For some reason that's difficult to pinpoint, I've been thinking and talking about swapping a big displacement American motor into a small foreign car for several years.
There are so many neat cars out there that I'd like to own some day. The list is long and many are from the '70's and '80's. But that's another topic for another time. Back to the V8.
The idea started with putting a Ford 302 into a Miata. After all, the Miata is small, lite and very tossable. With 300 or so hp one of those little things would go like stink and may even be a bit scary on the street.
After spending some time in my Father-in-Law's Miata at a track day, my aching neck and scratched up helmet told the story. With a hard top, Top down, the original Miata is a cramped little car. Not X1-9 small, but small. Add a hard top and a passenger and it becomes very cozy. Headroom is lacking, especially if you like to sit up straight. My helmet spent the day trading paint with the hard-top. And these cars - while lightness is good - just don't feel very substantial in their construction. Anyway, the Miata is a great little car but something didn't appeal.
Moving on. I had read about people plugging the new generation Chevy LS series aluminum small block Chevy motors into 911's and 944s. Hmmm, that might be interesting. Porsche build quality, fantastic handling and brakes with 5.7 or 6.0 liters of straightforward, reliable and relatively inexpensive push-rod Chevy power sounded like a good combo. The obvious question - would it fit?
In talking with Renegade Hybrids of Las Vegas, http://www.renegadehybrids.com/ the conversion idea started taking shape.
At the time I had a 964 set up with PSS9s, RS sways and big brakes. The only shortcoming of the car was weight (over 3,000 lbs) and the stock motor.
By comparison, the Chevy LS motors are a bit lighter than the fully dressed 3.6 Porsche motor, and where my car was putting out a healthy 260hp, a stock LS2 is 405 with as significantly more torque.
So, with mental wheels turning - sell the 3.6 motor out of the 964, buy a kit from the guys at Renegade, find an LS1 and there we are...
Except one small packaging detail. H2O. Yes, the Chevy needs coolant. Coolant requires radiators and the 964 was a couple generations away from being packaged for radiators. The commonly used solution to this on air cooled 911s is to cut open the front structure of the car and place a radiator in the front trunk. After seeing some gory photos of cars that had been cut for this procedure, I decided the 911 wasn't going to be the platform for me. I couldn't do it.
944? Handles great. Easily modified. Tons of aftermarket support? Built in relatively large numbers during the 1980's. Front engine and already set up for water cooling. Sounds good. Ok, that's the direction.
Sell the 964. As usual with my automotive investments, buy high (or medium in this case) and sell low. After a few months talking with lots of interested lookers, the car went to a good guy in LA who is now building it into an RS replica track car.
With cash in hand, it was time to start the adventure, hoping it wouldn't be too overly adventuresome in the end.
