Oshin11

Ok so I wouldn't call myself a person who is very good with cars or even good with cars. I mean I know ABOUT cars but I have never really taken things apart and gotten to ANY hardcore engine work. Now I know it would be a tremendously daunting task to try to take on a full rebuild of a 911 engine but is it even possible? Am I way over my head here? Not saying that I am even going to do this now but I wanted to start researching. As many of you know I will be starting to work for Porsche soon and my boss told me "you cant design an engine unless you know where it came from." So I thought it would be a good idea to try to get into the 1987 911 engine. I have heard of Wayne Dempsey's "How to modify and rebuild Porsche 911 Engines" book on Pelican Parts. Is this like the "Bible" for porsche rebuilds? Any advice would be nice. I kinda just want to read through Wayne's entire book and see what this is all about before I even THINK about removing my engine in the future. Thanks guys and I cant begin to express how cool these forums are and great everyone on here has been to me

Cheers

Mike Murphy

It depends on how mechanically inclined you are. Have you taken anything apart? When I was a kid, I took everything in the house apart, including VCRs, remote controlled cars, blenders, etc. When it came time for my first engine (1949 Chevy straight-six), I was ready.

SeattlePorsche

Of course you can. I hope to do a full rebuild one day. I think Wayne's book is the bible. I don't know if Bentley make a book for your engine, but it is also very helpful.

Sounds like you better read the chapter on "is a rebuild necessary." Don't fix it if it isn't broken.

Oshin11

Yea I would say I am mechanically inclined, I am a mechanical engineer afterall. I am pretty good at taking things apart and putting them back together so it works But as far as my 911's engine, I am kinda paranoid that I will screw something up and have the engine explode when I turn the key afterwards. And like I said I wont be doing the rebuild anywhere in the next 10 months, my car is healthy and only has 122K miles on it. I want to read the book to help me for my job.

Oshin11

Oh and by the way murphy I wish I had been on these forums sooner, I had my car in Evanston for the month of September and it was the best. Great weather, I took my car out cruising almost everyday. I wish I could have gone for a ride with you and any other willing rennlisters. I once saw a beautiful 356 right by the Northwestern campus and we had a little race for 10 miles or so. Surprisingly that little 356 could haul!

ked

if I were in your position, I would go to a Bruce Anderson / Jerry Woods Porsche engine rebuilding class. they advertise in Excellence or check Bruce's website...
http://www.911handbook.com/

Wachuko

ditto... hope to attend the class at some point... I did the rebuild on my 951, and in a few Ford F350's... but also paranoid on working on the 911 internals...

951kid

Hey Oshin 11, where did you go to school for ME? and how did you land a job designing porsche engines?

loosecannon

I have rebuilt 2 small block chevy engines and a few Honda kart engines and decided to tackle rebuilding my 1982 911SC engine. I took my time, used Wayne's book and even installed 964 camshafts at the same time. I finished it last fall and it ran great and didn't leak oil. Just make sure you have all the recommended tools, lubes and sealants BEFORE you start pulling it apart.

Mike Murphy

No kidding, I would have loved that! Driving up the coast of Lake Shore Drive is good fun, especially in the summer. But I must say that nothing compared to California weather and the mountains that you have access to. I dream about living in CA

Yeah, those 356s are some of the most beautiful Porsches ever made.

Mike Murphy

You're not going to have any trouble, Oshin11. I'm sure you're smarter than I am at this point. Like anything, good research and a good book is all you need. It might take you a long time to do the first engine, but I can tell you, it sure is fun!

I'm totally envious of your work situation. I went to school for EE to get into computers, but always dreamed of becoming an ME and working on engines. I would almost leave my day job right now if I had the opportunity to work for Porsche :-)

Mike Murphy

I did a 400-inch Chevy smallblock in a 68' Nova, but I regret the choice. Instead, I would have done a 327, 350 or 383 instead. Those 400s aren't very strong, and they only safely rev to 5500RPM (stock). Granted, the engine runs well and has gobs of torque, but the 350 block I had in before was just as strong, but up to 6800RPM, it was much more flexible.

HarryD

In addition to Rennlist, get Wayne Dempsey's rebuild book and visit here: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/forum...s=&forumid=257 and here http://forums.pelicanparts.com/forum...p?s=&forumid=8. Whatever you are planning or mess up, there will be someone who has already BTDT and can help you out.

If you have the inclination and desire, you can follow in the foot steps of many others.

Oshin11

For 951kid and Murphy......

A little bit of my educational background and how I landed my dream job. For starters way back in high school I did all the things people told me I SHOULD do to get into a good college. I was the Presdident of my school, captain of the track team, top 5 in my class.....you name it I had done it. But when it came down to choosing a college, I opted out of going to Harvard, or USC, or Berkeley or any other top school you can think of. This is because I visited the UCSB campus and fell it love They have a specialty honors physics program that accepts about 15 applicants a year and I found it extremely challenging and I met some of the smartest people I think I will ever meet at that program. String theorists, applied physicists, the worlds next biggest hacker, I can just see it now haha. So what if they weren't the #1 school in the nation, I had fun, and I ended up in the top 1 percent of my university. The most important thing was that I got a lot of research opportunities that I would have never gotten at other universities. I did research at Stanford, the California Nanotech Institute, and I even worked full time for a DoD aerospace company for the last 1.5 years I was there. Juggling a full time job with 4 physics classes wasn't easy, but it was rewarding. So I graduated and despite going to the 43rd ranked school in the nation, I got into all the top tier engineering schools in the country. MIT, Northwestern, UCSB (yes UCSB engineering is #3), CalTech......etc... So I went to Northwestern and as it turned out I was not happy with the research I ended up doing there. A friend of mine knew that I loved Porsche and knew an ME that has worked for them for a long time. So she passed on my resume and I had my in. So yes its nearly impossible to get a job there and I got really lucky so I am really grateful. I may have a good resume but I sure as hell am not ready to design cars, I will be training with the person that hooked me up for about a year before I start doing any good designing. So thats my story....if you have questions send me a message

SeattlePorsche

Very interesting. Since you are a Porsche insider, why don't they bring back some of the older cars. Wouldn't there be a big market in the US for air cooled engines? I imagine the cars would be heavier to comply with safety regulations like air bags, etc, but I would rather buy a new air cooled than a Boxter, Cayman or 997. What are your thoughts?