Sliver Rose aka Mein 951 affliction

So there's a guy I know on the book of faces that had an 88 944 Turbo S for sale. He'd already pulled the brakes and transaxle from it and was offering the rest of the car, which was in good condition with a few major mods.

I already had a set of standard 944 turbo (Brembo) brake calipers already and my buddy had a 944 turbo transaxle that he'd sell me for a few hundred bucks. So I wouldn't be too far from a running and driving 951.

So after asking the collective about whether this made any sense, I grabbed SWMBO and headed to Chehalis, Washinton (what a lovely smell in the town). She approved the purchase after she and I looked at it with the PO. It was 91 miles away from our house so we had AAA haul it home and plop it in the garage. :) I love it when a plan comes together!

Current specs:

Spec Stage II clutch Lindsey Racing exhaust Upgraded 60mm turbo (Ball bearings, billet compressor wheel) Synapse BOV Upgraded Wastegate Custom aluminum intercooler piping Recent headgasket Recent timing belt (kevlar belt) Wolf3D V4 PnP w/ J&S Knocksafe 18" 911 wheels Vented hood Dash recovered professionally in burgundy leather

Now that it is home, I've started looking it over: Came with a set of good axles, so I just need the transaxle, rotors, pads, brake lines, wear sensors, ABS sensors to get it on the road again. Should have most of these parts by the end of the week.

While poking around checking systems, the power windows don't work, I bypassed the relay and cleaned the switches with no change. Might be wiring, might be the motors, need to diagnose further. Found a receipt for a new set of switches and a window motor from the PO in the glove box, wonder if he actually got them installed?

The power sunroof latches won't move and are stuck in the retracted position, I can hear the motor turning, so I've ordered a new set of gears to hopefully get that sorted out.

The HVAC system doesn't seem to want to work at anything except HOT. Found a vacuum line disconnected for the heater control valve. Given its position behind the head, I'm not sure how I'll get it reconnected at this point. Might also solve the issues the PO mentioned with the BOV releasing early. Time to see how skinny I can make my fingers ;)

The Electric water pump for the turbo cooling system is leaking (though it could be the hose, hard to tell at this point), luckily they are rebuildable with a replacement O-ring and general cleaning. Worst case, there is an cheaper Mercedes pump available to replace it if necessary. Need to get the hoses ordered for it so I can dive into it.

Power steering pump and/or power steering pump reservoir hoses are leaking. Not uber critical at this point, but its just messy. Pumps and hoses aren't impossible to get, just a PITA to replace.

Going to pickup a replacement undertray/batwing for it as the non-turbo's don't like to run cool without them, I suspect the turbo's are even worse since the air can bypass the coolers in the nose without it.

Found the remains of an aftermarket stereo system including a 4-channel Alpine amp mounted in the spare tire well. Will likely poke around my stash of parts to see if there is a single-DIN cd-player I can grab along with a small sub/amp I can toss in the spare tire well.

I'm going to fabricate a gauge panel to hold the aftermarket boost gauge since it looks tacky as heck. Probably only do one gauge right now until I determine if there is a need for any further gauges or perhaps build a carputer with a double din touchscreen solution that could monitor the EFI system and display the various data streams.

I'll take some moar pics later.

Following very closely! I'm glad you picked this car up.

Seems like a nice car for someone to have robbed parts from. Hope you get it back on the road shortly.

Yeah, dude was in trouble financially and was starting to sell parts off of it after being unable to sell it whole. He's moving to Montana for school in a couple of months, lost his storage, etc.

Apparently who ever "built" this car in the late 90's had a bit of a Cocaine habit as he found the remnants of cocaine packets in the door pocket along with a card for Cocaine Anonymous in the door pocket.

So the special AOR-code transaxle and bigger 928 S4 12" front brakes are gone (it had been upgraded further to 911 GT3 front calipers before he sold those off). I'll try to get those back to stock someday as it adds to the value of the car, but they aren't critical for my use at this time.

Luckily, he put 968 front hubs on it to roll it, so the standard 944 Turbo Brembo's calipers I have already will work with some fresh parts and paint :)

I've got larger Weltmeister adjustable sway bars that may find their way onto this car since it is heavier than the 924. Just need to look at adapting the front bar since they mount differently (but I'm not afraid of doing a little fabrication to make it work). If the 924 gets parted, the 28mm rear torsion bars may come over as well in exchange for a set of stock 944 torsion bars.

Awesome!

Looks like a great start! I eagerly anticipate updates.

Pixxor dump:

I love the bizarre plaids in these 80's Porsches. The only thing better is 928 Op Art

In reply to monknomo:

Yeah, a buddy has a 924 Turbo with the Pascha interior, its very shagadelic (in fact the license plate says Shagg-e :)

Too bad this one has a couple of wear spots on the driver's seat. I'll see what I can do to patch that up to keep it from getting worse until I can get the seat re-covered.

Looks really good! My neighbor had one growing up and it always looked like a blast

My first "mod" on the car:

First; the boost gauge jammed into the console where the cubby used to go. It was "wired" by twisting bare wires together and didn't use the dash lights, but was permanently wired. Oddly, the vacuum line had a zip tie on it, to help provide tension.

The space in the console is about 7 3/8" by 2-3/8" and I found a piece of plastic in my scrap pile that was the right size and thickness. Grabbed a hole saw from the local home improvement store (since I didn't have a 2-1/4" saw).

Marked the shape out and drew a center line to align the gauge properly. Cut the hole with the hole saw in the HF mini drill press and then cut the piece out with a jig saw. Getting the two mounting holes marked was a little tricky, but I was able to find something to act like a punch that I could mark it from the backside.

Since I didn't have a cubby anymore, I figured I'd add a place to hold a phone, since we use them for Pandora and directions when we're on road trips, we have one in our Highlander and it is pretty handy. So I had a spare phone mount laying around, took it apart and marked the mounting holes on the face plate, then drilled them out.

Before I painted it, I cleaned up the edges with some razor blades and sandpaper and test fit it a couple times with the gauge in place to make sure it fit ok.

Had some cheap black satin Rustoleum to use, so after I cleaned up the face plate with some dish soap, I fogged some paint over it:

Once dried I assembled it and triple checked it for fit, then mounted it in the car. I'll wait to tackle the wiring until I'm ready to add the radio, since it looks like I'll get to spend a bunch of time sorting that out.

Next up? Cleaning and painting the brakes before installing them. Also still looking for a transmission. There's also a leak from the power steering pump and/or the resevoir as well as a leak from the electric water pump. Both of which aren't hard to resolve, just kinda messy.

Time to make the donuts!

Had to replace a nipple because I twisted the top half off :( drilling into your Brembo's to remove the remnants was not a fun experience, let alone having to do it repeatedly to get the nipple to stop leaking :/

Just need to get the transaxle from Renton, fix the power sunroof, fix the power windows, fix the passenger seat controls, plug a vacuum leak, fix the leaking turbo cool down pump and the leaking power steering. :)

Brake work continues:

Just waiting on the braided brake lines to show up (tomorrow apparently)

While waiting for the brake lines, I picked up the transaxle from Renton and got it ready to install. Need to pick up an 8mm XZN or TripleSquare tool to R&R the axles. Should have that today. I've also worked on the interior a bit more:

Fixed the stripped sunroof gears:

Fixed the glovebox with new limiters from Rennline:

I also pulled the driver's window regulator out to work on the motor and its not in great shape. I got it to "work" but it doesn't raise the window too well. So I'll see if I can lubricate the window guides a bit and try to find better motors someplace.

I'll get the axles pulled today/tonight and see if I can make headway on getting the transaxle installed.

To do:

-Remove axles

-Install transaxle

-Install axles

-Install brake lines & bleed brakes/clutch

-The new power steering reservoir arrived yesterday, just need the power steering pump seal kit to tackle that project.

-The electric water pump also needs to be pulled to fix the leak there (bad O-ring)

-Passenger window motor needs to be free'd up and lubricated.

-HVAC system stuck on full hot, there's a vacuum line unplugged for the heater valve that I can't reach, probably just have to break out the dental mirror and forceps ;)

-Passenger seat motor controls don't work and are likely bad contacts. Seat is stuck, so it will be tricky to pull and resolve.

-Stereo head unit (not sure what to run, I really don't like overly complex head units).

-Shakedown drive, emissions test, vin inspection and title transfer.

you are making some good progress on this car. keep up the good work.

Oh man! A J&S Safeguard!!!!!

Looking good! What's the box with the Porsche logo on the passenger side console?

bgkast wrote: Looking good! What's the box with the Porsche logo on the passenger side console?

Its a cistern to catch the water that comes in around the glovebox.

bgkast wrote: Looking good! What's the box with the Porsche logo on the passenger side console?

It's a folding cup holder. It's broken though and will need to be replaced.

Swank Force One wrote: Oh man! A J&S Safeguard!!!!!

Yeah, someone spent a stupid amount of money on that setup. The problem is finding someone who will support it :/

Those brakes are gorgeous, nice work. I bet you can't wait to have this thing on the road! Should be pretty quick, eh?

Yeah. Supposedly it dyno-ed near 300hp. We'll see if that was more than just wishful thinking ;)

sweet. . . . one of my short list cars for sure

Moar updates!

Transaxle and axles are in:

Big damned exhaust:

Fixed the shifter while I was at it:

Got some more stuff to do (power steering pump rebuild, power steering pump reservoir, braided brake lines, etc):

Fixed the electric turbo cooling pump for all of 45 cents. Picked up an O-ring at the local hardware store and checked the hoses. Fixed a kinked radiator hose while I was at it (it was rotated when the clamp tightened and the end of the clamp pushed against the engine).

Plugged the HVAC control line back into the vacuum harness, ziptied all of the vacuum lines I could reach so they don't blow off as easily (a trick I learned on my turbo-dodges).

To do:

-Install brake lines & bleed brakes/clutch

-Driver's power window motor is in bad shape and jammed again. Passenger side switch only works in one direction. Further work needed.

-Passenger seat motor controls don't work and are likely bad contacts. Seat is stuck, so it will be tricky to pull and resolve.

-Stereo head unit (not sure what to run, I really don't like overly complex head units). Will probably hit the local pawn shops for a simple one.

-Shakedown drive, emissions test, vin inspection and title transfer.

-Replace A/C hoses (one has a cut in it, that I discovered while under the car) and recharge system.

Just a bit more progress to report, including a test drive (albeit briefly to turn it around in the garage):

Rebuilt power steering pump and electric water pump are working well, no leaks detected.

Fixed a vacuum leak I created by plugging the boost gauge in. Oops.

Bled the brakes and made a huge mess with the brake fluid and there's still air in the system someplace. Sigh, getting tired of bleeding the brakes and its the only thing stopping me from driving it!

Drove up to Centralia to meet up with a fell ow Porsche nut who wanted to trade the 16 x 8's off my 924 along with a vented 924 turbo nose panel for his 18" BBS wheels. I of course jumped at that, even though it took three trips to the yard to get the berkeleying nose panel off the car (1st time my batteries didn't last in the drill to get all of the spot welds, 2nd time I forgot to bring a socket set to remove the two bolts that held it in place with the front quarters, 3rd time I finally got it along with a bunch of loose bolts to add to my collection, heh.)

From Centralia we drove to Olympia to meet up with the PO to pick up a few parts that came with the car. A stock hood, spare hatch, a good window switch and a few odds and ends. Had to drive through a heck of a rain storm and dodge the idiots that didn't have their lights on (so many were driving gray or silver cars).

Picked up a stereo head unit from the local electronics pawn shop, it was new in the box and is just a AM/FM radio with USB, audio jack and SD card slots. No CD player. Now I have to sort out the stock wiring since its been hacked up a bit.

Here's some pics:

Old:

New:

Subtle, but I like the 18's better. Throw the stock hood on and it should look nice and clean :) I'm thinking of painting the vents on the modified one to match and use it in the summer.

To do:

-Bleed brakes

-Stereo head unit install

-ABS system disconnect (temporary fix until ABS sensors arrive)

-Bypass brake wear sensor wiring

-Shakedown drive, emissions test, vin inspection and title transfer.

-Order front ABS sensors

-Passenger seat doesn't move forward or back and is likely jammed up from rust in the seat rails. Seat is stuck, so it will be tricky to pull and resolve.

-Replace A/C hoses (one has a cut in it, that I discovered while under the car) and recharge system.

Love those wheels.

The car looks great! Nice job so far.

this is making me kick myself even harder for turning down the 944 for 99 camry trade last year.

granted, it as an auto ith a trashed interior, but still. your car is soooo damn cool. I WILL own one of these one day.