By then, the writing was already on the wall. I was gonna turn Fat Bully into a full race car. You know the sickness – reduce weight - strip it, cage it, stiffen it, put big brakes, slicks, fender flares, aero, obsess over it, ruin it financially. So I dropped the car off with Marino in the south of Joburg and told him what my plans were.
Marino looked at me and asked,
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You know this will get expensive.”
“Yes.”
“And stupid.”
“Yes, again.”
He nodded.
“Okay then.”
Back then, the problem with building a race 928 became obvious the moment we started shopping for upgrades. In 911 land, there were tons of aftermarket plug-and-play options. Want handling? – Order the parts. Want brakes? - Order parts. Want power? - Throw your money at Marino and let him do his thing. In the 928 world there were almost nothing available in terms of upgrades. Nothing to just bolt on. Most of what went onto Fat Bully had to be invented with a combination of brains and stubbornness - Designed and modified with lots of F-Bombs.
We stripped the car bare and sent it to his body shop to check it on a chassis jig. Marino and old slow Ted from Afrishox spent hours on the shock dyno developing a custom set of Bilstein with H&R coil-overs with spring rates suitable for something that weighed about as much as a guilty conscience. We started with a base weight of 1,550 kg and hoped to end up around 1,250 kg. The weight of the wiring loom alone was criminal. - there’s something like 13 kilometres of wiring in a stock 928. Thirteen freakin' kilometres of wiring. Who was this thing designed for, NASA?
The original ’83-S motor remained stock. 350hp. I opted for handling before horsepower. The gearbox, also stock, but got a shortened GTS shifter and a limited-slip diff from Transaxle Developments in Pinetown. Brakes were lifted from a Turbo 964 courtesy of a mate who was so anal he replaced all four callipers and discs because the callipers had a few stone chips. I paid him very little for the lot and kept my mouth shut.
For wheels we went with spacer adapters to run BMW PCD, so I had more choice and didn’t need to bond my house to buy genuine Porsche rims.
Then came the bodywork. I’d always wanted a wide-body 928 of my own design, so I sketched, collected reference photos, and handed the car to a fibreglass guy working from home. A three-month job took over a year. I got the car back eventually, mostly done but the quality of the bodywork sucked.
I lost interest and parked Fat Bully for three years while I went 250 Superkart racing. When I got my head straight, I took the car to a guy who built decent fibreglass street rods. He fixed the fibreglass sins and built a proper roll cage. Then, back to Marino’s for final setup, and a shakedown at Midvaal Raceway. The car worked okay, albeit down on power for its weight...
(To be continued)