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 all aluminum 2.5L inline four instead of the 2.0L Audi based engine found in the 924. The 944 had 156 SAE NET horsepower (163 gross PS) in European trim and 143 SAE NET hp (150 gross PS) 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 which they called “Silent-Shaft technology”. Using it meant that Porsche had to pay them royalties for this design.

Had Porsche went with any other balance-shaft design or created their own they could have avoided royalties, but the Mitsubishi design was very advanced for its time. By having two shafts rotating opposite directions, they cancel out each others horizonal vibrations, while working together to reduce vertical vibrations from the engine. However, Mitsubishi took this one step further and put them at different heights on either side of the engine. This reduced ‘rocking-couples’ felt as the connecting rods swing out on an inline-four making the car feel according to Porsche “as smooth as a straight-six”

It’s important to note here that while a straight six is a well balanced engine, is not considered a luxury car engine. Typically, only engines with eight or more equal cylinders are chosen for luxury cars. So needless to say the 944 was never meant to be a luxurious Grand Touring car, so does the engine vibrate? Due to connecting rod geometry, pistons move quicker at the top of the stroke than the bottom. That results in a slight imbalance inherent to all piston engines, which is especially noticeable at high rpm. This is often reduced in other engine configurations with more pistons by using cross-plane cranks to offset the pistons. That way the vibration in those engines would just be felt from just one piston individually, however in an inline-four the pistons move in pairs which double the out of balance weight. So it would be twice as noticeable as a 5.0L V8. That also means this vibration is inherent to all flat-plane inline four cylinders and cannot be balanced out without the addition of balance-shafts, or obviously adding more pistons and cylinders.

However, 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 as smooth as a straight six engine”. 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