With our involvement with Jeff's 911 restoration, we have become excited about our renewed approach to this older engine. The later engines we typically work on do not have that "feel" and its great to go back and enjoy those memories we had in the early days of Performance Developments and my time at Andial.

I am currently rebuilding a 930 engine with my friend Rich Creedon who I worked with at Andial building the 962C engines. Rich worked there for many years building the air cooled 962 engines along with many other Porsche race engines. We spend more time talking about those times joking about our experiences working with Springer and the others. Sadly we lost Arnold, but Dieter is still around and we hope to have him come and visit with us as we assemble this engine.

In the meantime, we have looked at the air cooled engine and have produced many new parts that can be used without changing these engines too much. A new Connecting rod spec's,, new Piston designs, new Camshaft designs, the use of modern friction treatments etc., have all being utilized. Nothing really groundbreaking, just bringing these older engines into the 21st century with modern technology. Looking at Jeff's engine and the parts available when rebuilding, gave me cause to make parts that include what we have learned over the years in this business. I could not understand why the same technology that was "new" in 1975 was still sold today.

As we get closer to the end we will post more info on these parts and put them up on the web site.

Here is a simple upgrade we offer on camshafts and rocker arms. The rocker arms are a sliding pad that needs an oil clearance for the oil film to lubricate the parts. This is the lash you adjust when doing the valve adjustment. You are making sure there is clearance and also adjusting the lash amount for the "hot lash" clearance designed into the camshaft design. Rocker arm pad faces and cam lobes suffer from accelerated wear when the oil isn't present. These early 911 engines have a splash feed oiling system for the rocker arms. They rely on the spray bars to oil each rocker arm. Modifications to the spray bars and adding a Friction reducing film on the rocker arm pads and cam lobes increases the life of these parts by a huge amount. Lowering friction reduces the heat that the oil has to remove and absorb.

 

Great work! Keep us posted!

 

Best description yet of why proper valve adjustment is critical.

I'm following for sure!

BTW, can you guys repair and re-grind cams along with doing the above treatment?

 

Yes we can.

We can repair most cams unless the repair becomes more expensive than new cores. We can supply new cores if required. Our cam designs are typically custom designs we do ourselves and not copies of the norm that are common. Jeff's engine will use a brand new design not seen before, utilizing a new approach to 911 cam design. This is the ethos in all of our work.

We are about to launch a new service to the 911 air cooled community that includes our signature race level, "low tolerance" machining service and a custom concierge design service offering new technology that has being lacking in the 911 world for years. We believe the 911 world can have modern technology parts and not remade designs from the 70's. Yes, its good practice to use well proven parts, but with our experience and past success we now will offer these services to the 911 air cooled world. Modern part designs where weight, strength and function become important features will be offered. For example, I have read many times where people have asked what Pistons are available with a specific CR number etc. No more will this be a problem as we will design you a piston with the exact features required. This type of work is in our DNA. Thinner ring packs, shorter compression heights, smaller pin sizes, forgings with reliefs to lower weight, modern friction coatings, etc., will be incorporated into designs. Same goes for Connecting rods as we have teamed up with an Italian company to produce custom rods competitively priced with the likes of Carrillo and Pauter. A lot of this development has been included in Jeff's 911 project. Our intention is to offer many more parts for the 911 air cooled engine, many currently in design and development testing.

We are a lot more expensive than the typical production machine shops currently offering this service, as we approach all of this work as if we were building the engine ourselves, where quality is number 1. This is not for all, but for those who want that special level of work. If cost is more important than quality, we are not the place to do this work. Faster turnaround times are also our objective. This is a Rolex "v" Timex thing.

We will soon make a full announcement of the services available along with some of the new parts we have developed for Jeff as examples.

nh

 

Yes we can.

We can repair most cams unless the repair becomes more expensive than new cores. We can supply new cores if required. Our cam designs are typically custom designs we do ourselves and not copies of the norm that are common. Jeff's engine will use a brand new design not seen before, utilizing a new approach to 911 cam design. This is the ethos in all of our work.

We are about to launch a new service to the 911 air cooled community that includes our signature race level, "low tolerance" machining service and a custom concierge design service offering new technology that has being lacking in the 911 world for years. We believe the 911 world can have modern technology parts and not remade designs from the 70's. Yes, its good practice to use well proven parts, but with our experience and past success we now will offer these services to the 911 air cooled world. Modern part designs where weight, strength and function become important features will be offered. For example, I have read many times where people have asked what Pistons are available with a specific CR number etc. No more will this be a problem as we will design you a piston with the exact features required. This type of work is in our DNA. Thinner ring packs, shorter compression heights, smaller pin sizes, forgings with reliefs to lower weight, modern friction coatings, etc., will be incorporated into designs. Same goes for Connecting rods as we have teamed up with an Italian company to produce custom rods competitively priced with the likes of Carrillo and Pauter. A lot of this development has been included in Jeff's 911 project. Our intention is to offer many more parts for the 911 air cooled engine, many currently in design and development testing.

We are a lot more expensive than the typical production machine shops currently offering this service, as we approach all of this work as if we were building the engine ourselves, where quality is number 1. This is not for all, but for those who want that special level of work. If cost is more important than quality, we are not the place to do this work. Faster turnaround times are also our objective. This is a Rolex "v" Timex thing.

We will soon make a full announcement of the services available along with some of the new parts we have developed for Jeff as examples.

nh

 

any plans for CAD/CAM on the cranks for these early motors?

 

Yes, this has already been completed.

We have our own design of lightweight crankshaft with many different features including, some of them solving the oiling issue the stock crank have. There is not a lot that can be done with the stock cranks. The most critical advice given is, DO NOT knife edge these crankshafts. This is the worst possible modification you can do to your crankshaft. This is often done by those that do not understand the consequences of this modification.

We have spent the last several years developing a damper for the water cooled long stroke engines. This technology has gone back into the 911 engine where we now offer a damper for the air cooled engine. This helps lower the harmonic pulses these cranks suffer from. It helps hold the cam timing in position as all of the harmonic pulses go up through the timing chains and into the camshafts.

Fitting a damper to a stock crankshaft requires the front bearing housing to be modified so the overlap onto the crankshaft is sufficient. The damper uses a 5 groove serpentine belt drive which makes the Alternator drive more efficient. We have a pulley for the Alternator to match and are in the middle of making a new AC compressor adaptor and V pulley that bolts to front of the damper. These are some of the parts in development now. We expect them to be available very soon.

Many are now fitting the longer water cooled cranks, building 4.0L and larger engines. The damper fits directly to these crankshafts.

We will shortly show off the developments we have been involved with over the past years that will show case our abilities and what we can offer. We have developed a whole new finger follower solution for the 991.1 GT3 engine that suffers from finger follower failures, a larger displacement GT3 and GT4 engine, upwards of 4.5L's. This development is with our partner company, Dundon Motorsports who currently offers what is considered the best exhaust system for the GT3 and GT4 engines. Our 911 development will include an all new system for these cars that Dundon will supply. Much more is offered for the Turbo engines and now the 991.2 engine. But we have many new parts coming available for the early 911 air cooled engines as well. I personally love these engines and have passion seeing these early engines becoming modernized.

nh

 

Yes, this has already been completed.

We have our own design of lightweight crankshaft with many different features including, some of them solving the oiling issue the stock crank have. There is not a lot that can be done with the stock cranks. The most critical advice given is, DO NOT knife edge these crankshafts. This is the worst possible modification you can do to your crankshaft. This is often done by those that do not understand the consequences of this modification.

We have spent the last several years developing a damper for the water cooled long stroke engines. This technology has gone back into the 911 engine where we now offer a damper for the air cooled engine. This helps lower the harmonic pulses these cranks suffer from. It helps hold the cam timing in position as all of the harmonic pulses go up through the timing chains and into the camshafts.

Fitting a damper to a stock crankshaft requires the front bearing housing to be modified so the overlap onto the crankshaft is sufficient. The damper uses a 5 groove serpentine belt drive which makes the Alternator drive more efficient. We have a pulley for the Alternator to match and are in the middle of making a new AC compressor adaptor and V pulley that bolts to front of the damper. These are some of the parts in development now. We expect them to be available very soon.

Many are now fitting the longer water cooled cranks, building 4.0L and larger engines. The damper fits directly to these crankshafts.

We will shortly show off the developments we have been involved with over the past years that will show case our abilities and what we can offer. We have developed a whole new finger follower solution for the 991.1 GT3 engine that suffers for finger follower failures, a larger displacement GT3 and GT4 engine, upwards of 4.5L's. This development is with our partner company, Dundon Motorsports who currently offer what is considered the best exhaust system for the GT3 and GT4 engines. Our 911 development will include al all new system for these cars that Dundon will supply. Much more is offered for the Turbo engines and now the 991.2 engine. But we have many new past coming available for the early 911 air cooled engines as well. I personally love these engines and have passion seeing these early engines becoming modernized.

nh

 

Thanks - I'll look forward to hearing how much wt. the cranks have lost...

BTW, your posts are coming thru in duplicate.

 

From the pics that looks essentially like Parkerizing the cams. Is that what this is ? have you had an issues with this coating creating resistance in the carrier bores as essentially you are reducing the clearances.
I in fact had this issue in a recent build after Parkerizing the cams, and had to have some of the coating removed as they simply would not turn after being reinserted.

 

This is not a parkerizing type of coating. It's a more advanced anti friction and wear coating. It adds only 3 microns thickness to the OD of the parts.

We have been offering rocker arms, camshafts and other internal engine parts with this coating for many years, soon will include our own air cooled cylinders and pistons. These are in testing right now. The first part was designing a newer more modern piston which we did for Jeff's "home built" 1975 911 engine. We felt there was no point in offering low friction coatings for the liners if Pistons used, weighted more than they needed to be, used large pins, had wide ring stacks and included ring widths from the 50's. These engines do not produce high torque, run at lower engine speeds so component weight and friction was something that needed looking into.

The first development run of air cooled liners are process now. It is hoped by lowering the friction as seen with the water cooled liners, we can reduce the heat generated within the air cooled cylinders, and hold the cylinders to size and concentricity longer.

To go along with the new piston designs, new forged connecting rods with longer CC lengths, smaller BE and SE bores utilizing a narrower Rod bearing and coated pins. All in an effort to gain back some of the parasitic losses, lost in these engines. These parts all fit existing engine deck heights, etc,

Not for all, but another choice for those that wish to have modern, more up to date part when rebuilding these great engines.

 

Here are some pics of the new rod and piston we will be supplying for the early 911 engines. This Piston will be up to 93.00mm using the existing forging but with all of our detail included. Pistons above 93.00mm and above with use the latest forging allowing for even lighter weighted Pistons. Included are shorter comp heights, compressed ring stacks and thinner rings. We will include the latest friction coatings on both the pistons and ring flanks as well.

The rod includes light weight details also. These will include longer CC lengths , smaller pin bores, smaller BE bores using Mahle-Clevite high performance tri metal bearings. Rods are also available in std sizes off the shelf.

We have decided to offer more modern configurations that will fit existing deck heights, for these early engines that have up to now, being left with historic designs.

Costs will be similar to existing aftermarket rods and Pistons currently offered for these engines. We are still in the process of configuring all of the applications, so all offerings will be on a custom basis.

More to come.

 

very nice looking - those rods aren't made in Emilia-Romagna, are they?