Introduced in Europe as a 1982 model and to the North American market for the 1983 model year. The Porsche 944 replaced the 924 as the entry level car in Porsche’s lineup. Now boasting a Porsche developed 2.5L inline four instead of the 2.0L Audi based engine found in the 924. The 944 had 156 SAE NET hp in European trim and 143 SAE NET hp in the American market.

The 944 was based on the 924 platform that had originally been commissioned by Porsche to be produced as a Volkswagen. So the 924 used a lot of VW parts bin items, including the engine. However, the Porsche 944 engine was developed solely by Porsche. Not only was the engine larger and more powerful, but it was more refined than the outgoing engine.

By using counter rotating weighted shafts, often referred to as “balance-shafts”. Porsche was not only able to silence unwanted “booming” noises in the cabin, but also silence the critics that found the 924 engine too noisy for a Porsche.

This specific type of counter rotating shaft setup was developed by Mitsubishi Motors, thus meaning Porsche had to pay them royalties for this design. By having two shafts rotating opposite directions, they canceled out each others horizonal vibrations, while working together to reduce vertical vibrations caused by the pistons moving quicker at the top of the stroke, made worse by moving in pairs.

Mitsubishi took this one step further and set the shafts at different heights which also reduced engine rocking during acceleration, for smoother performance. Mitsubishi called this design ‘silent shaft’ technology which made at cruising speeds was considered to be . Had Porsche used any other balance-shaft design or came up with their own, they could have avoided royalties to Mitsubishi, but in the end they felt that it was worth it.

Unlike the cast iron engine found in the 924, the 944 engine was all aluminum and required no cylinder liners. The cylinders walls used incredibly hard silicon crystals imbedded into the aluminum matrix. This is not a coating of any kind that was applied, but instead the crystals are cast into the cylinder walls. Developed by Kolben-Schmitt and dubbed “Alusil” for aluminum/silicon, this creates a very robust cylinder wall that could even wear aluminum pistons. To prevent the pistons from being chewed away by the silicon crystals a ferrous iron plating was added to the piston skirts.

Early 944’s used cross-drilled crankshafts which lead to oil aeration often resulting in spun rod bearings in racecars. This was not a huge problem for street cars since most early cars will never have any issues. However, Porsche soon realized their mistake and introduced the single drilled hole that solves the problem by allowing 100% of the oil to be forced out of one hole at all times, rather than split between the two. With the cross-drilled design, usually the hole that is facing up just pulls in air due to centripetal force.

Early 944’s also used sintered connecting rods before switching over to cast. They also swapped over to serrated rod nuts when they began using cast rods. While, the rods themselves are interchangeable, non serrated rod nuts cannot be used with cast rods.

Improvements to the head were made and first appeared in 1985 with the 7R head. This head’s combustion chamber looks just like the one found on the 944 turbo which slightly improves compression, bringing it up from 9.5:1 to 9.7:1. When paired with the longer duration cam introduced in 1987, the US Cars now made 147 hp, compared to 143 hp for the earlier models.

As for performance, keep in mind that in 1983 a V8 Camaro Z28 only had 145 hp, so the 944 was no slouch. To flex its dominance over the sleeker outgoing 924, the 944 now had bulging fenders modeled after the 924 Carrera GT. These fenders would go on to be copied by many different manufacturers and make the 944 one of the most quintessential 80’s cars.

1983 944

0-60 8.3 Seconds

131 Top Speed