im a huge porsche fan...and lsx fan. this is badass!

thanks for sharing

 

loooool, i like your ideas

but seriously , the body is last on the list . i'll probablt paint it and get a new wing, but you never know .

and why won't it be a sleeper ( other than the fact that it's a porsche)?? i plan on making it super quite ( i hope ) and it should look stock from the outside

how strong is a 930 box? and isn't it rod shifted?


and 67maro, thanks its the fule of choice for the camaro ( as long as i can find it ), SMELLS GOOD TOO

Duffster , the tracks over here for some reason just hand out white coppies , usually the printer prints two slips after each run.

euphoric , we aim to please

 

That wheels up black Porsche is owned by a member on Hybridz.org, mikelly.
It is a very nice car.

 

awesome man, just plain awesome.

 

This is a cool project. Of all the Porsches to swap into the 996 is hardly the one that will upset the porsche purists, since they never seemed to warm up to the 996 to begin with.

My only question is economics - if you bought the chassis for $10k, take another $10-15k for the engine swap, then maybe do another $5k or so for the interior (looked like it is unusable) you will be into the car for $30k and a running 996 turbo can be bought for $35k private party or closer to $30k wholesale. The 996 turbo motor is also easily pushed to 700-800hp on stock internals and bolt on (fuel, turbo,) mods.

 

Conversions aren't about economics. It's about having a one of a kind, bad *** car.

 

understood. I am putting an LS1 into a 944 this spring/summer. The stock 944 turbo was a 180 rwhp car. Bumping it to 400 rwhp is pretty special.

However a 400rwhp LS1 996 turbo is not going to offer any special performance. Many of the 996 turbos out there are putting out 600,700, 800 to the wheels with upgraded turbos and stock internals. LA Porsche Dismantlers, Oklahoma Foreign, etc will sell a pull out 996 turbo motor for about $15-20k.

 

If we were economists we would all just buy fast cars from the factory or drive the lightest stripped down go-carts with the smallest most efficient power plants affordable that would nearly run on fumes. Then we would sit round and brag about fuel economy completely forgetting the performance, creativity and individuality side of the hobby that gets us up in the morning.

**** that! I think the conversion is cool. Where is a Purist so I can have a dog pee on his tire?

 

clayp, your argument makes sence , but i have a few points to make if you don't mind :

- engine swap will probably cost $5k to $6k since i already had most of the engine laying around in the garage and the big cost will be the adapters and clutch, i think i can find a trans locally for cheap - relatively speaking.

-interior isn't that bad really , need a new a-pillar, stereo , rear carpet, airbags ( not sure i want to put them in really ). it cleaned up pretty good with a wet rag , plus most of the missing peices in the pictures came with the car.


- as for the engine , this one is "temporary" later down the road it will grow and probably sprout a couple of turbo's so i'm not really worried about the power, and you have to keep in mind , porsche tax on parts is even higher than the corvette tax

- i'm doing this for fun it keeps me busy and out of trouble , so if you think about it its not really about saving money , i love doing this stuff !

i know in the long run i'll spend more money than i should on it , but hey ,, that's nothing new ( look at the stang and camaro!)


any how , back to progress reports

i might pick up the stock exhaust today , i already got the wheels and tires , and got a few metal peices cut for the cradle fabbing process.

i also went and got me a new "u" made up fron smaller diameter tube , and i think cradle V.2.1 is brewing in my head now

i'm thinking of doing it just like the renegade cradle , where it mounts solidly to the block and uses the original porsche engine mounts to hold it in place. i just need to machine a few round disks with holes in them to use as tube ends.

i also have to start looking at my header options , i'm thinking of block huggers or vette style shorty headers. problem i have is that they can't be like the ones i posted a pic of above , since they exit right where the suspension stuff sits which rules out shorty f-body headers and truck ones. they have to exit facing down somewhat.

 

C6 manifolds backwards?

Chad

 

you are reading my mind !

i was looking at how c5 ( i think they are the same ) manifolds exit and started looking for shorty headers to replace them with (cause they are lighter , will use the stockers when i put turboson there) .

i just have go back to the garage and see how / where the engine mounts and cradle pipes will be in relation to the manifold.

 

project name should be "OLE SMOKEY"
dark grey color paint w/ black wheels...
great thread

 

What about 180° headers? Exotic sound on an LSx!

 

F body LT headers are surprisingly close to fitting with the cradle. The only thing you need to modify is the head-to-header flange spreading the collectors away from the pullies at more of an angle (does this make sense?) and the outlets line up almost perfectly to the bumper outlets I purchased some ebay stainless headers to chop up, but there was not much to change beyond ^. I decided to go to turbo land since I already had the blowers and W/G's and decided to just enjoy the car for the rest of the season and ended up selling the headers in unmounted condition in the classifieds on here.
I was planning on running 5'' disc style supertrapp muffs capping off the collectors. Cheap, tunable sound, great flow with little back-pressure (depending on how many discs your using or uncork the end for open Long Tube headers)

 

thanks for the ideas, but i think i'll be going with c5 shorty headers for now and have them facing towards the front of the car and then make a uturn back to the rear and into a set of mufflers and out through the tips. the reason behind using shorty c5 headers now is that later down the road i can just swap them out for stock c5 manifolds and slap a couple of turbo's on there

off course i have to setup the exhaust in a way that all i have to do is remove a section from it now and put the turbo's on there instead ( now you know why i'm making a fuss about the whole exhaust thing ) , thats why i really want to use the stock exhaust since it is placed in the rear bumper and out of the way .

 

1DirtyZ,

I appreciate your attention to detail as the build is described. The pics & details make this a very interesting read.

 

i have to give credit to Phill99vette , his attention to details in his builds was an inspiration to me .

plus you never know , this conversion might be popular some day and people would come back to this thread for information


any how , spent some time in the garage today , and didn't finish much but it was another step forward

man i miss my old ways of "good enough engineering" and " cut twice, don't measure at all " it was soo much easier that way

any how ,,,,, i finally have the "U" part of the cradle cut and positioned to where it should be .it should now clear all the accessory drive components ( passes under the balancer ) and still not be visible from the rear of the car ( unless you happen to be laying on the ground ).
i also welded up and installed the peices that attatch to the stock porsche engine mounts, all i have to do is weld the the "u" to those peices . another thing i did was drill the plates that will attatch the engine to the cradle ( all i have to do to them is smooth out their edges).

i also finished one sede of the forward part of the cradle , its basically a traingular peice that bolts to the existing crossmember and will have a bar going from it to the "u" part and will have the engine "pedestals" attatched to it.

sorry no pics cause i forgot the camera , should have them soon .

so tomorrow i have to :

- weld the U to the engine mounts
- notch and weld the bar from the crossmember back to the U
- i might make a temporard hard bracket to hold up the mockup engine in plase instead of the rubber straps i have now.

thats about it for now , will hold off on welding the pedestals untill i have a trans in the car so i can finalize the engine's placement.
the suspension parts should be here in the next few days ( hoping the weather holds and there are no flight cancellations in the north east ! ), then i can at least finish the first stage of this project: make it into a roller .

 

Nice progress.
I'm thinking with F/I you'll need a 2nd inline W/P beyond the Meziere. I've got the same one, but with 2840 lbs wet weight 232/240 cam 311 cfm 243's the pump cools well under consistent 50%-75% throttle...but under WOT the water temps and oil temps do rise. I've got a single 29''x20''x3.5'' Ron Davis radiator, plenty of cooling ability, especially for "only 420 rwhp". I added a 2''x28''x18'' oil cooler w/-10 lines that helped a lot, but the additional W/P assistance would be wise. I think stewart (?) makes one that flows on par with the Meziere that I was planning on adding on the return cool circuit after the rad.

Keep the momentum. Nice work

 

i do beleive i will need an extra pump to help with circulation some time later down the road. and i will be running an oil cooler from the begining, i just havn't figured out where to place the cooler .

any how , here are the pics of yesterday's progress:

motor mount :



crossmember plate :



engine block plate :



how it all looks :

 

Great looking project, cant wait to see it finished.