Project 964 - The Beginning...

roadsleeper · 04:27 AM

Hi all,

Over the past couple of months I've been poking around these forums asking for help and such with my project car, and a great number of Pelicaners have come forward with terrific advice and input (Bill Verburg, kurquhart, Tom W, 38D, kuehl, geary, etc.). I wanted to give a little bit back to the community by posting some photos of my Project 964 (a.k.a.: The Bumpin' Pumpkin) as it goes through its various stages from its origins as a MY1990 Carrera 4 to what will be a completely rebuilt lightweight RS/CS-esque road and track car.

Of note, this project is a year in the making and we are a week or two away from completing work on it (i.e., me getting to take it home). We started the engine for the first time today, and I am psyched!

Anyway, on to the photos... The following are some shots of the car after I first bought it last year:

A mildly modified 964 C4 - a good runner in general, aside from some cold start issues

The custom aftermarket exhaust sounded great

Interior has held up well in general after 18 years of use

The aftermarket soundsystem was decent

The deconstruction begins... Seats and non-essential wiring are the first to go

After that goes the sound insulation - at least 50 kg of it...

Look at how much junk there is under all that carpeting...

I ended up sticking a spare Sparco bucket in the car and driving around in it in that state. The difference between the responsiveness of the C4 in general, with and without the interior is day and night - albeit a little loud...

Here is a teaser of what is to come in Stage 2...

Stay tuned for more soon!

kurquhart · 04-06-2009, 01:21 PM

Looking good!

I remember my first drive w/ no interior - I was amazed at how many pebbles are picked up by the tires and bounced around in the wheel wells.

I can't quite tell from the last pic - sunroof delete?

Shearer9 · 04-06-2009, 01:22 PM

Subscribed !

Good to see a RHD car being modded ~

What exhaust system are you running (notice you have dual outs) ?

Are those Cup 1's 7.5 fronts & 9 rears ?

Good luck

roadsleeper · 04-06-2009, 07:06 PM

kurquhart - Thanks dude! Yeah, I did a sound level reading without the interior, and it was peaking at something like 80dB while cruising on a highway. I definitely need earplugs for long drives...

Oh, and I am intentionally ignoring your question about the sunroof

geordie - It was a custom designed/built exhaust with unequal length headers, going into two Magnaflow mufflers which are joined by cross flow pipes. I'll try to remember and take photos later when I drop by the shop. The guy who designed the system spent a lot of time studying airflow out of a 3.6l engine and how to best move the exhaust gases out while retaining correct backpressure to create maximum power gains.

The Cup Is I have are 7" up front and 8" in the rear.

roadsleeper · 04:28 AM

It was good to find that there was no accident repair work on my car, and that there was only minimal rust on the car once we got down to the bare metal. There was only some surface rust around the typical problem areas (i.e., windshield, rear window, around the hood, etc.).

One particularly problematic area was the spare tire well where the previous owners had repeatedly run into ramps, speed bumps and other various low level objects which caused the panel to rust through along the front edge. This was easily remedied by the replacement of the wheel well with factory parts (not so easy on the wallet).

kurquhart - To answer your earlier question, yes! The sunroof is gone! The entire assembly was removed and a panel welded in its place.

After the majority of the body work was completed, all of the spot welds on the car were seam welded to increase torsional rigidity. This took around 70 hours of welding to complete, which will hopefully be reflected when we get on the road.

After all the above was completed, the car was sent across to the paint shop for complete removal of the underbody coating and the paint, before being shot over with several fresh coats of Porsche's "orange clearcoat" (paint code 8C6), and this is what came back:

Don Plumley · Don Plumley's Garage

Sweet!

38D · 04-07-2009, 05:20 PM

Very nice. Any close-ups of the seem welding?

roadsleeper · 04:29 AM

38D - Unfortunately not in the bare metal as it was being rushed from welding to paint prep so that we didn't accumulate too much moisture / surface rust (average humidity around here is sat at around 80-90% almost year round).

If you look closely at the photo below and some of the ones above, you'll see it around the transmission tunnel, floor pan and seat mounts. I'll try to get close up shots next time I bring my SLR around to the shop.

Bill Verburg · Bill Verburg's Garage

Now this is dedication! Great job!

herman maire · 04-09-2009, 05:00 PM

Very nice.

What did you do with all the sticky stuff in the engine bay or the rubber on the underside? Did you just steam clean it?

roadsleeper · 04-10-2009, 04:30 AM

Bill - Thanks!

herman - Luckily for us, labor is relatively cheap around here, so it was scraped off by hand.

roadsleeper · 04-10-2009, 09:13 PM

The brake system ended up being one of the big conundrums of the build, given that we had to strike a fine balance between improving on the factory system (i.e., being reasonable with expenditure) or replacing the majority of the components (i.e., going nuts... ceramics anyone?).

In the end, and after much consultation with the Gurus of Pelican Parts, we decided to go with:

- Front calipers: Big Reds on 2-piece 322 x 32 slotted rotors, 44 / 36 mm pistons, 132 x 58 mm Pagid Yellow pads

- Rear calipers: MY95+ 993s on 299 x 24 mm slotted rotors, 30 / 34 mm pistons, 98 x 44 mm Pagid Yellow pads

- Retained 21.3mm (is that the right diameter?) master cylinder from the PDAS set-up (part # 964.355.025.52)

- Removed differential lock dual solenoid valve (part of PDAS)

- Replaced C4 ABS/PDAS brain with ABS brain from C2 (wiring harness modified accordingly, the pins have to be moved around)

- Removed ABS wiring from wiring harness and replaced with standalone ABS wiring harness from 944 Turbo

- Replaced brake hydraulic boost pressure accumulator, ABS hydraulic unit and hydraulic boost pump

- Installed 12mm stainless steel braided hoses

Some photos:

Master cylinder and brake fluid reservoir go in...

C4 ABS/PDAS brain still in place

Front rotor, sans caliper

Rear rotor / caliper

My 997's track wheel on the front rotor showing dinkiness of old school brakes

georgeinhere · 04-11-2009, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadsleeper

Beautiful project, what's the finish on the wheel? Is it closer to flat or satin?

roadsleeper · 04-11-2009, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgeinhere

Beautiful project, what's the finish on the wheel? Is it closer to flat or satin?

Thanks! It's a Rays Engineering / Volks Racing TE37 custom finished in matte black (similar to a satin finish, kind of rough to the touch). There's not really a paint code for it, I think the easiest way to get a similar finish is to tell your local paintshop that you want matte black. Good luck!

Bill Verburg · Bill Verburg's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadsleeper

.....- Retained 21.3mm (is that the right diameter?) master cylinder from the PDAS set-up (part # 964.355.025.52)

...Some photos:

Master cylinder and brake fluid reservoir go in...

Great choices for you brakes, an oem C4 m/c is 964.355.903.00 and is 23.8mm. That's a good match for the calipers but if you want a higher/firmer pedal the RS m/c 964.355.903.80 w/ 25.4mm bore will bolt on.

The m/c is just that part bolted to the end of the hyd. booster in the above pic w/ the 2 black lines coming out of the top.

Did you use 993 struts & uprights?

group911@aol.co · 04-11-2009, 06:59 PM

Don't most of the racers retain the hydraulic booster pump form the C-4 and avoid the vacuum MC?

roadsleeper · 04-11-2009, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

Great choices for you brakes, an oem C4 m/c is 964.355.903.00 and is 23.8mm. That's a good match for the calipers but if you want a higher/firmer pedal the RS m/c 964.355.903.80 w/ 25.4mm bore will bolt on.

The m/c is just that part bolted to the end of the hyd. booster in the above pic w/ the 2 black lines coming out of the top.

Did you use 993 struts & uprights?

That's odd, how come my M/C part # is 964.355.025.52? I don't have access to PET right now, so I can't check what my part # corresponds to, but my car was originally a C4 so it should have part # 964.355.903.00...

I definitely want to upgrade the entire system up the 993 RS spec in the future, but I've decided to treat the brake system as a gradual upgrade given all the other cost items involved in getting the project completed. This goes for the suspension as well, which I am trying to decide on. However, yes, we ended up throwing on a pair of the 993 GT2 EVO wheel carriers

Which actually mate to my 964 specific Bilstein/H&R struts with no issues.

roadsleeper · 04-11-2009, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by group911@aol.co

Don't most of the racers retain the hydraulic booster pump form the C-4 and avoid the vacuum MC?

To my knowledge, even the 964 Cup Cars, Carrera RS 3.6s and 3.8s utilized the hydraulic braking system versus the vacuum system (and were also based on the C4 bodyshell).

Brother · 04-11-2009, 09:30 PM

Seam welding

Do you weld every single seam in the car, or are there specific seams that provide more bang for the buck? Either way, it has to be a helluva lot of labor.

roadsleeper · 04-12-2009, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother

Seam welding

Do you weld every single seam in the car, or are there specific seams that provide more bang for the buck? Either way, it has to be a helluva lot of labor.

If you were to seam weld, the minimum would be to seam weld where the factory seam weld points are for the 964 RSs and Cup Cars. We seam welded basically every spot weld on the chassis, which is certainly a hell of a lot of labor