mandatory every 30k, with adjustment at 15k. Look to spend about 600-800 to get it done. Not for the faint of heart either if you are thinking DIY.

There is an external oil cooler mounted to the engine. Basically water and oil flow through this thing. When the seals fail the oil and water mix. This is evidenced by oil in the coolant resivoir. If you see oil in the resivoir, the car is fine, it needs to get the oil cooler seals fixed and the motor needs to be flushed, it is not a blown head gasket or cracked journals. it is always a good idea to replace the oil cooler seals when doing the cam and balance shaft belts. Again, not for the faint of heart.

The left rear Axle is prone to failure do to the exhaust being right beside it. But, the axles can be replaced in about 20 minutes by removing 12 hex head bolts, 6 on either end, and swapping the complete axle.

Try to find a 85.5 and up for a street car. The A/C blows a lot better. The 83-85 were more spartan.

Lastly, the 944 is NOT a VW. That was the 924. The motor is a Audi design and a Porsche build, it is basically 1/2 of the 928 motor. You can tell that bay the way the motor slants toward the passenger side of the car.

Remember the cars were discontinued in 1992. So replacing parts may be a thing you will always be doing, brittle and so forth.

Check out this website for more info.

http://www.roadfly.com/porsche/forums/

I always liked these 928's
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1983-...QQcmdZViewItem

You just need to pull the engine whenever you need to work on it :gay:

I've always liked the 944, a few guys I know bought a Spec model for a HDPE car, then to race later down the road.

I'd still rather compete in the Spec e30 class.

they're pretty cool cars, but a step down from a miata in every way.

I can personally tell you that the cars are very good and reliable cars when they are taken care of. I bought mine from my wife's friend's father, who had the car since it was new. He had all the maint done on schedule, and he drove the car everyday. Basically I paid 2600 for it and drove it until I wrecked it. The car had 307,000 original miles on it when I sold it, and the engine had never been opened up. Even after the accident, the only issue is that it ran rich. I sold the car to the PCA Club Champion up in Atlanta. He was going to fix the front end and race the car. I bought the Miata after I wrecked the Porsche.


PS

I you look behind the carpet in the hatch area, between the two tail lights, there should be a sticker there with a series of numbers. Those numbers represent the options that were originally put on the car. For instance my 83 had no PS, but had the sport suspension and Konis instead of the Boge, The 7" and 8" Black and Polished Fuchs instead of the 7" standard Cookie Cutters, LSD, Removeable roof panel, all Power and sport leather seats. just thought I would throw that out there in case you were looking for one and wanted to know how is was spec'd in original form.

928 is one of my all time favorites.

I've always been found of both that and the 968.

914 ftw (ugly but fun)

Better still, the 914-6, FTW.

One of my co-workers had a 944, don't remember what year. It was dead reliable, he ran it up near 200,000 miles and never had a mechanical problem - didn't even need to do the clutch. The only stuff that was ever a problem was the typical 15-20 year old car junk - gaskets, seals, hoses, etc. Parts prices can hurt if you need to get them from a dealer.

Dont forget the 968 CS(i think that was what it was called), which they only made a couple of prototypes like the 914/6. Turbocharged 3.0's from the 968and 944S2. The only visible difference was the NACA duct in the body work.

I understand from a friend in PCA that there are guys running 944's with LS1 conversions. Very fast.

I had an 89 S2, picked it up dirt cheap. (2700 W/144,000 miles) It needed a new turbo and was all black with a red front right QP. (It had been recently wrecked/salvage title.) Great/fast/nice handling car, and comfy too. It was great and all until my electrical system caught fire, then I parted it out, and got my money back out of it. Really fun car though. The engine can take a good bit of boost without having to be built.

I've worked on a buddies 944 that he had for a year and a half. It broke down constantly. It was high mileage and the interference head is a bitch. The oil coolers are expensive when they fail(the cores go bad) and really everything is expensive. Miatas are cheap and with the right addons handle better. He sold the 944 and bought another miata after selling his old one to get the porsche.
The worlds greatest sportscar falls to pieces as it crosses the finishline.

On a positive note, i drove the heck out of that car and it was great. I love the engine when it's running top notch and it's kinda cool to know you're in a porsche. Even though the tranny is in the rear.

WOW...my you took the words right out of my mouth! :gay:

FC rx-7 FTW! :bigtu:

rotary FTL

and the 930.

0-60 in 1989 in 4.9 seconds, considering the supra TT and mitsu 3000 VR4 could do it in like 5.2 or 5.3 that's damn quick for the day.

mother of god :eek3:

I wonder if you can shove an LS1 in the 928, jesus that's the perfect automobile.

porsche LS1 conversions are the shit.

that...might...be...my next project.

I've never read good things about the V8 in hte 928 once they hit 100k, an ls1 swap would be the cats ass.

the V8 in the 928 is pretty much the 944 engine doubled. Twice the PITA.

something about the casting, after 100k they go to shit and the block can't be bored out or somerthing, I can't rememeber maybe it's BS. :dunno:

I remember reading (maybe from an old R&T) that the biggest problem with 928's was the clutch on manual cars - only good for about 11-12K between changes. The auto's were actually sourced from Mercedes and were bulletproof. Somebody who works across the street from me has a beautiful S4 - even with stock exhaust it sounds sweet when he gets on it.

ooooooh s4 ftw!

there was a beautiful dark grey, grey market car on ebay about a year ago, went for like 15k :(

find me a CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN 928 shell with a blown V8 :mad:

The 89 930 was the reason that the 88-89 944 Turbo S was discontinued. The 952S stomped the 930 in every category back in the day. Porsche purist couldnt have a front engine wasserpumper trumping the flagship car. I have an article in a PCA Panorama that rehashes the comparison. For a third of the cost the the 952S was the performance car to get.

The blocks are nikasil(sp) and something else. They dont not take being bored to well. And yes the 944 is 1/2 the 928 motor.

with a 0-60 of 5.5 the 944 turbo was most certainly not quicker than the 930, the 930 was the quickest production car available in germany at the time.

know a kid near campus that bought one to make it into a racecar.

Apparently it is so annoying to work on that he hasn't done anything but put a loud exhaust on it. He says 400whp, my miata says stock. ...ricer

They are good track cars if you are realistic about the costs and like to work on porsches. :D We have some very cool ones show up at NASA events!

Here you have a nice site:

http://www.944racing.de/951umbau.html

It's in German, but it is with a very nice build diary. He's changing the stock 944 into a track car.

Your right....I need to dig out that Panorama located in my closet...They conceeded that the 951 was the better car, but the 930 won because of the tradition of the car.(air cooled purist you know)

But the 951(yes I said it was a 952, until I got my wits about me) with 247hp was a formidable machine...Never drove one. You could replace the KLR and DME chips in the computer and instantly grab another 30+ horses and more torque. Autothority used to make some badd ass aftermarket stuff for the Porsches and BMW's.

Not a funny story, but we had a PCA event down in Sarasota about 6 years ago. We gathered near a shop that moved to a new location and they were having a grand opening. They also had a dyno. This poor guy puts his 951 S on the dyno and literally blows the bottom of his block apart. Chunks of metal everywhere along with oil and water and lots of it.Apparently he had a Lindsay electronic boost controller, or something along those lines, that had failed. Somehow the boost spiked to 21psi right before the engine gave up the ghost. You could see the dyno plots right on the screen. The people standing around watching the runs, myself included, just quietly exited the building.

Had a 944 turbo for a while. Fast, handled well but the thing was a maintenance pig. Electrical problems, blown head gasket, changing a clutch is a class A bitch! Make sure you change the timing and balance shaft belts every 30k miles and adjust at the recommended intervals. In my opinion a turbo Miata is almost as fast and more fun because you can drop the top.

If you pick a 944 up get a couple of the specialty tools for doing the belts. My dad is a Porschephile and has had 3 or 4 944 turbos and 1 NA. I help him do one of his first belt changes back when he first got the car and it was a bitch. He got some of the cheap porsche imatation tools from pelican parts, and has had quite a bit of practice. I watched him do a belt change the other day and now he speeds right through it in no time at all. It is amazing what a couple of tools and some practice will do.

But I agree you have to take the damn thing completely apart because everything is crammed in there. Alot of the maintance parts arn't any more expensive(belts, plugs, wires, hoses), but upgrade parts are expensive and frequency of maintance gets expensive.