Fitting an S2 engine into an 84' 8v 944

[Guest]

I have the chance of fitting an S2 engine into my 84' 944 8v.
I have been told that it will fit in directly. I have to change the brain and loom aswel.
How easy is this job?
Has anyone done the same?

 

[Keggers]

From memory there's a discussion on this by JZ Machtech in the Q&A section of this month's 911&PW. I think they say they recently did one and that its not an overly difficult job, but that a few little unexpected issues did come up along the way.

 

[Fen]

The one they recently did is Peter Empson's and he's a poster on here, so he's your man to ask. I think it was more involved than they/he thought and he made it as easy as possible by buying pretty much everything from the S2; engine, ECU, loom, gearbox etc. In fact he bought them from another poster on here: 944psi.

 

[Fen]

Actually thinking about it Peter's car is an '88, so he at least had an oval dash car with the S2 wheel offset etc. In an '84 car it would be quite a bit more involved I imagine.

 

[Peter Empson]

I'm afraid I can't offer much advice about the actual process as JZ did all the work for me, but here's what I can think of off the top of my head.

You are right about needing the loom and ECU. You'll also need an S2 exhaust and throttle cable (plus bell housing and clutch which should come with the engine hopefully). I would strongly recommend going for an S2 gearbox too, it's something of a weak point on the Lux so having to deal with a lot more power can't be good for it. The original torque tube (and even radiator) should be fine however.

In hindsight the easiest way to do it would probably be to buy an accident damaged S2, you really need the other car there to do the swap easily. This was one of the biggest issues on my car, it caused Dave at JZ major headaches sorting out all the plumbing (electrical and otherwise) and we ended up needing more parts off the donor car than we ever thought about despite research and planning.

The airbox was a bit of a pain, on the S2 it obviously lives under the badge panel but its too large to go under the one on the Lux, the solution is to use a cone filter but there isn't any real air flow under there (there's ducting on the S2's bumper for this) so I ended up fitting a 924 Turbo badge panel which solves the problem nicely. However I fear your panel may be welded in, I seem to remember that was the case on earlier cars?

It goes without saying you will also need wider tyres, better brakes and suspension.

I hope all this hasn't put you off, its not a completely straight forward swap and does involve a lot of labour but it can be made to work very well.
Best regards,
Peter.