1988 Porsche 944 Track Toy

I tapped the four pistons in, careful to protect the cylinder walls from the edge of the rod end with a piece of cardboard. After the first piston went in, I found it difficult to reach my fat fingers past the crankshaft to seat the rod bearing in the rod.

So I had the brilliant idea of putting the bearing in the rod before tapping it in. That was brilliant. Putting a smear of assembly lube to give it some "stick" so it wouldn't fall out while tapping in was not so brilliant.

Supposedly the back side of the bearing is supposed to be dry. The guys on Rennlist scolded me for that. Said it might result in a spun bearing.

I'm not so sure about that. That's what the little tangs in the corner of the bearing are for! Plus, my bearings have a hole in them where pressurized oil is constantly forced. Admittedly, there's nowhere for it to go, but it seems to me there's going to be oil behind there eventually. Both halves of each bearing have the hole:

The bottom line is that all four pistons are in, and all four rods are torqued down. And I'm not taking the one-time-use nuts off again to clean off the back sides of three bearing halves that already have a hole in them. That's the decision I have made.

Edit: ...Until I change my mind.

Regardless of whether I go back in to clean the bearings or not (which is easy now, much harder later), I've got to make more progress, albeit slowly.

Last night I dry-fitted the upper balance shaft to make sure I had all the parts and pieces before applying the sealant. Looks like I found everything, including the paper-thin mylar gasket at the forward end.

This took over an hour because the kit from Victor Reinz is basically a pile of gaskets with no labels or individual part numbers. See what I mean: the jumble in the lower right-hand corner has about five individual bags that have VR numbers I can't look up.

It also took an hour because I am totally being careful about cleaning everything thoroughly. Hopefully that pays off with no oil leaks and no problems later.

I was frustrated by a couple things in a row over the past couple weeks. The first was the balance shaft covers... when I put them on and torqued them down, the shafts would lock up - they just wouldn't spin.

Some Rennlist and Facebook help later, I tried swapping the covers since that was the most common issue according to engine builders. Turns out I must have mis-labeled them when I took them off, because I swapped the covers (and the shafts) and they both could spin after torquing down the covers.

So I put the goo on again and we're past that now!

Then I tried to put the oil cooler console on. Well, the oil pressure relief valve wouldn't thread all the way in. The threads just weren't cut deep enough.

I found one guy who had the same issue, and he had his machinist take off the first few threads of the OPRV so it would go in.

I decided to try the other way... I would cut threads deeper into the housing.

I don't have a machinist all that handy or cheap. I don't have a lathe. But I ordered a 20mm x 1.5mm pitch thread tap from Amazon Prime for a total of $23 even.

http://a.co/23wBJJG is the link to the product on Amazon.

With that tap, I was able to extend the threads pretty much all the way through. I hope the pictures show enough detail, but it was super easy to turn, the alignment tool went in nicely, and then the OPRV threaded in like buttah. It took about five minutes.

It was anticlimactic, really.

So I felt a lot better having gotten past a couple hiccups.

Good enough to tackle the head installation. First snag is seeing "TURBO" written on my head gasket. I triple-checked the part numbers and I guess that's what they all say?

I'm going with it.

Here is the head on the engine. The nuts aren't yet torqued down... I'm going to do that tomorrow night when I am fresh.

I'm always tickled when I'm able to find the parts I bought four months ago and have since moved around six times. So I was particularly pleased to locate the brand new washers that are to be replaced when rejoining a head to the block.

They were in the last place I looked.

Glad to see you are making progress! You are good to go with your head gasket.
I can relate to the part location issues....I've been on an organization kick lately once I realized about 15% of my shop time feels like an Easter egg hunt.

More frustration.

The junkyard engine that's now in the car was completely rotten in the front end. So all the good pulleys and gears from this engine are in the car. Therefore I am doing THIS rebuild with all new pulleys and stuff.

So I took the cruddy timing belt tensioner with the seized and chipped pulley, and cleaned it up and gave it a nice brand new pulley. The tensioner is a lot cleaner than it was, anyway.

Before:

After:

Don't judge... it's a race car. It's clean where it counts.

I went to put it on the block and... it won't fit!

See how the original oil pump has a slightly shorter boss on the right? Well the new one has all the same height ones, and the one that's supposed to be shorter fouls the tensioner.

My Rennlist post on this.

I'm going to get the correct oil pump for my block, refurbish that one, and install it.

Two steps forward, one or two steps back. :-/

Meanwhile, lots of other stuff to do.

I'm getting to the place in the engine rebuild where I took stuff off thinking, "I've done this before many times, so I'll remember how it goes back on. I don't need to put these fasteners in anyplace special... certainly not labeled with tape and a sharpie or anything smart like that."

Case in point:

See those mounting holes for the air-oil separator? Ask me if I know what the bolts look like, where they are, what else they might hold onto, and is it important?

I don't know. I have no idea. Probably something. Not sure.

To recover three modification points in my PTE build, I am returning the exhaust manifold to stock.

My junkyard engine came with the stock manifold 4-2 pieces. But the 2-1 piece was cut off to remove the engine.

My friend John at Just Joshin' Used Porsche 944 Parts was kind enough to give me another 2-1 piece cut off just before the catalytic converter. It's in really good shape but it had a melted plastic grocery bag on it that needed cleaning up.

The wire wheel made quick work of it. It did a nice job on the flanges too.

I now have to order a nice new three-bolt flange to mate this up with the test pipe I built when the original one failed.

You're not a man until you've wrenched like a man on a 944.

That's just, like, my opinion, man.

I'll say getting to this point was pretty tough. It took a 10mm cheesehead driver for the center bolt, a 1 1/4" combination wrench to hold the collar still, and a progression from 3/8" ratchet, 1/2" ratchet, 1/2" impact, and then finally a 1/2" breaker bar busted it loose.

I'm very proud of myself right now.

This is all part of the effort of finding and eliminating all shrapnel from the engine, no matter how far it has traveled. And from the looks of the journals inside the cam tower, some of it has traveled this far.

And yes, I was prouder about getting that thing apart than I am about getting it back together again. Putting stuff together is the easy part!

Here are some pics of the journals. I just hit them lightly with some scotchbrite to be sure there wasn't any latent steel embedded in them.

After scotchbrite:

There's still some scoring between #2, #3, and #4, but it's not too bad I hope.

After cleaning it all up, reassembling it with some engine assembly lube, and putting it back on the head, it's starting to look like and engine again.

I also put the RennBay header stud kit on, the stock headers I cleaned up, the engine supports, and the front coolant elbow.

That's probably where it's going to sit for about a week, other than some odds and ends. I have to get an oil cooler that fits, and I need to take my oil pan to have a baffle welded into it. I'm going to have the clutch bell housing sandblasted by whatever place I take the oil pan.

In reply to CrookedRacer:

Nice work!!

Thanks JH.

Today I took my oil pan to a local welder to have the one-way trap door baffle welded in. I'm pretty excited that it'll only cost $40, and that I can pick it up on Friday.

My new aluminum flywheel arrived as well, which I thought wasn't going to ship until 4/17.

And I ordered a mess of ignition parts so I don't have to transfer them back and forth between engines. Besides, I never refreshed them after I bought the car. So I have a new distributor cap, rotor, plug wires, and plugs on their way.

I replaced the radiator hoses when I did the first engine swap, but I never replaced the heater hoses at the back of the engine, nor the elbow at the front of the engine, so I ordered fresh ones of those as well.

So it's looking pretty good for having this engine ready to install before the end of April.

Since I was on a roll with the spending spree, I bought into the evil empire that is MyLaps. I ordered a wired transponder with a 1-year subscription. It doesn't really save much money if I only end up doing four race weekends this year (up to now I've been renting a rechargeable one for $50/weekend). But it provides peace of mind because it's no longer something to forget when preparing for a race.

And the other big news, speaking of no longer renting things... this guy will be delivered to my driveway on Saturday!

Up until now I've rented u-haul car carriers to get the car to track weekends (except the first one, when the 944 pulled its own weight to and from Dominion Raceway). U-haul was costing me up to $400 a weekend (for long VIR trips) and this should certainly cost a lot less than that when resale is factored in, let alone my time picking up and dropping off at U-haul. It will be nice to never have to do that again.

I still have to install an electric brake controller and a 7-pin plug on my 2008 F150. And I should probably go ahead and install a hitch while I'm at it. The bumper's rated for the load, but it will probably tow more smoothly with a proper hitch.

Yes, my dream was to have a race car I could drive to the track, drive on the track, and drive home from the track. But that's just not practical with my glass back and the car's propensity to spin a bearing while on track three states away.

I'm curious if you are bypassing the heater core or running the original routing for the plumbing? You might want to consider cutting that out of the loop...saves some weight but more importantly, space.

Also....like the trailer. As you may have seen at Dominion last year, open trailers work well as a lift in a pinch trackside.

Nice trailer, before you need, you might want to add a little winch. I got a small one at harbor freight, works great, just be carful the rope doesn't hope out of the drum while winching the car up. It can then jam and make a little mess of things. The winch only really pulls a few hundred pounds while pulling the car onto the trailer, 2 or 3 people can do the job, but easier with winch.

Any further thoughts on the rod bearings??? For a few bucks and a few minutes it might be worth the peace of mind at a min and saving a motor and a weekend at best.

In reply to jfryjfry:

I forgot to mention that... I got a set of new con rod nuts from a local shop for a very reasonable price (half that which Porsche wanted, and no wait). So I went in and cleaned out behind each bearing and it is all sorted now.

I called my machinist about it.

Turns out it's not the slipperiness of the grease behind the bearing... it's the space it occupies that can alter the oil clearance. Not all of it wil be squeezed out.

So no worries, the bearings are hopefully in there perfectly now.

I got my oil pan back, and I'm really happy with the job that was done. The brand new pickup tube has the collar welded to it now:

Ain't nothin' wrong with that.

And the pan itself looks great too:

At least, I don't think it's going anywhere. It looks like it'll do the job.

Now, I have to figure out whether to replace the gasket at the top of the pickup tube. The middle one here is the old one, and the rings on either side are the closest sized gaskets I could find in the Victor Reinz lower block gasket kit.

Some of the gaskets in the kit are not necessary for my car, or my year. I know that. But does anyone know if the white one on the right is actually intended to replace the black ring on the oil pickup tube? If I don't get a positive answer, the old one is going back in, since it's in good shape anyway.

The black one on the left is too big. The white one looks like it'll fit nicely, though. It's a bit taller but it will definitely make a seal.

I got the correct oil pump on EBay for 35 bucks. And although it had flaking paint on the outside and wouldn't budge on the inside, I took it apart and It was perfect. All cleaned out, greased up, screwed in, and bolted down.

For two weeks I've had everything ready to put it all back together, and for two weeks I have spent most of my time learning about the joys of kidney stones. Just one, actually.

But one was enough to sideline me long enough that I have made the call.

I'm not going to make it to Hyperfest.

Bummer! I hate those little devils! Sorry you won't make the event but if you feel like a road trip, the bus will be open!

Update? What's shakin'?

Sorry bout the lack of updates. Two surgeries (all better now, thanks), and I'm in the middle of a huge landscape project (I'm paying someone else to do it, but it's making things difficult for anyone interested in working out of the garage.

Despite that, jh36 was able to convince me at the last minute to get the car ready (with its junkyard engine and all) for NASA's June Joust at Summit Point this past weekend. There would be THREE 944's prepared for PTE there including me. That sounded fun.

So by just committing to racing the junkyard engine, my to-do checklist was narrowed down considerably. I no longer had to worry about the swap, external oil cooler, and exhaust fabrication. The car was pretty ready to go except for the usual race prep things.

I changed the transaxle fluid, flushed the brake fluid, put on the race tires, affixed all the safety nets and did a nut & bolt suspension check. I got the trailer brake controller sorted on the truck and test fit the car on the new trailer...

I never noticed before that my truck's license plate ends in 944.

(Don't fret about the tight emergency brake pull cable. It wasn't that tight.) I used a bathroom scale and some boards to set the appropriate tongue weight at 10% of the weight of the trailer. It pulls fine.

I painted the corroded bumper a bit, tore of the GTS-1 stickers and added a few important ones, like my "Just Joshin' Porsche 944 Parts" sticker. Very important.

Oh and I washed the car's exterior (after this picture was taken). Been a while.

All of this happened in the three evenings I had between committing to the race and arriving at the track on Friday afternoon. (Not including Thursday night, when I got to see the O's-Nats game at Nationals Park!)

So I got to the track right on time on Friday night... and so did jh36's son James who was doing HPDE in his Miata, so together we saved two paddock spaces which were enough for the WanderLodge, all three 944's, two trucks, and the Miata. We were especially good paddock citizens and put our trailers to pasture, out of the way behind Turn 10.

The first task was getting the car inspected. I was first in line and things went pretty smoothly. He said my front rotors had cracks around the cross-drilling. And indeed they do. He passed me, but I agreed this should be the last weekend for those rotors. Then he said "pop the hood" and the release lever came off in my hand. Fortunately he didn't notice. I kept pulling on the whole thing and the hood fortunately popped open. So we finished the inspection and I passed... later I zip-tied that release lever in a way that allowed it to work fairly well. Time for some hood pins, really.

So right away, I'm forming a checklist:

>Lose the 968 4-piston calipers and return the car to stock 1-piston brakes (recover 2 PTE mod points)

>Hood pins (and delete hood latch and release cable)

Now, I wish I had taken more pictures this weekend, but I was either having too much fun, or my hands were too dirty to consider picking up my smartphone. I really need to work on that if I'm going to keep this little thread interesting.

Here's a picture of a dog at the track at the driver's meeting:

Nice post, and great weekend....nice job on track! And that's the dog I saw running between turn 3 and 1 on the cool down lap after the race!!! Yikes!