Junky Ol' Porsche 944

monknomo said:

In reply to monknomo :

Having gotten as deep into this as I have, I'm struck by how much easier it'd be to work on if it were a pushrod motor.  The space with the cam tower out!  There's so much room for hose and wire cleanup now!

Well, if it didn't have hoses and wires running UNDER the intake and above the exhaust manifold, it wouldn't be that bad.  It is a very large 4-cylinder and the goofy cam-tower solution makes maintenance like that more difficult than it needs to be.  I'm not a fan of the motor, it isn't exciting enough to be a sportcar motor, IMO, it just feels like a big truck motor.  Adding boost helps quite a bit, but then you're burning the candle at both ends which really sucks in such an expensive car to to own.

A 924 with its svelte and more lively 2.0L is practically a joy to work on, once you remove CIS and replace it with EFI, there's acres of room in the engine bay!

I've looked at 924 engine bays with some envy.  

Even this (if you assume a wiring tuck...) doesn't look too bad:

There are days when I wonder what it'd look like with the full 928 5.0 under there.  Couldn't really be much worse

Higher revs would help it feel more fun.  I'd like to treat it a bit like a VTEC screamer, but that's just not in the cards with it as it is.  Goes around corners nice and looks pretty good standing still, though

In reply to monknomo :

Yeah, tha'ts not a wiring tuck, there's just isn't much wiring due to the mechanical fuel injection.

Here's mine with ITBs and MegaSquirt EFI:

Here's a 924S with a 968 3.0L 16V installed:

In reply to Stefan :

Fair enough, I was interpreting fuel lines as wires - dumping mechanical fuel injection sounds like the thing to do!

BTW, those ITBs are mighty cool

My eyes are watering...

In reply to monknomo :

The 924's 2.0L lifters are $80/ea.  New.  And that doesn't include the adjustment bolts, which are special, wedged shape units.

So yeah.  At least it isn't a 16V!

Well, scraping the cam tower gasket off was not the most fun I've ever had - it was glued on there tight.  And it's so big.  And it's right next to the valve springs.  I hope I put it together right, because I don't really want to do this again any time soon...

Reattached my cam tower.  I started by making some vital custom tools

Extended allen key socket:

Extra tiny crevice attachment for sucking crud out of a valve train (I tried to keep most of the gasket out, but omg there was a lot of scraping and gasket pieces):

Porsche claims a dab a grease will hold the lifters in...  I did not find this to be true, so dental floss to the rescue!

Getting there:

It fits!

Next up, aos o-ring update, venturi delete, vacuum rats nest refresh, reposition vacuum actuated heater valve and intake install

In reply to monknomo :

Oh yeah, and the timing belt

Nice work with the floss!

Refreshed my AOS o-rings today.  I don't think the old ones were leaking, but since I have the intake off...  I also took the opportunity to scrub 32 years of grime off the oil filler.  I think it looks pretty good now

The o-rings were in one piece, but they crumbled on removal, so I feel good about removing them:

While I was in there, I fixed something that has been bugging me for 10 years.  Sometime in early 2007, the heater hose broke and dumped a load of coolant down the clutch, as they are wont to do.  I replace it, but I was young and impatient, and didn't have a digital camera, so I couldn't quite remember where the valve went in the rats nest behind the engine.

So, I left it poking up on the top of the wires and what have you.  I knew it wasn't quite right, but it worked, and whatever...  But now, there are good pictures of weird parts of 944s on the internet, so I figured out where to stuff the valve back into the rats nest.

I should have done this with the cam tower off; as irish44j says, Porsche must have built the car around the heater core.  I sacrificed some blood (is this a blood emoji? ) to the machine god, and now my rats nest looks like this:

Messy, but no heater valve hanging out on top, hiding the wires.    Hopefully nothing leaks, or I'm losing more hand skin.

While I was staring at the heater valve, hoses, wires and cursing God, Porsche and myself, I noticed my big ground cable was missing 1.5" of insulation.  Since I have the intake off (what a theme), I pulled the battery ground and the battery positive cables.  The positive cable actually looks pretty good.  I think I'll just pop a milspec terminal on it, since the current one is a little beat and call it good.

The ground, otoh, looks like this:

 Looks like the toddler and I are going to the wire store tomorrow!

Jobs remaining:

• Vacuum host rats nest refresh
• Venturi delete
• Timing belt install
• Intake install

In reply to monknomo :

Using arnnworx as my guide, I've acquired a bunch of terminals, solder and flux.  Let's see what happens next

Well, that was not as bad as I feared.  I've never soldered big cables or really soldered with a torch.  It was easier than I expected, except for the little cables I left attached to the car.  It took me longer messing with the ground attachment point than it did to make up the cables.  That ground attachment point is almost as fun as the heater hoses!

I took the opportunity to add in a permanently attached lead for my battery tender, so I'm a happy camper.  Now I just need to figure out where to have have the battery tender lead dangle out of the car, so I can charge without having to pop the hood.  Anybody in 944-land have a thought on that?

So shiny, so rebuildable.

In case anybody from the future needs to know:

Bill of Materials

• 30" 2awg cable for the engine ground
• 7" 6awg cable for the chassis ground
• 72" 2awg cable for the big positive lead
• 2 ring terminals with 3/8" holes for 2awg cable
• 4 ring terminals with 3/8" holes for 6awg cable, to use with the two-up cables on the positive terminal and the chassis ground
• 1 ring terminal with a 3/8" hole for 10-12awg wire for the other cable on the positive terminal
• 2 mil-spec battery terminals
• good heat shrink cable wrap

Could save yourself some labor by buying a premade battery lead - in my area, the boat shops have the nicest looking premade cable sets.

Today's progress is small, but significant.  While I waited for coffee to brew, I put the new hoses in place.  I'd call the vacuum rat's nest refresh project complete (pending intake install)

Got it put back together and the lifter clatter is gone:

Now I just need to make it driveable :)

Here it is, outdoors, smoking up a storm and getting rained on

Since the car could, in principle, move, I thought it was time to fix the toasted front wheel bearings. So far it’s pretty smooth, except that I forgot to buy the seals that go with the bearings....

It took longer than I wanted, but I got my seals, and I soaked the rust off the dust covers, and I put on new discs (while I'm in there....)

What was Porsche thinking making the discs bolt to the back of the hubs, I can't imagine.  "Let's make a delicate cast aluminum part, and you know, just drill twice as many holes as usual"

Here it is, all back together and lubed up.  Reminded me of doing crown races, or old fashioned bottom brackets, especially with the manual preloading.

Next up is a quick alignment to get things sorta kinda pointed in the right direction, then tires and body work!  Any grm tips on measuring caster without buying anything?

Installed a set of only944 sunroof seals. Those are a lot nicer than the factory seals. I’m confident that my leaks will be coming from elsewhere now

Drove around the block today. It went pretty smoothly.  I backed out of the driveway and the motor died at the bottom. Not sure sure why, but my wife was watching and said the spluttering scared off a black bear that was hiding in the bushes! I didn’t see a thing, I was too busy fussing with the clutch and ignition and worrying about the gauges.

I got it started again and tootled around the block. Made it back, so that’s a plus!  Once the motor warmed up it ran pretty well.  A little stumble when I let off the accelerator, a little belt whine, a little clicking that sounds suspiciously lifter like. Nothing that seems like it won’t be solved by running it some more

I’m expecting rain tonight, so I left the car out to give the sunroof seals a realistic test 

Nice work. Bears have been pretty awful this year in south central.

In reply to crankwalk :

My house is brushy and backs up against national forest, so we always have bears, but I’ve counted 5 or so different bears coming through this summer.  Seems like a good bear year down here too

This morning I fired it up, and it was running a bit rough. I sprayed some water on the headers and it was only running on 3&4.

I tried wiggling the spark plugs, no change. I unplugged 1&2 no change.

I unplugged 3&4, no start.

I took a nap with the toddler and woke up inspired - the 1&2 injectors are on the same circuit, so maybe it was a short?

Noid light said the circuit is fine, so injectors?

I pulled the rail and swapped 1&4 and sure enough, it started running on 1&3

I googled a bit and found a helpful hint. Blew some carb cleaner through all the injectors and reversed flowed the known bad ones and back to smooth running

Nice!  These days, google and YouTube are the two most-used tools in my box.

Smooth running