Captain_Slow

Hey!...I saw that one in the new Transformers trailer!!

STRIKEMASTER

"The RULE of NINETIEs and NINEs": 90% of the work takes 90% of the time--- the Next 9% also takes 90% of the time--- the remaining 1% takes as much time as the first 99% LOL The best answer is: It takes as long as it takes, because you only want to do it once.

Otto Mechanic

You're doing great. It took me a year.

DonaldBuswell

I was thinking what sort of a question is being asked? Why does it matter how long it takes to do this? It just needs to be done correctly. And, why hurry? Is someone shopping around for the lowest price? I do see this often...I get calls how much to media blast this, I saw I get 4 hours @ 150 hr for that, they then bitch, I then tell them to shop around for the Plastic Media Blasters...wait, there is only One, nearest other guy is in Dallas, and he's my friend.

I concur, dive in yourself and learn! I had too many questions that the only way to be answered was to dive in myself, which I did by unbuilding this 928 by removing the Body off the driveline, in the opposite manner Porsche did when they built the car. Yes, my learning curve was and remains steep, but, the value in this; priceless.

skpyle

This is not a game for someone who wants to pinch pennies.

928's, and being a gearhead in general, are expensive. You want to play, you got to pay...

Daniel5691

Thanks so much for the comments.
Lots of very interesting insights here, and proof positive of the varying goals/priorities/interests of the "average" 928 owner.
This was really intended as a purely technical question, perhaps asked in a too-imprecise manner.
Dan

Otto Mechanic

Truly priceless. I try communicating this to my family, mostly my son recently after he dumped the clutch on his Audi A4T street racing his buddies in the Sierras a few years ago. He had the car towed back to my shop and, hat in hand, asked if he could use it to fix his clutch. I agreed but with the caveat he would take the job seriously and use the lift wisely.

During the re-build he asked me how I'd learned to work on cars, I told him it was a matter of necessity, I just couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it for me, so I bought some manuals and some tools, and I worked my way through it. That was replacing the suspension on a 1971 914 1.7L I got from a guy for $1500. I sure wish I still had that car!

I called her my "flexy flyer", she was the fastest little darlin' on the road back then and I regularly smoked other cars up and down CA State 9 and hwy 1 for a couple years before I accidentally shifted from 4th into 3rd (instead of 5th) while I was racing a TR7 up CA 1 one day, dumped the clutch and sucked a valve. End of engine.

It's how we learn. I don't think he really got that. He ended up selling the Audi and buying a new Subaru. God help him with that

Otto Mechanic

I guess the problem might be the "average" 928 owner isn't very average. I've owned mine for 31 years now, original owner. Before her I owned the 914 I mentioned above, then bought a 931 for my wife and had it wrecked by a drunk one fine Saturday morning after I'd spent almost a year restoring the suspension and turbo. The 928 s still fine though.

I spent nearly a year doing a top end (intake) refresh on the 928. How many hours? Hard to say. It was a "voyage of discovery" finding out what did and didn't need to be replaced. I had a mouse nest of some years in my air intake. These things are difficult to predict.

It's bound to be imprecise I think. Until you open it up, you won't really know. Parts can be hard to find, even if you pre-order everything you think you'll need. Then there are the exigencies of life to contend with. A pure "start to finish" estimate isn't going to help much if you fall down the stairs halfway through the job, your aunt has a stroke, or your kid gets sick, or maybe you get kicked by a horse (that's what happened to me) and you have to put the project on hold for awhile and then re-connect six months later, all the while wondering where exactly you left off?

Not really an easy question to answer accurately.

FredR

Most amateur hacks like myself take forever to do things the first time we attempt them and no matter how careful we are invariably we end up doing something stupid that requires rework or worse if we do not spot the **** up. Most things we do are probably first time attempts and I tend to be very careful [i.e. take a long time] the first time I do a job. Even when I revisit a specific activity invariably something takes longer than expected with problematic activities surfacing that were no issue the first time around.

Professionals have to do it right first time or swallow the cost if they do not. I have one 928 that I work on occasionally by choice and often by need. Our profesional bretheren will invariably be working on several at any given time and they cannot afford to have favourites. If I had to earn a living doing what they do I would starve or be very hungry.

Thus if a top pro says it takes him x hours to do a job I work on the premise that it will take me xN hours to do the same where N is a whole number [probably 2 or 3] and I can live with that. Occasionally I have a need to do something quickly and then I motor- I have had the inlet manifold off, done the job and back in about 4 hours without any glitsches and that in 40C heat one summer day but it nigh on killed me due to dehydration.

The upside of all this is a much better appreciation of what professional mechanics/engineers really do. I find it a stretch to sustain enthusiasm for one 928 never mind a garage full 24/7 year in year out. They do this and then come on here and graciously give the rest of us advice as to how to go about it- pretty special folks as I am concerned and I trust everyone playing along at home appreciates that!

Rgds

Fred

Otto Mechanic

A good friend of mine, retired F-14 pilot and former Lt. Col. used to call this the 50/50/80 rule; if you have a 50/50 chance of doing something wrong, you'll get it wrong 80% of the time.

That's the problem with estimates like this, what context are they in? Everything I do on my car is usually the first time. OK, I've replaced a few brake pads before. I don't usually read manuals for that more than once for a car I've never worked on and nowadays I pretty much skim them.

But re-building an engine? I can expect to do it at least twice if I'm lucky and I'll need to include one or two tear downs in that, so I'd call your 2 to 3x factor conservative. Porsche use all sorts of special tools and lubes, which just makes things even more interesting.

FredR

Scott,

I rather suspect you meant my numbers are optimistic as in the number should be 4 or whatever?

Ineptness has no bounds- I have a perception of my level and in amateur terms I like to think I am on "the better side" of average.

Big fan of the F14- an amazing machine. I have often wondered how the Navy felt about the decision to retire it from active service and replace it with the F18 in an air superiority role.

Otto Mechanic

I always have trouble guessing which way to say that, I suppose it depends on whether you're a native optimist. What meant to convey was that, at least for me, a factor of 2 or 3 would probably underestimate the time it would take me. Not always, but often. For example, I recently replaced the turbocharger in my wife's Audi and I used ELSAWin to look up the Audi factory service time for the job. I've replaced a turbo before (25 years ago) on a 931 I used to own so I had a rough idea of what I was getting into. It still took me twice the time Audi figured it should.

I have a similarly grand opinion of my skills Fred I suppose it goes with the territory.

Well, I might guess my friend wasn't personally all that happy about it since it more or less ended his career as a military pilot, but I have to admit the F-14 predated me, I grew up around the F-18s. I took high altitude flight and ejection seat at NAS Lemore back in the 80's and it was mostly with F-18 pilots. I love the look of those planes but never flew on one. I almost had a chance to go up in a T-38 while I was with NASA but my friend lost his ticket to ride and it never happened. Those Hornets are scary critters but I like all of them. I've always wanted a T-38 of my very own though (well, maybe shared with a few close friends). If I had a choice between a T-38 and a 918, you can bet I'd be in the T-38. Now that's an expensive hobby...

Daniel5691

An update, one year later.
The gentleman who had agreed to reassemble my engine very unfortunately suffered a stroke, and was out of commission for several months.
He only returned to his shop a few weeks ago.
He is swamped, behind all schedules, and I fear that I am near the bottom of his list.
I am going to stop by and visit him this weekend if possible.
(Currently it has "taken" 9,490 hours in the "engine assembly" process, to answer my own question...)
Unless some magic happens, I'll be bringing lots of shiny engine parts home, yet again.

I rebuilt a Chevy 350 about 30 years ago. I have a good torque wrench, lots of time, and careful hands. I do not have further engine assembly experience, and I certainly do not know the any of the nuances of 928 engine assembly.
I worry that I will trash this engine with some stupid oversight or mistake.

I am ready to sell this sad little heap and go get a Prius.

I feel as if this delayed and side-tracked journey is reaching a long-overdue but inevitable dead end.

GregBBRD

Then you end up with all that confusion about which battery cable goes where.....

Assemble that thing....there's plenty of people, with lots of experience, here to help.

skpyle

Daniel, that's pretty blunt. It doesn't get any clearer than that.
Read the manual. Carefully. Read posts on Rennlist. Just as carefully. Its all nuts and bolts and clearances. You can do it. Just take your time and be thorough. I am doing all that right now, albeit very slowly.