Ben's 924S

[Grillage]

Hi all,

I've done it again. I can't stop buying unwanted 80's sports cars (see prior Maserati Biturbo thread)

This time I found a 1987 Porsche 924S on craigslist in Cynthiana KY (about an hour south of me) for $800. Non-running of course. How can I be expected to say no to that?

Anyway, here's what it looked like when I brought it home:


The driver's side had been hit in the door and just behind so the PO put a rattle canned 944 door on


One of the reasons I pulled the trigger is that the nearby pullandpay placed a red 1987 924S (though this was an automatic) the same week I found the one I bought.

I pulled a bunch of stuff over a couple trips


First the good passenger's seat, the door cards, the center console, seat belts, sunroof panel, hood, fuse box, glove box. The door was bad and the hatch was destroyed so I left them.

Then when I went back I pulled the motor complete.
Also the steering wheel which i changed out later
So the interior now looks like so:



Then I went about trying the get the car to start.
The previous owner said that the car had overheated and he thought the head gasket blew. We couldn't get it to start when I picked the car up so I didn't know what to really expect.
After the usual fuel, spark troubleshooting, I narrowed it down to the ECU not sending spark to the plugs. Here's what I found when I pulled the ECU:



The resistor pictured was rattling around in the ECU box - I tried to solder it back in but it still didn't work. Eventually I found a guy on eBay who has a TON of 944 parts - and lives in Piqua OH - about 2 hours north of me.

I ended up with this haul:

A couple Mirrors which I frankensteined into a good one, a new red door, and an ECU.
Here's the new door compared with the old one.

This car was painted in Guards Red - which is like the Porsche version of Tornado Red -- Single Stage! so I was careful about getting body panels that hadn't been repainted and cleared.

I ended up finding the correct decals for the door - the Missing "PORSCHE" and a new non-oxidized "924S" and then I also hit the whole car with polish and compound:

See the line I'm pointing at here? I taped it off to see the difference:

Also the roof - before and after :

There were also a few places where the PO painted over entire body panels with what I think is a paintscratch brand can of matching Guards Red - I sanded through all of that on one fender and got back to original paint.

Looks pretty darn good after!



So I drove the car a bit once it was running and made sure I knew the problems before I spent a bunch of time or money on it.

What it needs:

Motor needs refresh - this one is pissing coolant from somewhere and losing oil. It never really seemed like the head gasket was blown (compression is okay) but it's definitely a worn motor. The odometer shows 116k miles (or maybe 216?) and the timing belt is definitely old.

Transmission - the clutch is on its way out. The symptom from these clutches apparently is that they are super herky jerky when you go on or off throttle. I have that bad.

Electrical - the radio seems to work sometimes, but not always. that's my last priority

So I took the leap and tore down the old motor:



This stuff all arrived today - Rings, Bearings, belts, seals, gaskets, clutch etc.


Oh, and I bought a lift!

Danmar M6

Anyway, wish me luck!

[Afterthought]

Dude! It has Porsche script (/jacquard?) seats! I’ve never seen those. Just the Quattro ones which I always liked .

Paint turned out real good .

Someday I would like to be rolling a car with the Porsche crest on the steering wheel...

[Grillage]

The seats are pretty sweet - the "bad" one that I took out really wasn't that bad. Just a cigarette burn in the bottom portion. So I made a gaming setup out of it for F1 2019:

[Grillage]

Also, I should mention what the 924 S is.

The 924 stopped being sold in the US after the 944 appeared around 1983. But Porsche brought it back for 1987 and 1988 with the 2.5L 944 engine rather than the audi based 2.0 engine it had early on. It ended up being actually a bit quicker than the 944 due to the difference in weight. It's really a fun little car to drive. The motor is up front but the trans is in the rear - weird setup.

[PRY4SNO]

Sweet project! This is already good and only going to get better

I've read that the 924 and the B3 Cq's share some common DNA, the mirrors look similar.

Also, jealous about the lift. One day...

[sayoda]

Cool project! Paint shined up real nice!!

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

[pete82]

Nice to see a 924s being saved and red I've found 90% of the time cleans up really good no matter what brand car its on. Its just keeping it red i've found is a pita.

The porsche jaquard is a really nice trim. Very audi-esque.

I thought about getting an early dash 944 when I was looking but ended up with a later rounded dash 944 that I am currently putting a 2.2 audi turbo engine in. One of the 944's I had in the uk did have an auto box, they are easy to convert over to manual.

Was the guy you got the spares from Mark Pleiman as he is in Ohio and breaks porsche's with a ton of spares?

[Grillage]

Was the guy you got the spares from Mark Pleiman as he is in Ohio and breaks porsche's with a ton of spares?

It was!

He’s a super nice guy on the middle of nowhere!

He and his sons do it

[pete82]

Yeah, thats where my 944 came from. I had some bits turn up recently and deciding what to get next for the car. I ended up getting a rolling shell from him and slowly getting the bits that I need to put it back together.

[Grillage]

Made some progress this weekend so far

Got the motor out of the car. I had no real problem pulling the motor out of the junkyard car from the top but this one I couldn’t get that way. Had to drop it out from the bottom and drop subframe, steering rack etc.

I think because of the manual trans on this car has a much different connection to the torque tube than the auto did.

Anyway, here’s the clutch I pulled out. It uses a rubber center to keep shifts smooth - which is great except when they break. This explains the Herky jerky feel when on or off throttle:


The new clutch I bought is sprung rather than the rubber

[Grillage]

A major diversion from this project happened.

I went over to my rental house after the tenants moved out to figure out what I need to do to sell it finally and found the first floor bathroom floor to be very squishy.

Culprit turned out to be a cracked main plumbing stack:



I found and fixed that and had to basically reframe that whole corner of the house:


And now all fixed up:


Anyway, I finally got the 924S back in the line of fire and got it all put back together this weekend.

It runs and drives! New clutch feels great.

The problems though:
My rebuild of the power steering rack didn’t seem to work
I have an oil leak that is very likely the ream rain seal
I have a noise that I believe to be belt slapping when I rev the engine and come back to idle.

More to come

[jbrentd]

Nice work so far! I don't think I'll ever be able to shake my desire to own a 924/944 someday.

[Grillage]

There's a 931 (924 Turbo) in tomorrow's Goodwill Auto Auction in the same color that I'm REALLY wanting to buy. needs engine rebuild etc.

[pete82]

There's a 931 (924 Turbo) in tomorrow's Goodwill Auto Auction in the same color that I'm REALLY wanting to buy. needs engine rebuild etc.

Prices are going up every day on them. I'm still collecting bits for mine so hopefully start it when work calms down.

[Grillage]

Some updates on this build.

I got it all back together and drove it quite a bit. Two things were not as they should be though. I had a pretty decent sized oil leak at the back of the motor which I assumed was the rear main seal. Also, after trying my hand at rebuilding the PS rack myself I had assist when turning right - but not when turning left.

So I put it back up on the lift and started to get things fixed.

Pulled the steering rack and went to send to Jorgen - my go-to rack rebuild folks and found out that they are closing at the end of the week so they told me not to send. I have since found another source I think for the rebuild.

Then I decided to tackle the rear main seal while I had things apart and overhead. This time though, I decided to pull the trans/torque tube instead of the motor to get to the RMS. Glad I did but it was a pain as well as the motor pull would be. It did give me the opportunity to replace part of the linkage and change out the transmission oil while I was in there. Having had the motor out recently makes it all easier as the exhaust stuff comes apart easily. I found that the RMS was not installed all the way in and its possible that I didn’t ever do it the first time. I can’t remember. It was visibly seeping oil so I ended up just pushing it in all the way rather than risking gouging the housing by extracting the one in there. I verified that the dripping was fixed and put it all back together. Shifter feels really nice now.

However, while I wait for the PS rack, I am tackling another issue I discovered which is constant heat from the car. I discovered that the heater valve at the top of the bell housing was hitting the firewall and keep the heat on! So that shows up tomorrow and then I’ll be able to put the intake back together and have just the rack left to install

Having driven it a bit and after the install of a different throttle cam (https://www.only944.com/partscatalog/on ... sponsecam/) I have to say this car is really fun to drive. It’s not going to be worth a ton when I’m done but it’s pretty fun!

[Grillage]

Update about 2 months later - this thing is great!
Got the steering rack replaced and that has worked out well
I had always had a bit of a wonky idle and I eventually replaced the o2 sensor thinking that could help, but swapping out the MAF from the donor engine made a big difference. The idle is rock steady now.

Last thing I fixed was a weird sound that freaked me out at low revs - turned out to be a heatshield vibration. Always the best fixes!

Anyway, now I drive it and figure out what to do next

[jbrentd]

Love the simple, easy and cheap fixes. You're having all kinds of rear main seal fun lately.

[Grillage]

Love the simple, easy and cheap fixes. You're having all kinds of rear main seal fun lately.

Yeah, so far no leaking from the CGT!

[Grillage]

More progress on this car

I hit the absolute junkyard jackpot this weekend. One of the local pull and pay yards - this one over the river in Kentucky - showed a newly placed 86 944 in red. So I made a list and hit the yard first thing Saturday am.

Here’s what I found....


The car was last stickered for 2009 registration and it appears that the guys car and all his spare parts were sent to scrap. Found an aftermarket throttle cam in the glove box with 1998 receipt, two sunroof gears, new in box, 3 motor mounts from Porsche NIB. An 86 turbo sway bar kit with all bushings and hardware and also, an extra set of wheels. More on that in a sec

I’ve always LOVED cup 1 wheels and really want a set for my B4 AAN swapped - but have never seen them before. These turn out to be Mille Miglia reproductions made with the “early offset” of ET15 and 23. 968s maybe came with Porsche Cup 1, but in the “Late offset” of 55 and 45 or something.
These are staggered, 7.5 up front and 9’ in the rear. I bought them anyway. Ended up going back for more stuff Saturday, and again Sunday.

The muffler is OEM and much nicer than what I had. The steering wheel is really really nice
The floor mats are in great shape but have turned green from sun. I’ll try to dye them back to black.

Here’s the haul from Saturday,



Yes, those are Porsche OEM Fuchs wheels. I found two on my morning trip and bought them knowing they were valuable, went back in the afternoon and looked in nearby cars and found the other two in a minivan nearby. They too are staggered and are 16” wheels, 7” up front, 9” in the back. These sell on bringatrailer for $3-$4,000 all the time refurbished. So, yeah - these wheels will pay for this whole project!


Safe to say there’s no way I can make the early offset cup wheels fit on my late offset 924S - it’s kind of comical how much they DONT fit.



Then I went to polishing the bumper, the hood and headlight pieces. The ones on my car were okay but had been repainted at some point.





Also ended up grabbing the rear seats on Sunday so I have a really nice set of leather seats that will go in eventually. I really like the Porsche script seats but they’re getting ready to start splitting. Also grabbed that sway bar kit

Also, this morning I got the AC working - so winning!

[jbrentd]

Wow, nice haul! That's unreal that you were able to find the whole set of Fuchs

[Grillage]

Wow, nice haul! That's unreal that you were able to find the whole set of Fuchs

The guy at the checkout about shit.

I could imaging him thinking: “how’d these get past me?”

[DE80q]

Nice haul! I wish we had any good u-pull it yards around me. The ones we do have only seen to have cars made in the past 10-15 years!

[alxdgr8]

Guess you'll need to do some CGT flares to make the wheels fit [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[vt10vt]

Nice haul! I wish we had any good u-pull it yards around me. The ones we do have only seen to have cars made in the past 10-15 years!

There's an 86 5ktq at Crazy Ray's in Mt. Airy right now

That junkyard find is the stuff of legends. Congrats, that is awesome!

[Grillage]

Had to go back to the yard because the compressor in my car was super loud. This may explain why there was no fuse in the AC compressor spot when I got the car.

anyway, got that compressor and got everything changed over to R134A

now: