My daily driven 944 kicked the bucket last week. Got to love those interference engines right? Well anyway I have a supply of Porsche parts for my project now. I already have the radiator removed and sitting where I plan to eventually mount it in the front. I want to use the brakes, torsion bars and the rear control arms as well. Still trying to figure out how to mount the front brakes to my 1303. Plenty of time to work this all out though since I'm just scratching the surface on this project.

My goals are to have a reliable daily driver first and foremost. I want to add some modern touches like AC, a defrost that actually works and maybe even heat that gets more than just my heater channels hot. I don't plan on doing a lot of cutting and chopping in the rear to fit a transmission so the Type 1 will have to do.

Please have patience because I will no doubt have lots of questions.

Put a Japanese turbo engine in the 944 and keep driving it! That's what I would do.

RB30?

1J or 2J

4L Lexus 1UZFE..still V8 but bullet-proof and cheap as.Quad cam..6 bolt mains..

There is a company in Texas that specializes in putting Corvette engines in 944s. Not a cheap option though. Not even if I do the work myself and if memory serves me right they sell a complete bolt in kit. I'm just going to recycle it for the aluminum and copper wires and be done with it. I have a source for another 944 if I ever get the urge to get another one.

Have a look at

http://vdubengineering.com/technical/porsche-brake-conversions-2/ 

it has all the info you need as to which bits you can use in a 1303.
You can use the complete front hubs, discs and calipers - only need to change the lower ball joint availble from Kerscher (Germany) and the complete rear trailing arms to give you factory ventilated rear discs (only have to change the pivot bush to beetle)

So this past weekend the biggest auto salvage yard in town had a huge 3 day 50% off sale. So I went shopping and got myself an EJ22 from a 91 Legacy. Got everything but the AFM unfortunately. With the engine, cluch and flywheel, the total cost was 180 bucks.

I also went back the next day and got the entire wire loom, some relays that I assume are important and the the instrument panel that I might try to work into the dash. These parts cost me another $75.

I also installed a new set of 944 torsion bars with some urethane bushings. Taking a step further I pulled the aluminum trailing arms off the old 944 and slapped those on so I could have the brakes and the wheels. Now the wheels stick out a good 3.5 inches past the fender. You can see the parts I took off of the engine next to the tire. Got lots of cleaning to do.

I've searched high and low on this board and can't find exactly what the coolant manifold "mod" is. Can somebody please point me in the right direction?

This build has alot of potencial, particularly with a bulk of porsche parts at your disposal. look forward to how it turns out.
great score on the ej parts!

Not sure of the coolant mod which your talking about.

i'm sure Joel will pipe up and answer all

Noted Joel, thanks for the tips.

So today I messed around with the engine with the intention of getting some of the gunk cleaned off of it. I downloaded the rebuild manual to see a better picture of how it all goes together, and got a little nosey. In this case it wasn't such a bad thing. Shortly after removing the left cam cover I noticed some shiny metal flakes in the oil.

I gave the oil pan a quick check and.....

There were actually more flakes but this was one of the bigger ones. It's a really thin piece of metal and it sticks to a magnet so it's not the case.

So I broke down the heads a little further and my cam lobes and rockers look fine. I'm hoping it's the oil pump and not the crank or bearings because that would probably mean a line bore which won't be cheap. I don't have the socket to get the twelve point bolts out so I'll have to hit up the store soon to get MORE TOOLS to get a good look at the crank and bearings. Just what the wife wanted to hear!

Looking into the water passages everything looks spotless except for a couple of spots. Inside the case there was some white goo just below where the water manifold mounts. I scraped a little of it out with my finger. Feels kind of like putty.

Inside the case

The passage where the water pump mounts looks fine.

The water manifold looks really clean inside with the exception of the outlet. It's got some white powdery residue but I'm not sure how serious that is.

So I finally got the engine completely disassembled and found the connecting rod bearing for #1 piston was all jacked up. The two bearing pieces were literally sandwiched on top of each other. All the other bearings had some minimal wear marks but seemed ok. My concern now is that I might need another crank.

I would just cut your losses and buy another jap motor with warrant and don't pull it apart , just put it in and run with that.
even buy a complete running car, their cheap enough these days

or ask Josh if he wants to seell his motor .

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=102786 

The problem with getting a running car here in Southern California is they are highly desirable, which drives the price up.

I honestly don't mind tearing it apart so much. I get a better understanding of how the engine works and I gather some knowledge to help the next person that wants to give this a shot.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1482887