Two Porsche 911S Get Wild V8 Swaps At SEMA

A Ferrari-built Maserati F136 and a dry-sump LS2 show how far Porsche 911 engine swaps can stretch at the 2026 SEMA Show.

Photo by: Eneos

By: Brian Potter

Nov 4, at 6:42am ET

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Two Porsche 911s rolled into Las Vegas this week with engines no factory spec sheet ever listed. One swaps its flat-six for a Ferrari-built Maserati V8 pulled from a 2007 Quattroporte. The other runs a 6.0-liter LS2 from General Motors, previously home to a Subaru flat-four.

Both cars are on display through the 2026 SEMA Show, running until November 6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, presented through Eneos Oil. Jimmy Oakes built the Ferrari-powered car, while Faruk Kugay owns the LS2-swapped GT3 aimed at drifting.

Two 911s Trade Flat-Sixes For Very Different V8s

1978 Porsche 911 SC With V8 Conversion For SEMA

Photos by: Eneos

2007 Porsche 997 GT3 With V8 Conversion For SEMA

Photos by: Eneos

The donor engines could hardly be more different. Oakes's 1978 Porsche 911 SC now carries a 4.3-liter Ferrari/Maserati F136 V8, a flat-plane-crank unit that once powered a Quattroporte sedan. Kugay's 2007 Porsche 997 GT3 runs a dry-sump 6.0-liter LS2 with LS3 cylinder heads, a combination built for sideways drifting abuse.

Maserati and Ferrari shared engineering resources for years, which is how an Italian V8 ended up in both brands' lineups before the arrangement ended in 2023. The F136 was never meant for a 911. It was always a Ferrari engine wearing a Maserati badge, which is what makes Oakes's swap more than a random parts-bin exercise.

Kugay's GT3 took a different road entirely. It previously ran a Subaru STI EJ25 flat-four, a swap already unusual on its own, before the car was rebuilt around the LS2 for dedicated drift duty. The 911 GT3 platform has seen plenty of race-oriented builds over the years, but few ditch both the stock flat-six and a prior swap engine in the same car's life.

Neither build pretends to improve on Porsche's own engineering. Porsche has fitted V8s to the 928, the Cayenne, and the 918 Spyder, but never to a production 911. These two cars exist because their builders wanted to see what else could fit in that engine bay.

Gallery: Porsche 911 V8 Conversions For SEMA

Source: Eneos

Porsche 911 SC Becomes The Ferrari-Powered "Porrari"

Getting an Italian V8 to sit where a German flat-six once lived took serious fabrication. The F136 pairs with a Porsche 996 transmission through a Kennedy Engineered Products bellhousing, custom clutch and flywheel, and a fabricated engine cradle built specifically for this swap.

Throttle response and fueling run through a Link ECU G5 Voodoo Neo 6 engine management system, paired with custom Stainless Bros headers and exhaust work. The individual throttle bodies were adapted from BMW E90/E92 M3 S65 components.

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That setup reportedly lets the F136 spin to an 8,000-rpm limit, a figure that owes as much to the throttle-body work as to the engine itself. The car also picked up upgraded brakes, coilovers, and a roll cage.

The Porrari sat in the Eneos booth during the Rays Wheels Silver Lot takeover, while Kugay's LS2 GT3 had its first large-scale public outing during the Optima driving experience in SEMA's Bronze Lot. Both builds share a sponsor, but they answer completely different questions about what a 911 can become.