Porsche 944: Actually there is a substitute

[sparkydog]

Look Ma! No exoskeleton!

The Mustang front end is now fitted and tack welded in. In a week or so I will tow it to the alignment shop. Hopefully they will confirm that I did a good job of measuring and then I can proceed with finish welding and several gussets.

[sparkydog]

I came up with an easy solution for fixing the Stang's taller strut towers. I'll just cut big holes in the hood, duct tape some coffee cans over the holes, spray paint them red and call the car Hell Boy!

[sparkydog]

I machined up two fake bearings that are the same size as the 944's only undersized so I don't have to press them in/on anything. I'm going to lay claim to being the world's first (and probably only) person to assemble a Cougar axle, hub and brake into a 944 swing arm!

(I'm still just playing around here but definitely warming up to the idea of doing this for real.)

[sparkydog]

And she's back on the ground!

[hgs_notes]

Looking sorta like a car again. Instead of coffee cans, use a pair of hood scoops and call them brake cooling vents.

[Frizzle Fry]

So glad you're leaning toward keeping the IRS Influenced by the new Mustang..?

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by Frizzle Fry

So glad you're leaning toward keeping the IRS Influenced by the new Mustang..?

Influenced by the Frizz! It was your suggestion back a few posts. It stuck with me.

[Frizzle Fry]

Right on man. Looking forward to seeing your implementation. Looks promising so far.

So what the heck are you going to do about the strut towers? Section them down and run lowered springs?

[sparkydog]

Originally Posted by Frizzle Fry

So what the heck are you going to do about the strut towers? Section them down and run lowered springs?

Yes. My next task is to come up with a clever technique to section and lower the top of the towers without changing the compound angle that they sit at.

That or the Hellboy option.

[Restrorob]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

In a week or so I will tow it to the alignment shop.

Sparky...... Ya gotta get a pic of the alignment guy's face when you roll up with this thing !

[NONHOG]

Originally Posted by sparkydog

That or the Hellboy option.

Slightly smoother than Hellboy? Bit of a "euro" look. just a thought.

[sparkydog]

The trip to the alignment shop is this coming Friday. The 944 is loaded on my tow dolly and ready for the field trip! I made up some quick "push bars" so that we have something to hold onto when we push it up onto the rack at the tire shop. Check out my hillbilly steering linkage! (Temporary of course - Not safe for the real world.)

[sparkydog]

Checkup at the alignment shop went very well. All was within 1/10's and some within 1/100's of a degree. As an engineer I know that 1/100th of a degree is outside the accuracy of the gear and the vehicle but none the less - always nice to see that small of a number up on the digital readout!

Hope to make great progress in 2014. Have a Merry Christmas everyone! See you next year.

[Effeckt]

Very cool! Love following your builds!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by NONHOG

Slightly smoother than Hellboy? Bit of a "euro" look. just a thought.

Is that Hellboy's jock strap???

Congrats of the alignment!

[sparkydog]

Size matters in slot cars

[NONHOG]

1/32nd? Hard to tell. Heck of a set up. I've been talking about taking down my boys track in the shop loft. I use it the most. But that's few and far between.
They are a hoot!

[sparkydog]

The 944 is back up in the air again and the Mustang K-member is out. I burned in the main connection points between the Mustang front end and the remnants of the Porsche frame/horns. I'm rattle canning the bare metal with epoxy as I go. The white will be my visual flag that I have to seam seal these areas before I shoot the entire engine bay in red in a few months.

With the front frame welded in solid I was able to remove two of my cross braces and slowly the engine bay is beginning to look more normal.

[sparkydog]

I am continuing to mock up what a 944 swing arm and Ford axles/spindles/rotors would look like. I've got both a Mustang rear rotor and a Cougar rear rotor and it looks like either one will clear the Porsche swing arm. And a caliper adapter bracket looks straight-forward as well. In the pics the Coug rotor is the vented one and the Mustang is the solid style.

[ejn74]

Very Impressive Man!! Keep up the awesome work!!

[sparkydog]

So far this is my favorite feature on the 944.

[sparkydog]

This week was the big step towards eliminating the Hellboy strut tower look. I designed and fabricated this Strut Tower Chop Welding Jig Thingy. It does two things. First it mimics the geometry of the stock Mustang strut. Second it provides a spacer block/jig that will allow me to bolt the new plate that will become the top of the lowered strut tower.

[sparkydog]

I use it by first attaching the upper block of the jig up inside the strut tower and just finger tighten the bolts. Then I use the clever little puck thingy to center the axis of the mock strut in the bolt pattern and then finish tightening the bolts. In a perfect world this is all I would need to do because you would hope that the Mustang engineers had the surface of the strut tower perp to the axis. But when I went to attach the lower end of the mock strut into the spindle it was off by a few degrees. (On a real strut this mis-alignment is absorbed by the rubber bushing on the top of the strut.)

[sparkydog]

This means that either the top of the strut tower is slightly out of perfect alignment or that I screwed up on my measurements and machining. I prefer the first reason.

So I just loosened the upper bolts so the block jig could move a little and finished attaching the lower end of the rod/strut into the lower mounting block. I have a couple of marks in the rod that let me know when I have the lower control arm at ride height. You can see in the last picture that the top of my block is no longer flush with the top of the strut tower.

[sparkydog]

And here's a shot of the bottom of the block jig that will be where the new plate will bolt to. I will then tack weld the plate to the sides of the tower, cut to top off the tower, remove my block jig and then flip it over and do the other side.

I should be back with some progress in about 2 weeks.