Porrari: a 1978 Porsche 911 SC with a Ferrari-built Maserati V8
American builder and content creator Jimmy Oakes has created one of the most gloriously sacrilegious 911 builds in recent custom-car culture: a 1978 Porsche 911 SC that has traded its air-cooled flat-six for a Ferrari-built Maserati F136 V8. The result is called “Porrari”, and it made its public debut in the ENEOS booth at Formula DRIFT Connecticut.
Ferrari-built engine, Maserati donor, Porsche body
Oakes did not source the engine directly from a Ferrari sports car. Instead, he used the 4.2-litre F136 V8 from a 2007 Maserati Quattroporte. It is a Ferrari-built, naturally aspirated V8 producing around 298 kW. It uses a flat-plane crankshaft and revs to an 8,000 rpm limit.
The comparison with the original car shows the scale of the project. From the factory, the 1978 Porsche 911 SC used a 3.0-litre flat-six producing 132 kW. In other words, the “Porrari” more than doubles the power output of the original 911 SC.
The engine swap was almost a ground-up rebuild
This was not a simple “pull one out, drop one in” engine swap. According to ENEOS’s official story, Oakes’s team stripped the 48-year-old 911 shell back to basics and restored it before the major surgery began. The roof was replaced with a carbon-fibre panel from EP9 Autosport, the body and paintwork were handled by Anthony Mendoza, and the car was finished in Porsche Guards Red.
To make the F136 V8 fit, the team fabricated a new engine cradle. The same structure also supports a 996-generation Porsche 911 gearbox, connected to the engine via a Kennedy Engineered Products clutch. So Porsche hardware remains in the drivetrain, even if the soundtrack now comes from Italy.
BMW helps the Ferrari engine breathe
The most interesting detail is not just the V8 itself, but the way it breathes. Oakes fitted individual throttle bodies using parts from the S65 V8 used in the E90/E92-generation BMW M3. Ding Dong Drift made the 3D-printed adapters and trumpets, with the aim of sharpening throttle response and amplifying the induction noise at high revs.
An air-cooled 911 did not originally need a front-mounted radiator. The V8 does. The team therefore had to cut and modify the front structure, add a radiator and fan, and relocate the fuel tank. In place of the standard tank sits a roughly 38-litre Radium fuel cell, with new coolant, fuel and electrical lines routed through a removable centre tunnel.
Drift culture, not museum preservation
On the suspension side, the car ditches its torsion bars and runs Stance Suspension coilovers instead. Accurate Fabrication built the roll cage, the widened steel body gives it a broader stance, and the car rides on 17-inch RAYS VRX-10 wheels. For the brakes, the team chose four-piston Porsche Boxster Brembo calipers, EBC discs and Chase Bays brake lines.
European purists may wince at a car like this. For many, the value of an old 911 lies precisely in the sound of its air-cooled flat-six, its rear-heavy character and its factory mechanical purity. The “Porrari” goes in the opposite direction. It is not restoring a classic; it is using the 911 shell as the basis for a full-blown drift-culture manifesto.
Why the Porrari resonates
The value of a car like this is not measured in market price or Nürburgring lap time. The “Porrari” resonates because it brings together three very different schools of thought: German 911 architecture, a Ferrari-Maserati naturally aspirated V8 and drift hardware with a strong Japanese influence. It is technically chaotic, but mechanically logical, because a light 911 shell, more than 298 kW of V8 power and rear-wheel drive make for a seriously lively starting point.
This is not a car a European buyer can order from a showroom. It is one builder’s calling card and an ENEOS marketing project, but it is also a reminder of why modified-car culture still matters: sometimes the most interesting engineering happens when someone refuses to respect the lines everyone else treats as sacred.
