Mike S

Well, now that the motor is out I've started the cleaning/dissasembling process. The cylinder head looked great (had it redone 2,000 miles ago so no supprise there). The guru headgasket was leaking worse than I originally thought. It never leaked at the cylinders...just the coolant channels. I'm still a beleiver in the guru all metal headgasket, but I'll have to consult with Danno to see what may have caused my problems. I'm thinking the copper adhesive....but we'll see.

Power steering rack will get a rebuild while I'm here using Rennbay's kit. Ball joints look good, but the rubber boots are shot. Anyone know where I can get replacements(besides dealer)?

The cylinder bores look great. I was so excited to have what has become the "holy grail" of porsche motors.....that is a motor whose cylinders are not scored badly. Looks like a new set of rings and bearings and she'll be good as new. Enjoy the pics....i'll post another update when I get some parts assembled and installed.

Nasty, crusty, filthy excuse for a Porsche motor.


Here you can see where I was leaking coolant. You can also see just how disgusting this motor was.


Ahh...the beautifull bores. Phew!!! I was scared I might have to shell out big $$$ if they were damaged.


After an hour with castrol super clean and a toothbrush. On its way to "perry951" clean. He he hee.


An almost clean motor. At least I'm not affraid to touch it anymore.


The other side still needs work.....umm...yeah.!

Lead Foot 944

Lookin good!

Your hard work will soon pay off...

cas951

Mike, will you be working on the car this Saturday? If you are I still want to stop by and see the progress.

Efren

oi-punx

Mike,

Your progress looks awesome. I wish I could have stayed longer last weekend but with my new place (like 951 ownership) there has been an endless list of things to do. I'd also like to stop by with Efren and help/check out your project tomorrow if that's cool.

-Ben

Mike S

You guys are welcome to stop by tomorrow. I'll be there all day. There isn't much going on right now as far as the motor project goes. I've ordered a bunch of parts and I'm waiting for those right now. I might start rebuilding the power steering rack though. If you guys would like to see the vast pile of parts that I'm quickly accumulating you are welcome to stop by though! If you guys are going to be there after 2pm.....give me a call to make sure that we haven't gone out.

cas951

Mike, I'll be there in the morning after 9:00. See you then

adrial

awesome! I know exactly how you feel about the bores! What a relief!!!

Your block seems to have an odd yellowish color surrounding the cylinders?

Care to share your plans for the engine? Will you be leaving the crank in place or pulling it and having it cross drilled/balanced?

Mike S

Yeah....i noticed that yellow-ish residue when I pulled the head a few months ago too. It seems to be deposits from the coolant. I'm assuming the previous owner at one point didn't put the phosphate free coolant in the car for quite some time and some corrosion took place. I don't see any real evidence of corrosion on the block itself, but that's the only explanation that I can come up with.

The crank....ahh yes, the crank. Well, I seem to go back and forth every day as to what I should do with the crank. Yesterday I was going to pull it, redo the main bearings and have the crank crossdrilled. That's about $350 in machining and $100 in bearings. At this point, I'm thinking about leaving the crank untouched. I've yet to hear of or see a main bearing fail in these motors. I have seen quite a number of rod bearings go....but after examining mine (they looked brand new), I'm leaning towards not touching the mains. This is a "dirty" rebuild as someone put it, but I just can't seem to justify another $500 when I expect to get another 150k out of the stock bearings.

With that said, these motors are built to extreme precision. I've built a few american motors (olds 403 and chevy 350).....and I think that in general motors are fairly tolerant. Anyways, I ramble......main bearings are staying for now...crank untouched.

New total seal rings, new rod bearings, new TO4E turbo, lightened stock flywheel and a ton of seals. That's about the extent of my rebuild.

adrial

Mike,

Are you doing this rebuild with the intention of using the engine for the track, for the street or for both?

Mike S

Street 99.9% of the time. I do a ton of DE like events on my motorcycle but I've never done one in the car. I may or may not do one in the future....hence the 99% chance of street only.

An interesting thing to note: If you look through the 928 board you'll see a lot of #2 rod bearing failures as well (no main bearing failures).....almost all of the cases where it happened....people were using mobil 1 synthetic. I personally like mobil one...but I find the sheer % of failures quite high and interesting. Just a theory.

Tom M'Guinn

So Mike, did you end up removing the radiator, or did it stay in place.

I think I saw in the earlier post that you had to pull the splitter, right?

Just curious...taking mental notes.

--Tom

adrial

Mike,

Well I'll let you know how my main bearings look pretty soon! I've been running Amsoil for the past ~18k miles and my oil passages all look VERY clean from what I can see...I'll know more after I go in there with the tools and start going deeper into them. The fact that so many people use Mobil 1 is likely the reason that so many people have failures with it. What would be interesting is the percentage of users that use each oil that have failures. The real problem is getting a large enough number of people to respond.

Tom,

Radiator definetely has to come out. The splitter, I'm not sure as I have the stock bodywork.

Overall I'd say the hardest part of the job on my car was the stupid wastegate...the thing just did not want to come off! Other than that its been smooth sailing. As the engine started to come down, we realized a thing or two that we had forgotten to disconnect...so do it slowly! It does get awfully exciting when you realize that the engine of your car is coming out, but stay calm.

Oh, and check out this thread if you haven't read it already. https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...hreadid=106266
I found it to be very very informative, especially once you get past the first page.

Mike S

Yeah....i resisted pulling the radiator and the power steering pump til the very end. After sliding the motor as far forward as it would go (alternator was hitting the headlight bar) I still needed another inch. So....yes, the radiator has to come out....i think there's a pic of exactly how much free room you have...which is none. I used an engine leveler and without it I doubt I would have gotten the motor out without smashing up the splines on the torque tube. The stupid power steering pump had to come out too...it kept getting stuck on the lower tabs used to secure the nose panel.

Adrial - On a side note I'm considering having the new rod bearings coated by swain tech along with the piston crowns. I'm told that their bearing coatings really help with oil retention on the bearings. I'll let you know if I end up being the porsche guinea pig on this one.