The out of car boost test and the tape on the floor for repositioning are genius. Thanks for sharing.

 

You might be right.

 

Been following your post since day 1. My God man, you have stones the size of basketballs. What an absolutely A++ effort all around on your part. Sorry if your wife has divorced you, but we appreciate your work!

 

Thank you sir! No divorce here but supposed to get married next month... we'll see how that goes given the current situation Thankfully my fiance is very understanding and patient with this garage hobby! She's wonderful.

With the small intake manifold leak keeping me up at night, I dropped the engine again and used some JB weld along the seams in order to seal them up. It worked, now it holds 22 psi. Engine reinstalled. Cooling system pressure test went great, and I filled it with new coolant with the airlift tool. Highly recommend this setup for coolant system pressure testing and easy refilling. Still need to fill and bleed the power steering, fill the trans, and then add engine oil. My plan is to just use whatever I have lying around for the first 50 or so miles and then dump it in favor of Motul 5W50.

 

Wow, you sound like me! I was really dreading something not being right after re-installing the engine (mainly around cam timing). My only issue was the connector to the coolant temp sensor on top of the engine near one of those coolant pipes to pin. JB Weld is your friend! I was able to sneak in there with a dab to keep the broken connector seated. It worked.

Is a leak around the top edge something that happens with these manifolds? Nice solution. I though your issue was with the gaskets and the connection to the head.

Well, you should be an expert with engine drops now. I thought the worst was dealing with the damn coolant, both on the way out and on the way back in!

Hopefully that's the only thing you run into.

Ed

 

Way back in my first post I noted a slight hiss from the right side of the engine compartment when doing a boost test. Once I put it all back together, the leak moved to the left side... eventually I realized I had swapped the intake runners left/right. They can leak although rare, more common in the 996 or so I hear. Mine was actually along the bottom seam. Top seam was fine when I used soap/water during the boost test. Not sure if it's due to the miles or the year (07) but JB weld seems to have taken care of it.

 

If you went with bigger turbos that sealer most likely will not hold. Its common to blow intake manifolds when the boost is turned up

 

I have my eyes on some aftermarket options if that happens

 

Yeah when I went bigger turbos....I had one made for my car

 

Well it built oil pressure and fired up fine. That is, only after a fuel related mishap (forgot to torque down the fuel cooler lines after the second engine drop), got a little messy. It ran for maybe 5 or 10 s before I shut it down, idle was horrible, clearly needs a tune with the new injectors. No obvious leaks during that time so that's good. Hopefully didn't foul the plugs in that short amount of time. Im going to send the ECU out tomorrow.

 

Looks like this project is finally done. Took a few detours each requiring an additional engine drop...

1. I didn't apply RTV correctly to the cam housing cover, totally missing going around the oil passage. It leaked and needed to be redone. Also at that time, the t-stat housing had a tiny seep in it, so I replaced the gasket with a new one, polished the surfaces, and used a very thin layer of permatex. No more leaks.

Don't ignore the arrows.


2. After getting my ECU tuned by Markski to account for the new components, the engine ran well, but a CEL popped up. Got codes for camshaft/crankshaft alignment... d'oh. Popped in the durametric and the angles were off -12 bank 1, -16 bank 2. Bummer. Variocam was not being activated as it was beyond tolerance. I tested all the sensors and solenoids which checked out fine. So the engine came down again.

The issue was with setting TDC. I am not finessed enough to use the screwdriver method (as noted by the above results) and the timing mark on the engine case shouldn't be trusted. I picked up a dial gauge and base and used that to set TDC. The notch on the pulley was in front of the mark on the housing, whereas the first time I actually set the notch beyond the mark. Set the cams again with the Baum tool and shoehorned the engined back in. This time the angles were -0.57 bank 1, and -3.77 bank 2. Bingo! With all the extra practice, I can now drop the engine in about 5 hours.

Spent the past two days getting everything reinstalled, refilling all the fluids, pressure testing the cooling system (passed, no leaks so far).

Finally took it out for its maiden voyage today. Needed to dump a little bit of oil as I overfilled and I added about another half gallon of coolant.

Once satisfied, I tested her out on the empty highways by my house.... good lord 60-100 in sport mode with the new go-fast goodies and the tune is something else. Totally worth it. Can't wait to really open her up.

Engine out, episode 3


Old friends




Dial indicator and magnetic base are the way to go in my humble opinion


Three point mark


Crank pulley notch relative to tab on the housing


Durametric cam angles

 

My guess is those crank pulleys are not keyed or indexed, so if they are ever removed, they may not go back on the factory orientation.

I like the dial thing. Looked for one on line but either wasn't searching very well or looking in the wrong places. I got lucky with my screwdriver.

You now are the kind of 911 engine R&R. I think Porsche has a patch they send you.

Ed

 

Nice work, I have no idea what your doing with all the tape marks buy looks impressive the timing is spot on.
congrats a minor overhaul and performance upgrade.

 

He sounds like me. I am so used to engines with timing marks and parts that tie in to those marks, that I was happy to see mine and have it pretty much line up for the crank.

The tape is just probably a temporary substitute for the confidence matching timing marks are "supposed" to offer!

The more I think about it, the more I wish I had etched some marks in the cam case area opposite of the chains.

Ed

 

Well done! You are the only person I've met that's dropped a Mezger three times in his garage. That's serious reps.

Enjoy it in good health!