Man, let's not lose track of the idea of spec 944 racing, LOW COST!!!

First off, wheels. NO FRICKIN WAY!! The reasons are 1: aescetics is subjective and any wheel in 15" just does not look right these days. Although not a huge fan of cookie cutters, I think they look good enough when painted. 2:Safety. On the surface this sounds good. 30 year old wheels don't sound safe but the reality is that as far as I have seen there have been no wheel failure caused just by age. I HAVE seen plenty of spindles, hubs,stub axles, and wheel studs break. In fact I think the early hollow spindle should be outlawed! I can also remember trying to outbrake a a cookie cutter bounding down the track with its hub, rotor and caliper attached! If we are worried about safety we should find fixes for these things first.

3; Weight. You were vague with your weights. You said they weigh "close" to 15lbs but if they are in any way lighter than factory, that little extra weight makes a huge difference. In my other world of bike riding we measure things in grams and I can tell you that a handful of those will absolutely make the difference on a 100 mile ride between fun and hard. Unless there is a weight penalty for the wheels being under weight, and I mean an exponential penalty, this will not work.

4; Cost. This is the biggest reason. I think you quoted $636 a set. That is not very accurate. Firstly that's today's price which is likely to go up every year. Second, most everyone has at least 2 sets so that has to be doubled. Then add tax and shipping and it gets closer to 2 grand!! That's insane in a budget class!! Complete cars can still be easily had for around$500, usually with wheels! At least once a month I see or hear about a car for $500 but I no longer have the room for them. I just got rid of a roller that I took tons of parts from, including the wheels that I got for $400.

Next is the crank scraper. These are added to an engine more for power than longevity. In theory they would make our engines slightly more reliable but I don't think enough to justify the extra cost. Plus if you get a low quality one or do not install it correctly you will cause a catastrophic failure. It will add power however and a car that is borderline with the hp cap will definitely be over. Figure at least 5hp more and up. I say no way. Run a good quality oil(like Redline) and keep it cool and you should have no problems.

Short shifter. Again no way. If you put a short shifter on a car that is shifting badly you just upped your chances for bad things to happen. You now have less feel and less time to know you are not lined up right, plus you are adding more leverage to your shift which equals more force. You will never have your 944 shift like a Honda S2000 but a few simple(cheap) things will make it better. Watch this video to see how easy it is and there will be a parts list for Macmasters Carr. I did it and it cost just a few dollars and works great. Had to grind the nut down to keep from hitting the tunnel but other than that it was easy peasy.


So far all these things are allowed in 944 cup I believe. Ask one of those guys how much they spend on racing, it's considerably more than we do. If that's your goal then look into that class but let's keep ours cheap!!

These proposals are the definition of rules creep, a little every year that prices people out of the game.

BTW, the bumper shock idea is good. It's free and actually saves money since we don't have to find new shocks every year. I would be careful welding them though, they may "splode"!

I forgot to mention, there are a lot of shops that straighten and fix wheels for a reasonable cost. Look in Grass roots motor sports magazine, I'm sure there are ads for them.

Wheels: I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you HAVE to use new wheels, if a replacement can be found that is not in any way advantageous as a performance issue, no problem. The Porsche wheels are 30 years old, that should give some concern, because we haven’t had an issue doesn’t mean we won’t have an issue. Most racers didn’t use HANS devises until after a few fatalities, why wait? If you like what you are using, that’s fine but good cookie cutters are getting hard to find. If you think new wheels will get more expensive watch the price of rare old ones climb. As for aesthetics: this is a non-issue for me but just an observation, the two guys talking about this both have yellow cars, if your car is yellow, pink, purple or that stupid all too common Guards Red “you got no business talking about aesthetics”.
Scraper: The scraper is an interesting question, some of the older engines are well under the power cap, and this may be an inexpensive way to get them to the cap. If the scraper adds 5 HP it would be a very inexpensive gain. If the scraper is allowed, the cars are still subject to the power cap. If it adds much to engine longevity the cost would work out to be less than free.
Short Shifter: I have a short shift kit that I don’t use, My rebuilt linkage works just fine for me but if a driver prefers using one I just don’t see a problem with it. If I believed that the linkage would help me eliminate inadvertent downshifts I would certainly want to use it. Again, nobody is forcing its use, Why not make it optional? I don’t see any way that a short shift kit enhances performance. As for cost, the kit is inexpensive compared to the damage cause inadvertent down shift.

Allow use of high impact foam or some other structural materiel to support the structural integrity of the spare tire well. I believe that the original design of these cars used the spare tire as part of the crush zone. The fuel system (tank, pump, filter and hoses) is vulnerable to rear end impact. With the fuel being delivered from the bottom of the tank a cut hose would dump fuel until the tank is empty. It is not reasonable that we track cars that have less structural integrity than the street version.
Someone smarter than me would have to figure out the best materiel and method to maximize the effect. I suspect that this would be an economical method of adding to the safety of our cars. Or we could all carry spare tires!!!
We have seen a 944 on fire a couple years ago at from a rear impact; I understand the issue was a cut hose and perhaps the fuel pump left running after the impact. I don’t think the tank ruptured. I suspect that a crush zone may have prevented that fire.

Im with RD. No new wheels until there is a real supply problem. The old ones have proven to be very strong and reliable.
No short shifter, not a nessecity at this time just adds cost and rules creep.
No crank scraper. The built in design works fine and a properly built engine does not have oiling issues. Adds cost.
Im good with bumper shock welding in collapsed or extended form. I just leave mine collapsed and have never replaced a single one.

We should avoid rules creep at all costs.

Oh yeah, I forgot the foam. We dont seem to have a problem with cars catching on fire. A racer could use this rule to rear weight the car illegally and some cars dont have the tire well installed anymore. Adds to rules creep and adds cost.