Here's the PP article
Porsche 911SCRS (Type 954)
In 1983 Rothmans (Porsche's racing sponsors at the time) asked Porsche to produce a 911 for rallying, 20 cars were built, five were rally vehicles, the other 15 completing the homogation regulations as road cars. In this article I only intend to speak of the earlier rear wheel drive 911SCRS (type954).
The 911SC had to be put on a strict diet before it could ever be considered as a true Porsche RS; as the ever-increasing need to beat emission controls and particularly the American market's desire for creature comforts in the cockpit the SC had acquired an unacceptably large waistline which would have seen it wallowing it's portly way around the world's rallies rather than nimbly crushing the opposition! The rear seats, soundproofing materials, steel body panels and standard glass were removed, the heavy heating system was replaced by a light weight variant with equal length tuned headers and a less restrictive exhaust. Aluminium was utilised for the engine lid, the front bonnet, the doors and the front wings, the front and rear bumpers were constructed from fibreglass and thinner glass was used in place of that used in the road car. A weight of 960 kg was achieved by removing all the electrical items from the cockpit, stripping the doors of creature comforts and replacing the interior panels with something resembling a mid seventies RS, removing the carpets and installing light weight racing seats with harnesses and a roll cage further slimmed this truly anorexic 911SC.
The 911SCRS utilises the brakes, suspension and the wider body of the 930 turbo; on the rally car the brake bias can be adjusted between the front and rear brakes but there is no servo assistance. The road-going SCRS has thicker torsion bars as follows, 22mm front, 27.5mm rear, whereas the stock SC has 19mm front and 26mm rear, the road car had servo assisted brakes.
The rally engine was a development of the 3.0 SC; a six piston Kugelfisher MFI system replaced the bullet proof K-Jetronic mechanical injection, compression ratio was raised from 9.8:1 to 10.3:1 with the use of forged pistons. New camshafts increased the rev limit of the 911SCRS, type (930/18) which produced 255 hp@7,000 rpm. (In 1984 power was stepped up to 290bhp!)
The road-going version (clearly softer than the rally version) still used the air pump to aid emission controls, though the front wing mounted oil cooler was installed in the front spoiler and the standard gearbox (type 915) had an oil cooler added as on the Carrera 3.2. To make use of the extra performance derived from weight stripping and the engine tuning the gearbox had modified ratios from the stock 915 gearbox. The road version is fitted with an 8:31 final drive ratio and a 7:37 final drive was homologated on the racing version. Also fitted was a 40% locking anti-slip diff' and a stronger clutch the street version of the 911SCRS was capable of suitably impressive performance figures, Auto, Motor und Sport achieved,
0-100 kph-5"0 s, 0-160 kph-11"7 s,
standing kilometer-24"7 s, top speed-244 kph.
Racing History
In 1983 the short lived 954 competition car raced in the European Championship and in the Middle East with Saeed Al Harji. In Europe, Rothmans/Porsche came second overall and in the Middle East Championship, Al Harji and the 911 won the championship with many victories. In late 1984 driven by René Metge a four wheel drive version of the the 911SCRS (type 953) based around the type 954 290 bhp engine was developed and famously won the Paris-Dakar Raid but that is another car and another story.
