This started off 4 years ago by buying a 1966 bus with no engine and some shoody running gear and then convincing my wife that spending £3500 importing a 1966 2.0L 911 engine and 501 box from the US (thanks Paul P911GUY on Pelican parts forum). Since then a baby and building a garage to do the project in has taken priority but its now back on the drawing board. The worst part of having that time away was that the mind does wander and now i am toying with the 964 running gear idea. Obviously there is going to be a fair amount of fabrication to get round and not least on the front chassis/suspension, as rightly pointed out by Bobley, but why the hell not. It will only add about £15 to the build (if you look at my log in name you will understand why this has gone in!)

So post one of..........................................................

If you could pull it of it would be awesome . Its the kind of project though that once started needs to be seen through it would be a mess for someone to put right if you fell out of love with it and ditched it but a 4 wheel drive Porsche powered Split absolutely awesome I hope you can do it

Ok, so this is what we've got






Decided that this was the best set up for the rear as it helps with parallel parking!










Interesting gap between edge of floor and side of van!?

Sound as a pound, grown up meccano

So the options i have are -

At the rear -
1. weld all the rear sub frame back in and use a red9design at the rear matched to a 911 engine, 964 (or 993) gear box

2. use the 944t arms and tube that i already have and fabricate it in sticking with the 911/964/993 option, most likely with C over S

3. use a 911 set up at the rear with the 911 engine and 964/993 box

At the front -

hmmmmmm..................................................

initial thoughts are if it was not AWD the red9design would be the plug and play option but no room for drive shafts etc. It is almost asking for a front/rear red9design contraption.


But my other choice and the one i am really leaning toward is to fabricate and space frame chassis from scratch.

Writing it fast makes it seem simple............................

just done some measuring and interestingly the rear track for a 993 is 1444 and for a 944t is 1451. Soooooooooooo what I am thinking is if the 944t is a known way to go and the dimensions work then there could be a chance for the 993 subframe with some tweaking.

Sounds like a great project. Always fancied it. Why not use a G50 box. Always been a better route. Is it because you won't be racing/pushing it or just cos you got the earlier box?

Where are you based? Would love to see this!!!

Good luckk with the project.
Trev

so the project progresses slowly. I needed a little advice on the porsche 964 running gear so joined the pelican parts forum and got some great advice. Link here if anyone else wants to go down this route -

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche- ... n-bus.html

The best solution from an engineering point of view is to use as much of the porsche kit as possible. As well as the 964 running gear and drive train i could also use the 993 variant as a donor as most parts are interchangeable.

All i need to do now is fine the donor parts from a source that doesn't add a premium onto some rusty parts because it has porsche written on it! Fat chance.

some good news today. found this on the web -



which seems to prove that i can fit the G64 gearbox onto my 2.0L engine. I like this because i want to keep the 2.0 lump with its triple webbers as i think it looks great sitting in the back of the bus.


.............and if i get bored the swap to something bigger is easy enough!

But lets walk before we run and get this one done first.

john&hannah wrote:Ok, so this is what we've got






Decided that this was the best set up for the rear as it helps with parallel parking!










Interesting gap between edge of floor and side of van!?

Sound as a pound, grown up meccano

John or is it Hannah? good luck with this something very different I'll be watching with interest.

P.S. if you use the [img] quotes rather than the url ones make it easier for folks to get on board and I think you can pick larger image sizes too off your flickr page.

Good Luck with it btw.

Ade

Hi Ade

thanks for the tip, was wondering how to do that.

After a good few days on the internet i am now the proud owner of this beastie



I have just got my hands on the front sub frame and running gear from the same donor 964. Just a matter of gorilla taping it all together.

John

slight problem, not sure these bits are now relevant! Glad i shot blasted them.



Anybody doing a 2WD project??????????????

knew it was all going too well!!



Is this a known vw factory join point???



presenting the first composite monocoque bus



always a good sign when you are chiselling your paint work of and not sanding

I'd say, Hannah was building the bus, as John seems to be spending too much time on the internet

This is going to be very interesting, keep at it John

After a brief consideration of the 993 rear end i have gone for a 2005 996 rear set up. These are the component parts -







Will have to source a set of bespoke drive shafts as the units will be mounted closer to the gearbox than originally intended.

have just picked up some of the component parts and its starting to feel like a project!



911 rear sub frame, hubs, disks and brakes in centre(ish) of arch





964 gearbox sat near the final resting point (longitudinally obviously!)





Front diff in centre of arch



Gearbox, torque tube and front diff in relevant position.

The centre to centre of the drive flanges is 2250mm which is encouraging when compared to the stock 2400mm on the original wheel base for the bus. Without extending the torque tube (which i presumed i would have to do) i only have to lose 150mm in the centre of the hubs, which i may be able to do with the drive shaft tolerance.