I thought I would post some pictures of my engine rebuild project that I started over Christmas. The target is to to a top end rebuild but its likely to end up with a split case. The car has 75,000 miles and has a wierd **phut**phut** idle which causes continious CEL codes. A leakdown test showed lousy valve sealing and the oil consumption, while not right at the limit, is about 800miles/litre. So while I waiting for Porsche to come back to me about the rusty top I might as well roll up my sleeves and get to work.

So, here is the car while it was still running. I am positioning it in my garage..of course it took a good few weeks to prep the garage for this project. Its a typical case of "a" follows "b" follows "c"... I had to buy materials to build new cabinets to store excess stuff that was moved from another wall in order to tear down some shelves so there is extra room for a ....you get the drift!

Notice the nice 14" I beam that runs across the shop...that will come in handly later....



So, why use one jack when you can use FOUR (one smaller one is holding the nose of the transmission. I find this works great and my total lifting capacity is several tons.... ;-)



So here is why the beam is handy...just pull the butt of the car OVER the engine. Its safe and I don't have to undo any bodywork at all. Last time I dropped the engine I had extra hours of work to remove the bumper....this works much better!



Of course the engine had to be lifter up onto the engine stand. I fabricated a stand from some heavy tubing and an existing 2000lb stand that I had. Its not going anywhere and I got to brush up on my shakey welding skills.... ;-)



Here is the famous SAI pump and valve system. The air gets sucked from the large hose on the left which is connected to the air filter box, through the pump and into the distribution manifold. You can clearly see the plumbing. Once into the distribution manifold it goes to two aluminum tubes that are connected to the rear of each of the cam towers.



The Varioram is off and you can see down the intakes. They are coated with a bit of fuel varnish which will be cleaned up.



I am getting a bit tired working on the top so FLIP and its bottoms-up! This beats lying on my back under the car let me tell you...I removed the heat exchangers/mufflers as a single unit.



Okay, all gone...I did not take a close up of my ports but I know the SAI ports are still open but marginal but there is lots of gunky black carbon/oil buildup at the base of the exhaust valves...not a good sign..



Okay, back to the top. The plastic intake runners are next that hold the injectors etc. I will send the injectors out to be cleaned and checked...



More sheet metal is coming off...notice the leaves built up at the edge of the head. I found this at both sides....



I will continue in the next post...

 

Mike, this is great!!

I wish I was there!

 

Okay, lets continue on...

The upper plastic baffle comes off. The shields/manifolds/mounts are all interrelated and interconnected...typical German engineering...



The AC mount comes off once the engine mount is off. As I said before, its all layered.



Well the small oil filter was really stuck and my wrench kept slipping...I tried the rubber trick, the tape trick to no avail. But when the engine is on the stand its amazing what you can do drilling a hole and using a long allen key....zip its off!



Okay, that's about it for part 1...the engine is out and stripped down to the block. I have many many more pictures (given its my reference when I put this back together) but have selected ones that hopefully give you a flavor. If you want to see some other detail I would be happy to see if I have a shot and can post it.

So far I have broken two bolts. One held down the plastic intake to the heads...it went soft on me. There is a bit of stud left hanging outside the head for the machinist to play with. I broke another from the sheet metal hear the front engine mount likely because of the heat from the exhaust. That one I have to fix and I am not looking forward to it.

So Part II will all be about going INSIDE the engine...lets measure the valve timing from the factory and see how it looks and then take out the lifters, cams, the cam towers and heads...

See you there ( hopefully tomorrow or the next day).

Cheers,

Mike

 

Thanks Dennis...I have some great shots of the carbonized SAI passages coming up in the next section. The passages are not big and they thread through the heads and the cam towers....what a design!

Don't worry it won't be together yet when you get a chance to come back up here later this month...

Cheers,

Mike

 

Mike, Thank you for documenting the whole thing, it's better than the service manual. Great shots, Lots of work but the end resuld is very rewarding. Chris

 

Great post. very interesting, can't wait to hear what you find, are you rebuilding it standard?

 

Pretty well standard so far but I need to get all the measurements in before Iknow what has to be replaced (if anything). I looked into the RS route but its not worth the money and you don't seem to get the bang unless you upgrade the P/C's, cams, valves, and software. Too much $$$ for me especially since I have to leave room in my budget if I end up fixing my rusty top myself (yet another project...).

I am trying to post as I go but then you will see all my mistakes as well ;-)

Cheers,

Mike

 

Hi Mike,

Thanks for sharing these - I wish I had the nerve to attempt something like this. I'm about to take a muffler off and I'm getting a little nervous! When you have finished perhaps you could create some web pages for the DIY section here or for Robin's p-car site or even, at the rate you are going, a Mike p-car site!

Cheers,

David

PS I'm jealous of your large garage!

 

incredible!

more is good..

post on dude!

 

Wow, thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks Mike for sharing these!

Keep them coming all the way to the end.

P.S. I like you "barn" garage.
OK, could be cleaner better organized inside but especially the outside looks great, not like these garages that all loke the same in new houses today (well, since all the houses look the same so I guess all the garages should look the same also).

 

Very well done, keep posting. Can't wait for the internal shots (SAI ports especially)!

 

Great story that I will be following closely. Thanks for taking the time to post and share. Also like the work space you have, very nice to have the room to properly work/plan/organize.

I would love to have the complete set of photos when you are done. I wonder if there is a way to drop those out on a site somewhere so we can download them all?

Personally I would prefer to have the highest resolution versions you could provide for zooming, etc. Then I'd burn a couple of back up versions on CD and tuck them away....

 

fascinating! please keep the pics and the explanations coming!

 

I want to see the SAI ports and where they route to.....