Build thread. Porsche 964 VR6 Turbo

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

Ok a brief history. I would find myself day dreaming of cramming a vr6 into an air cooled beetle for the past few years but never really pursued it with other cars eating up my time and money. After researching a bit i realized that they make a adapter plate to run vr's in dune buggies using a few different porsche trans. so obvious choice right? Vr6 Turbo in a 911.

I started searching and found a 73 911 with a 930 conversion widebody. The guy was less than upfront about rust issues until after the deal was done. I wasn't happy and we needed to make this right. He says he also has a 91 964. no engine or trans, and just importantly no rust that would be perfect for this conversion. This chassis houses the beefy G50 trans that would be great for a Vr6t. We strike a deal and the car is on the way from florida. This was a cabriolet with fiberglass top. I never really knew what was "off" about it but after seeing a factory hardtop with the rain gutters i couldn't move forward with it. Plans now were to find a wrecked car and see if we can make a deal for the complete roof and graft it on.

Just by chance, within literally days a wrecked 993 pops up and within a couple hundred miles to boot. After talking with the guy it started to make more sense to maybe just fix it. Luck would have it that the 964 part numbers are the same as the 993 for the frame rail and lower structure and i already had a car at home with a good front clip. Cut up a cabriolet to save a coupe? i had no issues with it. After striking a deal with Jeremy for the chassis we were on our way with truck and trailer to pick it up.

So thats where we are at. I have acquired a crap ton of parts and will post more pics in a bit. Thanks to those involved in making this happen especially my boss Jr at Adaptec Speedware. Its nice to see companies get involved because of their passion for cars. This will be in the Adaptec/ Eurotrash booth this year. also big thanks to C2 Motorsports, Panzer Auto, Adams Rotors, Ramsperger designs, Stuttgart motors for all my porsche parts at cost and any and all my friends who stop by and help turn a wrench or just shoot ideas back and forth until we get one that works haha. The goal is to make Southern Worthersee may 18th.

[rohar]

Oh REALLY!?

That's aggressive and awesome all at the same time.

This thread is useless without pics.

[MikkiJayne]

Surprised you aren't making the adapter yourself

In for pictures

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

Gettin stripped

[Vegeta Gti]

fukn cool

[impulse byer]

In

[syracusegli]

im not sure about this. i REALLY like 964s.. but with a vr6... hmm. I will be watching

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

whats not to be sure of? a faster, cheaper to maintain Porsche 964. this should be your dream car

[rohar]

...and if you later swap it to the Cayanne v6 (same bell housing, same mounts) you can still compete for points at PCA events!

What are your thoughts for radiator placement/plumbing?

[MikkiJayne]

...and if you later swap it to the Cayanne v6 (same bell housing, same mounts) you can still compete for points at PCA events!

[rohar]

And just because this project has been rattling around the back of my head (can't imagine why) I just realized what a pain it is gonna be to mount the passenger side of the engine.

I'm here rooting for ya though.

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

for radiator set up im unsure but a scoop hanging down to collect fresh air and a double reverse fan pulling air thru radiator and out the tail. i'll adjust from that point lol as far as mounting goes, prolly similar to the Ls swap guys use the cradle from rail to rail.

[rohar]

Problem is there's virtually no place on the passenger side of the engine to bolt a mount.

Ok, it feels weird calling that the passenger side, it's normally the front, but you get the idea.

It was rough enough for me on the Audi V8 with the starter, alternator and exhaust in the way, but there were mount holes under there.

Make SURE you run a multi pass radiator, that hole's not very big, gonna need to be efficient!

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

Problem is there's virtually no place on the passenger side of the engine to bolt a mount.

Ok, it feels weird calling that the passenger side, it's normally the front, but you get the idea.

It was rough enough for me on the Audi V8 with the starter, alternator and exhaust in the way, but there were mount holes under there.

Make SURE you run a multi pass radiator, that hole's not very big, gonna need to be efficient!

yeah i'll figure something out hope lol

i agree! the cooling is my main concern so im gonna run it NA and see what temps are at. if need be i'll widebody the back sooner than later and use the turbo side vents for more air.

[syracusegli]

whats not to be sure of? a faster, cheaper to maintain Porsche 964. this should be your dream car

true but its no porsche engine. idk. its just weird it should have a porsche engine!

[rohar]

true but its no porsche engine. idk. its just weird it should have a porsche engine!

Like this one?



or this one?



or this one?



All of these are VAG motors found stock in porsches. At this point, it's getting pretty tough to say there's a difference between porsche and vag motors/chassis.

[syracusegli]

OE

i agree with you tho. not knocking this project or yours for that matter. i want a 911/964 so badly right now .this spring hopefully i will be looking for one

[rohar]

yeah i'll figure something out hope lol

i agree! the cooling is my main concern so im gonna run it NA and see what temps are at. if need be i'll widebody the back sooner than later and use the turbo side vents for more air.

Took a while, but I remembered a pic of a similar situation. The mount points on a 914 are identical to the 911s, just backwards. The 1.8t is similar to the VR6 as there's no easy mounts on the rear passenger side when mounted in a 911. This guy's answer was to connect the chassis points longitudinally and use the stock VW mount points:



Maybe think about adapting the Boxster radiators to the front of the 911 chassis? I'd have done it with my teener, but headlight buckets are in the way. Much better air flow up front.

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

yeah i thought about the boxster units but at this point im not going to route everything up front before i exercise all options in the rear. less plumbing, less mess

that mount is...interesting lol

[rohar]

Pretty friggin rough mount, but I think the underlying idea is pretty sound. We do a LOT of conversions in the teener world (for obvious reasons). So far I've only seen one conversion with the radiator in the back that kept cool and it was mine. Looked like ass with the rear trunk all ventilated. Gotta admit, though, running those lines up front complicates things DRAMATICALLY. I'm about to start plumbing on my current conversion. I'll update my build thread for notes comparison.

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

Pretty friggin rough mount, but I think the underlying idea is pretty sound. We do a LOT of conversions in the teener world (for obvious reasons). So far I've only seen one conversion with the radiator in the back that kept cool and it was mine. Looked like ass with the rear trunk all ventilated. Gotta admit, though, running those lines up front complicates things DRAMATICALLY. I'm about to start plumbing on my current conversion. I'll update my build thread for notes comparison.

so did you use the dual pass in yours when temps stayed down?

[rohar]

2x Audi 5000 radiators mounted in the rear trunk with a hole cut through it and a dryer duct that went from the passenger side headlight all the way to the engine bay with side scoops on the rear. I tried it with 1, but it wasn't near enough. It was a cheep trackday car, didn't have to be pretty and it was 15 years ago so I didn't have much income. I'm gonna have to track down some pics of that old beast, it was all dorked up.

Then again, it was just an 8v turbo. We're both looking at a whole lot more heat than that with our current projects.

Besides, if you stuff the radiator in the tail, where ya gonna put your intercooler?

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

2x Audi 5000 radiators mounted in the rear trunk with a hole cut through it and a dryer duct that went from the passenger side headlight all the way to the engine bay with side scoops on the rear. I tried it with 1, but it wasn't near enough. It was a cheep trackday car, didn't have to be pretty and it was 15 years ago so I didn't have much income. I'm gonna have to track down some pics of that old beast, it was all dorked up.

Then again, it was just an 8v turbo. We're both looking at a whole lot more heat than that with our current projects.

Besides, if you stuff the radiator in the tail, where ya gonna put your intercooler?

i got some ideas, just not sure its gonna work just yet once the kennedy adapter plate gets here and i can mock this up i'll have a better idea.

harness showed up today

[rohar]

I've been welding so long that's one thing I haven't ordered yet. Where'd ya get it and what did it cost? It looks pretty!

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

from ez wiring harness. 21 circuit with all the trimmings for $150 shipped.

so do you not think something like this would work?



i feel if i could scoop air with a shroud up from underneath the car up to the front of this with the fans pulling the air thru and out the back side of the rad it should be getting enough air. granted i think the fans will need to be heavy duty and run most of the time. i guess im having a problem understanding how i can sit in traffic for 3 hours never going faster than 5 mph yet the car doesnt overheat. if the radiator is in front, yes its open to the elements but if the car isnt moving, isnt it the fan that keeps it from over heating? and thats a crappy little oem fan. tell me what im missing here.

[rohar]

Idle isn't the problem. If you're sitting there, the engine isn't generating much for heat so fans connected to a radiator positioned almost anywhere will be enough. When you're at the track and on it for 20 minutes, you've got more than enough heat and the fans may not keep up.

Ideally, there's very little air under the car. A properly set up chassis will create a vacuum under the car, and even on an improperly set up car it'll be fairly low pressure so there won't be much flow to pick up and stuff through a radiator there. If you have any decent air under the car, it'll produce lift and all the horsepower in the world won't get you around the track as fast as a well tuned stock MKI Scirocco.

Experience tells me air is gonna have to come from somewhere else to keep up with a VR6, more if it's got a hair drier.

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

Idle isn't the problem. If you're sitting there, the engine isn't generating much for heat so fans connected to a radiator positioned almost anywhere will be enough. When you're at the track and on it for 20 minutes, you've got more than enough heat and the fans may not keep up.

Ideally, there's very little air under the car. A properly set up chassis will create a vacuum under the car, and even on an improperly set up car it'll be fairly low pressure so there won't be much flow to pick up and stuff through a radiator there. If you have any decent air under the car, it'll produce lift and all the horsepower in the world won't get you around the track as fast as a well tuned stock MKI Scirocco.

Experience tells me air is gonna have to come from somewhere else to keep up with a VR6, more if it's got a hair drier.

yeah thats what i thought about the lift, wasnt sure how much it would be an issue.

fans on both sides? one blowing, one sucking?
maybe the widebody rear with the vents cut into them with ducts running to radiator would help that.
i've also seen a gt style wing that had 2 scoops on the side that could potentially use to route ducts to the radiator as well. not much for wings but when function is needed over form, i'll do it.

[rohar]

yeah thats what i thought about the lift, wasnt sure how much it would be an issue.

fans on both sides? one blowing, one sucking?
maybe the widebody rear with the vents cut into them with ducts running to radiator would help that.
i've also seen a gt style wing that had 2 scoops on the side that could potentially use to route ducts to the radiator as well. not much for wings but when function is needed over form, i'll do it.

This is where I start to loose control of physics. Bernoulli was a bastard. There's a low pressure area under the car, we know this as it's the most effective chassis in racing so it's got some stick. Worse, there's a high pressure area above the wing. There must be or it wouldn't be effective as a wing. Now Jens the Porsche designer drank 2 beers per day at work due to union agreement, but he wasn't completely nuts. That wing causes down force. Given all that, how the hell did the intercoolers in the porsche turbos work? It would seem air is traveling from above to below due to pressure differential, but honestly I don't have a clue. If it did, there'd be lift, but we've seen from thousands of hours of racing that isn't the case. Seems to break the rules of physics.

It might just work, all the evidence says it should, but I'll be damned if i can explain it.

[weaponized kitten]

butcher.

BTW an air cooled VW motor and early 356 motors are not the same. They use the same idea but the parts are very different.

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

butcher.

thank you, i've been thinking of a great name for the car

[rohar]

BTW an air cooled VW motor and early 356 motors are not the same.

Uh, who said anything about the 356 motor? Random...

[ms.golf]

vag engine eh? which vw are you finding this in rohar?


this project is going to be terrible

[Brad@AdaptecSpeedware]

this project is going to be terrible

terribly fast

[rohar]

vag engine eh? which vw are you finding this in rohar?


this project is going to be terrible

The Boxster engine was a joint design between Porsche and Audi. This is a big reason why there's so much interchangeability of parts. Porsche produced it in house. Given the quality of the product, I'm not sure that was a good thing.

The list continues though, the 944, 924 etc... There's so much inbreading between these two companies it's hard to logically be a "purist". Besides, with VAG ownership of Porsche, if there ever was any purity it's completely gone now.

[blackohio]

are all 79 of your posts this stupid?