Purchased and building a 1989 944 turbo s track car

hello all, i am new here. i purchased today a 1989 turbo s track car. appears to be a serious car. full cage tied to the front and rear struts/shocks, gt3 rs seats but he wants keep those, 993 turbo front and rear brembos, tarrett billet adjustable sway bars, leedy adjustable piggyback coilovers on all 4 corners, monoball camber plates front and rear, front adjustable strut bar, all bushings have been replaced with spherical bearings, rebuilt turbo s gearbox with lsd and cooler. i have a na 5th gear as well. car currently sets on 18" boxster twist wheels and race slicks. wont have pics til late this week or early next wk. i have a ls l33 5.3 all aluminum v8 with 243 heads, ls2 cam, ls1 intake, 78mm throttle body, matching maf, stainless headers, stainless magnaflow muffler or i can run a stock ls2. should make a nice car. my intentions with car is mostly street driven and some wkend track days.

Welcome to the only sane board out there! Sounds like a killer car, probably the best 944 platform. All that spherical will be rough on the street, hope you have the backbone for it looking forward to the pics!

welcome. Sounds like a nice recipe for an awesome car

thank you both for the welcoming. this will be a toy and is not intended to be a daily driver car. i have a chevrolet truck i daily drive lol. but with that said it will be street driven occassionally. any insight here about whether to go with the mildly hopped up 5.3 puttin out around 380hp or the stock ls2 with 400hp but the ls2 has more tq... im sure as the build starts next wk i will have lots of questions about power steering or no power steering? best brake master cylinder options? etc.

Full cage means not using this car on the street at all really. Just not safe unless you intend on wearing a helmet and harnesses all the time...

thank you for the info doc. all of the items listed above with the exception of the ls motor is already done to the car. and its a weld in cage not a bolt in so fairly permenant. would you go with the l33 with hop ups or the ls2 doc?

Depends how much power you want to make. A lot of us are constricted by whatever race class we're running in power wise. For example, I really couldn't make more than 375rwhp. So I stuck with an LS1 instead of an LS6 or something...

my main concern for asking whether a l33 or ls2 is how much tq will the turbo trans safely take without destroying it? if 400ft lbs is around the limit ill stick with the l33, if the turbo trans will take 500-600ft lbs ill stick in the stock ls2 and also install my ls3 hotcam, with roller rockers, larger throttle body and cnc ported patriot stage 3 heads and match ported intake.

So far I don't think anyone has blown up a turbo transmission. I'm making 400ft lbs and the tranny handles it fine. I know another guy has a supercharged LS in his making 550-600 ft lbs and I don't think he's had any transmission issues.

Just don't do clutch dump drag launches and all should be fine...

maybe Eric the admin here can answer but the strengthening plate he adds to the end of the transaxle beefs up the one weak spot on the tranny. I think you are more likely to kill an axle before the tranny goes

thank you to everyone with their input. it is all very helpful knowing current working recipes of the little cars. im sure once i start the build next week i will have more questions. thanks again.

ok so the madness begins.... i dont want a power steering pump on my car, just an alt. and ac. i have already picked up a 944 manual rack but what about the brake booster? i have read lots of posts here and see lots of views and opinions. my car is a serious car with 993 twin turbo brembos on all corners. what if i go manual brakes with the original master cylinder? i have read the posts about the electric master cylinder, how much does it cost and how reliable is it? accessory wise i will only have an alt and ac comp on my car. i live in oklahoma and ac is a must, car will be occassionally daily driven. i am mounting the alt down low on driver side and ac in factory f body location/belt/tensioner. also i have read about removing the hood latch? zues fasten the hood down? i am building my own engine tubular crossmember to allow useage of the fbody aluminum oil pan/i will build it already accounting for the 1/2" drop so no spacers will be needed, and building my own c5bh to 944tt adapter. i will send my harness and ecm to tpc and also buy erics vss setup. i have a vette fuel regulator with an fittings on it and an extra set of 944 fuel lines from engine bay to figure out my fuel line adapters, i have a sbc oil relocation kit with an fittings and will make that work on the ls motor, i will build custom stainless y pipe with ss flex's and performance ss cat back to a ss magnaflow shorty dual in dual out muffler/nice sound in my 911. i am playing with the idea of making the rear turbo lower spoiler with a second muffler cutout on the passenger side to match the drivers side. i am pretty sure i want erics tranny plate, and xschops chromoly axles, i have a na 5th gear as well. my goal is 2 months, we shall see how realistic that is lol. im sure you all will laugh too . i am not new at fabrication or ls motors into porsches. i am a machinist and have my own shop, i have built serious porsches all my life, porsche certified technician, and have a 1993 911 rs america that i installed and a rh kit and a ls2 into a year ago. currently reworking some of the rh mounts that i didnt like when i installed the kit into my 964. anyhow back to the 944 turbo s.... any advice or help is greatly appreciated. thank you for your time, mike in oklahoma

Oh my I really want to see pics of that RS America!!!

how do i post pics here?

I tried posting pics yesterday and followed this info:

Can I post Images?

Images can indeed be shown in your posts. However, there is no facility at present for uploading images directly to this board. Therefore you must link to an image stored on a publicly accessible web server, e.g. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] You cannot link to pictures stored on your own PC (unless it is a publicly accessible server) nor to images stored behind authentication mechanisms such as Hotmail or Yahoo mailboxes, password-protected sites, etc. To display the image use either the BBCode [img] tag or appropriate HTML (if allowed).

Try this,

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i have a couple of current pics of my rs america with the ls2 motor setting next to it. but i dont have a place to post my pics to so i can link them here. the rs america is a 964 platform and rh does not specifically make a kit for that platform, they make 911, 912, 930, and 996 kits specifically. the rh 911 ls kit does fit the rs america mostly but a few bracket mounts fit ill. the cooling system isnt designed for the 964 mostly due to the fuel tank layout in the 964. so i did mount the kit in the car and drove it for a few months without issues but it always bugged me the items werent up to par with my car. so i have taken it back apart to re engineer some of the items. when im done it will look like a factory install anywhere you look in my car. 1993 rs america; 1994 turbo g5052 gearbox with custom gearing, lsd, billet sideplate, rem coat internals, then all was cryoed. ls2 was stock, now fast intake, patriot ls cam, gmpp roller rockers from the ls7/ls9, larger throttle body, larger injectors, likely around 500rwhp when done. anyhow back to the 944 turbo s build...

It's easy to do right from the "post a reply" page. If you look above there's a icon that looks like a floppy disk. Hover your mouse over it, it will say "host an image". You then "upload" your picture by finding the file on your computer. When you find your file all you do is select it and click "host it". You then drag and drop the link.

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the front bumper cover in the pic is one i picked up from a salvage yard to cut out holes for the radiator setup without cutting my original bumper up. the pic with the engine next to the car is when i was swaping intakes.

944 turbo s; engine is removed and at this point i am installing the manual steering rack, power washing the engine bay and likely will do some detail/paint to the engine bay. will not run power steering pump. will make my own firewall/mc billet adapter plate to use my billet lockheed martin dual master cylinder with my 993tt calipers.

It will be easier to install the new engine without the crossmember & steering rack in place. Trust me.

thanks for the info. thats how i pulled the motor and also am planning on installing the ls motor the same way.

so far; 1988/89 944 turbo s track car, $$$ended up being almost free from a friend... l33 aluminum 5.3 with 243 heads ls2 cam ls1 intake 78mm throttle body 85mm maf 304 stainless steel headers 1.8 summit racing roller rockers new gasket and seal kit new main bearings new rod bearings arp rod bolts arp main bolts arp head bolts new oil pump, $1680.00... c5 bellhousing htob flywheel pressure plate kevlar mopar clutch disc $460.00... na 5th gear $$$free from a friend... making my own crossmember motor mounts and adapter plate, $125.00... nice used ss magnaflow dual mufflers from ebay $80.00 shipped... new ls1 fuel regulator with an fittings from ebay $120.00 shipped... summit racing oil filter relocation kit with an fittings $98.00 shipped... still have to send ecm to tpc for remapping. around $$$2700.00 so far. im sure there will be more though.

a couple of people have asked... yes it is a real turbo "S" with the turbo "S" trans.