302 SBC Powered 924 Carrera GTS Replica

My engine is based on an 84 350 4 bolt block. I have a late forged 284 crank, L99 powdered metal rods, forged flat top pistons, LT1 aluminum heads and intake, long duration/high lift roller cam and rockers, batch fire injection. Accorfing to my DYNO 200 software it should make around 470HP @ 7200 RPM's & 389 Lbs Ft torque @ 5500 RPM's.

I am using a G31/01 LSD transaxle (euro 924 turbo based on 915)

The body is an 84 944 but I am making it into a 924 Carrera GTS replica. I have late 924 1/4 panels with Carrera flares, a Carrera GTS front bumper complete with all the correct euro lights and hardware, GTS type non opening headlights, a euro rear bumper, GT hood scoop and have deleted the sunroof. I have highly modified the radiator mounting and have dual condensers, one on each side under the turn signal/driving lights (to keep this heat away from the radiator, modified a/c so I can have dehumidified defrost. a 951 radiator/fan, BMW/ATE hydroboost, 951 rear calipers and 4 pot Jaguar front calipers, Sparco copy reclining front seats, and I will be flush mounting a late windshield to the car also.

I have made all of my adapters, mounts, etc. myself including the full length headers (still have the drivers side to finish up)

I will be adding more on this along with a gallery as I get time.

Pete

Here are some of the parts.

Oil Pan
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adapter
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Motor Mounts
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G31 transaxle it is basically now a G31/02 European
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Looking good, Pete. This board doesn't seem to have the re-size feature like PHB. Nice pics, though...

Well, my transaxle is finished and I have been cleaning and painting parts. I bought a powder coat gun from Harbor Freight so I am now powder coating parts. I have the front struts done and the reat trailing arms and associated pieces. I have beed blasted the aluminum suspension parts and finished my Jag front calipers. I pulled the gas tank to clean it and while I was under there I checked the fuel lines and found a spot rusted pretty bad. So I decided to di the whole underside of the body too.

I haven't decided if I will remove all of the factory PVC undercoat and paint it or just fix the undercoat where needed.
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I've been working on the underside foe a while now. I have the floor straight along with the front floor supports. I needed to take those off to straighten them. I have all of the factory PVC undercoating in boxes so I can weight it all. I'm guessing that there is about 40# of it that I have removed. I will be coating it with rubberized undercoating that weighs about 5#,

I found that I had a crack in my gas tank and have repaired that. I have cleaned the brake and fuel lined and painted them with POR-15. My trailing arms are now powder coated along with the brake parts. I bead blasted the brake backing plates and dust shields so now they look like new parts.

The calipers are also powder coated red and rebuilt. I need to powder coat the front spindles and a-arms yet. The strut housings are also powder coated. When I re-seal the rack I will powder coat that too.

I will be bonding the rear Carrera GT flares to the body in the next few weeks and also bonding the inner wheel wells to the flares. I'd like to get it off of the rotisserie and back on the floor by the end of next month.

That looks like an awesome project, if you don't mind, I'd really like to take a look at it some time. How do you like the powder coating gun from HF? Worth the $$?

Here are a few pictures of the underside of my car now that it is re-coated and the gas tank re-installed.

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and one of the engine compartment ready for paint

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How is your progress coming on this? Did you get the engine built yet?

No, I haven't. I'm still collecting parts. But I am progressing on the car.

I like 302's!
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Looks like a really interesting build!

I've always been partial to the DZ 302. I always liked how they would wind up and scream and how they idled. So when i decided to go with a v8 I decided to build one that followed the Carrera GTS engine as fr as RPM's. I also wanted lower low end torque to be a little easier on the transaxle. I'm dying to get it running. Hopefully it will be this spring.

The 302 in that car has seen RPM's well north of 8 grand. Rumor has it, that engine has seen 9k shift points.

I read an interesting artical online from HotRod.com about performance motors of the time. They did a dyno run of a 365hp 327 and a 290hp 302 and the results were a little surprising. Both motors had the same cam a 30-30 Dontov, same intake, and carb, both made the same gross horsepower but the peak torque was more and came on 600 RPM's earlier for the 327. I guess 25 cu. in. makes a difference, but a balanced 327 can rev up over 7500 all day with the right ignition. Personally I would love to build a DZ302 with 6" rods, and a 1st off road design cam. Although I am not really sure that the 4 bolt mains made any difference due the to low rotational force of the 302's lighter crank. (Yes a 3" stroke crank weighs less I have a 283 crank and a 327 and they are not the same.) Back to cams: Remember the 30-30 cam was a long duration comprimise cam designed to work with stock grocery getter valve springs, also its intake closes late, so it has an effective CR of 7.5:1; it's a loppy high lift proformer that will tolerate bad gas. The 1st and 2nd design are more agressive cams and were designed with after market race valve springs, these cams need race gas. I've been told that in a SCCA F5000 car a 302 would run all day at 8 grand. But they would need a full rebuild every after race.

I think if I had access to a good 327 small jornal crank I'd build 2 bolt 331 over a 306 because while a Z28 can rev over 8000 RPM's, why? My tach doesn't go that high. Yeah neither motor would be to much for a 944 trans to handle. The Z28 may be a better fit for the gear set in a 944 if you were runing it only on road courses, but the L76/L79 327 is a better all around SBC motor. Especaily since most of us drive our 944's around 3000 RPM's which as I said is about 600 RPM before a 302 gets working.

Also cam design is light years better now than when those motors were built. The hydraulic roller I am using makes more torque across the entire RPM band than the early solids. I won't be able to wind it up over about 7200 though.

IF your heart is set on a 302 my thinking was to take a LT1 block, (but then maybe this post should be on the LTx board),heads, intake and pistons and use the crank and rods out of a 265 '94-'96 Caprice. That way you get the 3.00" stroke and long 5.92 rods. If you were to use LT4 heads, intake and the "Hot Cam" your LT302 should still make an honest 285hp, based on a LT4s' horsepower rating of 330hp. But as I stated about the L76/Z28 engines sometimes size doesn't mater when talking peak horsepower, but low end torque does when driving around town. The longer rod to stroke ratio of the 302 could dynamically change the way the "Hot Cams'" characteristics are applied and allow for more chamber filling at high RPM. Talking to an engine builder buddy of mine the other day. His approach when going for the most peak horsepower is to build large bore/short stroke/long rod engines in those classes that allow it. And this ain't nothing new, if you look at the 60's and when the NASCAR had it's 7 liter rule, the big 3 all had engines with 425, 426, 427, 428 cubic inch displacements w/4.25 inch bores and about 3.75 inch strokes, and long rods. He is building 500+hp out of 350's running Vortec heads, as he says it's just what you want it to do and how you do it that counts. Heck he has 30 years in the business and I wish I knew a tenth of what he does.