After a long hiatus and plenty of progress on the honey-do list, I brought the car into the workshop and will begin removing the old engine and readying the rebuild to take its place. I've got a little organization to do before I begin draining fluids but this was a major step in the right direction.

 

I made real progress - Engine out baby! Lowering went well. I have quick jacks with the truck adapter extensions and they have worked great. However, you will see in the photos below that they are NOT high enough to clear the engine on the harbor freight 1,000lb lift. After removing the throttle body and the heat shield it cleared the sheet metal by about 1/2 inch.
Next is to transfer a few support parts and my UAOS from this old girl onto the rebuild.
I have a new clutch and complete Cargraphic exhaust to put on and then it will be time to lift it into place.

 

So, when removing the engine I discovered I had a fuel cooler on the back of my AC compressor. I was unable to remove the compressor in the typical manner due to the connections in the rear of the unit. I have the fuel rails installed on the re-build which came from the doner motor which didn't have this feature. Now I am wondering if I should install the fuel rails and compressor with the cooling option onto my rebuild. Why did this feature show up on my engine and not on the doner? It was a '99 C2 and had the cable throttle. My car is 1999 C4 with electronic throttle. Is there something about the C4 that Porsche added this feature? How beneficial, or not, is this option?

 

It's supposed only on year 2000 engines. Have it on my early 2001 C2 though (engine stamp has the code corresponding to 00). Jake stated in the past that the cooler fuel was effective at producing more power, but don't know if that more than offset what you lost from running the A/C.

 

 

A fuel cooler is interesting.

 

The video is pretty clear that there is no effect. Maybe there is no effect because the O2 sensors are changing the injector timing based on what they are seeing. Maybe another function to account for fuel temp needs to be added to the ECU.

A coworker of mine used to drag race an old Chevy Chevelle, well before fuel infection. He swore by cold fuel. He had a cooler set up in the trunk of the car. He didn't have any data to show it was better, but had stories of getting into alot of arguments about the setup...

 

I have H Beam Carillos going inti my 3.4 to 3.8 M96 elective rebuild 138000km, LN Nickies. When I had an engine platform with more choice (LS9 into supercharged Holden Senator = ChevySS with leather) . I went with Oliver I Beam rods. I think the premium I beam has a good case for the M96 engine, but in the current era of supply chain issues - we will have to be grateful for any M96 upgrades. I think an F1 team would laugh at H Beam rods - but not in the 60s. I doubt the current small market will get a premium I Beam rods into the M96 despite some cogent arguements for I Beam rods in what is hardly a pushrod V8 engine - the M96 to make low displacement high power to me is a premium I beam rod engine. .

 

All 996 Turbo's have a fuel cooler. I have no idea if it is useful or not. Obviously Porsche thought it was valuable.

 

Engine Masters on Motor Trend TV (totally worth the sub cost) covered this on a carb motor and did see positive results, peak was about 5HP I believe but they saw gains throughout the rev range, in some spots 10-15HP.

The motor was a 485HP pushrod V8.

 

I'll take any incremental hp improvements if they are real.

Headers w/ IPD plenum, gt3 throttle body, software ~ 10 hp
200 cell cats ~ 10 HP
fuel cooler ~ 5 Hp

Anybody on this thread own a dyno to prove it?

 

I appreciate all the input and commentary.
I am going to swap over the compressor and rails - It's not that much of a backtrack at this point so time to just get after it!

By the way - I am sure some of you noticed the melting insulation at my main power conductor at the starter...That area is seeing some heat! I replaced the existing wiring about 2 years ago when my starter was cranking slowly and that one was corroded but not melted like this. Seems odd.

 

Yes, it's been a while since my last post...priorities. Have been able to get a couple of hours of work in every few days over the past several weeks and have gotten the engine into the car. A few highlights:
1. took me about 8 trys to get that lift table to operate correctly - bleed the hydraulics and bleed it again, and again and again...now it's the bomb whew
2. mating the transmission to the engine - initially ended up with a 1/2" gap. gentle movement of the transmission wouldn't align the output with the flywheel. pulled it apart - re-centered the clutch and she went together very simply. the plastic alignment tool I have for mounting the clutch has a lot of play
3. lifting the engine into place went smoother than I anticipated. generally no issues with placement and fit. got it hanging in place last saturday
4. I have since put all the components _throttle body, UAOS, secondary air, etc in their place - had to leave them off for the engine to fit below the car - and made connections of power steering, air con, wiring harness, ground strap and main power
5. have installed the braces and suspension bits below the engine, connected all the water lines
6. began installing my new cargraphic exhaust system and ran into a stopping point this morning...header bolts supplied with the system are 30mm in length - looks like they are supposed to be 28mm (in the torque value book from KG)

I will get the correct length bolts and install the exhaust system tomorrow. I'll be ready to fill the coolant system and the engine with break-in oil by saturday and am planning on starting her up around mid-day.

Because this has taken me so long I reached out to LN Engineering asking if, due to the time this engine has been sitting, I needed to do anything special before starting. They answered that it should be fine and that I might consider using a pre-oiler. I am still considering that piece of advice.

 

O'Reilly used to have oil priming tanks available through their loaner tool program. Not seeing it listed on their website at the moment unfortunately.

 

Nice work there.
I have considered a priming tank too but wonder how effective it would be priming through the oil pressure sender port.

alternatively, I thought about making an adapter out of the oil pick up port in the sump to connect to the oil system. Then pump a few quarts into the engine with a drip pan under it to collect what comes back out. Or, prime it upside down on the stand.