m42racer

To answer your question David about the Deck Plate, I suppose any Deck Plate that could be installed without machining etc, would offer no gains. I'm not the one to answer your most technical questions, call PD for that. I can only pass long what I have been told etc.

As for the 968 owner, I am never told who owns what. I get told only about my project/ parts. If others are getting the same, great. That was the original agreement I had with PD. I will pay for the development of the parts I need, and if others can get the use of them, I agreed to this also. I am on the receiving end of many other parts etc. I cannot complain. Does Jeff Lamb post here? Maybe he will tell you what he is having done.

David Floyd

Ok, I do see what you are saying, I just know Honda guy's can buy a deck plate tap into place and away they go, does it work ??

Jeff does post here some.

When do you expect your engine to be finished ?

m42racer

The big difference is our block is unlike the Honda. We have a very different internal webbing, and thus does not allow the same sort of application. The Honda guy's use the liners as the deck plate, but they can machine the block to suit. We cannot unfortuntely.

Jeff Lamb

I chose Neil at Performance Developments because he appears to have quite a bit of experience with top notch machining. He also has mentioned his background includes experience with an F1 team, with TRD and with Andial I believe. From what I can determine, he has done quite a bit of work for the 911 crowd and also is one of the few to have worked on 962 engines. I have not yet contacted any of his customers to independently confirm his work, though. I should probably do this to provide me with a higher comfort level.

If Neil can deliver the top quality work at the reasonable pricing levels that he says he can, then he will be a tremendous resource for us in the 944/951/968 world. I have been looking for someone who has experience with the extremely stringent requirements necessary to build high end, full race engines. I think I have found that resource in Neil, however, like I said before, I have not yet been able to independently confirm this. I think I need to try to personally speak with the folks for whom he built the 962 engines or other high end 911 race engines to get some feedback. I will try to do this in the near future and report back with my findings.

Regarding my engine, I sent my 968 block to Neil during late March of 2003. Neil and I discussed my needs and we decided that sleeving the bore down from 104mm to 4.0 inches will be the approach to take. He ordered ductile iron cylinder liners (made to his own specs) from Darton which were received during early June. I paid for the liners but Neil has not yet been able to do any further work on my block. From what I can determine, he became the new Link distributor around this time and was completely consumed by the related programming / wiring harness fabrication. This has not been too much of a problem for me because I have been busy working on the chassis of my race car (roll cage, suspension, bodywork, wiring, etc) and I don't need my engine to be finished quite yet.

I personally visited Neil's shop in Costa Mesa on August 19, 2003. I enjoyed meeting him and his employees. One of them races a 125cc shifter kart (like I do to stay in shape) so that was cool. During this visit, I did confirm that no further work was done on my block. However, please keep in ming that this delay has in some ways been good because it has given me some more time to learn more about what I want to do with my engine project. We did have a very good conversation regarding a number of technical aspects related to race engines so this bolstered my confidence in him even more. His shop was smaller than I had thought, however, he did mention that he recently downsized from two bays to a single bay in his multi-tenant commercial space.

At this point, I need to make a few more decisions on some details about my engine before Neil can proceed and I would like to interview a few of Neil's customers to gain some feedback. Along these lines, I wish I would have arranged to visit Neil during a time when m42racer was available. m42racer, it sounds like you are a very good friend of Neil's and it would have been my pleasure to meet you. It sounds like you are having Neil develop some very nice things for your 951 project. Unfortunately, while I was visiting Neil, he didn't mention anything about your project or what he is building for you. Now that I think about it, it seems a bit odd that Neil didn't bring this up during my visit. We talked a lot about what Neil is building for a BMW racing friend of his, though. Oh well . . . so much to discuss and so little time . . . Was your project going on in August? Or, did you initiate your project in September or later? Maybe Neil didn't bring up your project because it wasn't happening yet? Sorry for my rambling . . .

All in all, I am hoping to have my engine finished sometime during the Summer of 2004. I still need to decide which brand of pistons and rods I am going to run and whether or not I want to have Neil's deck plate installed. Although, if I do not receive positive feedback from Neil's customers, I will be put in the difficult position of deciding whether or not I want someone else to do my work. I am hoping that the feedback I receive from Neil's customers is good so we don't have any issues here. Like I mentioned earlier in this positng, I need to get in touch with Neil to get some names of key customers and I will report back with my findings. This will take a little time.

Regarding Neil's deck plate, it certainly sounds like he is taking the right approach. In my opinion, there is no way a deck plate would be viable in our engines without machining a mating surface around the tops of the OD of the cylinder spigots and the inner perimeter of the walls of the block. I believe that there are too many variations in the castings in this area for a deck plate to work without machining. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is running one yet. Therefore, I am not so sure that I want to be the first one running this modification on my big $$$ engine. It sure sounds like a great upgrade, though. I guess if he were to offer to install one for free, I could consider potentially being a "test mule" for this upgrade. My engine is being built to withstand some very big hp and tq so it certainly would put the deck plate to a good test!!

David and m42racer, thanks for asking about the status of my engine project and I look forward to keeping in touch.

Best regards,
Jeff

m42racer

Jeff,

As I have found out with Neil, he will not discuss your project with me, nor mine with you. This is a good thing. Maybe in the street world it doesn't matter too much, but in the racing world, it matter a heck of a lot! We should be thankful for this.

I know the work is backing up a little there, and now they have 2 machinists, as well as Neil, so hopefully the small backlog will go away. Although Neil doesn't get too many chances to machine, he is a master machinist. The 2 guys that they have there are master machinists also. Their work is top notch. You picked your place well. I've been banging this drum for a while now. The message is getting out there. I owe them so much for all of the work they are doing for me on my project, which I am not paying for. Alot of the development on certain parts is all on PD. We all will benifit from these parts. The 944 Link application consumed huge amounts of Neils time, as did many other committments. I am so very greatful for their efforts, and soon everyone will be able to share in their work. My friendship has evolved from many visits during my projects. It really is enjoyable been able to hang out there as much as I have. Sometimes I feel I am taking up his time, but I am always given as much time as I need. A class act. Many others will not even give you the time of day.

I was in there today, and Neil was telling me he hopes to get all of the 944 machining done by the 2nd week of the new year. Problem with that is, just as he was telling me this the UPS truck turned up with 2 more. I had to laugh.

I asked some of the questions posted on here in the last couple of days. This is what he told me.

When line boring the 944/968 blocks, they check the block for been straight and no warpage on the bottom rails . So far they have found only one which needed help there. Then the Girdle surface is skimmed to whatever size is required to remachine the bores round again. It is done this way so that the deck height does not change. Thats the distance between the crank centerline and the deck surface. Standard bearings are reused. No oversize bearings are required.

I asked about the 2nd dowel again, and why they place so much importance on it. He said that the Girdle is very simple and flexible and needs to be held in 2 places opposite one another. That locks the crank down. Then the cylinders need to be held in place locked to the deck rails. He said it is very common in Aluminum blocks to design them with open decks, as the whole block moves so much. This way the Cylinders are left independant to the rails, but in theory it seems to work, but in practice the same problem occurs. He showed me something very interesting today. They have a turbo block there with the crank out, Girdle on with 1 dowel, and the head on and torqued. With a long bore gauge he showed me the distortion the cylinders get when the head is torqued down. He then got this long bar and tweaked the girdle and the cylinders became even more out of round. I was really surprised. He wasn't, and told me this sort of thing is very common with Aluminum blocks. They suggest doing all of the proper work to the block and girdle to eliminate most if not all of these problems, then address the other faults, fueling, Ignition, boost etc. His words were to do the basics first. The greatest distorsion happened to the front 2 cylinders. If the cylinders moves, then the clearances to the Pistons goes away, and the Pistons thrust against the walls. I asked about the boost/fueling issues brought up here by many, and he said that these issues are very possible and should be addressed as well. His words were, do not overlook anything, do everything. His common saying is "nothing will humble a man more than an engine or an angry wife". I know what he means! The Girdle moves and he showed me just how much it can move. Its scary. Sure he said with the crank in place it doesn't move as much, but he also added, you don't want the crank doing the job of a dowel. I agree.

Jeff, you made the right choice. If you ask for references, I know they will supply them. I asked when I first asked them to build up my 930 engine, and they supplied them to me. It all came back very positive. The one thing everyone said was that PD was expensive, but that everything was right, and that you could not get this sort of service, quality etc., without paying similar prices. I now agree with them. You want it right, precise, you will get it, but you will pay top dollar. I have had many other engines built, machining done etc, by others, but I have never got what I have received from them. The machining is a work of art. Not only do you get it done right, but an education at the same time. I have learnt so much from them, stuff I never ever thought about. If this sounds like an ad, well it should. For so long the other Porsche/BMW customers have had the likes of PD to themselves. Now we 944 guys can have some too.

Jeff, good luck with your engine. Sounds like you are really building up something. Maybe we can swap stories here, for all the others to read. My engine is all about new parts. These will all be available to all, and my project is a way PD can develop these parts. I asked them to try to develop all new parts and not use anything presently available. So far this is the case. To date the list of parts is as follows.

Electronics, EFI, sequential kit, CDI, wire harness etc. Done
Pistons, done, tested and now in production
Rods, done, tested and in production.
Deck Plate, done and available
Liners, done and available
Head Gasket, done and available
Head Porting, done and available, flowed to achieve the required flow
Valves, done and in production
Titanuim retainers and Locks, done
Valve Springs, in development.
Seats and guides, done and available.
Tappets, 2 versions, done and in production.
Camshafts, done and in production.
Crankshaft, late and still in design stage, was an after thought
Intake manifold, still in design stage, built one, tested but was too expensive to manufacture.
Water Pump, done.
Turbocharger, not even decided yet.

The delays are painful, but expected. there is only so much cash available every month to build stuff. Its coming!!