Brian Long's book says the 85-86 5.0 litre engine was sold only in the US, Japan and Australia. Is that right? That means the home market, Europe and everywhere else had to wait until '87 and the S4 for a four-valve engine?

Long says this was because Porsche needed a new design for US emission and fuel economy reasons, so launched it here first.

I think I'm more amazed than ever that all the parts specific to the 85-86 4V engine were made in such small quantities. Just the intake system, think of all the development, testing and production tooling that went into that system ... they must have lost their shirt on that!

 

Yes sir.

 

I don't recall hearing of any '85 ROW 32V.

'86 ROW 32V have a special engine number M45/46, with a 9.3:1 compression engine (vs. 10:1 USA).
It was a 'green' engine, with cats, but Super unleaded wasn't always available, ROW.

 

Actually, not quite...the 32-valve engine was an option in Europe in '86 which provided a tax credit as it was using catalytic converters. I have the article somewhere, and will try to scan it and post it here when I find it.

Cheers!
Carl
90GT Project

 

I purchased my S4 in Germany and it had to have the cat taken off because they did not have unleaded fuel yet. Then they put it back on before shipping to the states. So, if the 4 valve option was available in 86 it probably did not have the cat.

 

The reason I know is that I lived in Europe until 1990, and was in Germany in 1987, looking to import either a 1986 928 S or 1987 BMW to Sweden. The 928 I looked at had the 32-valve WITH catalytic converters. There was a tax incentive for that combination to German customers (Sweden would not give me an incentive as it was a private import).

If I remember correctly, the cats became mandatory in 1988 in Sweden (possibly in Germany as well) and the BMW (1987) had the catalytic converter option added at the factory. In either case, I ended up importing the BMW and was driving on 95 unleaded in 1987.

Cheers!
Carl
90GT Project

 

Cats became mandatory here in Sweden in 1989 but private imported cars of later models can be approved having no cats like my wife´s 1991 S4. Actually the car had a cat from the factory but I removed it before the Swedish technical inspection and got it approved as a non-cat car. Did the same thing when imported the blue 1987 S4.

Ake

 

As long as I have known 928s, I did not know this. I stand corrected. Thank you for the new facts.

 

Yes, in 1986 you could choose between a 2-valve 4.7 liter with 310 hp and a 4-valve 5 liter with 288hp. A friend of mine had one of the latter engines in a car he purchased from the factory. It had been Professor Bott's company car.

This does not make any sense. Unleaded fuel was available in Germany at that time; unless the car was driven a lot in other countries that didn't, there would be no reason to remove the cat.

 

85: USA and Japan got M28/43 and 44

86:
USA and Japan only got M28/43 and 44
Australia only got M28/45 and 46
Germany, Austria and Switzerland had an option to choose M28/45 and 46, or the 16V M28/21 and 22.

The M28/45 and 46 are the low-compression motors Ken's referring to. Japan did however get 32V high-compression in 85 and '86, and are probably in "RoW" for most of you

 

Make sense or not, that is what the folks at Porsche told me. I didn't crawl under the car to check but cat or no cat, it went like crazy on the autobahn.

 

Some countries didn't get cats until late - Britain first had cats as standard on 928's in 1990. Some parts of the Middle East were even later due to lead in the fuel.

I wouldn't be surprised if catalytic converters were not mandatory in Germany in 1987 and thus not standard equipment there - given cats were an option in 1986 there (the 16V '86 model year 928's in Germany had no cats - only the 32V version did).

 

What took ROW so long to get with cats? IIRC, they came in with unleaded fuel in the US in MY '75 ... ten years later Europe still didn't have them.

Thought about this the other day when I peeled the 'Unleaded Fuel Only' sticker off my instrument cluster ...

 

They were much smarter