I ended up leaving in disgust and despair last evening after killing my motor on the bridge straight shifting from third to second instead of fourth gear. Car runs but very poorly and obviously I don't want to start it for fear of bringing on more damage. I hope it's just a bent valve but could be any amount of problems. Obviously my season is over and I need to start planning for the rebuild.

On the bright side, out of the depth of despair comes opportunity! It seems that some improvements will be warranted since it will be open anyway. I need to start pulling together my list of upgrades and figure out what is affordable. I've started searching past posts to see what has been recommended in the past, and I just shot a note to Geoffrey to start a discussion with him. It will also give me a chance to rip all that rotting insulation out of the engine bay and really get things the way I want them in there.

Thoughts on my opportunity? What should I be thinking about right now? I figure I have about 7 months before the season starts next year and at least one or two will be spent planning and pulling the engine.

 

Sorry to hear of the bad luck. You may want to take a look at this thread

https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...engine+rebuild

 

Condolensces. After being around the track for several years, I've seen many a mishap (mine and others) and just know you and your car will be back better than ever. When one door closes, another opens. In terms of rebuild options, you may want to spend time thinking about future plans for the car.

If you think your car may some day end up in the Club Racing arena, then your upgrades would need to be in line with racing regulations. And if resale is a concern, the car would probably appeal to a broader customer base if it were built to compete in a PCA stock or prepared class.

I'm not entirely familiar with the upgrades you've already carried out so this may be a moot point. Perhaps if you shared future plans for your car, your list of existing upgrades, it might be easier for other Listers to provide appropriate suggestions.
Best of luck!

 

This is great advice. You may not want to race, but the resale on the car takes a hit if you've upgraded it into a GT class (easy and likely to do if you mod the engine in any way).

 

Excellent questions. I really don't plan to ever race the car. To me, going to the track is a little bit like golf to some guys. I see it as a weekend recreational activity at which I would like to get good so I can enjoy it at the highest level....as a weekend recreational activity. I don't want to take it to some exotic level. My focus would tend ot be on reliability and retention of value first and then perfomance second. That doesn't mean that I want to leave it bone stock. I'm willing to drop some coin on some good value play upgrades as long as I'm cracking into the piggy bank for the repair.

My current upgrades include:

JIC CROSS Coilover Suspension
Adjustable Sway Bars
Harness Truss
Sparco Race Seats w/ 6 Point Harnesses
Fabspeed Cat Bypass, Cup Pipe and Air Box

For the most part, apart from the sub belts, my decision point for all upgrades has tipped on my ability to restore the car to stock. I have kept all my take-off parts and could restore the car to bone stock with about a week of hard labor. Now that I have hosed the engine, I don't feel like I need to keep that bone stock, but I don't want some highly tuned race engine that won't idle on the street either.

I don't know if that helps or not. Ask more questions and I'll be glad to answer.


..and thanks for your responses and support. It's rather sad day for me and I can't quite bring myself to go out to the garage yet now that it's parked.

 

Sorry to hear that. They don't call it the 'money shift' for nothing...

 

Sorry to hear, nothing like having the time of your life just to tag the wrong gear and wreck your season...This seems to be the number one killer of 911 motors on the track, but depending on how deep you were into the revs and how fast you where on the clutch, the motor may not be all toast. Before you yank it all out, I would pull the cam covers and look for broken rockers, sometimes you get lucky and thats all the damage you have. I've seen at two motors that this has happened with, and after the rockers were replaced and everything readjusted no problem...keep your fingers crossed...

 

If reliability and retention of value are a priority, then rebuilding to stock specs is probably your best bet, IMHO. While polishing, porting or a cam upgrade would not adversely affect reliability, they are not explcitly allowed by the PCA rules. You can, however, machine for balance. And you should definitely replace potential wear items: rings, valve guides, valve springs, rod bolts ...

Since your car has seen track action, I'm not sure you would necessarily see a lot of interest from the concours crowd. However, a stock rebuild carried out by a highly-regarded shop with accompanying leak down percentages would catch the interest of someone looking to race an RSA.

BTW, those cars continue to kick serious butt at the track, so I don't think their demand as a race car will drop any time soon.

Finally, here's another recent thread started by TR6/Greg covering much of the same ground:
https://rennlist.com/forums/964-forum/374263-wish-list-of-upgrades-to-a-964-engine-during-rebuild.html

 

+1 on the stock rebuild.

 

It sounds like you stuffed the valve train.. Be happy that you didn't vent the engine case with a broken rod.. Good luck with the rebuild..

 

Sounds like a reasonable place to start. When you say cam covers, are you taling about the valve covers? Isn't that where I find the rockers? If not, then is there a DIY somewhere you can refer me to for the job?

 

Agreed!...thanks for the support.

 

Yea, Valve/Cam covers, I'd pull the lowers since it will probably be an exhaust valve(s) that took the brunt of the damage (don't forget to drain the oil..) and their much easier to get to.

Don't be suprised to find valve adjuster end of a rocker or two laying in the bottom of the cover. You can get a sense of a bent valve, by rotating the motor by hand a bent valve won't return all the way back on the seat, and you will have a short spring stack, and have what looks like a really loose valve adjustment.

If you have one a compression check or leakdown will verify any damage pretty quickly as well but if your running rough you can pretty much assume somethings bent/broken.

As Kevin said, be thankful you have a full bottom end, as is if it is just a bent valve then you can do a top end and get back on the road, how many miles do you have on the car?

Good luck with it, let us know how it comes out.

 

It's a low miles car with only 41K so I feel almost dirty for having messed it up so early in its life. I guess I'll drain it out and pull the valve covers to see what I'm dealing with. Good idea on the compression test.

 

Sorry to hear of your trouble. Hate to hear of that. Best of luck going forward.

Regards,

Steve