Leslie 928 S2

Kevin started a new project last week, and we thought you all might like to see what he's doing. Enjoy.



The goal is to install an 88 S4 engine, complete with engine management, drive train, and steering rack into an 85 Euro, using all Porsche equipment (i.e., grafting the 88 computer and computer wiring harness into the 85 CE panel).

Basically, Kevin's jacking up the 85 Euro and sticking an S4 under it.

He couldn't have begun to consider it without the able and invaluable assistance of Lizard, Alan and Roger in deciphering the wiring diagrams and figuring out a game plan, as our own supply of wiring diagrams leave something to be desired. We have the CD, but it has gotten corrupted somehow over the years, and the paper printout I made for Kevin oh so many moons ago has begun to deteriorate such that the wiring diagrams are too faded and blurred to read. Roger even got sent out into the cold of a Texas night (23* yikes!!) to look at fuse connections in person, by Colin (Lizard)... And Alan was a god send, going over all of Colin's and Kevin's discussions, exchanging multiple messages with Kevin, providing a third mind to the process and giving additional advice and tips.

And a final big thanks to Jim Bailey and Tom at 928 international, as well as John Speake, for taking time out of their busy days to discuss this project on the phone with us, several times, as well.


THANK YOU ALL, GUYS!!


Turns out, if the wiring diagrams are to be believed, it might not even be that difficult.

Started with this wrecked 88 S4 donor, as it looked when it rolled in here 10 days ago. We purchased this car from Potsie Webber here, who was good enough to deliver it to us as part of the bargain (thanks again for the deal, James! ). For our purchase price, we received an engine in what appears to be cruddy but healthy condition, a possibly rebuilt rack, and a trans (with LSD ) that appears to have been replaced, and which arrived with fluid so red it could have been installed yesterday. A kicking deal.




(heh heh, like the rinky dink "engine sling" the local auto parts store sold me? *snicker snicker snicker* I took this pic back to the store and showed the guy at the counter how his POS sling wasn't gonna work for us. his eyes bugged out of his head and he said, "holy ****! that's a big engine!" guess he'd never seen under the hood of one of these before. yeah, he gave me my money back ($30! ). lol.)


Here's an interesting moment... Kevin has cut the front of the car away due to the limited space he is working with, and the engine appears to be floating in mid-air here, hanging on the motor mounts and cross member, completely unbolted, just before it is lowered to the ground. Yes, the wiring harnesses are still attached to the engine.



And now the engine is on the ground...



The car is as stripped as he wants to get it now...but it was too late in the day to get the tow truck here to take it away, so things are on hold until Monday, now.

Over the weekend, while sitting on the garage floor, the S4 engine will get resealed, and receive a new set of sensors, tb/wp, tune up, and generally get cleaned up and prettified.....and superchargified, of course.





And now, let us have a moment of silence for the dearly departed S4, please.

More pics of the process, as it goes. Hope you find it interesting...

ShawnSmith

wow that's gonna be some serious work. Best wishes on the project!

928ntslow

Kevin..uhm...why? Granted, I have some out of the box ideas, but help me to understand the purpose of all of this work. Bored? An answer to a question no one has asked? Because it's there?

SeanR

Cool project, but why would you want to do that?

Leslie 928 S2

Why? Because the engine Kevin installed a month ago, was only meant to be temporary. It was tired when it went in, and didn't stand up a month under Kevin's lead foot. And he wanted to get it back out of there while it was still in rebuildable condition(it was blowing oil out the breather, really badly). The cylinders were not exactly true anymore, either, and were, in fact, shaped more like eggs than anything else. It did its job in the sense that it got us by until something else came along....we just would have wished for more than a month out of it.

So anyway, when he started looking around for an engine/donor car, this is what he found. It had everything he needed (engine, rack and trans), it was under 150 miles away, and he already knew that a lot of the electricals would be the same, he just didn't know the details.

Well, ok, it turned out to be a little more work than he bargained for.

But if it works, and it should, it will be pretty cool, don't you think?

Besides, the S4's engine was homeless, and needed a new home.




So yeah, in a way, cuz it was there.


Wiring instructions and detailed photos to come soon!

BC

Why not?

Lizard928

Leslie,
you failed to mention you were swapping the tranny too, I would leave the origonal tranny in there for awhile reason I say this is there are differences in the wiring. If you do use the tranny TT etc out of the donor, take the wiring off the origonal tranny and put it onto the new tranny to avoid a ton more wiring, and possible issues.

Lizard928

The other thing that I would like to mention is knowing what I know, I would leave the supercharger off for awhile, I know he wont enjoy it as much, but the S4 engine is very knock prone, and if he does not get it tuned properly and he starts throwing boost into it.

There are going to be nothing but more issues which you wont want (possibly be able to) deal with at present.

Just a friendly word of caution and woah.

The other thing to mention is try to beg, borrow, cheat, etc. a borescope and when you pull the WP off stick it in the entry ports in the front of the block and look up to inspect the headgaskets, if they are OK then DO NOT remove the heads. The 32V engines are alot more tricky that the 16V engines as you have to dial in the cams, this takes alot of time and patience, and I know time is not on your side.

Leslie 928 S2

Hey Colin, thanks for the additional pointers! The transmission is project number two, and is not being done along with the engine, which is why I didn't mention it to you now. And yes, Kevin has all the trans wires.


Matter of fact, every wire in the car.


As for the supercharging, it was mainly getting the oil control and vacuum lines under the intake taken care of so as to not have to take it apart again. Work the bugs out of the stock set up, and then start with modest additions of boost.

The spark plugs are well worn, but have no deposits on them, and we have good hopes for this engine.

Soooo....got a borescope we can borrow???

Lizard928

maybe, but it comes with a not so cheap plane ticket

I still would hold off on the boost for awhile, as with boost the S4 engines REALLY need to be sharktuned IMHO.

Leslie 928 S2

What about just buying a couple of sharktuned chips off of John?

Leslie 928 S2

BTW, we were already using 36# injectors and the Split Second ARC NE-2, if that changes your thinking at all. But he hasn't looked into whether that will work with the new system.

GregBBRD

We've swapped over a couple of later engines into the '85/'86 chassis. The wiring changes are fairly straightforward and everything can be changed at the relay board from the early chassis.

Lizard928

Leslie, I really dont think that is a good idea, purchasing different chips from JS MAY be ok, well it will be better than using the Split Second ARC NE-2.
But the problem comes in that every engine is different and each one IMO needs individual tuning (which is why Porsche made all S4s slightly rich, error on the safe side of the range), this means that each shark that gets a supercharger really should have some time spent on the sharktuner as well. I know that this doesnt happen and that Murf has chips for each of his setups which do work to get I would say around 95% (guess) of the perfect tune for the average car. But using a different turbo/SC with a different compressor map will completely change a good portion of what is needed. Then again each engine flows a tiny bit differently and is abit more or less prone to knock.
Granted that the EZK system will leave a much larger safety margen, and help prevent the engine from exploding.

And with so much riding under the table on this right now, it is not the best idea, as well a ship from JS may work perfectly to help, but there are soooo many variables, that he would be using his best guess to give you what you are looking for, and without a wideband O2

For what you are after at this time, I would leave the SC off, and put it on another car to blow up so to speak at least for a short while

Lizard928

From having looked over the wiring and done all of the pinouts on this Greg,

I have to agree that this would be a VERY simple swap granted one VERY big thing. The car will need to be a dual distributor car to start with! This means either late 84 euro+ or 85 32V + cars.
Any car that does not have the dual dizzy setup in it, I would not even bother to touch when systems such as VEMS, and MS are out there, with a fraction of the cost, and are simply MUCH superior.