There are certain difficulties in daily driving an older performance car. Some are obvious- the car sits substantially lower than even modern performance cars. Ventilation can leave something to be desired. Slow steering racks can make parallel parking a challenge (yes, project 944 GTS gets parallel parked a lot, so I am keenly aware of how many turns lock to lock this thing has in performance and non-performance driving situations). Not least of all, sometimes weird stuff breaks, and sometimes parts are straight up not available.
Before we get started with this post, we need to thank Michelin. As many of you know, Michelin is a long-time sponsor of FLATSIXES.com. Recently, they have generously offered to sponsor Project 944 GTS as part of their involvement with our site. Please consider checking out what Michelin has to offer by clicking their banners on this page. Without Michelin’s support, and others like them, this site really wouldn’t be possible.
Hatch Pins
I took project 944 GTS to the store recently, went to close the hatch, and it bounced back up at me. Second attempt, close the hatch, and up it comes. The hatch pins were not seating in the latches, and suddenly I am stuck with a hatch that will not close or lock. Son. Of. A. Bitch. This car lives outside most of the time, so this is easily classified as a big problem.
Fixing this issue is something of a challenge, as the 944’s hatch mechanism is unusually convoluted and comprised of five major parts, most of which are independently adjustable, leaving a lot of room for error. These parts include the hatch pins(two), receivers(two), lock mechanism, manual actuators, and the power actuator.
Peel back the carpets, and the receivers, which I deduced to be the source of my problems, are easy to spot. Viewed from the top, these are the holes the hatch pins pass in to, and make up the actual latch mechanism. They are attached to the lock cylinder in the middle of the rear fascia with push-pull rods.
The receivers are pretty easy to remove, just two studs secure them and their lower catch tray/drain. Undo the nuts, remove the drain, unclip the push/pull rod and they drop right out. Assuredly after thirty years these latches are disgusting. Be careful when cleaning these, as they are internally lubricated and harsh cleaners can remove the grease. I shot them full of white lithium grease just to be sure.
Each latch closes over the top of the pins with two closing jaws. I found that my passenger side latch had just one working jaw, and the right side one got jammed up with the decaying hatch pin receiver rubber. The combination of these two issues meant that the hatch pins would not seat in the latches, and my hatch wouldn’t close.
That disgusting piece of rubber is the old hatch pin seat from the left side(the right side was all but disappeared), and the two other pieces are the new seats. Only 944 supplies these seats with rubber o-rings to help center the seats in the receiver, but I found that with the o-ring in place the head of my pins would no longer fit in the receiver. Your mileage may vary, but after removing the o-ring my pins fit tightly, and without wiggle room. I applied a small amount of adhesive to the bottom of the receiver to help keep the pin seats from moving unduly.
Getting the receivers re-installed is the reverse of installation. Only944 has a handy guide to adjusting your hatch correctly. Fortunately I marked all of my adjustment points with a grease pencil during disassembly, and was lucky enough that everything slid back together smoothly when I was done.
Lighting
I can not undersell how important this upgrade is. US market 944s all came with sealed beam headlights. Installation of an H4 headlight of the same size is the simplest possible upgrade which will improve enjoyment of your 944. Light output is improved substantially even with standard bulbs, and can be improved further with upgraded bulbs. I tend to like Flosser Ultralamps, because they use a different gas blend in the bulb, giving greater output without substantially increasing power demand or necessitating additional relays. Even with standard Hella H4 bulbs, the new lights work much better than the old.
For you 911 owners who have an easier time with lighting than us pop-up headlight folks, here is how to make the swap in a 944:
- Remove the headlight actuator fuse. It should be the second fuse in the box.
- Remove the rubber boot from the headlight motor.
- Turn the round actuator at the top of the motor to raise the lights
- Remove the plastic shroud from the housing, then remove the light from the cradle.
- You can also remove the full light cradle from the headlight bucket if you want to give everything a good cleaning. As long as you don’t touch the adjusters, you are fine.
- Install the Euro light into the cradle.
- Install the bulb in the light.
- Reinstall everything, including the fuse.
- Check your alignment.
- Enjoy your night vision.
Upcoming Updates
As I mentioned in the lead paragraph, there are some factors that come in to play when daily driving an older car. Parts availability is a big one. I am hoping to have a suspension install ready for you by the end of the month, but for a variety of reasons that may be delayed slightly. I originally wanted to run Koni Reds in Project 944 GTS, but upon discovering a parts shortage affecting the rebuild parts I needed for my Reds, I opted to downgrade to Koni Yellows, only to find they are also on backorder. The Konis should be in soon, and will be installed quickly as soon as they arrive.
So let’s just lay out where this project is going. Michelin’s official support of this project runs through the end of September, by which point the suspension should be in, as well as the new wheels and tires. This will not be the end of the project, however, as I still have plans for the car. The rear seat will be deleted, the 944’s pervasive chassis-stiffness woes will be addressed, and then we have to figure out how to coax more performance out of the 2.5L 16v without driving me to bankruptcy (no mean feat, I assure you).
Catch up on Project 944 GTS:
PROJECT 944 GTS- PART 1: INTRODUCTION
PROJECT 944 GTS PART 2: THE SWAY BAR AND THE ALL WEATHER SPORTS CAR
View Comments (7)
I've got KW 3-ways on my NA car and they are quite nice. Good luck with the Koni's. I've got an FR Wilk chip in the ECU and that helped with a touch of power but generally, the lack of power is endearing in these cars and really makes you have to drive it. It takes some time to get used to it, but you'll save a ton of money by just leaving the engine as is. "Once you're in there..." will destroy your wallet on these car, in my experience. My suspension parts alone are worth more than the car.
The S isn't SLOW, but it certainly isn't fast. I wish doing something as simple as an MAF conversion was as easy on the S as it is on an 8v car(both Turbo and non-Turbo). The flow restriction from the AFM on the S and S2 is just absurd, and it looks like a larger bore MAF would be the least invasive way to more power, plus smoother delivery.
Making it play nice with the stock ECU is another matter entirely.
Yes, a "while you're in there" approach will kill your bank account. When mine eventually needs valve stem seals I'll probably cave and open the head up a little, but really there isn't much else to do on these motors without going to a dry sleeve setup or a stroker crank for greater displacement.
New H4's should be high on the list of any 944 upgrade. I lucked out big-time with an introductory offer for GE LED H4 headlights for my 944S2 and the improvement in the brightness and range of the lighting over the stock lights was astonishing.
The LED's are normally very pricey, but if you have the money (or find an incredible deal like I did) they will easily rival HID's in performance.
I used to work for a company that sold Flosser lamps, which is where my preference for those comes from. I haven't used LED lighting for headlights in several years(they were relatively new technology in the last car I had them in), and I didn't really care for them. The Flosser lights have a similar color temperature to normal lights, with softer falloff at the edges of the light's range than LED. Maybe I'm odd, but I find very sharp falloff distracting in a lot of newer cars.
Just preference, however, and I would certainly be open to trying LEDs again in headlights. I will be putting LEDs in my brake and turn signal light positions soon, but I'll leave conventional bulbs in the running lights.
I've had my 944 S about a year and just found this blog today. I won't say that the S has a lack of power, I think it's just right for a street car. I test drove an NA and I found that it lacked power for a sports car. Maybe if our power wars continue in ten years the S will feel slow. I put 18s and new extreme contact sports on and they are amazing. It's a shame Michelin isn't making the new 4S in a 944 friendly size. I agree the suspension is where to spend the money as soon as you look at putting $ into the engine you're better off just trading to a 944 turbo or doing an engine swap. One thing to consider is the gearing. With the turbo box and an NA final drive you have to work the S too hard to make it's power. I think a full NA box would really make the car come alive and would also be better for the Grand Touring aspect with a lower 5th than the S box has.
I also did a head light upgrade as the old one's were near unusuable. I put in cheap Chinese LED ali express units, $70 shipped and they work amazingly.
Yes, it is a bit of a challenge to find tires in old-car appropriate sizes. Ultra High Performance street tires are actually the toughest category in that regard, as when you step up to more track-oriented rubber(like Michelin's Pilot Sport Cup), the issue becomes less pronounced.
I am a little hot and cold about engine modifications. There is not much available for the S, but I LOVE gnarly NA motors. The S has all the right guts, and I am really curious about how far it could go. Cost is a major issue, however. I bought the S because I wanted a nasty non-turbo, and I find the idea of doing an engine swap in this car a little counter to my values. There simply aren't many nice 944S models out there, and while I am not opposed to modifying mine, I would feel bad altering it substantially with an 8v Turbo or LSx swap.
Does your 944 suffer from dim dash lighting? LED REPLACEMENT bulbs with enhanced reflectors really makes a big difference. Now drivable at night. 1985 NA 944