[Moneyguy1]

Aaron: I have seen 944s with GM v8s installed. There was quite little that had to be changed; power brakes were lost, but that is really no big deal. And, there was, in the works, a six cylinder engine that would have fit with room to spare; the VW VR6. What difference would it have made: Audi or VW? Audi had a straight 5 that would probably have fit as well, I would have to do some measurements to verify. As for the 914, you are correct, and it makes my point. Does Porsche still produce the 914? Nope. It came too close to toppling the king. It replaced the 914 with the anemic 924, keeping the HP under 125 in the NA form. The 928 was meant to be the new flagship, but somewhere management had a change of heart. Perhaps it was the threats of lynching by the "purists." Look up part numbers 928 to 944 internal parts. There are very few interchangable. Once Porsche had made the decision to use the parts bin as much as possible, they found out that this was more difficult than they had thought, and with typical Teutonic stubbornness, refused to budge from their proscribed path and came up with a lousy design, brilliantly executed. The original 928 was 4.7 liters if I remember correctly. Half that would be less than the 2.5 of the 944. I never said it was a v8 cut in half; that is a virtual impossibility to produce. The only parts that could be internally carried over might be the connecting rods, pistons and perhaps the head. Pontiac tried a similar stunt in the sixties with their "Iron Duke" in the Tempest; rear trannie and front slant 4: imagine that...an engineering advance....a Porsche based on 40 year old technology when it was new. Now where have I read that before? Truth be known, new basic ideas are tried and like a self fulfilling prophecy are designed to lead to failure. "See, we told you so...." It is only when the company is backed into the ultimate wall such as the limit to which an air cooled engine can be increased in displacement (ahh, the good old laws of thermodynamics) does the company really embrace "new" technology such as water cooling..Ach Du Leiber....Such an idea....

Have fun...I do!!!!!!

Cheers!!

Bob S.