No one really knows the manufacturing methods that Porsche used. Sometimes I feel like an automotive archeologist; me and my machinists have stared at these cases going on three years wondering what some of the tooling marks mean and what they could have possibly used to make these cases.

As an example, consider the reliefs cut into the mains for the crankshaft counterweights. Based on the tooling marks they look like they were cut into the cases on a large horizontal mill, but other than that we really don't know exactly how they were made since there are no pictures. Also, when I went to Stuttgart and to the factory, the entire engine building operation had long since converted to robots, so it's anyone's guess at this point.

In many cases, we have to do things quite a bit differently than the factory did. In the crankshaft weight relief example, we come in from the top and mill out the reliefs using an endmill. It achieves the same result, but in a different way.

Fascinating stuff!

 

I bet there is some old guy at the Porsche Museum who knows how they did it. Or he knows a guy that knows a guy...

One thing for sure - if any country has historical info on how engine machining was done decades or centuries ago, it is Germany

 

True, the part I left unsaid though was that it's not really super important that we replicate it in the exact WAY it was made because that could lead to a less accurate final product. I am not knocking Porsche but they had to produce hundreds of thousands of these over the years. If my production run winds up being 1000 cases I will be doing backflips. So I can afford to be more accurate and painstaking in the execution rather than cranking them out.

 

Friends of Taormina Racing,

We are ready to begin taking preorders on March 15th! I have resisted taking deposits on cases for as long as I possibly could, and funded this entire endeavor out of pocket. My costs to date total over $600,000 of my own money, the last bit incurred setting up the shop, which was deceptively expensive to do. To go from a bare shop space to a fully working machine shop in less than 45 days has been pricey and trying at times.

The reason for taking preorders is not financial - I will only be taking $1250 refundable deposits on March 15th, the sum total of which would be way too small to even think of paying myself back a tiny fraction of what I have spent. The reason for taking preorders is so that we can fully map out a production schedule that consists of actual buyers, as opposed to just interested parties. Simply put: we are shifting out of R&D and into production mode.

So here is HOW we will do it:

• If you filled out an interest card at some point, you will be the first to know that preordering is live, and you will get to preorder ONE DAY before the general public can.
• The actual preorder is a $1250 REFUNDABLE deposit. Why refundable? Well, it protects both of us really. If we incur some sort of delay, your recourse is getting your money back. My recourse is to simply give you your money back. Delays are part of the process, but we think we have them under control now.
• The preorders are available to both shops and individuals at this point, and your $1250 deposit gives you a production slot for a $5000 case.

FAQs:

Can I preorder more than one case? Yes, you can preorder multiple cases, but you'll pay a $1250 deposit on each one.

When will my case be complete? Customer cases will be delivered starting in June. Your actual slot will be determined by what time you preorder on March 15th.

How will you assign slots? To keep the process fair, you will receive a production slot based upon when you order. As an example, if you order on March 15th at 1:00pm, you will receive an earlier slot than someone who orders, say, on March 20th. Slots will be assigned in the order received!

Will my preorder buy me a firm time commitment? No, I can't promise that now. What I can promise is that if you are slot #10, for example, you will always be the tenth case delivered based on when deliveries start.

How many cases will you sell at $5000? Only 40. And that includes to shops and wholesalers. So act now.

When will I have to pay the balance: Three days before your case is scheduled to build, you will need to pay the balance in full, and your order will become a firm, non-refundable order.

Why should I send you my money, considering you don't even have a completed engine running yet? That's why it's called a preorder - you are trusting us to deliver you a product that is not yet complete and that will meet your expectations once it is. You are investing in the process, and will get to see the product come to life before your eyes. In exchange, we are selling you the product at a much lower price than others will pay in the future. Want to wait to purchase a case so you can touch it, feel it, see it in a running car? No problem at all, but you will not be paying $5000, that's for sure.

As to the final question, I feel like I have invested substantially enough to give the product credibility. Anyone who happens to be in the So Cal area can phone or email me and make an appointment to come see the shop, the machines, and our progress first hand should any doubts arise as to the reality of the project. It is now time for you to have a little faith in us to deliver the goods.

Questions? Write or call me. Contact info on the website at www.taorminaracingdesigns.com

 

I'd like to see one up and running; fully vetted, so to speak. The only aftermarket case I'm award of that's had that sort of testing is from Noonan Ultimate Race Engineering. It is $20,500 but the company has
a track record of producing competition engines.

Build-out a completed case, abuse it on a dyno and test it on the track. Put some hours on it like the factory would. If it costs more once it is FULLY vetted that's fine.

Good luck.

 

I'm not sure if you were following along, but before the FIRST customer gets delivery of their cases, one will have been assembled into an engine and ran in my car for a bit. The lucky donor car is my 73T that already has a 3.6 and a G50 and so is ready to go to accept a new motor.

I never said at any time that preorder customers will get an untested case.

Having said that, I am not 100% sure that ANY testing program will be adequate for some people. There are some people who will only buy after dozens of them have been built and are out running in cars for years. That's fine, as I said in my previous post about this. It's okay, be one of those people. Case #41 is priced at 6995, case #61 is 8995 where it will stay. Demand proof, pay more. No skin off my back.

Let's talk about the Noonan case for a moment, since you mentioned it. Besides its breathtaking price, the only thing you personally know about the case is what Noonan has made publicly available on their website and at SEMA....they have "rigourously" tested their case , they ran an "entire race season" with the case, and usually they have to throw their cases away after a spell, but with the new billet case they got "XXXX hours of run time". I am paraphrasing, it's been a while since I saw their site.

None of what they said is easily corroborated, because no one is paying for a 20K case, plain and simple. With my case, which I might add I will compare with ANY billet case out there - it will be in the hands of tens, dozens of people this year, who will build them into motors and do all kinds of things with. So Noonan has their "track record" (underlined by yourself for emphasis) - but how many independently verified cases do they have out there running? I will have legion.

Long winded, but I knew someone would come around playing the part of Thomas, and you got to be that guy today, and there's your answer.

 

Oh and I want to add one thing to the Noonan case, in a separate post for emphasis. They may have a great track record, etc, etc nothing taken away from them, but I highly doubt they have the sheer dollars invested into R&D for the Porsche Case that I do. Their process is simple - scan, program, and cut, and the stresses put on aluminum when you machine it a lot are immense, especially something as thin as a Porsche case. It is NOT an engine block, and I would be very surprised if they were able to produce the same case twice dimensionally speaking.

I am glad there is another option out there besides my case, it is 100% good for the Porsche community, but there is no way they have the same time or money invested into this project that I do, and they are simply charging for what their time and materials are, while I am actively subsidizing this case for individuals who want one. Vis a vis the Porsche case - their stuff is a mile wide and an inch deep. Mine is an inch wide and a mile deep.

 

So glad to have read the email today... Now comes the fun part. What other goodies go along should I buy to build the ultimate 3.8/4.0 higher reving engine that makes 400+ (dare I say 500) NA hp power. I'm thinking GT3 crank, LN/CP/Mahle 109 C+P, carillo rods but not sure about what heads to spring for. What would you guys recommend?

 

I'm hoping others chime in on this, but if I was building the "ultimate" NA 911 motor, I would be going with:

- Xtreme billet heads - twice the price of my case, but literally the best there is.
- Autoverdi billet oil pump
- Rothsport Intake manifold (same as the one on Singers, since he used to make them)
- CP pistons, Carillo rods
- ARP fasteners throughout
- LN Cylinders

As far as cams go I'd look at DR (Daugherty Racing) and have him make a cam to suit. Lastly, twin plug, and electronic ignition would be a MUST to achieve these sorts of numbers. You'd be in the low 400s with this, which is about the max realistically speaking that you could achieve, but man, would that be plenty.....

 

This is fantastic work. I wish I needed a new block for my 3.6 then I could sign up. Right now it would become wall art - but what great art!

I thought I was off my rocker when I made cast iron glass molds for Fcar 328 foglights that are NLA. I thought I was pushing the envelope of sanity in reproducing simple glass parts but your project makes all that look truly prehistoric!

Thanks for devoting all this time and effort for the benefit of the Pcar community.

Cheers
Mark

 

Thanks Mark,

I don't know you, but that means a lot to me coming from someone who also tried to revive a dead product. Thanks for the kind words!

 

Happy to have received the email. I'm surprised that there aren't more comments on this post, to be honest. I've been watching with interest over the last year +.

 

Clive,

I have received a flood of emails and phone calls about the preorders, so lots of offline activity. Keep in mind that from an enthusiast standpoint, all of the action STARTS here, but from a business and production standpoint, all of the action really happens in the ordering and delivery process which is pretty much offline.

Also, the preorder process is kind of a strange time - really only the die hards will be preordering, some people will choose to wait to see a finished product. I noted with interest that Porsche is in a similar boat with the Taycan......they have taken 20,000 deposits of 2500 euro on a car with no spec, no completion date, and no real details outside of a few renders. Yes, I know they are Porsche after all, but the response has surprised even the CEO, Oliver Blume, who said:

"This is a significantly higher figure than we expected: we usually only see ordering peaks after the first driving reports are available, when the vehicle is presented, and when customers have been able to sit in the car in real life.”

I am also shocked at the amount of interest the preorders have generated, knowing full well that the real rush will come after the case is out there in the wild and it can be seen, heard and felt.

More updates this week!

 

You might be wondering why we obsess over something so elementary as an object being flat. It's pretty simple - mostly, when you are sending out your old factory cases to be machined back to spec, what they are doing is restoring the flatness of the case. Shops like Ollies, like Competition Engineering (Walt Watson) are mainly concerned with making the case mating surfaces flat as well as the cylinder spigot faces flat. Heat and age conspire to warp these surfaces ever so slightly.

But my premise is that they were never really that flat to begin with. As I have pointed out before, factory tolerances are pretty loose.

Also, the method these Porsche shops use to restore flatness is pretty primitive as well - they use a flat honing stone that is scraped against the surface to restore flatness. It comes back fairly flat, but it requires a talented machinist to do it, and that's why there is such a huge backlog at these shops.

Candidly, our level of initial flatness blows any shop away. See for yourself in the attached picture. You'll see sharpie marks right on the case that Harman marked after we cut this one. The notations are in tenths. For you non machinists, here are the way these are measured:

- The average human hair measures .004"

- One thousandth of an inch is .001"

- we are measuring in tenths, which is .0001"

So when Harman writes +4 in sharpie, what he is saying is .0004" which is one tenth the thickness of a human hair! Oh, and that is our worst measurement. Most of them are zero, meaning we can't measure any further.

Pretty insane.

 

I don't see the attached picture. Of course, that saves me from the horror of a German product or design marked off in non-SI units...