Porsche 944 SPEC Suspension Install

Posted on May 19, 2012 by porschedoc

After getting this car back from paint, we tackled the suspension components to firm up the ride and greatly improve the handling. Our kit consists of upgraded Koni shocks/struts, with custom front coilover conversions, larger torsion bars, and sway bars. We also added camber plates to this build.

Part of the new kit and some of the old parts.

First was to tackle the front struts. And some how I don’t have a picture of the finished product. Hmmmm. I’ll add that later!

Then it was on to pulling the rear torsion bars and installing the new bars. On the 911, they created a nice hole to pass the bars out the side of the car. Since Porsche engineers hate mechanics, on the 944, you must drop the entire rear suspension carrier out to slide the bars out and back in. On a race car, we just cut holes in the body to avoid this. But this car is too nice for that.

Since I pretty much hate this job, I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures. Here you can see the end of the new larger torsion bar going back in as we raise the carrier back up into it’s mount. If you don’t get the ride height just right, you have to pull it all back down again to reindex the torsion bars. Yippee.

The end result is about like this. I have the fuchs off at the moment while we mount a lower profile tire on them for a better look.

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Full House At RennsportKC

Posted on May 19, 2012 by porschedoc

Things have been busy with the driving season under full swing! Thanks for all the support!

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Porsche GT3 Fabspeed Exhaust and Intake Upgrade RennsportKC

Posted on May 19, 2012 by porschedoc

After we got the 993 exhaust on, it was time to get the GT3 taken care of. We needed a little better sound on full throttle, so a little extra airflow through the engine usually helps do that.

Since the lifts are still full, back to my roots.

Intake box has to go.

Poof.

And since my attention span is only so long, I decided to pull the mufflers next. The exhaust system is modular, so we can tune it to the sound we want. If we need more rumble later, we can change the headers and/or the cats as well.

Dual cone intake and the carbon fiber heat shield in place.

And the muffler cans installed. The sound at idle is pretty tame, but at full throttle there is a very nice deep growl!

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Porsche 930 Upgrades Continues at RennsportKC

Posted on May 14, 2012 by porschedoc

The Widow Maker, Part II:

Today I installed the control arms/bushings/torsion bars on the 930. Everything went together pretty smoothly. Installing the torsion bars here. A slimy job as you want to grease them up good for rust prevention.

Then I went after the exhaust and turbo. I’ve had 930′s where 8+ exhaust studs snap off in the heads due to age/rust/corrosion. Luckily, these all came out pretty easy.

And the pile of parts start to stack up.

I went to start the turbo install, but ran into a snag right away. The turbo oil line wasn’t going to go on with the turbo set up this way. I scratched my head as the turbo sure appeared to be clocked correctly when compared to the old turbo. But obviously I couldn’t get a nut on the stud due to the other stud being in the way. A 2nd set of eyes suggested the hot housing studs/nuts should actually be bolts. Ah yes, sometimes you over look the obvious. I replaced the stud/nut with a bolt, and that provided the clearance to get the oil line on.

With the intercooler out of the way, I can start removing the air pump junk and get that stuff out of the way. I’ll be away from this project for a few days now as I have a bunch of local cars I need to get taken care of. Stay tuned!

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VW Jetta TDI Repair RennsportKC

Posted on May 14, 2012 by porschedoc

“There’s a new sheriff in town!”

This little guy has been sitting behind one of the buildings a few doors down. We mow around it a lot, and never saw it move….ever. Today the owner of the car came by and needed it running again for his son to use while they find him a new car. They had tried to jump start it on Sunday, but couldn’t get it to do anything. Turns out the car has 340,000 miles (yes, you read that correctly), and has been sitting for over 2 years! I figured after 2 years, the battery was likely so flat that it wouldn’t jump, so I grabbed a good battery off the shelf and threw it in the car. Hit the key, and as soon as the starter engaged, the car was running! I couldn’t believe it. No lifter tick, no horribly odd noises. She was running a little rough, but figured that would clear out. After a minute it died and wouldn’t restart, lol. So we towed her up to the shop for some diagnosing.

We figured out pretty quick we had a fueling issue, as diesel sitting for two years can really gum some things up. Since we couldn’t get a filter today, we bypassed the fuel filter to see if it would run. Bam, she fired right up. There will not be an insect problem within a block of RennsportKC, because it smoked so badly out the exhaust it wasn’t funny. Dark black smoke. So we decided to clear it out. Wes took off down the street with it, and 10 minutes later came back with a non smoking car ;) A big pop, a big cloud of smoke, and she cleared right out. A new filter tomorrow, some fresh fluids, and she should go for a few more miles :)

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Porsche 993 Muffler Modifications RennsportKC

Posted on May 14, 2012 by porschedoc

I couldn’t take it anymore. My buddy down the street kept rolling up with his beautiful sub 20k mile 993C2S. He was like a ninja, I could never hear him coming. We decided that needed to change. As you know we install a ton of exhaust systems here at RennsportKC. Some Fabspeed, some B&B, some Rarlyl8, and everything in between. For the 993 though, there is a different solution. This modification started online as a LPMM or Gundo hack modification. Someone decided to take their stock oem mufflers, and install a bypass pipe between the inlet and the outlet of the muffler. This allowed some of the exhaust gas to bypass the muffler, while still allowing a lot to go through the muffler. The end result was an intoxicating exhaust note…..how it should have come from the factory. Since then, the modifications have evolved to different stages. Because the car is a really low mileage car, I wanted to keep it looking 100% stock. So I called up my buddy Darin and sent out the stock mufflers to him for internal modification (Stage III). He cuts the mufflers open, works his magic, then closes everything back up so they look 100% original. The difference though is they don’t sound 100% original :D

With 3 major projects tying up the lifts, it was back to jackstands ;)

These are the mufflers as modified. Can’t tell any different :)

And installed back up in the car.

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1986 Porsche 930 Upgrades RennsportKC Kansas City

Posted on May 12, 2012 by porschedoc

Yea, that title sucks. Curse you Google!

My Title: “The Widow-maker: Part I”

Last week I got the 965 over to alignment and Todd knocked it out for me in no time. Then it was due some easy road time, and final tuning after everything was broken in. Friday afternoon, she headed home to SE Kansas :(

Pure awesomeness!

While we were sad to see this puppy head down the road, something just as good was left in it’s place. A 14k mile 1986 930! This car is CLEAN! While Dr Porsche would turn over in his grave by a car driven so little, it is a nice treat to see one in this kind of condition. You can read the writing on your shirt in the reflection at 20 feet away ;)

Look at all that beautiful Porsche engineering. Oh…….yea, that’s all coming off :)

To be replaced with some of this: The plan: Brian Bodart from Rarlyl8 sent us his exhaust system and K27 turbo upgrade, along with his intercooler and adjustable WUR/ignition system. We will keep the power on the ground with Elephant Racing’s suspension setup (larger torsion bars, bilstein shocks modified for the 930 bumpsteer kit, and polybronze bushings for the control arms and spring plates, and spherical bearings for the rear trailing arms). Ride height will of course be low :D

Forgeline sent us some incredible wheels for the car. It will be tight…..dawg. I love these wheels!

Saturday morning I came in and stood there for a second…..it was quiet….really quiet. The phone wasn’t ringing, there weren’t any messages….pure bliss…..well except for the two birds that were having a fight on top of the skylight on the roof. Hmmmm waiting on parts for other projects……..so I got started.

The old front suspension. See ya!

A naked 930. Only thing hanging off the front still at this point is the steering rack and cross member. Did I say this car was clean?

A metric ton of crap.

This car has never had an alignment before from what I can tell (or at least they made no camber adjustments). I had to remove all the factory coating on the top mounts to get the old struts out, and allow for adjustment when we go for alignment. That took awhile. Damn German’s and their silly black goo. But the new struts mounted up nicely. Here you can see a good shot of the bump modifications. The outer tie rod is bolted to the strut with spacers. We will adjust the spacers above and below that outer tie rod as need be when we set the height of the car. This allows the tie rod to be straight without a severe angle due to the altered geometry of a lowered car.

And the new strut brace installed.

Turbo tie rod kit. Special tool required. KWP93201.V2

To start with for now, we will modify the spacer heights once the car is setting on the ground and we can see how the tie rods look.

Then it was time for the front control arm bushings. Old bushings remove easily by heating the bushing with a torch and then twisting them off with a large screwdriver. Easy as pie. Next the arms are cleaned, sanded, and cleaned again. The bushing sleeves are then JB welded to the control arms. This is done because the sleeves are slightly over sized to allow for German tolerance issues with the size of the control arms. By now the phone is ringing and emails are coming in, so that is all she wrote for now. Stay tuned, we have a long build ahead!

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WEVO Visits Rennsport Kansas City

Posted on May 11, 2012 by porschedoc

Had a very nice visit from Hayden Burville (Windrush Evolutions, AKA Wevo) on Thursday. He had picked up a nice 1965 356C project car in New York and was driving back to San Fransisco! He was running on old tubed tires and so he had a set of tires drop shipped to the shop. Wes got all the old tubes out and the old tires off, and got the new stuff mounted. Hayden was also having a fueling issue with one of the carbs, so he fixed that while we were doing the tires! Pretty cool who rolls through the shop now and again ;)

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Chump Car Build Continued

Posted on May 11, 2012 by porschedoc

Spent the last couple of evenings working late on the chump car. Making good progress!

Pulled the dash out to remove the HVAC junk out, and allow for us to start mocking the cage into place.

Next we will build a firewall blockoff plate.

Removal of the steering lock is pretty easy, drill a hole in the bottom of the ignition assembly and pull out the spring.

Then we rounded up a ton of stickers we had laying around and pasted the car. Trying to make it look worse….not sure if we accomplished that! Also picked up a set of 15″ wheels so we can run the same tires that we did on the 944. We will sell the 17″ wheels that came on the car.

Since the cooling system is the weak link in the BMW, I pulled the waterpump and installed a waterpump with a metal impeller. The OEM pump has a composite impeller, and for the track, we are better off with something that won’t come apart after a lot of stress. This also allows me to get all the coolant out of the motor and add straight water

Then I cut out the front door panels to make room for the roll cage door bars. They will extend out into the door, making exit/entry to the car easier.

Then I needed to tackle a bunch of the wiring that was hacked up, so that is the fun project currently. I want to get all the cut connections traced back and removed, then I will button the wiring back up in place.

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Car 54 Chump Continues

Posted on May 8, 2012 by porschedoc

Got the new seat and mounting bracket in this week for the BMW. Removal of the old seat and install of the new seat was pretty uneventful. Except for lifting the old seat out….HEAVY!

Mounting the slider to the Corbeau seat.

And installed in the car. Now we can start marking mounting points for the cage and get that built.

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