Imo000

What the heck is this supposed to mean. Please elaborate on this a little more, cause I would love to hear exaclty where you got this information from.

Do you have an S on an S4?

6.0-928S

I heard that!

Hammer

PorKen

Correction. The S4 has 86.5 brakes, floor pan, exhaust, and suspension. Take away the fancy grill, the miniturized intake, and knock sensors, and you have an 86.5.

I'm liking my PointFive more and more as I drive it.

touque

Nice one Ken

I love(d) my 86.5 but always wanted an S4 for the rear-end look - that's it.

Abby Normal

That's a cool story!

danglerb

What I mean is that information is NOT straight forward to get due to the bias that many owners seem to have. One group downplays any issues, and others exaggerate them, and many things are both subjective and anecdotal. Hence the reason for the second half of what I said, which means I am learning to give less weight to some of the model year specific opinions and just look at the condition of the specific car that I find.

I traded my 81 928 in about 20 years ago on a 944T, and didn't keep that at the end of the lease due to nasty terms from the lease company and I haven't had a Porsche since 1992. I am in the pre shopping, making up my mind which model I like best mode.

SteveG

[QUOTE=danglerb]I got the feeling it was more like, there is nothing "wrong" with your aunt, but everybody in the family knows she talks to her cats./QUOTE]

I don't mean to be defensive, but that is what you used to judge us by? Could you be a little more vague?? I've never heard of an inherent issue on the 85/86 engine.

My .02: I can only guess that whoever said that was trying to compare different MYs, so in retrospect once you drive a newer MY, the older might look like it has an issue, and that is unfair. To my surprise, once I got rides in different MY, I was amazed at how different they are and it can be as subtle as the sound. But we are addicts, so we notice. Take interiors for example, an S4 makes an '85 feel "less" and likewise for an '85 to an '80. A lot of copy has been written on the progression of this car from '79 to '95. So I won't try here. My point is I don't think any engine has what I will call performance or longevity flaws; the car was a work in progress, so they did make each one better, you can't really compare. Buy the best you can afford with something left for upkeep, there is always something to do. Budget does affect taste. This would generally be taken as applicable to cosmetics, but again it is really hard to separate all the parts of this car, I don't think this is limited to interiors.

tv

I think they are all the ones to buy, but the lh euro is tough to beat for smooth power matched perfectly to the tranny shift points. Plus a lot less complexity. Chipping is a big benefit to the 85-86.

Daniel Dudley

The bad ones are the ones that have the hacked up wiring harnesses, original spark plug loom, a new timing belt with bad rollers and in need of a tensioner rebuild. The oil seals are cracked, motor mounts collapsed, and the clutch doesn't fully disengage. There is a slight leak from the head gasket under the intake manifold, and you can't figure out where the coolant is going. The alignment was done with the car jacked up, so the new front tires are about to wear like crazy on the inside edge.
If it is an auto, the flex plate has never had the pressure released, or there was a coolant leak into the tranny.

The previous owner knows all this and more, but he has sunk so much money into hack repairs, that he just wants to get something back. He is telling himself that you will have better luck, and he is telling you that you cant drive it because the battery is too weak, or because it is unregistered, or because you live in another state. He is listing it on ebay for the third time because those other bidders were deadbeats who weren't serious . The car looks great in the pictures. You can't see the cracks in the dash, and the drivers seat bolsters are artfully cropped out of the pictures.

You talk to him on the phone. The car is mint. he seems like such a nice guy, a real enthusiast. You buy the car. You drive it. Wow ! What a car. Yeah, it has some issues, but any good mechanic should be able to sort it out in no time. So you take it down the street. After about the third try, you find a Porsche mechanic. He doesn't want to work on it, hates 928s. So you find a 928 guy, and finally get that PPI that everyone told you to get.

The good news is it has a strong motor. The bad news is that it needs everything else, including all the work you just paid really good money to have done. You are now thinking that it will all be worth it, once you get it done. True, for that kind of money you could have gotten a really nice 928, but you LOVE the car. And you just want to drive it.

Those workshop manuals are starting to look cheap at 400 dollars.

Imo000

You are back peddling here. You said clearly that the 85-85 32V engines have problems and this is extremly inaccurate. Now, don't try to generalize, just show me where you got this info.

You only rented the 928 and the 951. They were were new and under waranty, so whatever experience you had with them will do very little 20 years later.

Most of my comment come from first hand experience, maybe you sould do the same.

danglerb

Read the article in the post above and you will see almost exactly what was told to me, that the Porsche view was the the 85/86 US motor was not up the standards of the Euro motor, and was "fixed" in the 87+ model year.

My current preference, is a nice 89 with a huge discount due to damage to the sunroof in a color I like.

I get the feeling one often doesn't get to find a 928, instead some 928 that needs a good home finds them.

Imo000

None of the performance numbers ever indicated to me that the '85 32V was less superrior than the S4. I was pulling 13.7sec with a 100% stock (including weight) and taht's faster than a stock S4. With only a set of ships (same weight configuration) my best was a 13.5sec. Now that is faster than a GTS. The early 32s did have smaller vavles and posrts but the cams were much more agressive than the S4. This alone made up the difference.

PorKen

If you look at the published figures, the 85-86 32V is faster than the same year 16V, except for 0-62mph!? That's with cats, more weight, numerically lower rear end ratio, and less HP - but more torque. (Que MK )

Model|Engine|Rear End|HP(SAE)|Torque ft/lbs(SAE)|Comp. Ratio|Top Speed MPH|0-62 mph(sec)|1/4 mile(sec)|Weight(lbs)

ROW
84-86 S - 4-auto | 4.7L-16v M28/22 | 2.36:1 | 310 | 295 | 10.4:1 | 150 | 6.7 | 15.5 | 3308
84-86 S - 5-man | 4.7L-16v M28/21 | 2.73:1 | 310 | 295 | 10.4:1 | 155 | 6.2 | 15.2 | 3308

USA
85-86 S - 4-auto | 5.0L-32v M28/44 | 2.20:1 | 292 | 302 | 10.1:1 | 152 | 6.8 | 14.9 | 3439
85-86 S - 5-man | 5.0L-32v M28/43 | 2.20:1 | 292 | 302 | 10.1:1 | 155 | 6.3 | 14.2 | 3351

Note: the published figures for US 85-86 HP are often listed incorrectly. M28/43/44 is 292, not 288, which is the figure for the M28/45/46, low compression engine. Side note: the torque for US 80-82 is a typo too, should be 256, not 265.

I reckon they are faster because the 32V has much more area 'under the curve', as they say. The 16V is much more peaky in power delivery.

ducbil

"... and you can't figure out where the coolant is going."


That's my 86.5! Where is it going?

tv

Those figures are crap, there are parts of porsche manuals that say 400 nm for torque for both LH euro and Us 32V. And those 0-60 times are a joke. My euro kills late model mustang gt's with published 0-60 much faster.

Because its a gray market car and never really intended for the us, the numbers might be lost in translation. Real world albeit anecdotal experience has lh 16V euro's beating most everything. Hensler designed these engines and says the 32V was not as strong or as quick as the 16V euro. I'll keep my euro, because the power is smooth and increasing all the way to downshift.

Don't forget that loss in power occurred with more displacement.