924Board.org

[vroom_vroom17]

Hi there everyone, I am new to this board and just recently purchased my second 1977 924. My first one was a rough Martini Edition car (VIN 9247211584) that I sold a few years ago to a guy north of Rochester, MN. My new one is a little rough also, but more of what I am interested in playing with. The car was previously titled in Florida and now resides in Wisconsin. The VIN on my new one is 9247203472. I was hoping that some of the other members of this board might be able to help me out with the question of what exactly it is that I have in this new car and with some technical problems with the car.

The car is not stock. It has fiberglass flared fenders, chin spoiler, tail spoiler and hood scoop. It has wheel adapters with 5 bolt wheels and 225/50-15 tires all the way around. The front and rear sway bars appear to be aftermarket add on items. The engine block is painted a bright red, leading me to wonder what has been done inside of it. The fuel injection system has been stripped and replaced with 2 side draft Delorto carbs. The exhaust has been replaced with headers and what appears to be a larger diameter then stock exhaust pipe. With all of these obvious modifications, what other types of things should I be looking for that may have been modified?

The current status of the car is that I can not get it to turn over. When I was looking at the car, the previous owner told me that the clutch pedal had to be in just the right spot and he did get it to turn over for me once, but wasn't able to do it a second time and I have yet to be able to get it to either. The dash is ripped out of the car and wires are hanging every where, so I'm guessing it is some sort of electrical problem but am not sure where to begin looking. Is there a clutch pedal postition switch that needs to be made in order to start the car? Where would be a good source to find a good wiring diagram for this car?

My plans for the car are to first get it running and drivable. Then to do the fiberglass repair as needed and shoot the car with some racey looking paint and race car lettering, then finish gutting the interior, install a cage, some decent seats...basicly going for the race car look yet retaining the ability to drive it on the street. I'll also be using it to run Autocross around Wisconsin and the occasional open track day at Elkhart Lake Road America.

If you'd like to see some pictures of my new project toy, I've set up a Yahoo photo album with a few pictures at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/vroom_vroom17/album?.dir=/da74&.src=ph

I look forward to hearing from other members and becoming a regular reader and poster on this board.

Brad

[My924gtc]

Welcome aboard.

The front end of your car appears to be D-Production, and the rear flares are a modified version of the same.

With carbs you should have a diferent fuel pump, maybe a different cam, and possibly pistons. Depends on the coolness of the PO's.

All in all it looks like a nice project. Might want to do a proper 5 lug swap to give you the added braking power to go with that look.

Looking forward to seeing this one progress.
_________________
MJ
'81 924 2.0L T
'82 924 2.3L SC/EFI <---online fall '06

Sponsor of the 944 Cup and Super Cup
Sponsor of the "2006 Battle in the Badlands"

[hondatech]

the body is pretty cool it needs work but cool the haynes manual has wiring diagrams but that thing has wires strung every where if i was you i would strip the electrics and redo the bare essentials mainly a way to get fire and fuel and turn it on and off. this is something i plan to do myself. it it was me since it is already gutted i would finish gutting it and leave it like that but your state probably requires a speedo so maybe do basic instruments.good luck with your elec. and your new ride

[vroom_vroom17]

I've looked at some D-Production kits on gt-racing.com and americaninternationalracing.com and even though my chin spoiler appears to be the same, my fender flares appear to be out further then what the kits are. I've added a couple of close up pictures to my album of the fender flares. What exactly is the D-Production kit anyway? Is it a remake of a body style offered by the factory for production race classes?

The body won't need much work to be ready for paint, the chin spoiler has a couple of areas that need repair and there is some missing filler below the rear spoiler that will need to be finished off properly, but for the most part the body has been sanded down and is near ready for some paint.

I do plan to ditch most of the electronics and pretty much stick to the basics. I'm figuring I'll end up with a lot of things hooked to toggle switches, a fabricated dash and center console panels and a basic set of gauges. The car already has a clear Wisconsin title so I won't have to worry about any sort of inspection until I get pulled over with it for the first time, but will still plan to keep it within the law, or at least within reason.

Is the Haynes manual a pretty decent one to use for working on this car?

Brad

[ideola]

Brad
Welcome to the board!

Haynes manual is the *only* one to use for this car. You'll see the Chilton's listed on eBay that include the 928. I have both Haynes and Chiltons, and the Haynes is better. Between Haynes, the FAQ here, and the board, you should be able to solve just about any problem you encounter.

When I picked up my 81 NA, it came with a Haynes manual that only went up to MY 1980. There are some nuances about the 81 that are different, so I recently picked up another copy of Haynes that goes all the way to 82. You can have my extra copy for $10 + shipping. PM if you're interested.
_________________
erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

[gohim]

The best service manual is the Factory Workshop Manual Set, regardless of what model year 924 you have. You can often find them for sale on eBay priced from $45 and up.

The easiest, cheapest manual to find is the Haynes Manual, which is good as a roadside emergency repair book, but sadly lacking in detail, with numerous errors if you are looking for precise, and correct indepth information.

The Haynes manual has numerous errors (torque value information is notoriously bad). You have to watch out for their conversions from metric to SAE settings. Some information is missing, as the Haynes manual information is taken (at least partially) from the first release of the Porsche Workshop Manual Set which was released in an incomplete state on purpose by Porsche in 1975, and continuously updated as it was filled in over the years of 924 production.

Your Martini is essentially a 77 1/2 924, so the important information that you may need should be contained in the early version of the Haynes 924 Service Manual (orange cover). The later version (olive/grayish) cover has some supplemental information for 1980 and later cars (which is still totally inadequate for owners of later cars).

For right now, go to your local chain auto parts store and buy the Haynes $13-$15, and haunt eBay and your local auto swapmeet for a used copy of the Factory Service Manual. I have been lucky enough to buy three ((2) new and (1) used) original sets of the factory manual from the Pomona Auto/Porsche Swapmeet, and the Ventura Porsche Swapmeet for prices between $25-$75.

A complete and current Porsche factory workshop manual set is composed of (4) volumes with 24 supplements installed (early ones had red covers, and the latest have grey covers). The original manual set as released by Porsche had only (2) volumes in red covers.

[flosho]

Where in Wisconsin are you located? Im in Wausau...


Looks like you have quite the project car to work on.
_________________
[This Space For Rent]

[alxch1n15]

im in madison. i was just going to ask him the same question
_________________
'81 924 n/a

[vroom_vroom17]

Thanks for the help with questions about repair manuals. The Martini car was sold a few years ago, so I'm only needing help with the current '77 924. I'm betting that is the same manual though. Any ideas on getting this current one to turn over?

I'm located near Bangor, about 20 minutes East of LaCrosse. I bought the car at the Jefferson Cap Show and Swap Meet down between Madison and Milwaukee. It came from a guy that lived near Waupon.

Are there any sort of Porsche Owners groups or clubs in Wisconsin?

[emoore924]

Nice project. That's a DP kit of some sort. Take a look in the .org photo archives and I think there's a shot of three of these at Lime Rock. I have some Holbert DP pics if you want them too. Just PM.

I don't think there is a clutch/start lockout on the 77 so unless someone confirms otherwise, I'd look elsewhere for the problem. Given that your wires are all over the place, I'd tidy things up and bit and I'd buy the Haynes manual and trace the ignition circuit wiring. You might have something chafing or interfereing with a wire somewhere near the clutch pedal -- I think the fact that the clutch pedal has to be just right is a coincidence.

In lieu of that, if you have a buddy around, you might try putting the car in 2nd, turning the ignition on and bump starting it (roll down a hill or something) to see if you can get it to start. Or you could turn on the ignition and use a battery cable to juice the hot side of the starter (careful here if you don't know what you're doing...). If that spins the starter, your problem is in the starter side of the ignition circuit. If it doesn't, something else is wrong.

Because of the carbs, you might have a time actually getting it to start without cranking a bit. But, whaddya say let's get 'er cranking and we'll go from there.

[vroom_vroom17]

Well, the fun continues! I did a little reading on the FAQ area and thought I'd try to bypass my ignition switch to make sure that wasn't my problem with the car not turning over. I did the bypass wire to turn the ignition switch on and then did the starter engage wire and no luck...nothing. Well, I knew the battery was weak, but should have at least had enough juice to make an attempt at turning the car over. Well, just to make sure, I thought I'd hook my Suburban up to it with jumper cables rather then using my battery jumper pack just to be positive that I had juice to the system. Well, this is where it got interesting. I hooked the cables to the 924 first and then turned my back to the car while I hooked the cables onto the Suburban. When I turned back around to see if the car would now turn over, I immediately noticed the interior cabin filling with electrical smoke. I yanked the jumpers cables off the car, ran around to the driver's door to check for a fire and seen nothing except smoke. Well, after the smoke settled, I found a few fried wires, but nothing in the area of the ignition switch wires and NO blown fuses. I'm guessing that with the wire mess I have there, I must have moved something around and shorted something out and the battery in the car didn't have enough juice to fry anything right away, but when I hooked the cables up then there was enough juice to literally get things cooking!

I guess at this point I'm just going to hold off on any other work until I get a wiring diagram in my hands and then I'm going to start tracing out wires and eliminating things that aren't needed. In the mean time, I'm going to work on getting the rest of the interior stripped to make the wire tracing job a little easier. I would guess by the number of non factory wires and connectors that I've found on this car, this one has had it's share of electrical problems in the past.

[Ozzie]

I'd pull every non essential fuse for running the engine.
Lights, fans, wipers etc beore trying that again.
Eliminate and trace wiring and good luck, tedious job.
_________________
Porsche 924 1984 (UK import) NA
Its AUTO and its BLACK
Montego Black on black/red
Engineer of Electro/Mechanical Systems Maintenance

[Peter_in_AU]

hey vroom_vroom17

when you get some time how about taking a few more pics and adding them to your album. I want to duplicate those scca flares and good pics are hard to find. Some close-ups and a full-front and full-rear would really help.
_________________
1979 924 (Gone to a better place)
1974 Lotus 7 S4 "Big Valve" Twin-cam (waiting)
1982 924 (As featured on Wikipedia)

Learn to love your multimeter and may the search be with you

[leadfoot]

For that year car I would just start from scratch. It may seem odd to say this but here are the benefits...
You can replace the "really crappy fuse box" with something reliable and there are fuse boxes with trip switches instead of fuses, no more buying fuses.
The injection wiring is gone so this removes alot of the intricate wiring... the rest is pretty straightforward and you will want to do the igniton wiring again anyway.
You will totally understand what wiring you do have in you car, and be able to adjust the length properly, there are literally meters and meters of slack cable in there that are just unecessary.
Most of the colour codes in the haynes are not as acurate as they should be and if you have the patience you should make your own "new" circuit diagram.
Finally it is far easier to start from scratch than to find out what someone else has done to "butcher the wiring job"
A good wiring job will give you free horsepower or more to the point will not lack in power it should have. I think I gained about 5% in power after I fixed all my wiring up.
Leadfoot
_________________
1981 ROW 924 Turbo -
carbon fiber GT mish mash
LS1 conversion in progress...

[vroom_vroom17]

Thanks for the additional tips.

leadfoot, I am thinking along the same lines that you are, I've now got the interior completely gutted and all of the wiring harness exposed and I'm going to start tracing and replacing as time allows. I like your idea of replacing the fuse box with a newer style breaker panel.

Peter_in_AU, I soon as I get some time, I'll snap some more shots and close ups of my body kit for you.