Rich's LS powered 944 track car

Howdy. Thought I'd introduce myself. I'm up in Seattle and just picked up a 944 cup race car built by Fordahl Motorsports. The thing is built well and handles great but suffers from the common problem of making tons of noise without really going very fast. My plan is to install a '98-'02 Camaro engine, sort out the rest of the car and then bump up the power with an LS2 or LS3 longblock.

I've been compiling a list of parts needed and making some of the initial decisions about suppliers and options. So far I'm planning to steer clear of RH, run power steering but no A/C. I want to avoid spacing or swapping the crossmember as the suspension in the car is dialed. My concern is some of the seemingly missing pieces that have been made by admin or xschop over the years but aren't necessarily available right now. I'll ask specific questions as they come up.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of my starting point.

Rich

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homie needs to send a PM...

and again, sorry for the spam.

Tough to not use a spacer. I really didn't want to, Admin built my car and no matter what he tried, there just wasn't a way around it. At least on my car with the factory hood, etc...

Not sure how to get around the spacer issue and equally not sure the spacer is a big deal. From an engineering view, you are looking at adding 1/2 inch in the front which when you view it as the sine of a triangle ( rear axle center to front axle center being the bottom of a right triangle, you are creating a pretty tiny angle. you didnt describe your suspension, but if you have height adjustable coilovers in the front, you can get that half inch back. I have the spacers in my One Lap car and it handles just fine. I would be more concerned with the little bit of extra weight added by the LS. Move the battery to the back and get rid of the heavy bumper shocks cantilevered off the front and you are back to a 51/49 weight distribution with a half load of fuel in the stock tank. I have found that tire sizes and pressures are much more critical to getting around the corners fast. A big ass wing in the back would help too but hard to mount on our cars. My car in action can be seen at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Glad you are with the forum and welcome.

Joe
2011 One Lap of America Winner- VF

I can close the hood using TPC uprights with a 1/4 inch drop and cutting the hood brace .

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I understand that it might not work out and I've been watching Lemming's build-up thread as he's trying to avoid spacing the crossmember as well. Yes, I do have an adjustable height suspension with threaded collars up front that can move the lower spring perch. So I could also drop the hubs by extending the struts and perserve the hub, a-arm, rack relative positioning. This has the effect, however, of raising the front end of the body which will change the front roll center.

The other thing I could do is leave the strut length as is and re-drill the a-arm mounting point in the crossmember. This preserves the body height, roll center and a-arm angles, effectively dropping only the rack. A bump-steer kit could deal with this. But I don't like the idea of reduced ground clearance as this thing is already slammed. Not to mention moving the mounting point of a component as critical as the a-arm in an aluminum crossmember worries me.

A third alternative is to just screw it and cut a hole in the hood. I don't mind adding a scoop or bulge to the hood or even getting a glass fiber hood with a little extra space built-in. The remaining issue to deal with is the master cylinder clearance at the driver side head. Already an issue, this interference gets even worse without spacing off the crossmember. I see lots of ideas explored by you guys on this forum and I'm still weighing the options. Thoughts?

Congrats on your win, Joe!

Rich

I build these cars for a living, I've tried everything to keep the stock hood and not use spacers. It's not possible, unless you move the TB or move everything back, and the are other issues that you'll run into. I say , just get over the concerns of the spacers, don't try to reinvent the wheel and build you a nice track car.

My throttle body sits right where my big hood vent sits, so no problem at all!

Good luck with your build. My build was stalled due to one friggin part that will finally be here tomorrow!

Go see Squire's LS6 383 stroker in Bellevue.

The engine's here!

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So what engine did you end up going with? I'd love to say I can recognize what it is just from the pic, but I can't.

Big E wrote:So what engine did you end up going with?

It's a Camaro LS1 freshly rebuilt by a local shop. They did a custom cam, upgraded rods and new bearings, pistons, timing chain, etc. It came with a Camaro ECU dyno-tuned to a max torque of 413 ft-lbs at 4800 RPM and max power of 437 hp at the 6400 RPM rev limit.

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I'm leaving some power on the table as the LS6 intake and heads could bump it up quite a bit. And an LS3 could make a lot more. I may even install cats to gain some environmental karma. With the stock transmission and half shafts, I figure 350 -ish to the wheels will be plenty.

Rich

The old engine's out!

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Things went pretty smoothly disconnecting it and dropping it out the bottom. Now I'll get to cleaning up the bay and beginning the modifications for the v8. Thanks to all of you guys putting up here what you know and learn so other can follow your footsteps.

Rich

Congrats on those numbers! Should be a monster!

944-LT1 wrote:Congrats on those numbers! Should be a monster!

x2

This makes me want to sneak the LS1 out of my wife's 2002 Camaro SS....

Pedals are disconnected and the masters are removed. Firewall looks good, no cracks.

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Looking good. With respect to spacers, I'm going to install 1/8" spacers tonight, after running the car for a while I have notice that the oil pan is rubbing slightly on the cross member. I'm guessing the engine has "sagged" a bit with use.

Lemming wrote:Looking good. With respect to spacers, I'm going to install 1/8" spacers tonight, after running the car for a while I have notice that the oil pan is rubbing slightly on the cross member. I'm guessing the engine has "sagged" a bit with use.

Oh bummer. You're running the RH engine mounts, right? The body to crossmember spacers aren't going to help you with oil pan to crossmember clearance. So are you talking about spacers between the engine mounts and crossmember or between the mounts and engine?

Rich

Rich L. wrote:

Lemming wrote:Looking good. With respect to spacers, I'm going to install 1/8" spacers tonight, after running the car for a while I have notice that the oil pan is rubbing slightly on the cross member. I'm guessing the engine has "sagged" a bit with use.

Oh bummer. You're running the RH engine mounts, right? The body to crossmember spacers aren't going to help you with oil pan to crossmember clearance. So are you talking about spacers between the engine mounts and crossmember or between the mounts and engine?

Rich

Doh! Guess I'll be trimming the crossmember instead!

I've decided to go with a floor-mounted pedal box. This alleviates clearance issues at the driver’s side head by moving the master cylinders off the firewall. With a friend’s help, I’ve fabricated a mounting plate that bolts through the floor and laterally into the door frame. It’s nice and solid. The pedal assembly is a Tilton 73-603 with remote reservoir Wilwood masters, a remote balance bar knob and a rotating throttle linkage.

This has been a lot of effort and takes a ton of fiddly little parts to make it work. But it solves a whole bunch of problems I was having including my driving position being too close to the dash. I’m still working on plumbing the hydraulics with a pressure switch for the brake lights, setting up the linkage to pull the Lokar throttle cable and fabricating a dead pedal. Meanwhile, the engine is sitting on the stand fully dressed and patiently waiting for the clutch throw to be ready for measurement.

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Those pedals are really nice, i wonder if they have that without the gas pedal.

Yes they do. Although it might be hard to get it far enough forward for effective heal-toe with the stock throttle pedal.

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Love the tilton setup, I've been looking for a used one to save some $$$$. I too have the problem of being too far forward (vertically challenged) and would really like to move my seating position back.

One thing I've found is foot interference with one of the flap motors mounted on the driver's side of the hvac unit. I have the big stock stock box in the dash still and the lowest mounted flap motor is right where my toes wanted to be when running the Tilton throttle pedal. That's the servo motor that controls the floor flap (the lower adjuster on the hvac control panel) so I just pulled that motor off and cut one of its mounting points off the box. I only have the blower motor in there for the defroster and panel air just kinda comes out under the dash anyway because my cage runs right through the outer vent openings. Other than that, there's lots of room under the knee panel for moving the pedals rearward. I do still have the lower dash panel on there but I may cut it back some so I can see my feet.

Rich