Well first off I'd like to say that it's nice to have a car that can do 60 m.p.h. in second gear and can travel for 350 miles on 12 gallons of gas! I'm Micah's friend, roommate, and fellow pilot candidate in the USAF so needless to say you all know about everything that's happened to my car in the past two weeks. Just to let you know most of repair work is done on my car and it should be all ready to go by Thursday this week. My question though is as follows. I've been reading up on as much 944S maintenance topics, sites, etc. and I've gathered a pretty good idea of everything I need to do but if I could i'd like to get it straight from the mouths of guys who have driven these cars. What maintenance issues have you run into, any special quirks should I be aware of (other than the cam tensioner <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ), in general when should I get parts replaced (belts, rollers, belts, hoses, water pump), etc. ? Any answers from these or similar questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Matt

 

Welcome to Rennlist, Matthew Ritenour, soon to be driver of the midwest's most finely-tuned S

BTW, nice avatar you BEAST!

Micah

 

belts/rollers/seals every 30k
waterpump every other belt or also 30k
same as all 944s
cam tensioner every 90k
i dunno. thats it?

 

I think Simon got them all - that I can think of
Other than the top end of the engine - the quirks are all the same or very similar to all other n/a 944's

 

Matt, its nice to finally see you on here. You'll find out these guys can help you out with almost anything. Let me know when you and Micah go pick your car up, I actually have Saturday off. Talk to you later.

 

Be wary of very high RPM (like 6000+) as I think that can contribute to rod bearing failure, especially if you put in a chip that raises or eliminates the rev limiter. This is an area that should be severly rationed. Also make sure to keep the oil level properly filled.

 

not worth owning an S if you dont take it over 4K RPM <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Tom:
<strong>Be wary of very high RPM (like 6000+) as I think that can contribute to rod bearing failure, especially if you put in a chip that raises or eliminates the rev limiter. This is an area that should be severly rationed. Also make sure to keep the oil level properly filled.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Tom, I'm assuming you're talking about the no. 2, right? Do you think the S is any more prone to rod bearing failure than the 8-valve? My understanding is that the bottom end of both engines is the same. If you can elaborate, I'd really like to know more.

This is important to me because 6k RPM in an S is really, really hard to resist

 

I suffered rod bearing failure. I don't believe I ran with low oil. The theory for drilling the crank is because centrifugal force causes oil starvation. What had happened before I noticed symptoms was that at some DE's and autocrosses, I experienced some of those short sections where 2nd gear topped out and there wasn't time to shift to 3rd before I had to be in 2nd again. My car has a chip so the rev limiter was up from 6800 to 7200 so I was briefly getting up there. I'm not sure that caused the problem but I suspect it took its toll. I know it's quite sweet over 4000 but running above 6000 or so you may wish to consider the consequences and not maki it routine. The 8-v's don't rev quite so high, otherwise I don't think (but don't know) that the S is more prone to bottom end failure beyond the fact it does develop more power. I believe the crank, rods and bearings are the same for Turbo's too so they should be strong enough. I hope this makes sense. I realize it is based on a sample of one but it seems logical to me.