A couple of weekends ago, while walking the Pomona Swap Meet, we found a clean and straight 944 Porsche that was sitting on a trailer for sale. When I asked how much it was, just out of curiosity, the guy told me $1500. This sounded cheap to me, and when asked if it ran the guy said, “No, the ECU is fried but the electrical checks out so if you plug a new one in it should run good.” Fair enough I thought, cause I’d jam an LS under the hood and call it bitchin. But I digress.
Fast forward to earlier this week and while doing my normal Craigslist hunt for cheap stuff I might be able to convince myself I can afford, but probably shouldn’t buy, I found several examples of Porsche 924, 944, and 928s that could be made to be nice, and every one of them was under $2000. Hell the 911 roller below is for sale for $2500. That’s the perfect car to start with for a killer Porsche track day car.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that one of these is necessarily cooler than a $2000 3rd Gen Camaro, or Mustang. But it COULD be.
Since a 928 S4 came with 302 cubic inches of Porsche V8, I think it would kick ass to take one of these weird looking, fat assed bastards and jam 302 cubic inches of LS under the hood. One that revs to about 9 grand will do just fine I think.
The point is, the Porsche is a better sorted car with regards to suspension, brakes, etc that a lot of the cars you can get for $2000. Plus, even though I grew up as a Chevrolet and muscle cars guy, there is still something cool about Porsches.
So what would you do to any of the examples below? Be specific. We want to know!
Man, I don’t know…. Replacing normal wear and tear stuff like brakes, suspension components, etc on these cars is uber expensive…
I’ll stick with my Mopars.
Leave them.
A 914, with a Subaru flat 4 to replace the VW 4. Set it up as a street/track day car.
Had the same idea myself – or use a Renegade Hybrids kit to put an LS motor into it.
Either a 924 with a budget LS bruiser jammed under the hood, or a Pro Street 928 with a blown Hemi and a Lenco and slicks
There’s a reason they’re cheap…
Start working on one of these pieces of junk and you will understand why they are cheap.
Use them as fill at the Corvette Museum.
Thought of this idea a lot when I lived in Germany. The 944 would be my first choice. I’m thinking junkyard crawl here…4.8 LS with a sequential twin turbo setup (probably a small subaru leading into a bigger one off of a cummins or dmax or something) T-56, paint it that bright Porsche green and throw on some fuchs wheels, might have to go for the stripped out race style gray paint and roll cage interior. Now join SCCA and go.
On second thought I think a 944 would be pretty slick as a land speed racer. Strip it clean and light, moon disc wheel covers, duct tape and the Maxton mile. Put an engine plate in for rapid swaps between different engines.
I always liked the idea of putting an LS in a 924 or 944. Hell I’ve been looking at 240SX and late-80’s RX7 too!
yeh these Porsches are pretty cheap in Aust too… one thing to bear in mind is they use a rear mounted gearbox but that should sttill be do-able with a front V8.. the cheapies that get me, though, are Mercedes… mid 70’s early 80’s V8 sedans full of leather with very nice build quality for very cheap prices – guy up the road has a V8 late 70’s sedan that he thrashes around, does good burnouts – he paid $450 for it – off a car yard… Jag’s can also be had for a song but you gotta watch the build quality ( or lack of) in them…saw one a while ago at a swap meet, 350 and powerglide alrady installed AND registered, just needs paint, $1,500
a video of my buddy’s 1974 911 with a 383 long rod and cad 425 transaxle. Runs 11.04 @ 124
http://youtu.be/OHpIWtrT_x8