You've gotta see this!!!!

[phoneguy]

Browsing Ebay I stumbled upon this. Can you say molested!!! Am I crazy or would someone actually buy this? Though it may be good for a good laugh.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2408877287&category=10156

[k9handler]

to each his own, I have seen far worse done to these cars...at least this install seems to be clean. I wonder what the radiator install looks like...no pics? Wonder why!

[Emission]

How come everything INSIDE the car says "Targa"... is it also an aftermarket chop top?

[MFAFF]

Can't find references to pre 83 cabs......

But if you're going to change an 11 that much why not change it to a Cab at the same time.

Seems a cheap way of getting shell tho'.. ready for a 3.6L perhaps.....

it sounds just like a porsche

yeah, right

[s2per]

All that conversion work and he STILL can smack himself on the forehead and say those immortal words:

" I coulda hadda V-8!"

[trj911]

The first factory cabs were made in '83. Where do you think the radiator is? Up front? Hidden in the wing?

[Trent P.]

"The car was rated as a number 2"

Yeah, the color is number 1 and the car is number 2.

[atlporsche]

If it's sorted and doesn't overheat, why not....it looks like fun.

Even SLOW cars are fun if they're convertibles.

sjd

The original Porsche 911 SC Cabriolets were all 1983 models. All cabriolets before that are rebuilds.

I think this one looks ok (as someone said; could be worse). What I'm curious about is the cooling system and the exhaust system.

[JeremyD]

No radiator in the wing 'cause no hoses going up to it...

[atlporsche]

You can see the cooling...pretty neat really.

if you enlarge the upper right hand picture, you can see a rad cap on each side of the engine compartment. he's running dual radiators that (I'm guessing) exit down and left (edit: and down and right for that matter)and have puller fans.

there's enough room in the rear fenderwells to do this, I'm just not sure how effective it would be with the frame rail in the way.

sjd

[old_skul]

Pretty cool stuff. I wish more people would do things like this; it's an interesting exercise in engineering.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

In 1981 the factory published targa->cab conversion instructions to the dealers. I'm actually planning on doing this some day (hopefully widebody Thom's site will still be around for me to reference).

If my motor blew up today I'd have a hard time deciding whether to rebuild it or drop in a V8. 911 motor prices keep going up and SBC prices are staying the same!

[Schuey]

I've also seen far worse...nothing wrong with that car, some unique engineering to say the least...

[Bones]

I think it's an abomination

[RickM]

"In 1981 the factory published targa->cab conversion instructions to the dealers."

Blue, the parts for a cab conversion were available from the factory in 1981? Was this a full convertible or a soft window conversion?

[targa80]

Maybe Wayne should create another forum for 911's with non-Porsche motors installed. That way the purist on this forum won't have to put up with looking at posts of abominations. Yeah that would be a pretty active forum, I'm sure they must have a ton of problems with the conversion. I'm not a total purist but I do draw the line at V-8's.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by RickM
"In 1981 the factory published targa->cab conversion instructions to the dealers."

Blue, the parts for a cab conversion were available from the factory in 1981? Was this a full convertible or a soft window conversion?

My bad, they released it later (1983, presumably in response to the excitement the new cab generated) but it was "valid" for 1981 model year on. Thom's got the whole thing scanned at http://vintagebus.com/howto/cab/index.html .

[old_skul]

Originally posted by targa80
Maybe Wayne should create another forum for 911's with non-Porsche motors installed.

Maybe we should instead create a pure, quiet forum for people who can't tolerate the idea of replacing a 911 engine with a V8. I'm sure it'd get a lot of traffic.