I would support the piston option as well.

Mike Kelly
NASA Mid-Atlantic.

Hello everyone.
I definitely believe it would be beneficial to SP1 car owners / Racer's to be allowed to use any aftermarket pistons as long as the size, weight, and compression are identical to stock OEM. Even the Porsche repair manual offered repair group and oversized position options for the 944 and 924S. The stock bore is 100mm. The next oversized piston is 100.5mm and next size is 101mm. I received Porsche Factory training while employed at Brumos Porsche between 1981-1990, and the instructors agreed that there is little to no NO gain by this very minut amount of displacement change, and in fact, no additional tuning was required. These engine are 30 years old. I have built over 300 Porsche engines within the past 38 years of Porsche repair, and within the last 10 years 90% of ANY 944 or 924S which needs and engine rebuild have cylinders out of spec and pistons that have scored skirts. I would definitely be in favor of any piston manufacturer as long as the oversized piston is of exact size, weight, and compression. I have already talked to JE Pistons and Wossner, and have design already in progress. Cost will be very reasonable, and will allow customers and engine builders the ability to build their engines correctly. This would guarantee that the current engine block in your car could be used for years to come.
Also despite what others may say, these 1988 10.2:1 engines are getting hard to find, they are 30 years old, and also requires shipping cost which can be up to $300 or more.
I would also take this a step further. Once the maximum of 101mm bore has been reached, racers should have a second option to sleeve their blocks. This allows the user to go back to 100mm pistons, but this process is much more expensive. Regaurdless, I will be making these pistons for my street car and SCCA customers. They will be available in 100, 100.5 and 101mm, and 10.2:1 or 10.6:1 compression ratios.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to call me, or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Thanks,
Albert Broadfoot

Aftermarket pistons would open a huge can of worms and isn't necessary yet. There are still tons of junkyard motors out there and good pistons.

I say NO, NO, NO to aftermarket pistons!!!!!

I know it's not fair to compare us to spec miata but we can cast a cautionary eye to them to see what happens when you open the rules up even a little. Remember the plunge cut rule for them that was intended to save money by allowing them to use head castings that would otherwise have been thrown away because of bad casting marks. It ended up skyrocketing costs and I don't remember all the details but SCCA warned all drivers that the rule was taken too far but nobody heeded the message until the runoffs at Laguna where I think the top 6 or 7 cars were dq'd and the winner probably would have been as well but they didn't tear down that far into the finishing order.

Among the many issues with aftermarket pistons would be the devaluation of the cars that don't have fancy pistons. It will become a big selling point

Comparing to Specmiata is also not fair in that the earliest of those cars were built a few years after ours ended and they were mass produced so the available pool of used parts is vastly larger. Yes there are junkyard/junk cars out there but how many do you have to buy to find a good block and matching pistons? im on 3 currently. Trying to find a good bore block with a matching tolerance group to my good pistons is getting more difficult.

Engines and pistons are still available. They're not new condition, but make competitive HP.

Wheels are still plentiful.

Fenders are still plentiful.

Look to history, guys. The only benefactors to allowing sleeving and after market pistons are the manufacturers and the machine shops. Can of worms is accurate, Ron. We might need to revisit this topic down the road, but it's not needed now.

There are many racing classes to choose from. If you're not loyal to what 944 Spec stands for, get the #$%^@ OUT. Get out now. Stop trying to morph the class into just another expensive class. This is not about me trying to run this class. It's about me trying to protect it from misguidance. We are a Spec class. That means EQUAL cars. This is how it's been from the beginning. This notion that we are running out of parts and allowing this or that will help the class is just false. Look what spec miata was and what it's become.

I'm on my original motor, the 2 that I pulled from junk cars are still being used almost 8 years later. A quick check of craigslist around will almost always find a complete car for around $500. Good wheels, pistons, fenders and more for less than a set of aftermarket pistons