The machine shop we use at work has been dropping the ball lately, we were slow yesterday so I went to check out another shop in town.
I was wearing on of my PCA hats and the owner asked what model Porsche I owned, I said I have a few 928's.
He responded with "Do you want a block and heads for one?", me "ah, yeah".

Turns out it is a S4 short block and heads that he acquired when he bought out another machine shops tools/inventory.
It has an tag on the crank bolt with "Galeana 1988 928, 7/7/02 DO NOT RETURN TO CUSTOMER" written on it.
The heads were bagged along with the short block, no machine work appeared to be done.

Only thing missing is one piston/rod assembly that the current machine shop owner pulled from the engine to use in a 944 engine.
Turns out the rods in this 928 engine are the same as the 951 "turbo" rods (944.103.110.ORARST).
He couldn't find where he placed the piston. Search shows some 87 928's had these rods even though this appears to be an 88.

I bought the engine and will disassemble/rebuild and am now on the hunt for one Tolerance Group 1 S4 piston and one connecting rod(944.103.110.ORARST).

Anyone have one of each or either gathering dust?

 

Wonder if that "DO NOT RETURN TO CUSTOMER" means the bill at the previous shop wasn't paid? Interesting find!

 

944 rods look the same. But the big end has slightly different dimensions IIRC.

 

The rods have the same CASTING number but as mentioned are machined finished differently........ they share a journal on the 928 so are offset but the 944 has one rod per journal. That it was used in a 944 engine would be "interesting" .......

 

Good to know that they are different. That's the story he gave me and I wasn't going to sit around and talk I was busy loading it up. Are the 928 "944" rods available?

 

That will be easy to find. Mark Anderson will have a piston/rod (928 International).

What won't be so easy is to figure out why it was in the machine shop in the first place...it wasn't removed from the car and taken to the machine shop because it was missing a piston/rod...

 

I'll call him Monday, sent you a PM before reading this.
Some cell phone pics.

 

wow! motor looks good, crank looks like new, be interesting to hear if anything is wrong or not, i'm thinking not.best of luck,Ray

 

Thrust bearing looks good to, I am playing the lotto tonight.

 

Those pistons look a little too clean.

 

My S4 pistons look the same through a borescope, maybe the engines PO and I have similiar driving styles.

 

Have been busy lately but did get a chance to a couple things on the engine.
The end play is .18mm so that's good, got the pistons out and none of the rings are broken.
I'll check the cylinders next week with dial bore gauge, no idea as of yet why the engine was pulled. Here is a pick of the 2/6 bearings.

 

Might have had an oil leak, is this common?

 

Well, I've seen this face fracture twice and others report it is common. It can be repaired. I think Jim Morton used a "liquid aluminum" product on one block and ended up with a smooth sealing face. No leak since. Before we located this source, this car was blowing a lot of oil into the wheel well and down the side of the car during open road races.

 

Thanks Bill, I found this thread from tony, looks like a good fix. I would surprised if this is the reason for the engine removal but, I have seen enough nfw's in my life to no longer be surprised.

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...lock-87s4.html