Well, I'm sad to say that my timing belt broke on my 87 951. I was quoted $3500 for repairs. Does this sound about right? This qoute includes a complete valve job. He said he wouldn't know if all valves needed replacement until he got in there.

 

yup.
it might be worth it to get a quality rebuilt engine from a tuner.

 

How old was it?

 

My timing belt broke for one year ago but the damage costed 500 to fix. The engine stopped the right time when the belt broke so nothing was damaged.

If you´re lucky your engine could be safe. Have they opened it up?

This summer my engine broke down totally, can have something to do when the time belt broke. I hope your engine doesn´t look like this



//Johan

 

$3500 sounds VERY high.

At most, you'll bend all your exhaust valves $400

Labor to install new valves, with valve grind adn new valve seals.. $250

Head gasket $100

Timing belt, rollers, new water pump, $500


That brings the total of parts to about $1000


The labor to remove the head should be in the range not to exceed 4 hours for a professional mechanic.

Replacement should be about the same or maybe a little more.


I would estimate labor at $500

PS> I know several people that can pull a head in 1 1/2 - 2 hours easy BTW.

 

I had the same thing happen to me. I called tim at speed force racing and got a rebuilt head complete with a 3 angle valve job then you can just drop the head on and go. It was alot cheaper then trying to replace the valves in my old head. do you self a favor and just get a whole head assembly, it was $650 from tim. it cost me about $2000 total. including parts and labor.

 

I've heard as much as $6000 CDN, which works out to $3800 US with our worthless canadien $. This was on an engine that had multiple pistons smashing valves - pretty much the worst case scenario.

The belt should be replaced @ 100K Km ~60K miles and then re-tensioned 1000 miles thereafter, with or without the autotensioner that 87+ 951's have. The belt will stretch in the first 1000 miles beyond what the tensioner can travel.

The belts seem to break just when they're loaded down - like when you're starting out at a light/stopsign or on the highway cruising/accelerating. Depending on where the belt failed, the damage may be minimal but there's no real way to know until the head is off.

<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

 

[quote]Originally posted by TonyG:
<strong>The labor to remove the head should be in the range not to exceed 4 hours for a professional mechanic.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Eh... I was quoted 12~14 hours 'shop time' to R&R the head. This was from 2 different shops, one with a questionable rep. and the other with a good rep.

For someone who's actually timed themselves, what's a real world estimae on removing the head? I'll be doing it sometime (probably spring, as soon as it's warm enough to work outside again).

 

Parden my ignorance, but isn't the 951's engine an "non-interferance" design as opposed to the NA 944, meaning if your timing belt breaks nothing else in the engine is harmed?
I recall reading about this in European Car a few issues back.
Paul

 

Perhaps that mag was talking about the 924 2.0 engine being non-interferance. All 944's are definately interferance engines, though some sustain more interferance than others

 

The head can be removed in less than 2 hours if you're running a MAF setup (no airbox and air meter to remove).

Turn car over to TDC on #1 piston on compression stroke. 10 min.

The intake manifold gets unbolted and flipped over complete with throttle body, fuel rail, and injectors. Takes about 15 min max.

Then you have to remove your airbox, air meter, and hard pipes. 15 min max.

Next remove your timing cover and distributor cap, and the metal cam gear cover. Maybe 20 min max.

Now untension your timing belt and remove. 10 min.

Unbolt cross over pipe from header 30 min.

From there you're left with a head that's ready to pretty much unbolt with the header still bolted on (cam cover off first).

Like I said... 4 hours for someone that does it all the time (to remove). This is a reasonable quote.

Add 4 hours to put it back and you're at 8 hours. Let's give some "fudge room" and call it 10 hours. 10 hours @ $60 per hour is $600 bucks for labor.


And.. I'm being generous with the time allowance!


$1000 for parts
$600 for labor
......
$1,600.00 for the job

I quoted

 

Well $3800, sound pretty high,thats work working by the book, is estimated at about 1,600 TO 1,80O I think he is quoting every work independently,lets say the water pump is 4 hour, belts 2 hours head 6 hours et, that tactic is used by some mechanics, that's why Porsche have the reputation of being expensive to mantain,but that's no true,, so shop around and compare prices and ask for recommendations from other 951 and 911 owners in your area.
hope this helps

 

labour is $60 an hour?!?!?!? oh, i guess u are in the US, where wages etc are higher.

labour here is also $60 an hour, but that's in AUD, which works out to be ~$35-40 us an hour. but then we only get paid in AUD lol.

the US guys that come here on a US salary love living it up . meanwhile, the aus guys that go to the states on aus salaries live like paupers. ask me, i did it for a couple of months .

 

Well, I called around and found a Porsche shop in Tampa that will do it for $2675 worse case scenario. Looks like I will be taking it there instead. The owner has a pretty good reputation from what I've heard. Thanks everyone for there replies.

 

TampaBay was the shop in Tampa Dave White's?