944S in Canada - long in the tooth project

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I do post on Rennlist as well, so some of you may have seen some of what I will post here, so sorry for that!

Anyway, some quick background: Nearly 20 years ago, I purchased a 944S from a gentleman in Virginia and had it trucked up here to Canada. It ran, but had a lot of issues needing sorting (e.g., broken exhaust) and had a relatively high mileage (160K miles) with no record of chain tensioner pads, so I knew I had a pile of initial work to do (as a side note, all of this was fully disclosed before the purchase... the PO was great to deal with).

Drove the car the 5 miles from where the truck brought it to my house, started taking things apart and have not driven it since! Your first thought must be how terribly incompetent I must be... And I sure do feel incompetent from time to time, but in my defense, I have done a lot of things in the meantime, including a full teardown and rebuild of a 1985 911 Carrera, which turned out very well. I did keep a thread on that project over on Rennlist if anyone is interested: https://rennlist.com/forums/911-forum/4 ... prise.html

Most recently I have been working on a 2002 Subaru WRX, which was an unexpected project (longer story), but it is now almost done, so I am back on the 944 (finally). I really want to finally get this one done, and have a soft target of finishing this year.

Here is the 911 and the WRX just for fun:

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But now to the 944. This was the day I purchased it:

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Gradually I will fill in this thread with the main progress points in this project. The project really moved in three phases:

2005 to 2007: Tear down, paint, suspension

2008 to 2013 was the 911 project, after that was a masters degree

2017 to 2020 was most of the engine, transaxle etc.

2021 to now has been the Subaru

And now back on the 944...

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The car was a higher-mileage driver, definitely never a garage queen. Aside from the obvious issues that had been disclosed, the car was otherwise very solid. Totally rust-free, interior clean with no upholstery tears and a good dash etc.

The plan from the start was NOT to do the ridiculous restoration that it has become, but rather just take care of the key items (chain guides, timing belt etc.) but this was where I learned how OCD I could be and how susceptible to "while you're in there" syndrome I was (am!)

So I started with the belts and tensioners and next thing I knew I was thinking motor mounts, and then I thought "Geez, while doing the motor mounts maybe I should do the rod bearings" and then "Hey, might as well just take the motor out to be able to really do that job carefully" and next "Man, while the motor is out, I should paint the engine bay" and finally "Crap, all the work to make a temporary spray booth etc., shouldn't I paint the whole car?"

Yeah, that is pretty much how I roll 100% of the time and it is stupid, but I can't change myself!

This was the engine when removed:

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So, I spent a couple of months stripping and prepping the car. Here is the car as I was getting close to paint:

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I had never painted a car before, but I spent a lot of time researching, and a lot of money on equipment (various spray guns, powered fresh air breathing system etc.) and also spent a small fortune on the paint products themselves (I used Glasurit products throughout). I actually am not a fan of black for cars, but I stayed original with the L041 Porsche black that car was from the factory.

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I built a booth to paint the car in, and started with the primer stages, which actually went pretty smooth. After letting the primer cure and then re-sanding everything as per the product data sheets, I was ready to paint. Although the car was originally painted with single stage, I went with the base/clear approach as it seemed from my research to be easier to fix mistakes with.

As per typical, I had to break the painting up into stages, the bumpers, mirrors etc., done separately and so on.

In primer:

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Main car in paint:

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Although the day I took these pictures I thought I was almost done with the painting, there was still a lot to do...

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For the area behind the firewall, I had the idea to add the Glasurit gloss-reducer additive to make for a semi-gloss finish, which actually has turned out quite nice:

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The plastic parts were painted separately as well, as they required an additional flex additive:

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Some of the paint products:

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In between the paint-related work, progress was made in other areas. All of the rear suspension, transaxle, torque tube and fuel tank were removed. With all of that out of the way, I was able to refinish the underbody as well:

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With everything being taken apart, it made sense to consider any modifications. One of the first items on my mind was brakes. I found a set of early 944 Turbo brakes on eBay to rebuild. They had been previously spray painted. Having a red caliper fetish, I wanted to powder coat them that color. I decided to powder coat them myself, having picked up an old toaster oven. Turned out to be a pretty easy and satisfying process. The hardest part was the prep.

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Just to finish up on the brake calipers, I have since built them back up with new pistons and seals. Actually I only finished the fronts earlier this year!

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Despite the best efforts on the booth, there were still dust nibs in the paint, as well as a few sags and other imperfections. This allowed me to develop good ability in wet sanding, polishing and other paint repair techniques.

I have been able to get the paint to what I consider to be a high level:

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Once the paint was looking good, a few items could be reassembled. First was getting the front wiring harness in and the headlight mechanism back on. At the time, I was fortunate to find a brand new factory harness. Old and new:

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Engine room just beginning to come back together:

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Many times over the years I have had batches of parts re-plated. Here the the headlight brackets coming back together:

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One of the modification/improvement items I am fortunate to have is the "Iceshark" battery cable kit, which was the creation of Dan Wray (Iceshark on Rennlist) who sadly passed away very shortly after I purchased my kit. Mine must have been one of the very last. I emailed back and forth with him and he was very pleasant, so it was extra-sad when I heard the news (and as far as I know, it was completely unexpected). Some of the cables (with the braided sheath) from the kit are visible.

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[Lowencash]

I have been able to get the paint to what I consider to be a high level:



I'll say! Holy shininess, Batman!

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In between I started to consider what to do for suspension. I ended up going with the Paragon kit in which one modifies the OEM Sachs front strut housings to accept a Koni Sport insert and a threaded sleeve with a Hypercoil spring. I chose a pair of new torsion bars for the rear to match the stiffer springs up front. After cutting up the Sachs struts, I had them powder coated yellow:

At the same time, I found larger sway bars from a Turbo and had them powder coated, along with the oil pan, valve cover and various other parts. These were all obviously too large for the toaster oven, so I outsourced them, though I did do the prep myself.

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These are the struts. Initially I had chosen Ground Control camber plates (pictured here), but have since changed to OEM-style top bearings:

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