DaveT

My car recently returned from an extended stay at Precision Motorwerks in Anaheim. The short story is that I am blown away with the work that Greg and his team performed. As many of you know Greg's knowledge of these cars is second to none. What I personally learned is that he is focused on the restoration/preservation of these cars above all else. His attention to quality and detail is refreshing in this day and age. He simply wants to get it right.

I purchased the car from Willhoitt in 2010 with 45K miles and it was in great shape. At the beginning of this year the odometer read a little over 49K. I had been mulling over doing the timing belt and water pump myself as I have done this type of work on other cars. I finally had to admit to myself that if/when I broke something I would spend more correcting it than I would for having it done by a professional.

Well......you know about "slippery slopes". What started out as TB/WP turned into an engine-out rebuild, motor mounts, transmission mounts, Constantine Clamp, powder coating, cadmium plating, various front and rear suspension components, shocks, and various other items.

Just as the car was finished I had to travel to the Anaheim area on business. Greg and Mary (and Joe Cocker, the dog) arranged to meet me on a Sunday so that I could see and drive the car prior to shipping it back home. It was great to meet them and I ended up spending several hours talking with them about the cars. Greg showed me around the shop and discussed several of his ongoing projects, very impressive.

Driving the car was really something. As I said the car was in good shape when I sent it to the shop; Greg had even commented on that. However, when I drove the car it was apparent that the car was much better than before with an almost new feeling. I now understand how this car should ride, perform, etc.

S4ordie

Yes, a great experience to pick up a car after Greg has waved his magic wand over it. He is a magician to be sure in regards to these cars - extracting incredible performance from this Porsche platform.

Congratulations and enjoy the fruits of Greg's labor.

Jherriott

Where's the jealous button?

Congrats on your ride!

Jase.

P.S. I'd love to see some shots of that engine bay now!

safulop

I'm sure the work is top notch but, why would a car with 49K miles require an engine-out rebuild?

GregBBRD

This was Dave's desires, not mine. His car is magnificent and I think he wanted, everything to be "fresh" while the parts were still available.

In addition, anyone with an automatic GTS is brain dead not to have a supplementary driveshaft clamp on the torque tube shaft....and I personally believe that Constantine's clamp is the best....and either the engine or the transmission must be removed to install that clamp.

As it turned out, the head gasket deterioration was so severe, this was money extremely well spent. Once the head gaskets have extra holes "eaten" in them, the water takes a short cut and not much gets back to the rear cylinders, resulting in extremely accelerated piston/cylinder wear.

This is going to be a terrible problem with the 928 engines in the next 10-15 years (it's bad enough, right now)....and Porsche will run out of pistons....long before all of the engines with worn bores are repaired.

And while we were there, we could fix the terrible piston design of the GTS engines.

We did not remove the crankshaft or touch the main bearings.

worf928

Regardless of the mileage every 928 is at least 21 years old now. At this point for a 32v 928 engine if the following haven't been done then they are due:
- timing belt, main seals etc.
- oil pan gasket
- cam covers
- intake

If you are going to do all of that at one shot, it is far quicker and easier to pull the motor and do the work on a stand. If you are paying someone to do all that work it's cheaper in the long run to do it all in one shot than to do the work in 3 or 4 chunks.

Range Rover

That's awesome. Having seen your car in person a few years ago, I can only imagine how nice it is now. Would love to come by and see it the next time I'm in the area. Hope you enjoy it!

GregBBRD

If someone wants it to be as nice as possible, it should come out.

I think I only took one picture of it, sitting in the chassis:




I'm seeing such incredibly bad head gaskets, I think that the people that want to keep these cars need to get the heads off and deal with it....in the very near future.

Bigfoot928

drilled out a few oil drain back holes? That one exercise is definitely worth the time and money alone, as it will run better, and generate a tad more power from the simple fact that it's not trapping oil in the combustion chambers and fouling the fuel, and lowering the octane. I have been recommending this for a very long time for every GTS owner.

GregBBRD

Yup.

Pretty sure I was drilling these holes, before Porsche knew they had a problem.....

hlee96

Money well spent, period!

Beautiful engine and congrats!

DaveT

A couple of quick follow ups. Greg did initially question the need to pull a low mileage engine. My thinking was that if I was doing TB/WP and intake refresh then I wanted to see what the heads looked like with the history of corrosion of the aluminum. Greg did say he could do all that without pulling the engine but we were also doing motor mounts, pan gasket, etc. To me it seemed the best way to get things done correctly. As Greg notes the head gaskets were really bad. I have posted a few photos and will show more soon. When I visited his shop to look at the car Greg had all of the used parts in a bin and went over some of them with me. It was a learning experience for me.

Range Rover: Let me know when you guys are in town and we can get together.

Traveling for a few days and will post more photos when I return.

V2Rocket

Could you please elaborate on these added holes?

77tony

Damn ! (Slight hijack but on topic) Greg, ever pulled apart a motor that was running Evans waterless coolant...if so your findings please. T

Rob Edwards

Wow, that's like Stage IIIb head cancer, that's a ton of corrosion for 50K miles. Lucky they were repairable, must have been a lot of welding.

V2, best discussion of GTS piston oil hole drilling is likely here:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...s-pistons.html