Reiver

Well, looks like my 911sc will turn out to be that 20k car after all.
My 228k engine is still running great but I've made a tentative deal on an '83 3 liter 930-10 Row motor that was recently rebuilt in 2010 with only a few k since then.
Figuring if/when I rebuilt it would have to be a total rebuild and I'm getting a deal on this motor so just figuring the odds.
Hoping that xtra 24 hp and my lightened up SC will make a good match.

race911

While overall this is probably a great move, don't get your hopes up on the Euro HP. Realize the difference between the large port Euro 3.0, and a '78-9 US engine was a point-and-a-half higher compression and a missing catalytic converter. (You want to back up a good 3.0 or 3.2? Change the ring and pinion to a 7:31, or regear the whole thing.)

Oh, and I burned a couple of pistons in one of those engines way back when with only seeing 230F (yeah, high) oil temp on a track night in Seattle. Actually drove the car home!

Reiver

I wouldn't call 230 overly high...what do you think caused the problem, the xtra comp?

race911

Detonation. Realize at Seattle, as the track was 20 years ago, you had a one mile acceleration run. A humble SC like mine was ~140 braking down into T2. (T1 was merely a kink.) A few days before that midweek evening event I ran, PCA had a DE where a 944 Turbo had a brake failure into T2 at ~150. Fastest I've ever stood next to a moving vehicle was up there at an SCCA National when guys still ran pretty current Can-Am (5.0L era) cars in ASR. I was shooting photos just off the guardrail. Went back to ask the drivers what they were topping out at. Just short of 200.

Peter Zimmermann

Chevron Premium, scrupulous attention to ignition timing, and finding a happy place for fuel mixture will be the keys to long life for the new motor.

race911

So Pete, did you have problems with the 9.8 3.0s or the 10.3 3.2s? Or did you chase the POS gray market cars off the Santa Monica pier? I think I only had one failure I had to fix when I had the Phoenix shop going, but I busted pistons in both the Euro 3.0 and Euro 3.2 setups I had in my SC when I was back up in the Bay Area and back on the track.

I know we were pretty unsophisticated back then, but I had installed one of the first releases of an A/F meter after I ran into the problem with the 9.8 3.0. Didn't help me later when I ended up with the 3.2, but I absolutely attribute that one to stupid high oil temps at Buttonwillow in the summer.

Reiver

presently I have an 83 930-16 with 9.3-1 compression...does that extra .5 make that big a difference in detonation issues? I'm using the only high test we have in Az 91 with a octane booster (aces IV) and have never had an issue in the dead of Az summer.
I do have a later Carrera oil cooler/block off and fan to keep oil temps down and it works very well.
Thoughts?

Reiver

Guys, any link to that Excellence article on burned pistons associated with the 930-10 motor teck section). I've been searching around and am hearing it was an often enough occurance to be an issue....ain't going to do this if I'm going to be fixing a factory mistake.

Thanks.

grant911

From where I'm sitting I'm seeing them as closer to $25,000 at this point.. Still not a high price to pay for a classic 911 in my opinion..

In my case paint is a big factor as well as synchros and suspension. These cars are getting old, and watching the market, they seem to have definitely gone up in price over the last couple years.

Peter Zimmermann

LOL! That pier was only 7.5 blocks west of my shop! We serviced a number of cars that should have gone that route.

As I see it, the biggest problem with failures is that when a CIS engine is on the lean side of spec, or even too lean out of spec, it runs really good. Lot's of power, strong acceleration, until detonation happens. We never had a piston fail in a customer car, or in any of the 3.2 liter SCs we built using Max Moritz Mahles.

We always used cold spark plugs in those engines, usually copper core W3 Bosch vs W5s for USA motors. We always at least doubled the fuel mixture setting over a comparable USA motor (an '82/83 USA motor CO% was set at 0.4-0.6%; a Euro motor was set to 1.5-2.0 CO%) , and we always used the Euro spec for ignition timing (25 degrees BTDC @ 4K revs vs 5 degrees BTDC @ 900 revs).

We did maintain a number of Euro 10.3:1 cars (we even federalized two '85s), but I can't recall if any were used for DEs or AutoXs. No problems with any that I remember!

The whole key is, "If it feels good, it still might not be right." (1) mixture, (2) timing, (3) plugs. All three must be correct, and all are different for RoW cars.

Reiver

I've decided to pass on the ROW for a few reasons.
I drive about 10k a year and year round often in 100+ degrees so heat is a strong variable.
We have crappy gas with 91 the highest octane avail.
The reduced margin of error with the higher com. ratio makes it more of a crap shoot than I'd like to wager on as the whole deal was to avoid the cost of a total rebuild.......so I'l just keep looking.

p.s. back to a 15k car whose 3 L still runs great @228k miles....

rusnak

starting in '84, the DME had a fuel quality control setting, which changed the ignition and fuel settings to compensate somewhat for poor quality gas. I personally keep it at the stock setting and avoid "performance chips" for the reasons you stated above.

Shannon123

When you have helicopter Ben throwing $85 billion/month into the markets (pumping banks reserves for an eventual very rainy day), we have yet another liquidity driven bubble reaching its way into many asset classes. I've watched the P-car market like a hawk over the past 4 years...asking (key word here) prices have rocketed into the stratosphere....and perhaps even more telling is the number of early 70's cars offered on pelican has grown to HUGE numbers. IMO, its gonna get real ugly when the FED finally takes away the bottle and I think that day is very near.

TexasRider

I am not sure that old-er Porsche cars qualify as an asset class. Only to a Porsche service shop where they are job security.

But prices are generally up for a variety of reasons.

First off it is just their time. There are only so many of them and they are reaching the time to go up some.

The other is the European buying and shipping back to Europe pushed up prices too.

Sure interest is down, has been for quite a while, and maybe some are sold on that too.

For Porsche enthusiasts, the 993 went up and went up a lot. New P cars are pretty steep. So they worked back. The early ones have been up, so the middle got pulled up too. Given the above factors and that only a certain amount of good ones are left, and fewer and fewer, it is not unusual that prices are up.

I would not say $5,000 or $10,000 makes or breaks these cars. It depends on the condition and the condition. You just dont want to pay $25,000 for a car that needs work. And you never did want to pay that anyway.

Peter Zimmermann

An analysis that I can agree with!