That is about as clean as my 75k motor was when I opened it up tony. It looks great. BUt from what I have seen and researched and been told on my project, I have a few points:

- The scratches I have on my bores (minor) areat the very top of the stroke. They just catch a fingernail, but you won't see themuntil you take off the head.

- The head gasket is a maintenance piece on these engines. Mine was deteriorating at 75k, and I was very dissapointed at the condition of it at that mileage. You have the engine on a stand - I know I'm crazy on WYAIT, but thats my opinion.

- I will be replacing all valve seals. I bought the whole reseal kit, because one of my worst pet peeves is oil leaks. One of the reason I may never be able to own an early 911. They leak to live as they say. You have to disassemble the heads for this, but you learn very interesting things about the condition of the valve seats, and as I did, the combustion chamber. Mine at 75k was remarkably sooty and carbon-heavy.

- What if you engine was run while the fire was going? What was injested? Burning plastic? Some other gritty soot?

- If you already have the crank, then you are already buying pistons and rods. If you are already doing that, you should give the tuner here in SD a call that was mentioned in that thread you found. Anybody want to have some fun with math on a 106mm bore and a 95.25 stroke? Thats an easy 450rwhp without SCing.

- A new spring set is about 400 bucks. I would do that for the fun of being able to go to 7k without any valve problems. At that point you would want to redrill the crank so there is no oiling problem there if you aren't using the stroker.

Final note: How about a nother option - Reseal this engine with one of those super duper gaskets the 951 guys use, and plop it in place of your 145k original, and slap an murph supercharger on and run to 13-14psi (with better fuel flow), and while you are having fun with 550, start building the older motor up all new. Any experience you learn with that setup would be put into the new motor.

Thats my brain dump for this morning.

 

Good ideas guys, thanks.

 

As far as the engine running and things being ingested, im not really sure. It makes sense that it probably was running, but who knows...fuel+electrics+heat= fire in most cases. Did the owner shut it down right away..did it just quit?? The airbox was obviously destroyed, as well as the plastic casing that holds the electronics for the MAF. Good thing was that both screens were still inplace on the MAF and i dont see any evidence of strands of plastic and stuff draped across the screen. Inside of the throttle body and manifold look Ok as well.

Its all speculation on my behalf, but im an optimist!


Another question and a theory brought up by others via PM's.
Perhaps the fires was intentional to mask a more serious problem in the engine (or car) so it could be written off...but who knows how other people think!

1) The broken tbelt and bent valve scenario comes to mind first.

Thankfully I have never seen this in a 928, are bent valves something i should be able to spot right away with the pictures ive shown you? Id assume so to some degree? or is the bending VERY subtle? uh...perhaps Don Hanson could chime in
I imagine if they were bent id be able to see it from the vantage point i have now.

2) Thrust bearing failure Ill be checking the crank shaft play shortly. On a 37k motor id imagine it would be a rare thing?


The thing is, i had an electrical fire on my 90 Ford Ranger pick up ages ago. (Tip: dont leave your Remote control airplane/car/boat battery chargers unattended when charging from a car battery
) The fire melted EVERY bit of the wiring harness and various rubber under the hood. Actually look like this engine. The insurance company looked at it and totaled it! The truck was in great shape and had 60K miles!

Anyway..just some thoughts.

Thanks

 

Wow. I didn't think of that "fraud" issue at all. And your the optimist?

 

Well i found a leakdown checker locally, had to call around a bit. Most people were like "a what??...whats that?" Summit has them on back order for several weeks. Hopefully ill be able to give that a shot later when i pick it up.

In the meantime ive been cleaning out the intake ports above each cylinder. I guess i can take it as good news as the parts cleaner when squirted in there hanst drained by any of the valve seats and into the cylinders. ....air hose...cleaner...tooth brush...vacuum pump. repeat as neccesary ..until clean. I dont want any loose debris dropping out of there when i start hand cranking the thing over. I figure if there was a bent valve it surely wouldnt seat correctly and with the valve closed the cleaning fluid would pass by. Not the case so far.


blah blah blah...yadda yadda yadda...

 

Keep us posted Tony. I wanted to get a leak down as well, but I wanted to replace the valve seals anyway, as they came with the kit I bought (victor reinz).

I also wanted to share this link as well. We don't need this much work, but its still good:

http://www.sa-motorsports.com/diyport.htm

 

Tony,
Enjoyed the pics. It does indeed look like you got a good one so far. I will enjoy following you guys as you forge ahead. Wish I could take the trip too but for now I will have be content to do my peeping tom impression.

 

Brings back memories of my Summer. Good luck you guys and trust me, it will take you 3 times as long as you plan on...

 

FINISHED!!





cams and heads come off today hopfeully.

 

Finished? Finished what?

 

Tony has already assembled the monster....what happened, you fall asleep Brendan?

 

Yeah...

I'm going to go home at lunch and do mine...

 

Actually - I think Tony got the leak down test done - but I'd rather let him pass that on officially - along with results.......which are ????????

 

Heck Jay
BTDT already...pulled the cams and the pax side head off today!

Driver side tomorrow.

So far... No major physical signs of any problems. Leak down was Ok..i have one cylinder that was Bad, and another that was marginal...the others were fine.I could be operator error as well? I dunno. I think the results are a bit wish washy as i have no idea how long the car and motor have sat...the engine was cold..the crank had only been turned to the extent needed to do any of the tests. The leak down tester i have is a bit different than the one ive seen in Summit. Heck ive never used one until yesterday anyway. Ill have LOTS of pics up shortly. I think im up to 90ish? .....each cylinder...combust chamber...leakdown test...and other tid bits to help me put humpty dumpty back together again!

The cylinder walls look great, not a scratch. The pistons are VERY sooty with some crap stuck to them that just flakes off when i drag my finger nail across. Same goes for the combustion chamber. My guess is that it was running when he fire occurred and some of this black stuff and soot is a byproduct of it, but who knows

The head gasket was intact, i need to study it a bit better, but i dont see any sign of failure. Looks pretty dried out though. The outside of the cylinders were clean..just a light whitish film on them from the water/coolant.

Im a true novice at all this, but i think i can tell when something is mucked up! Either way, im enjoying every minute of it and am learning a bunch. It really is a treat to work on the engine when it is out of the car! Since we moved into our house 3yrs ago now, i have slowly accumulated tools...air compressor..air tools..and other things ive wanted. Ive added 4 bright overhead lights..ive painted my walls a light color and my ceiling a gloss white. It all adds up in the end ..sure makes for a enjoyable and tolerable working environment. The stand is next to my tool chest..which is next to a fan..which is next to the fridge full of Shiner Bock and such..which is just a flick of the wrist away from the garbage can for the bottle caps

....oh yeah, and some tunes playing on the stereo via my old Blaupunkt speakers enclosed under my shelving.


Heck, all i need is a wireless connection for the laptop!

more pics to come..

 

dang tony....burnin' the midnite oil aren't ya?

glad to hear that the head came off easily with no problems to discover.