924Board.org

[Ghostcloak]

I had a thought...

What if I bought a rundown 944? I mean, a 944 frame in excellent shape, just without an engine (or with a non-working engine). I've seen Ls1/Lt1 5.7L v8 power houses for sale and a conversion kit available at http://www.renegadehybrids.com/main.htm. I was looking at probably getting the Lt1 (even though I'd LOVE an Ls1) because its cheaper of the two, and with tweaking, I can get the 350 hp at the wheels, a goal I've set for myself. Any thoughts to this transformation? Anyone with experience here? How much would you estimate this project would cost? Suggestions?
_________________
1993 Ford Probe SE
(FOR SALE!)
1987 924S (Purchase Pending!)

[gohim]

If you are good at designing parts, and fabrication. With an unlimited budget, and time table, willing to spend hundreds of hours sorting out the bugs that will appear after you get the car running, and are willing to dump the money in knowing that you are creating a car that cannot be registered and licensed to be driven on public roads due to emissions control issues, and that the car that you are building will not be sellable for a fraction of the amount that you are spending, I say go ahead.

The 924S/944 transmission is not designed to handle that amount of power, so you will end up replacing the transmission with a 944/951 unit at some point. And even those transmissions will fail prematurely if you can't control your left foot.

There are plenty of 924S and 944 project/restoration cars out there that are abandoned 1/2 finished due unseen costs by discouraged owners. You can try locating one of them to try to lower your initial cost.

You can also go out and find a cheap car non-running car that is a victim of deferred maintenance in relatively good cosmetic condition that needs mechanical restoration (head repair or engine replacement?).

Just remember that replacing the engine in one of these cars can easily exceed the resale value of the car. A non-running 924S or 944 is only worth between $100-$1500, depending on how nice/bad the rest of the car is. I paid about $1100 for my non-running 87 924S with only 72K miles, clean original body, and decent interior (except for the mandatory cracked dashboard.

The only thing that needs replacement in the interior is the dashboard, and if I were to decide to buy a new one from the Dealer and have them install it, I would expect the cost to be around $2500-$3000.

The engine along with the rest of the new parts that will be going in is going to have over $3000 (retail) in parts alone (I have been shopping eBay, and swapmeets for the parts I need, so the actual cost should be less, I hope). That does not include the cost of any machine shop labor (check the head, crankshaft, balance the rods and pistons).

By the time I get the car back on the road, I expect to have $5000 in it, and even with the exception condition that it is in, it will be nearly impossible to get that amount of cash back out of the car, if I have to sell it immediately following.

I chose to go the route I am traveling because I have shopped the available 924S cars, and have not seen any in a condition that I would be happy with. By restoring the car myself to the condition that I want, I am assured of getting my money's worth for what is being dropped into the car.

[jamez]

Check out my car
http://www.content2drown.com/924LT1/index.html

then check out this webpage
http://www.560sec.com/bulletinboard/
this is the page to go to, to talk to people that really know what they are talking about with engine conversions, because they have done it...

[dmsog]