Modena 1

As the topic title suggests I'm curious how many 951 owners have had to rebuild their motors, other than they wanted more power and so were beefing up internals/turbo etc. I ask this questions because as a last peace of mind insurance before "taking the plunge" - i want to reassure myself that this is still a reliable daily car (if properly maintainted) in 2002. It seems as if lots of members write-in and post about how they 'rebuilt' this and that...I suppose this could also be related to performance nature of the board, but I just wanted to get people's thoughts.

Regards,

Perry 951

When I tore mine down at 125K, things looked very good. #2 rod bearing was questionable, but I am sure with new bearings it could have gone 200k+.

You are right, most of us refresh the motor to take the high boost and mods we put on them. The stories of rebuilds from failures are far and few.

And for the daily driver issue, mine was, and will be again, my 365 days a year (well.. perhaps a little less) daily driver.

rage2

My 1st rebuild was from #2 rod bearing failure. Clunk clunk clunk, definately count it as a failure. Rebuild #2 was a "refresher", there was light sounds and again, #2 rod bearing was pretty rough. Mods to the oilpan were done and the #2 rod bearings will be inspected after the summer.

Depending if the wife lets me, I may be heading for rebuild #3 when summer's over... big bore baby! =)

adrial

74.5k miles, no rebuilds.

(If you haven't rebuilt your engine..please respond as well so we can get an accurate tally..)

JonM..

160k miles, 86 turbo, track time, no rebuilds.

R.B.

Hey rage2, The 1st time you did your rod bearings, did you pull the crank as well or did you measure the crank and verify it was OK? Just asking since I am in the middle of the pulling my oil pan to see what the Clunk Clunk noise is.

From what I can tell from the PO's records, this is the 1st time the rod bearings are being done. And he drove the car as a daily drive year round, 310 000km

R.B.

Kool

86 951 with 160,000 on the clock. DME chip and and a banjo with no rebuilds. Did replace rod bearings once. Turbo uses 1.5 quarts of oil every 3,000 mi.

87951

87 turbo with 168K on the clock - chipped, modified turbo, shimmed wastegate. No major problems since new -clutch replaced with lite flywheel and centerforce unit at 80k, rebuilt head at 150K. Oil pressure still 4-5 bar at 2000 rpm. However! I'm on my 3rd. cam housing to head gasket in the last 2 months! Can't figure it out but seems to be boost related failure. Anyone have any ideas? Runs strong otherwise.

Alan C.

Mine was rebuilt after about 12 hours on a 'Fresh' Bodymotion of NJ rebuild. <img src="graemlins/soapbox.gif" border="0" alt="[soapbox]" />


The rebuild was needed to correct the metal left over in the engine, clean out the silicone sealant which was slathered generously on most gaskets/o rings, remove the standard size rings on the first over pistons (ever see a 2mm ring gap?)and repair the cross drilled crank which was not cross drilled. Mike builds a mean 944 turbo engine.

Mike did in fact tell me he built the engine. A few on the list have seen the mess. Until now they didn't know who did it. <img src="graemlins/nono.gif" border="0" alt="[nono]" />

Ski

75.5 on the clock,,just did bottom end and #2 was worn; I had to do an oil pan gasket so it would have been foolish not to do rod bearings while in there. Did clutch(down to rivets), new axles, new radiator, and put on several hp goodies; new turbo, chips, and ported and ploished head.

Ahmet

179,900+ miles, original bottom end. Has had a clutch and headgasket doesn't sound like the head was touched. Compression is pretty good (138 +/-1 across, dry) so I may not mess with the engine for sometime. At the moment it's got chips, disconnected wastegate. Runs 0-60 in about 5 sec flat, but I may be overboosting pretty badly. Boost +air/fuel gauges will go in shortly, we'll see what's up.
Ahmet

rage2

[quote]Originally posted by R.B.:
<strong>Hey rage2, The 1st time you did your rod bearings, did you pull the crank as well or did you measure the crank and verify it was OK? Just asking since I am in the middle of the pulling my oil pan to see what the Clunk Clunk noise is.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Pulled the whole engine out. The clunk clunk sound was not healthy at all. My oil pump failed too, but I could never conclude if it was the cause, or a symptom of the rod bearing failure. Got a used crank to replace the heavily damaged crank.

I also had to overbore the block, so I ran 100.5mm pistons afterwards from light scoring of the cylinder walls.

I dunno if pulling the engine was the smart thing to do from just a noise diagnosis, but it was the right thing to do in my case. Major job =).

I check my rod bearings yearly now.

Luke

The PO never said anytihng about a rebuild, but my rod bearings looked brand spanking new. They were uniform in color ( lead- ish) and had no copper showing. Motor sure runs strong too. 79,000 miles.

btw also have a 250k mile audi 4000s (all original, including clutch)

Bryans951

I'm guessing about 175k miles on 86 951 with no problems. The tail lights and rear bumber area turn black after a couple of week with out a was. I'm guessing its oil related.Uses about half a quart every 2 weeks. Runs fine No plans for a rebuild just yet.

Bryan 86 951

Peckster

My '86 has 80,000 miles and I just had the rod bearings done while the pan was off. They were OK, although I've had to replace a few other things, such as steering rack and pump, rad and CV joints and a brake caliper rebuild. The muffler is original!