Living with a Porsche 944

With so much time taken to research what I could do with this engine project, thanks to a neck injury sustained in a rear end shunt from a saxo driver, you'd suspect I'd given up and bought a turbo... which seems to be the standard answer given to anyone wondering what to do with a normally aspirated Porsche engine. While there may be some logic for that argument, it doesn't help an owner of a nice NA who doesn't want to buy someone else's bag of beans and bondo. And what if you want a little adventure in your life, perhaps even learn a thing or two? My current engine is still running fine where it is sitting snugly in the engine bay - albeit with some oil blowby under off throttle freewheeling. I've tried to arrange for a mechanic to do a leak down test to establish whether it's rings or intake valve seals that are the culprit - but that's yet to happen despite one visit. I may have to search for another friendly wrencher who wants to earn an hours wage...

The next step has been taken! While I had considered buying another used complete engine, with internals in unkown condition, after a few discussions and some research I decided to source a dismantled engine with internals in verifiable condition. This would give me a spare block just in case my current one is too worn. I had even spoken to Porsche and purchasing a brand new short-engine from them, but at £4700+vat it was outside of budget by a kidney and other internal organs... A 400 mile roundtrip brought another 944 engine block and associated gubbins into the garage, thanks to a friendly fellow retro car lover with a gorgeous Starion coupe in his garage. There are a number of components in the lot that aren't pictured that I'll soon catalog before working on adding the other parts needed to complete the engine build. It's at this point that some serious debate is going in my head that centres around the HotRod philosophy of "there ain't no replacem...

Today my 944 is having a good going over by the chaps at Project9. With everything I have planned, I need to know exactly what needs doing that I'm not aware of. I started this journey with this 944 fixing bits & replacing parts that were listed by JM Garage and the check they gave the car more than 18 months ago. In that time I've thoroughly enjoyed my little often over-looked gem of a Porsche. There are not many good & excellent 944s around these days, and so the plan is to refresh and restore this one so that it will continue to add miles & smiles to the 204,000 already under it's wheels. Over the course of the summer (the garage is warmer to work in) and coming winter this little Porsche of mine is going to be rejuvenated - inspired in part by what I've seen some others do to their 944s but largely due to the affection I have for this car. I don't want a 911 and I don't want to follow the sheep into a turbo. The Hoff is going to be slowly roasted...

It's been an interesting few days with the 944. New sounds, or should I say noises; new insights; and new challenges are plentiful. With the family mile muncher off the road the Porsche has been in daily duties of late acting as a family car. Which is less than ideal with no rear seat belts. My younger children find it quite comfortable back there actually. Friday past I headed down to Rye to meet a friend & client at Sumo Power. One of the top tuning workshops in the UK. Sumo Power also field a pair of Nissan GTRs in the FIA GT1 world championship and race prep a selection of Rally & Drifting cars too. The race cars are a sight to behold and the facilities quite exceptional. A great place then to hold a rolling road session on a project car. Besides the race car SP had a veritable smorgasbord of retro and performance cars to drool over. Such as a twin turbo'd Lamborghini with dry-ice cooled charge cooler: A convertible Aston Martin: A lovely Dod...

With such incredible weather this weekend it was great to stretch the legs of my 944 with two 90 mile journeys. In between the trips I topped up the Castrol oil for the first time since the big oil service last year. The engine took two litres of the good stuff. So that was well timed too.

That's right today 25 years ago a very fortunate gentleman picked up my lovely 944 from AFN in London. I still have the original order and invoice in my history file too.