Thinking about a 944

[DivineE]

ORIGINAL: peacher Interested in this post as I am also on the look out for a porsche 944 and was going to ask the same sort of questions. I am also based in Central Scotland and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be many 944s for sale locally within my budget (about £3.5K). From what I have seen, I think that my budget will stretch to a late model 2.7 lux and wondered if they were still a good buy and if there is any specific I should look out for with that model? Cheers, Peter

Lux is a fantastic buy. I will never regret owning mine in the slightest and mine was a dog. Personal preference I'd go for a n early one with the early dash (pre 85.5), parts will be more common and I just think its got more character. You'd probably save yourself 1k as well as you'll find a lovely early car for £2500 if your careful. Many (me included) think the lux was the best built of the bunch and they seem to be a lot more resistant to the rust problems affecting the later models like the turbo and S2

 

[944 man]

ORIGINAL: sc0tty What's a wastegate?

All turbocharged vehicles have a wastegate. It is a device which diverts exhaust gas away from the first turbine fan in a turbocharged inlet system, and away through the exhaust pipe, in order to regulate the amount of boost generated.

 

[peacher]

ORIGINAL: jasonp hiya peacher, if you are looking a forum member "ant b" has a lovely lux up for sale ,if you search his previous posts you will see even has working air con! a luvly car, regards jason p

Cheers jasonp - I have seen his car for sale and it does look like a lovely example. Only downside is that he is miles away from me but then again they do say the right car is worth travelling for. Hoping to go and have a look at one that is local to me tomorrow but don't really have high hopes for it.

 

[Lowtimer]

Doesn't matter: go and see as many as you can. You will benefit from seeing some rough ones as well as some good ones.

 

[t5_monkey]

ORIGINAL: James Ball I agree that there is probably no such thing as a cheap car. I bought my 220bhp for £3500 but it has cost me £1800 in the first couple of months of ownership plus will cost me a bit more over the  next year to get it where I want it, and that doesn't include refreshing the suspension. I didn't want to splash £7k+ on the car upfront so I am happy with my purchase but if you have the cash lying around, finding one with the sort of work done that you want is definitely (and obviously) cheaper.

That's some midrange on Baz's turbo - looks like the power drops off a lot at the top end, that may be the intercooler limiting proceedings? Nothing a Massive turbo wouldn't fix of course [] I had really bad drop-off on my power output with the Volvo till I changed the intercooler and downpipe, span much more freely after that. Here's my power graph (produced on cheap 97ron fuel unfortunately) so I think I get a bit more on the open road on V-power. As much as it being pretty quick is good - 265lb-ft of torque at the wheels at 2000rpm (with very little lag) is always good fun. In terms of a prospective 944 Turbo - Ideally it'll need to be fairly well tuned to be quicker enough than the Volvo to be exciting. Baz... what was your approximate all in cost for the mods on your car?

 

[Lowtimer]

I'm sure Barry will comment if he sees this thread but he's said elsewhere that his objective with that car was simply to produce a super-responsive everyday road car which eliminated the bottom-end langour of the standard car, and put all the action in the most easily-accessed parts of the rev range. With that in mind he used as much standard 250 Turbo stuff as possible on the front and back of the 8v 3.0 engine. So it's standard AFM, standard intercooler, standard wastegate, standard exhaust. Plenty of factors there which holding back the top end, but top end wasn't the point of that particular experiment. As he says, even with the power dropping back to 250 bhp at 6,000 rpm in top, you've got there massively quicker than with the standard car, and why do you need a top speed higher than 160 mph on the road anyway? His next one is due to be the serious BHP machine: 16 valve, variable everything, much more of a top-end motor (and undoubtedly much more complex and expensive to produce). If you want to read Barry's account of the current 3.0 Turbo have a look here: http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&f=48&t=766383

 

[t5_monkey]

ORIGINAL: Lowtimer I'm sure Barry will comment if he sees this thread but he's said elsewhere that his objective with that car was simply to produce a super-responsive everyday road car which eliminated the bottom-end langour of the standard car, and put all the action in the most easily-accessed parts of the rev range. With that in mind he used as much standard 250 Turbo stuff as possible on the front and back of the 8v 3.0 engine.  So it's standard AFM, standard intercooler, standard wastegate, standard exhaust. Plenty of factors there which holding back the top end, but top end wasn't the point of that particular experiment. As he says, even with the power dropping back to 250 bhp at 6,000 rpm in top, you've got there massively quicker than with the standard car, and why do you need a top speed higher than 160 mph on the road anyway? His next one is due to be the serious BHP machine: 16 valve, variable everything, much more of a top-end motor (and undoubtedly much more complex and expensive to produce). If you want to read Barry's account of the current 3.0 Turbo have a look here: http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&f=48&t=766383

Thanks - I'm unfamiliar with Barry's experiment and didn't realise it was mostly standard equipment on a 3ltr - very impressive result in that case!