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Greetings everyone and welcome to my first thread!!
Let me quickly introduce myself before going into details. As probably many of you I'm a Porsche enthusiast, love and at the same time also hate the challenges of these cars. I bought my first Porsche in 2005 (2001 996 3.4) and am addicted to Porsche since then. The same year I bought my first air cooled, a 1981 3.0SC with a bad engine for some hands-on. This was also my first engine rebuild from a total of 6 so far. All the other rebuilds were on the water-cooled M96 platform. I just love this engine, so simple and easy to work on.
My current project includes an engine rebuild of my 2004 Porsche Carrera 4S which I bought with a cracked cylinder. This will also be the first engine which I will rebuild with increased displacement.
My attitude is not to max everything out, keep some room for growth, so I decided to go with the 3.8l option. Apparently machine shop I used had a different opinion and accidently machined my engine cases to 101mm (4.0l). Well, I guess that's what you call destiny....
The increased displacement will be paired with a set of new Carrillo 101mm pistons. From what I've been told no other modifications are necessary for normal use.
Just wanted to hear about your opinion and experience, especially from members that have already done the conversion. Any ideas, recommendations?
Um interesting mistake. I converted a 3.6, check that, I paid LN Engineering to convert my 3.6 to a 3.8L, which also had a cracked cylinder. They also provided JE pistons and rings. If you havn't visited their website you may want to. When you say "From what I've been told no other modifications are necessary for normal use" that's simplifying things but is correct. Obviously there are many items to replace and restore during the rebuilding process. A member here did a great write up on one of his rebuilds using LN's nickies. Search "blown engine" here in the 996 forum. The post was made by cringley but Ahsai purchased his damaged engine and rebuilt it. One of the best threads you will read on rebuilding these engines. Ahsai was extremely thorough and applied knowledge he learned from taking Jake Raby's engine building class.
I shipped the cases to EBS RACING in Reno, NV.
I decided to go with the ductile iron sleeves, which I know are used by many engine rebuilders on high performance engines.
@flat6H I'm considering having EBS sleeve and rebuild my 3.4 with cylinder bore scoring into a 3.6 or 3.8. Are you happy with their work? Talking to them, they seem fantastic, and their pricing seems fair.
Also, how did you make the decision between the ductile iron and Nickies sleeves? I'd like to spend a bit less - my car is a weekender, not for track use - but the comments about sleeves from Jake and Charles have gotten into my head and make me doubt the decision.
@flat6H I'm considering having EBS sleeve and rebuild my 3.4 with cylinder bore scoring into a 3.6 or 3.8. Are you happy with their work? Talking to them, they seem fantastic, and their pricing seems fair.
Also, how did you make the decision between the ductile iron and Nickies sleeves? I'd like to spend a bit less - my car is a weekender, not for track use - but the comments about sleeves from Jake and Charles have gotten into my head and make me doubt the decision.
Is the choice between iron and nickies really a big saver in the big scheme of things?
If you replace all the wear items you should, what is your total percent saved? Does this percentage justify the risk?
Is it a “savings” to end up doing somethimg twice? People always seem to have the money to do the job twice, but complain about doing it right the first time. Amazing.
Is it a “savings” to end up doing somethimg twice? People always seem to have the money to do the job twice, but complain about doing it right the first time. Amazing.
I’m pretty sure you know my position on this.... do you want to do open surgery once or twice? Although I’ve been told that’s a bad analogy by the naysayers. It’s really quite a good one. Your doing major surgery on your Porsche. Do you want to cut corners or save dimes or have the best engine rebuild possible?
I’m slowly acquiring tools to be able to attempt this on my own and that alone is a pretty big cost.
In all fairness, there are intelligent people recommending and doing both kinds of sleeving. There are few absolutes in the world. It isn’t like there is only one accepted way to resleeve engines, even on the 996. Sure, we have one of the leading experts here providing great advice, but other experts advise different approaches. What makes one more correct than the other? It seems reasonable that people about to spend many thousands ask these questions so they can come to a conclusion that they feel good about.
In all fairness, there are intelligent people recommending and doing both kinds of sleeving. There are few absolutes in the world. It isn’t like there is only one accepted way to resleeve engines, even on the 996. Sure, we have one of the leading experts here providing great advice, but other experts advise different approaches. What makes one more correct than the other? It seems reasonable that people about to spend many thousands ask these questions so they can come to a conclusion that they feel good about.
Expert is a pretty ambiguous term the way you are using it. Correctness is defined by proven repeated success in this case, to me. Your definition is clearly different. I’m not going to start in on thermal expansion rates of metals though and why dis-similar metals may not be best.
Your car, your money, your choice in the end though.
04-17-2019, 04:09 PM
3.6 to 4.0l conversion, any recommendation?
