N/A'ing my Turbo; LS1 conversion project

[acorad]

Thanks Anthro, I bought a mount plate from xschop and it's gathering dust in a corner somewhere. I'm simply enjoying driving it these days.

[Techno Duck]

Jim, i am a perfectionist and i really focus on the details. In my day job, standards need to be met with the equipment i work with as the lives of everyone onboard rely on it. This same thing applies to this car hobby of mine on the side.. i have very high standards. I am no professional car builder and id say 99% of the people who hang out in the 944 forum aren't professional builders either..well except for flash968 who has seen and done it all; from his $150k 968 to probably the lunar rover . But i do my research and have a strong technical understanding of things that i think i can make the right calls as to what would be acceptable to my standards for what i want to do.

I asked many of the same questions before i tore apart, and tore out my very nice engine. Maybe 4-5 years ago as the V8 swaps started to become more predominant i would have never considered it. The conversions i was seeing were mostly backyard builds, using the LT1, using custom parts that were basically made using cobbled together or hacked together parts. Other problems were present like the lack of boosted brakes on any of these setups and things like bump steer changes due to the spacers being needed. However id guess around 3 years ago we started seeing some pretty nicely done swaps. It was not until 2 years ago did i start to seriously take an LSx swap into consideration. The original engine just had too much little problems with it, and being a perfectionist it drove me nuts. So the options were to sell the car and buy something else for a track / weekend car. The 993 and 6GT3 were high contenders, or swap the engine. I developed my car quite a bit over the last few years and i think it is a pretty well equipped (KW suspension, AOR Turbo S gearbox, Turbo S brakes, rebuilt torque tube from Constantine...etc), its just the engine was never totally up to par.

After much research i decided to go with the engine swap. I really love the 944 platform and really like how unique the 944 is. The 993 just looks like any old 911 to most and the 6GT3 looks like well... a run of the mill 996 with a big wing.

I was satisfied that alot of the things that i initially did not like about the V8 swaps were taken care of as alot of people had tried new things with success. There are many options for improving the brakes.. hydroboost (two different options are now available using Ford or BMW setups), dual master cylinder and pedal boxes have all been done on these cars. Brake balance can be adjusted using different sized master cylinders or bias valves. Bump steer is still a little bit of an issue, but the problems can be mitigated using adjustable bump steer kits, and i wonder how much of an issue this actually is in the real world. Other conversion specific parts are now readily available, like the bell housing adapter, clutch disc, headers, oil pan, uprights..etc. For most of us, (not flash968 though) we do not possess the skill, equipment for have the time / desire to design and make these parts. Not so anymore! All of these conversion specific parts are now available to simplify the swaps for those of us doing the swaps in their garages.

The extra 50-100lbs upfront is not a concern to me. I am running a light weight battery already which cut 20lbs off the front of the car, even then we are talking about probably a 5-6% difference in weight distribution. Now people like flash968, being a professional everything can probably feel the difference in how the car handles before and after he eats lunch. But i dont think the rest of us really need to worry about it too much. My car is predominantly a track and weekend car now days, so i have no problem going with a fiberglass hood, or striping out things like the a/c to make up for the weight increase. I do however have every intention of reinstalling the a/c with the LSx swap.. i am sick of sitting in traffic from August - September when coming home from the track! I cant imagine anyone feeling the difference of 5 or even 10% on a daily driven or weekend only street car.

The car is currently at a local place with a hopeful completion date of around spring time. I am very picky about who works on my car and this is one of the places i trust and thankfully they are located about 10 minutes from me. The quality of the workmanship, skill and knowledge of these two guys is top notch and i know they will do a great job which is why i chose them to finish this car. My work schedule makes it tough to get projects like this done, especially now where i am between NY and South Korea until the end of the year.

My point is there is so much information out there with a small, but great community of people doing these swaps. The swaps have been done by many different people and shops so there are alot of different ways it can be done. Thankfully most of these people share there findings and information, so you can easily pick and choose how you want to do things on your build. This is what i am doing with the shop finishing the build on my car. Ultimately it is up to them how they want to do things, but i gave them a folder of print outs and diagrams showing how others had done things already and other notes on how id personally like things done. So i hope armed with all this information, it will make for one solid car.

[Gawernator]

Your equipment doesn't happen to include a US aircraft carrier, does it?

[flash968]

lol - i didn't work on the lunar rover. the closest i got was working on part of the design of the mx missle.

yes, i have exacting standards. that's the engineer in me. that's what led me to developing an entire product line of parts for the 968. there wasn't much out there, and i didn't like what i found.

i've done the"project car/engine swap" nonsense to death. i dealt with plenty of them when i had my shop. nowadays, i expect a car to behave like a new car would, whether it is a modified car or an engine swap. it needs to sound act and feel just as tight, smooth, and connected.

i hope yours comes out that way. i know how disappointing these kinds of things can be 2 years down the road. that's likely why we see so many of them for sale not long after they get "finished". i know how disappointed the other guy was after spending $30 doing his swap, only to pay another $9k to yank it back out and put the 3.0 back in.

if it turns out well, i'd love to check it out. i still think it's a great concept. i'm just waiting to see a good one.

[james6speed]

...any updates Techno duck?

[Techno Duck]

Unfortunately no progress has been made since i dropped the car off in November. The place i have the car at has been busy and I've been really busy with work, so wasn't able to keep bugging them about the car. As a result the project lost focus. I wanted to make Hershey this year with it but that's definitely not going to happen. I stopped in on Monday to talk with them and i really hope to have the car ready to go by the time i am back stateside again late next month.

Would have liked to of had the turn around on this car be less than a year, looks like ill be over by a month or two at this point. Took the original engine out on the 27th of April, 2012.

[PorscheNut924]

This is a really good-looking conversion. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

My first goal on mine, which is currently sitting there with most of the original engine in it still, is to have it at least moving on its own with a V8 engine in it by the end of summer this year. Detail work will probably take me a lot longer, but hopefully one short Pacific Northwest summer will be enough to get a new engine in it and make it move.

[jsb944]

Wow Jon... I only just saw this thread. Can't wait to see your car when done!

Best

joe

[Techno Duck]

Six months since my last update; yes this project is still alive!

Progress came to a halt over the summer, but focus is back on getting the car finished.

Currently the engine is in the car, but there is still quite a bit of work to be finished; most of it being the time consuming nit pick stuff. Id say its about 75% of the way there.

I think to date the biggest challenge was getting the hydroboost installed. I spent a few hours upside down working under the dash test fitting everything and making sure the angle of the push rod was complete. The shop did the final install of the hydrboost unit, and they said it was not a pleasant experience.. the biggest challenge being torquing the huge lock nut on the backside.

Here are some pictures from over the last few months showing some different stages of the engine swap.



Final test fit of the hydroboost setup..



C5 Corvette bellhousing with the torque tube adapter fits like its supposed to be there!



Engine installed







And this is currently how things look as of this morning...



Hoping to have the car running in a few weeks, we are mostly waiting on hose, fittings and the radiator to come in right now.

The big stuff that still needs to be finished;

-Install Renegade Hybrids radiator
-Complete engine wiring
-Plumbing for oil lines, power steering
-Connect brake hard lines to the master cylinder
-Fabricate center section of the exhaust, already have a 4" catback
-Fabricate intake, we are planning on using a C6 Vette style intake that will run under the nose panel

[alan6272]

I am not usually interested in this stuff but I did find this interesting. Great job

[haroldina]

It looks like we're in roughly the same place. I have to finalize my intake plumbing, do the exhaust and get my power steering lines made up. I recently got my 914 headlight motor wired up so both of them actually work. I'm using a Ford 5.0, so I needed to pull the bar for radiator hose clearance instead of intake. I've actually had mine running with a temporary intake, but it won't clear the hood.

Have you gotten to hear it run yet?

[kdjones2000]

I am feeling sorry for the two caster blocks so close to the headers....

Looking good and thanks for the updates Jon

[VINMAN]

Please explain to me how one of these swaps cost " $30k"

[tamathumper]

Great thread, Techno Duck. Maybe when it's done you can pick out your posts and make a new thread, just of those for posterity and readability. Good luck with the rest of your project!

[Chunkerz]

Nice lol.

[Gawernator]

Good job!

[flash968]

vinman - it's very easy to spend $30k on a swap like this. i know somebody who spent over that, paying the leading expert on this to the job, and it still did not have any of the on board electronics working due to everything going through the ECU (speedo, ABS, interior lights, yada yada). that would have cost more to sort out.

then, when he discovered at how poorly the car drove with the V8, he had to spend another $9k restoring it back to the supercharged 968 engine he pulled out to do the swap.

it's easy to spend a bunch doing something like this, if you want to do it right, and not rubber band and bubble gum something together with used parts.

[mytrplseven]

Originally Posted by flash968

vinman - it's very easy to spend $30k on a swap like this. i know somebody who spent over that, paying the leading expert on this to the job, and it still did not have any of the on board electronics working due to everything going through the ECU (speedo, ABS, interior lights, yada yada). that would have cost more to sort out.

then, when he discovered at how poorly the car drove with the V8, he had to spend another $9k restoring it back to the supercharged 968 engine he pulled out to do the swap.

it's easy to spend a bunch doing something like this, if you want to do it right, and not rubber band and bubble gum something together with used parts.

I'm wondering why it drove so poorly if the v-8 weighed only around 40 to 50 lbs more. Did he make the mistake of putting a cast iron block in instead?

[Techno Duck]

Once again, there is no connection between the interior wire harness and the engine harness on a 944. So your interior lights work.

The speedometer runs off a sensor on the transmission, No connection to the engine harness on the 944.

[Arthropraxis]

Originally Posted by flash968

vinman - it's very easy to spend $30k on a swap like this. i know somebody who spent over that, paying the leading expert on this to the job, and it still did not have any of the on board electronics working due to everything going through the ECU (speedo, ABS, interior lights, yada yada). that would have cost more to sort out.

then, when he discovered at how poorly the car drove with the V8, he had to spend another $9k restoring it back to the supercharged 968 engine he pulled out to do the swap.

it's easy to spend a bunch doing something like this, if you want to do it right, and not rubber band and bubble gum something together with used parts.

Is the guy with the 968 that was converted back on this forum? Have him come in and make a thread of his own to talk about the issues he had. This is build thread, not a discussion thread of the pro's and con's of swaps.

Techno Duck, have you plummed the carbon canister? If not, there is a good write up on 944hybrids. I can't tell from the picture, did you need to relocate the coil packs next to the hydroboost?