pjburges

Is the smoke blue or gray - oil is always blue. Gray would mean a fuel problem. Even if it burns some oil you are losing negligible horsepower. I wouldn't worry about it.

Have you done a compression check? If that meets spec just move on!!

I wouldn't pull the motor. Not worth it IMO.

BUT IF YOU INSIST- And if you did - flat out replace it with one that a junkyard says is good. Its a chump car race!

If you have bore / ring problems you will instantly invest WAY too much money to fix it. Its an alusil sleeveless block.

Pistons won't come out the bottom - the block will inhibit it (no clearance). Its a PIA to work upside down. That stuff has to fit just right - JUST RIGHT - and its really heavy. Best to flip the motor upside down and have gravity on your side.

Easiest to pull the motor out the bottom of the car in my opinion. Pull the front suspension but leave wheels dangling on struts with knuckles attached. Front crossmember, swaybar, both control arms gotta go. Get everything unhooked off the engine and pull the radiator. Use hoist to lower engine down and forward onto a board. You have to get it far enough foward that the input shaft gets free of the clutch! Rest motor there and disconnect the engine hoist. Create a lift bar to lift the nose of the car up (lift from the frame!) - and with the vehicle in neutral roll it and the hoist backwards together until it is clear of the engine. I can pull a NA 8 or 16v in less that 3 hours with this method and no lift. Set the front of the car back down on the jackstands, pick your engine up - set it on the engine stand and get crackin.

AGAIN - if you saw no damage in the bores and the engine turns decent compression - DONT pull the crank to replace pistons that wont seat in time for the race in old bores. You'll need to hone the bores - honing alusil at any shop is expensive and if you end up at the wear limit on the pistons / rings you'll have to bore oversize if you want to hone. $$$$$ Oversize Mahl pistons $$$$$$. You could cause more woes than its worth. Just replace your rod bearings. These cars eat rod bearings if the oil system is sub-par and you are tracking them.

You can replace rod bearings without pulling the crank / oil pump.

Hope this helps-
Paul

pjburges

If the thought of the price of another headgasket is frightening you really shouldn't start playing with the bores. You CAN re-use the head gasket a second time if you haven't ran the motor much. Just spray some copper-kote (permatex) on both sides and go for it. Two friends of mine are running their 944's after they buggered the job and brought it to me - I re-used the headgasket at their small pocketbooks request. Both those motors have ran over a year with no issues. The big thing is that it didnt really run long after you put it in. Torquing the head, then loosening and removing the gasket - then torquing again will doubtfully cause an issue - though I might not pull that shi##t on a turbo!!!

Note V2 Rockets piece of artwork was a failure of the #2 rod bearing - a great reminder to do rod bearings before you race it.

Tabbasco

Paul

Great advice thank you!! Ok so I started another thread cuz I thought this was one died...here are more details~

Compression 160, 160, 160, 150...just cranked the engine with no throttle

Smoke seems grey but smells like oil. Two possible solutions we be tried this week. GM Top Engine Cleaner vacummed thru the intake to break loose the rings if any are stuck. Also sprayed in to the pcv valve...then replace plugs and oil.

The next is to check/simplify all the connections to ensure the engine is not running to rich...

If this doesn't work we will look for a new block/engine!