In this weeks episode we’re going to walk you through our 1979 Porsche 930 hot rod project. We’ll take you through why we chose this car as our hot rod build,

Here’s a fly by of some specifics you can expect to hear about:

  • body style
  • bumpers
  • transmission
  • factory and welded flares
  • paint
  • engine

You’ll also find an incredibly detailed breakdown of this build by our Porsche expert Tom Muehl, who has 50 years of Porsche experience and was the builder behind this engine.

Episode Transcript

Greg Bartley: (00:00)
Welcome to The Pacenotes, a podcast about all things Porsche. Today we'll be talking about our 1979 Porsche 930 hot rod project.

Matt Kenyon: (00:09)
I thought we paused after that.

Greg Bartley: (00:20)
This is Greg Bartley and Matt Kenyon with Makellos Classics. And Matt what are we talking about today?

1979 PORSCHE 930 TURBO HOT ROD BUILD


Matt Kenyon: (00:24)
So today we are talking about this 1979 930 turbo hot rod that we are currently building. We started off with '79 930 turbo body, and it came with an engine but it was not the original matching engine to the car. So we thought it was the perfect candidate for a hot rod build. And as we spoke about in our previous podcast the hot rod builds are really coming in recently. It's a hot, the market's hot on 'em. So for this build we've decided to keep it the original body style, the G body style, and not backdate it because we really liked, you know, the body was a very solid body to start out with so we decided to go iroc front bumper and yellow bird rear bumper.

Greg Bartley: (01:15)
That's based on the roof yellow bird.

Matt Kenyon: (01:17)
Yes, roof yellow bird. And the reason we decided on the roof Yellow Bird rear bumper. Well we wanted another roof item in this car. We have the five speed roof transmission for it. And those are pretty unique. Right. So we got that out of a previous car that was here that the transmission just did not belong to it.

FACTORY AND WELDED FLARES FOR PORSCHE 930 HOT ROD BUILD


Greg Bartley: (01:41)
There wasn't a good fit but it definitely fits for a hot rod build. You know I touch on the 930 you know we started with a 930 body not just because we wanted to a turbo build but you've got those factory nine inch flares in the front and eleven inch flares in the rear. So you know right from the get go we don't have to bother doing any cutting or adding on flares that are you know they're wide flares and they're just like the RSRs. A little bit different on the finishing but it's body was ready to go.

Matt Kenyon: (02:10)
And then that means kept it a very factory car, it was never hit, this thing's obviously very very straight. And so yeah I mean the factory flares actually in 1979 were welded on from the factory. It wasn't it didn't come stock in the car, it was the same as for this year it would be a 911SC and basically Porsche cut the original flares off and welded their flares on which is kind of kind of crazy to think about.

Greg Bartley: (02:38)
We made sure to keep those seams on yours too. We didn't completely cover them in seem sealer or texture so you kind of want to see that. Not that we're trying to keep it an original car but it's just a fun little fact to point out.

Matt Kenyon: (02:48)
Well, when some people hot rod their cars or flare their cars, one of the first questions is it butt-welded is it overlapped? The nice thing about this is it's these are factory flares so that is original and people love hearing that.

Greg Bartley: (03:01)
Right. And you can show it and customers can also go in there and feel that seat and then realized how it was done.

Matt Kenyon: (03:07)
And so what what are some of the core things on this build that we're doing?

1950’S OSLO BLUE BODY PAINT FOR PORSCHE 930


Greg Bartley: (03:12)
Oh man it's a whole build list. I mean I like to start with just what we see on the outside here and that's this lovely Oslo blue paint. What do you know about Oslo blue?

Matt Kenyon: (03:22)
So Oslo blue started out in the 356 era. It was an iconic color and that's why we chose it. We wanted a color that was unique to the 930 body because obviously we're hot rodding the car, we want a different color. We don't want it to look like just a 930. So we decided on Oslo Blue. Which years were those from Greg?

Greg Bartley: (03:44)
'52 and '53 from the factory, and yeah it's interesting just kind of the changes an era and how the colors started to transform you know 60s early 70s you had a lot of you know free spirited colors, lots and pastels lots of really bright colors. And then you get in the 70s which you know this car is from the late 70s early 80s they were just really dark muddled colors.

Matt Kenyon: (04:07)
Started to calm down a little bit. Let's talk about the trim Greg.

Greg Bartley: (04:11)
Trim sounds great.

Matt Kenyon: (04:12)
So talk about this yellow stuff behind you.

Greg Bartley: (04:14)
That's masking tape, yeah the doors aren't completely fitted right now. So this is what you get.

Matt Kenyon: (04:20)
So the trim on this we decided that black looked good on the car going into the blue.

Greg Bartley: (04:26)
Which was factory, but what did we do differently?

Matt Kenyon: (04:27)
So instead of the polished black and black anodized we went with a brushed finish on it, so it's brushed black anodized trim basically going all on the windows and we're going to I think have the black brushed look on the handles and the mirror to match that and tie that in. I think the wheels are gonna have some brushed on them too.

Greg Bartley: (04:50)
Right. We went with the old school mirror off the '73 as well.

Matt Kenyon: (04:55)
Yes. Yeah. Yes. The mirror off the '72, '71 through '73 cars. The flag style mirror before they got bigger. And that just I think it fits the car well, I don't like big hunky mirrors on the cars. So I think I think it'll look pretty cool and it's just a metal mirror and it will be brushed so it will fit in well. And another thing we didn't mention the body yet the another iconic kind of thing we want to put on this car was the ducktail. So we're adding the ducktail on the rear and, a lot of people their question is when you add the ducktail on a turbo car, how are you gonna fit the intercooler. And so our inner cooler system on this is going to be air to water-cooled. So that's going to be ran and that's very unique to these cars, I don't think I've ever heard of it so.

Greg Bartley: (05:44)
Yeah. So it's not commonly seen on Porsches you know and air to waters you know it's that, normally it's the air to air. So you've got an inner cooler and you're trying to get outside air to rush through and cool things down here. You're using water to air so you're using a water pump to circulate water through heat sinks and the inner cooler to be able to continuously cool things down. So it's more efficient. You can have a smaller inner cooler. And the best part is you can put it wherever you want. So it doesn't have to be placed in the best area for airflow.

Matt Kenyon: (06:16)
And going down to the engine. So the engine, the heart of this car, with the match to that five speed roof transmission that we're adding on to it, is the 3.4 Liter we started with a 930 case.

Greg Bartley: (06:31)
3-3 right?

Matt Kenyon: (06:32)
A 3-3. Yes. And then we turned it into a 3.4 liter And it is custom a Garrett turbo, an air to water cooled inner cooler, and 964 cams and 964 crank.

Greg Bartley: (06:50)
Speaking of engines. We've got Tom Muehl, he's one of our lead technicians here, and he's a factory certified master tech of Porsche for a long time and he's really the guru when it comes to these engine belts.

Matt Kenyon: (07:04)
Yeah. He I think he has about I think he has over 50 years of Porsche experience. He started over in New Jersey and came over here, had about twenty eight years at Pioneer Porsche which is now Porsche of San Diego. He's basically in charge of all of our engine builds here. Very knowledgeable, so he's the one that's building this engine. And yeah we're going to bring give it over to him for the for the for the engine talk.

Greg Bartley: (07:31)
Deep dive.

Matt Kenyon: (07:32)
Deep dive.

Tom Muehl: (07:33)
Hi my name is Tom and welcome to Makellos Classics, and today I'm gonna give you a brief little tour here of our our next build which is a '79 Porsche 930. That's going to be Oslo blue, right now we're currently calling it our Hot Rod. We're originally starting out with a 933.3 liter turbo charged motor. Well all 930s are turbo charged. What we did with this motor is we've gone a little bit deeper and what we try to extract some more horsepower out of it mainly also some more torque. So what we've done is we've taken this car from a 70 millimeter crankshaft to a 76.4 Millimeter crankshaft out of a 964. So what that allows us to do is increase the volume of the of the engine itself and allow more volume of gasses and charges to be circulated through and thus giving us more power. So we did that with the 964 crankshaft. What we did also then was we shuffle pinned the bottom end, so we knew that we were going to extract some more power out of it and it does load the crankcase quite a bit, so we shuffle pinned the bottom and what that does is, what's unique to the air cooled 911 is and the Porsche is that the case has come together from the sides and there is a possibility once you start getting up to the upper levels of the horsepower you start stressing that motor and it starts the sides try to separate. So we shuffle pinned it. So we we sent it out and we had dowel pins put in all along the bearings all along there's eight main bearings in there we went along through seven of them. The eighth one, the first one, already has a shuffle pin in it and that'll keep hopefully that'll keep us from moving around the bottom end too much. We've put carrillo connecting rods in there for the added strength and also the lightness for the reciprocating weight allowing the motor to spool up as quickly as possible as well. Along with the carrillo rods we have, we have Mahle motorsport pistons. We had those custom made for us so this motor instead of being a 3.3 we're actually just about a 3.4 almost a 3.5 liter motor. On top of that we've actually had some old school, it's all about, let me talk about the induction with that real quick. So it's all about the old school. We've found some Powerhouse injector holders which have actually that Powerhouse is one of the first companies around the beginning to actually build performance parts for these cars. So we found some intake runners from Powersport. So we put those on there and we are staying with the CIS injection. Now we did not go to EFI and this one. We wanted to try to stay somewhat traditional to the system that the car came with. Along with that we've got ourselves which is the first time I'm using a garrett turbo charger as opposed to a KKK turbo charger. So, we didn't have a turbo charger. Excuse me. We didn't have a turbocharger for this motor that came with it that was usable so we decided to go fresh and go with the garrett. So we're gonna be installing this here on this motor and as well is our planning on going to a air and water inter cooler for cooling the boost pressure going into the motors that it'll have a little cooling pump on there. And that'll be a first for us on this build too. So we kind of got old school and new school coming together with it. Along with that, we have some 964 grind camshafts in here. Again it's all about the breathing once the boost starts and we are also going with a distributor less ignition See the motor, we're still in the process of the build here, the motor doesn't have a distributor we're going to be going with a crankfire ignition system on this car. It's also gonna be manifold boost control timing control for that as well, so we're in an over boost situation and we'll back up the timing. And what happens when you turbo charge your car is if they do have a tendency to over boost you'll get detonation and knocking and can't fire all the charge that's in there, you have difficulty charging firing the charge and all kinds of problems could result from that. So we went with a still a single plug electronic ignition. And as far as that, that's a pretty, that's a pretty solid build. We do have Randy Oscoe valve springs in here with the titanium retainers as well. So this should be a pretty sound setup, it should be very reliable. For me as an engine builder it's not pretty all about trying to get the maximum power out of everything, the most you can get, because then your reliability goes down. So I try to balance it, I try to give you added horsepower, fun to drive and also have longevity where there aren't any problems that arise from the force of the horsepower. So yeah we should be able to get this probably in the car by the end of the week. As far as the drive, the drive line goes, this one is going to be paired up with a roof five speed gear box. It's a modified four speed all 930s up until 1989 came with a four speed. Roofers modifying those four speeds to a five speed, and it's a pretty fun transmission. What that does is just spaces the gears a little bit closer so you don't have that lag and a potential of the turbo charger spooling down in between shifts. So that's that's it, so we have here the 3.45 and also the roof gear box, and we'll see how it goes. Thanks again for watching. My name is Tom Muehl, I'm here at Makellos Classics I am the engine and transmission builder for the shop here. And if I've come down to see it while work is in process, you're welcome to come down and check it out. Thank you.

Greg Bartley: (13:16)
You know a really nice part about this is that electromotive distributor system. So it's the XDI that allows you to not only run as crankfired instead of camfired so it's more reliable, but it's also programmable. So you know timing values, ignition retarding, rev limiting that's all customizable. And so that gives you a lot more options as far as you know tuning your ignition.

Matt Kenyon: (13:39)
So on the engine we also decided to go single plug versus dual plug. And one of the reasons for this is because it since it's a flat dome piston it does not really make too much sense to do the dual plug. Doesn't really have too much of an advantage. Maybe yeah so.

Greg Bartley: (13:56)
So with those dome pistons then typically you'd go twin plug right cause out a further park at a further distance of travel.

Matt Kenyon: (14:03)
Be able to hit from both and it'd get more impact on each side.

Greg Bartley: (14:07)
Turbos are flat so

Matt Kenyon: (14:09)
It doesn't really matter.

Greg Bartley: (14:10)
Yeah. So you know one of the really big components to this build is the suspension. So what we've been doing recently on a lot of our builds is using tiered engineering and rebel racing's 935 setup. So there are places spring plates replaces the control arms, cross members. All that ends up being this amazing c&c build aluminum ultra lightweight. So behind joints removes all the stock bushings gives you a lot crisper feel.

Matt Kenyon: (14:40)
The only thing left is really the swing the rear swing arms right? Right. Swing arms?

Greg Bartley: (14:44)
Yep.

Matt Kenyon: (14:44)
And we did this the first time we did this was on the Safari build that we did. And that was an awesome car and you know I think from that describing that it's going to be great complete ever because that's set up for rally basically rallies specs.

Greg Bartley: (14:57)
It's KW's competition set up which was you know a three way custom Murali valve. You know definitely rough for streets but it's just it's like butter out there in the gravel.

Matt Kenyon: (15:06)
So KW got the inspiration for those coilovers off of the Rothman's old rally car. And so that was an iconic car and I think these yeah. They took that off there.

Greg Bartley: (15:18)
So yeah, we've got you know we've got the 935 suspension components which again came off the iconic 935 racecar but we've also you know as part of that switched away from the torsion bar based suspension over the coilovers.

Matt Kenyon: (15:34)
Which I guess you don't have to do but the coil the coils basically delete, give no use for the torsion bars right?

Greg Bartley: (15:41)
And so you know torsion bars obviously you know, you know they twist as a spring versus coil overs are spring all your spring went down. So you know there's there's a bunch of benefits you got benefits both ways. You know torsion bars are linear and a progressive spring rate. But what you're getting with the 935 step is the elimination of all the rubber bushings, you're getting a lot more of that load that's directed from the spring to the hub and the wheel. So you have a lot less pressure on spring plates, very low load on the bushings then on those on those trailing arms. So, you know the flip side of that is now you have to reinforce the chassis which we've done we did some custom custom gusseting on the rear shock mounts. Because now you're going to start getting body flex. You're not getting that flex in your bushings.

Matt Kenyon: (16:33)
And you don't usually see not a lot of you know 911s none really back in the day came with coilovers and it's still today, rarely do they have coilovers. Club Sport, I mean KW I think the club sports I think are probably maybe the best coilovers out there that I that I that I know of for these cars.

Greg Bartley: (16:51)
They're fantastic. I mean you've you know you can always get custom valving. You don't have to go full KWs or even coilovers, you can get custom valving. But what's nice about the KWs is they're two way adjustable, so that's your dampening and your rebound. So if you look at the curve you don't have to pick your suspension right out the gate so or if you have a change you're going to the track, you're gonna come back, you're gonna go on the road. You can change those things.

Matt Kenyon: (17:16)
Yeah definitely. I think that you know the setup that we have on this car is the 935 and the KWs, it's a very aggressive setup. I mean you can do the KWs even with just the regular stock other bits on the car I'm sure. But this car I think deserved basically the KWs and the 935 set up. Because we're doing like a lot of iconic things on this car with the Oslo blue, the ducktail, the roof five speed transmission, so the 935 setup felt right for this car.

Greg Bartley: (17:49)
Right. And it's it's it's a nice package that you can just type of the bow, right? You know you can put KWs on with the 935 set up one, you can do the 935 set up without KWs, except for maybe the spring plate you do need it does lend itself towards being a coilover but all combined, you know, there's no reason to have coil overs and rubber bushings since again all that load is being transferred through the chassis. So it works out really nicely. You know one of the big things for the track goers for these cars is that it gives you independent rear tow and camber adjustments. So you don't have to make the change by raising spindles and really getting aggressive that way you can make a change in the changes in the KW camber plates up top and the bottom you have all sorts of adjustments with the terror setup.

Matt Kenyon: (18:38)
Plus it just looks really good.

Greg Bartley: (18:39)
Yeah it just really looks good. I mean if for nothing else it's a good build candy.

Matt Kenyon: (18:41)
It matches the rest of the zinc plated stuff on the car.

Greg Bartley: (18:46)
It's very good looking. So. Yeah. Technology.

Matt Kenyon: (18:52)
I guess that transfers us right to the brakes. Right? So for brakes we didn't really decide to do anything different because we have the again iconic 917 style 930 brake. Which is I think it's just basically the exact same as the 917 brakes right?

Greg Bartley: (19:09)
It's a little different but this what's really cool about these brakes is they're the first factory brakes Porsche provided by Brembo. So you know they're they're stylized off of the 917 caliper but you know a little bit different for road use but what's really cool is they're you know they're ultra lightweight so they're aluminum like the old S calipers were. They're four piece, so unlike the s calipers you can actually take them apart and service them. And they still you know you get these huge calipers you know the four piston as opposed to the s calipers were single piston or two piston one per side. You have a 38 millimeter piston in the front and a 30 millimeter in the back. So a lot of stopping power and all of this fits underneath a 15 inch wheel if you want.

Matt Kenyon: (19:55)
You know your brakes.

Greg Bartley: (19:56)
I do.

Matt Kenyon: (19:57)
So then the reason we decided these, we were kind of deciding between these and the big reds, and you know speaking with Tom our technician and Mark we kind of decided there wasn't really a huge advantage to using the big reds and these calipers I think look better. We've actually matched them to the Oslo blue color and we just basically brushed them down a little bit to see the little silver on on the the fins. So they look really good good there they're you know they're reliable.

Greg Bartley: (20:28)
They stop good.

Matt Kenyon: (20:30)
They stop good. That's important. But yeah I mean in that you know 930 brakes that's why we used those.

Matt Kenyon: (20:37)
I mean for this motor build it doesn't justify the use of red. So if you weren't building off of a 930 and you're going to price out brakes, 930 brakes are hard to buy.

Matt Kenyon: (20:46)
I think they're more expensive than the big reds.

Greg Bartley: (20:48)
Yeah they're not as readily available so you know if you're doing a big hot rod build and it's not based on 930 you don't have those calipers, go ahead and get some big reds which are off of know boxers 996, 993 turbos all in that kind of era.

Matt Kenyon: (21:02)
Those were great too, but I think these look better. Also, now we're down to the wheels. For the wheels we're using the Outlaw 001s from 1552 and we have those being, those are out being refinished right now. And so those when they come back they are going to be, we're not gonna talk about it.

Greg Bartley: (21:28)
They're gonna be red?

Matt Kenyon: (21:28)
They're gonna be red. Or match nothing on the car. So yeah we have Outlaw 001 wheels going on this car and I believe they are 16 which we kept the original wheel size. We like the big Gumball look on the wheel on the tires. I think it just adds to that again iconic look.

Greg Bartley: (21:54)
It's a classic old hot rod look. A look going low pro just wouldn't fit right.

Matt Kenyon: (21:59)
No, and I think we've got elevens in the back and nines in the front I want to say. So it's going to be a good look for the car. What about the antenna? What do you want, do you want to talk about the antenna?

Greg Bartley: (22:09)
Just some miscellaneous items that we've got going on the build too, all the build candy. You know red line accoutrements on the inside. Handles and knobs and all that good stuff, but we've also got electronics, we've got headlights, LED headlights from 911 headlights.

Matt Kenyon: (22:28)
Yeah forgot about those. So we are going to have Lee with 911 headlights make up some you know custom we're gonna let him kind of design them around the car. So he's going to make those up for us. Those things are one of my favorite things on these cars. When you don't have those on, it's like having like a flickering flame flickering candle in front of you.

Greg Bartley: (22:49)
Drive by candlelight.

Matt Kenyon: (22:50)
Yeah. So those that we put those on on the Safari first and I mean it's a huge difference.

Greg Bartley: (22:56)
Once you build with them you just have to keep going.

Matt Kenyon: (22:59)
Those are really nice. So yeah we're gonna do those, and that'll kind of add into the tie into the whole exterior look of the car. So let's talk about interior.

Greg Bartley: (23:10)
Yeah, we don't have one yet but.

Matt Kenyon: (23:13)
Right now it's black.

Greg Bartley: (23:14)
Yeah. Yes there's sound dampening material in there.

Matt Kenyon: (23:17)
Yes. We sound dampened it with some some cool new stuff that we have no idea what it's called.

Greg Bartley: (23:22)
Yep. There's a bucket of it somewhere.

Matt Kenyon: (23:24)
Yeah. Yeah. We can grab that. So for the interior on this car, we've we haven't fully decided what it's going to be. Right. I think we had decided that it's going to be the what are the what are the sportsters?

Greg Bartley: (23:36)
Yeah the car Sportster CS's.

Matt Kenyon: (23:39)
And I think we're doing leather and Alcantara, and you know a lot of our builds some of our builds we try to do a little bit it's like a little louder interior. But this interior's a little more mellow. I think it's going to suit the car a lot better.

Greg Bartley: (23:54)
Just little bits of blue, maybe some blue stitching or blue Alcantara haven't haven't quite gotten there yet but.

Matt Kenyon: (24:00)
We'll definitely do the rear seat delete the lightweight interior basically, RSA door panels.

Greg Bartley: (24:09)
So the other things interior wise you've got the Wevo short shift kit which kind of gives you a not just a shorten throw but also gives you a spring back like you would kind of get on a G50 so which is nice because this is that five speed transmission versus the typical 934 speed. Round things out with a, well that's weird. We'll round things out for the Porsche classic radio.

Matt Kenyon: (24:40)
What inspired this, I mean we're not 100 sure on that interior yet like you said but what inspired this interior was the 964 that we built for a customer of ours. He had you know he did everything but the rear seat delete, he had the Sportster seats which I really liked. They're comfy seats, they look good, you can get them heated, which I think we got them heated.

Greg Bartley: (25:03)
We did. They were comfy.

Matt Kenyon: (25:09)
Just by default. But yeah, I think the interior will definitely flow with the rest of the car.

Greg Bartley: (25:14)
So obviously we're still in progress with this car but we just wanted to share with you guys where we're at and what's come in the pipeline with this. And you know it's available for pre-purchase too if you want to get involved in the build process before it's completed. There's a web site. We have downloadable clickable things.

Matt Kenyon: (25:31)
I think it's www.makellosclassics.com.

Greg Bartley: (25:34)
it's on the World Wide Web.

Matt Kenyon: (25:35)
The World Wide...that one.

Greg Bartley: (25:35)
Yeah, go on the interwebs and then connect.

Matt Kenyon: (25:40)
So thanks for watching this episode of The Pacenotes, a podcast about all things Porsche.

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