To further pursue our commitment to pioneer advances on the aircooled platform, LN Engineering has teamed up with Jake Raby, of Aircooled Technology, to bring your Porsche 356 and 912 engine into the 21st century to a new level of aircooled precision performance, never before achieved with this level of performance and reliability!

As most everyone already knows, LN Engineering is home to the only 1800 and 1883cc big bore kits for the Porsche 356 and 912 that don't sacrifice reliability for performance. Thanks to the phenomenal results attained by fellow 356 enthusiast William Noblitt with his 1800cc engine and our customer's desire for displacement with the successful introduction of our 1883cc kit, we've decided to modernize the 356/912 engine, and in doing so, we plan on breaking the 100hp per litre barrier, and do so without sacrificing reliability and drivability.

For those of you who aren't familiar with William Noblitt, he's a vintage racer who also builds 356/912 engines as a hobby, and does so with the dedication and passion that makes these engines and cars so great. 1800ccs doesn't limit him in the slightest, going from street to track with ease. 160 HP and 148 ft/lb of torque, with peak HP by 5500 rpm and no need to spin past 6000 rpm, there's no loss of driveability. In fact, we've never seen a torque curve so flat other than on large 2.6-3.0L Porsche 914 engines or turbo 911s!

Yet the best testimonial are the numerous emails I received from an enthusiastic and proud W. Noblitt:

April 10th. Charles, finished the dyno work today. Didn't spend a tremendous amount of time on the dyno but got it awfully darn close. The readouts are not direct so the data has to be put in a spread sheet to give the actual torque / horse power figures. I'll share that with you when I get the figures. Will say that Les Long from Air Power Racing who has the dyno said the figures were getting real close to what he is getting out of his race engine. Of course he is running at least 2 points higher a compression ratio with a little more than .050" additional lift at the cam and about 30 degrees more duration, a 1720 piston/cylinder set up, considerably lighter flywheel/pressure plate, etc in his all out race engine. His horse power and torque are considerably higher up the RPM range than mine due to the radical cam.

May 3rd: You will be happy to hear that I ran the engine in my Convertible D (photos
enclosed) at the Intermountain Region PCA's club race one day in Las Vegas this past weekend. I performed flawlessly and amazingly. I used to race Formula V about 25 years ago (though I haven't been on a track a speed since) so possibly I have a little more experience on track than some of the drivers there so some of the comparisons may be misleading yet the numbers are true.

During the weekend in the last 2 sessions once I got used to the car and engine there was only one car that passed me, was either a late model 911 Carrera or 993, and that was only under breaking as my old drum breaks were essentially nonexistent after slowing the car down 3 or for times from 120 MPH. Incidentally, the car that passed me got pushed so hard through turns
1-4 that it didn't make turn 5-- so the torque and power this thing is putting out is great. People watching said the car appeared to be faster through the infield portion of the track than any of the other cars there.

At then of the two straight that are associated with the oval, I was turning between 7000-7500 RPMS in 4th gear with a top speed of around 120. Might have been able to get a little more out of it had I not had to straight slowing so early before the corners at the end of the straights. Sessions were 20 minutes long and there was none of the loss of power/speed that Duane was afraid there would be going down the long straights-- that he mentioned was a problem with the aluminum/biral cylinders that Porsche initially used with the Super 90s.

Should also mention that Les Long was my instructor and for the first 3 laps of the opening session drove the car to show me the track. He said the car pulled as good as his race car, it just topped out earlier due to the milder cam.

September 9th. After the dyno runs I installed it in my Convertible D and did some incidental driving and ran it in a hill climb. The hill climb was one I do every year and I didn't quite meet my expectations. I was 2 seconds faster than I had ever been before, yet it was an extremely cold day and the tires were not sticking at all or I would have easily gotten under 2:10 which has been my goal for years. Still got within tenths of seconds.

William Noblitt can be contacted by email to answer any of your questions or share his experiences with the 1800cc kit. He is planning a larger 1883cc engine based on our 1.9L kit for his race car in the near future and should allow him to lead the pack by a larger lead than he already has!