Engine build progress

[SimonP]

Me tooooooooo.......

 

[TTM]

Hmmmm... [link=http://www.circuitdecroix.com/]Croix en Ternois[/link] is about 60 miles south of Calais. If I'm not mistaken it used to host the Cup series (944 Turbo Cup then 964 Carrera Cup). [link=http://www.stadium-automobile.fr/content/view/33/3/]Abbeville[/link] is 70 miles south of Calais. [link=http://www.circuit-de-folembray.com/cpsra.aspx]Folembray[/link] is a bit further south, about 130 miles from Calais. [link=http://www.circuitslfg.fr/]La Ferté Gaucher[/link] is much further south, about 220 miles from Calais but not too far from Paris in case people might want to do some sightseeing in the city. There are other great tracks further south (Magny Cours, Dijon Presnois) but they may appear a bit too far from the UK if only for a long weekend?

 

[TTM]

Any idea on how to clean the oil cooler?

 

[sawood12]

you'd have to remove and flush with a solvent based cleaner or Paraffin or something along those lines. My experience of cleaning things in a paraffin bath is that the stuff easily washes off even the oldest oil deposits.

 

[marcoturbo]

Use a good carb/brake cleaner. You could also use a solvent as a paint thinner and let it soak before flushing...You could also try some Bilt Hamber Surfex HD, it works fine as a safe degreaser.

 

[TTM]

Beginning to take the top of the 2.5 apart in order to have it out by the end of the week. Exhaust is out.

 

[TTM]

The engine is out [] Short footage [link=http://mapage.noos.fr/tjmm/3019/photo34.avi]here[/link] (please right click > save as). We had difficulties taking off the two upper bolts of the right engine mount as corrosion and the lack of room wouldn't let us untighten them so we took off the lower bolt and the mount finally split in two while the engine was being pulled out. Also we believe we found out why my engine never needed the oil topped up between two oil changes - in addition to the cylinder head being quite fresh we found zero radial play (at least none that can be felt by hand) and extremely little axial play in the turbo. In contrast, Sly's LR75 is beginning to show significant radial play and blows much oil in the intake pipes, even though it's got only about 15k miles. 174k miles on original 2.5 block ; head was replaced with a new unit at 120k miles. No trace of turbo rebuild in the bills, but will give it another look. Oil consumption = nil []

Engine bay is due for a good clean

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[tref]

Proof that the engine will come up and out as well as down and out! - May I ask what work was involved in making it so? - Torque tube or gearbox moved at all? I tried and failed, but can't remember what stopped me - I seem to recall it wouldn't pull forward enough to come free of the torque tube without hitting the cross-member. Edit: Sorry for the stupid question - I have just realised you have left the clutch in the bellhousing, where as I tried pulling it with the clutch in place... Hmmm... Regards, Tref.

 

[Neil Haughey]

Oh that reminds me Tref, my brother got the engine out of the S2 the other day what he found was that dropping it on the cross member it sits nicely on the legs of the Machine Mart/Clark 1 tonne engine crane. He then wheeled it out sat on the crane legs and a crawler, neat hey. What he did tell me was he had to jack up the shell a loooong way to do this though. Otherwise pretty easy except on the S2 the manifold sticks out so far he said it won't clear the chassis legs if you try and pull it under the front panel, hence had to lift the shell higher anyway, or something along those lines. Keep up the good work Thom.

 

[TTM]

Yes Tref, it comes out pretty easily if you take off the 9 bolts holding the pressure plate on the flywheel, through the hole in the bellhousing for the starter motor. It would require a bit less work to take the engine out from below but one would have to take the steering off the cross brace and raise the shell pretty high - I remember doing it in a garden some years ago and as we had no lift it turned out a pig of a job. If you want to replace the sump gasket and engine mounts you would still need a crab to raise the engine and put it on a hoist.

 

[tref]

OK... that makes sense... and presumably eliminates the need to drop the clutch release arm as well...which in my experience can be a pain under the car, probabaly a lot easier with the engine out of the way! I have dropped the cross member with the steering rack attached in the past, but find it a pain trying to re-align the steering arm putting it back together that way. More recently I have taken the rack off, as for the sake of four bolts, the two components are a lot easier to manipulate seperately. My last experience was as your brother found Neil, leaving the crossmember attached to the engine makes it a LOT more stable.

 

[TTM]

Got to clean the engine bay today, at least remove most of the dust/oil mixture that had accumulated over 19 years, and we worked on adjusting the turbo with the parts in its close surroundings. Sly machined the throttle body like he did on his and reshaped the bracket for the spring. After we indexed the compressor cover there was still a problem with one of the lower bolt and we will certainly have to machine the engine mount in order to get enough clearance to fit the bolt - any suggestion on this? Should we machine the engine mount or run the turbo without this bolt? For what it's worth we put blue loctite on those bolts. Some of the parts we are using come from a (very?) early 944 turbo, such as the throttle body and the downpipe. Surprisingly they are both different from what we had seen so far on other, later cars. As you can see from the pictures the throttle body has a pretty rough finish and is slightly differently shaped. The downpipe (the one that looks as new) has got a single section while the other one has two. The inner diameter is significantly bigger than the twin-sectioned downpipe - it is sized perfectly with the dimension of the turbine outlet, which means fitting a 3" downpipe many people refer to as compulsory with a bigger than stock turbo may actually turn out unnecessary []

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[944 man]

Stadium automobile d'Abbeville is an extremely attractive venue: isnt it? Folembray too...

 

[Diver944]

ORIGINAL: TTM The downpipe (the one that looks as new) has got a single section while the other one has two.

Very interesting news. Have I read that correctly? What you are saying is the shiny new looking downpipe (on the right in this picture) is actually from an early 220 Turbo and not a 3" downpipe as sold by the likes of Speedforce and Lindsey?

 

[TTM]

The downpipe on the right, which comes from an early turbo 220 has a bigger inner diameter than the one on the left, which is the one usually seen on later cars, at least in our experience. PET shows a new part number for the downpipe was introduced for the '90 model year, but my '90, Sly's '88S and Marc's '86 all came with the twin section downpipe as shown on the left. I do not think the single section downpipe is exactly as large as a SFR or LR 3" downpipe (will measure it today if you want, Sly will know for sure) but it should work fine with my custom turbo that's got a turbine outlet with a slightly smaller diameter than the inner diameter of the single section downpipe.

 

[pauly]

Could you countersink the hole where there is a clearance issue and use a countersunk caphead screw so it fits flush ?.

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: TTM After we indexed the compressor cover there was still a problem with one of the lower bolt and we will certainly have to machine the engine mount in order to get enough clearance to fit the bolt - any suggestion on this? Should we machine the engine mount or run the turbo without this bolt? For what it's worth we put blue loctite on those bolts.

Countersinking sounds like a plan as Pauly has suggested. If you havn't got enough room aroundthe hole to countersink you could thread the side of the flange that you have access difficulties (or use a helicoil) and use a bolt from the other side where you don't have access issues?

 

[George Elliott]

Thom, thats a great project, and I am fascinated by the '90- on down-pipe. Perhaps the first batch of components were like that, and then the heat-soak issue failed to meet some underbonnet limit Porsche have, so they introduced the twin wall version? Its too early to be a 968T component I guess. Dont know. When I saw how you got the engine out, I figured you must have Renault experience.....! (I like 'em by the way - R26R a better car than any 5cyl ford) What I am interested in is your comment on Zero Oil useage. I have run a '89 944T for some years, and it always needed 1L of Oil top up every 1000 miles. It had a good engine with consistent 130psi Compression readings and never a trace of smoke. I always assumed the oil loss to be Oil-ring / Bore related. My new car has covered 1000 miles since I collected it from SPS, and I just checked the Oil Level. Its not moved, it remains bang on the upper level mark on the dipstick. Incredible. Keep up the good work. George 944T PS. Pauly's idea may work, but whatever you do, - dont leave the bolt out.

 

[sawood12]

I always thought the oil consumption issue to be due to the turbo sucking oil out of the air oil separator (which isn't 100% effective) as the turbo produces a partial vacuum in the sump to aid piston ring sealing against the cylinder walls and a product of this is that some oil can be sucked through the turbo and intake system. This seems to fit as my car has zero/negligible oil use under normal driving conditions, but will use a litre or more on one trackday when on WOT for much longer and sustained periods of time. However this doesn't explain the reason for oil consumption on N/A cars.

 

[TTM]

Not sure I understand what "countersinking" is but if this involves machining somehow the compressor housing then I prefer to machine the engine mount. Edited to add : I just looked in wikipedia and yes it would mean machining the compressor, though not by much... Will look at this today. Thanks for the suggestion pauly. George, yes this could be a reason why the downpipe was modified ; Sly also suggested that maybe the soldering broke in the long run and the pipe was thereafter made "stronger" but I hope I won't be the one to find out! As far as oil consumption is concerned I think how the car has been run in has an important impact on it. For what it's worth my turbo was apparently used as a commuter car on the German Autobahn and came with a lot of miles and a service history almost complete. Whether I run it hard on boost for hours on derestritcted Autobahn or sedately on french B-roads it had never made any difference. In fact it did drink 3mm on the oil gauge when I used it a week in december two years ago (we had a very cold winter then), but I think it was due to using a rather thick oil that got drunk on start-ups in sub zero temperatures. Here are measurements of the two downpipes: Early downpipe : Inner diameter 61 mm / Outer diameter 64 mm (the diameter of the turbine outlet on my custom turbo is 57 mm) Late dowpipe : Inner diameter 56 mm / Outer diameter 67 mm The later downpipe feels significantly heavier than the early one. Not much work done today ; I replaced brake hoses (rears were a pain in the butt) and the rusty brackets holding fuel/brake line with new units. Sly replaced the water pump on the 924S of a friend. More progress tomorrow I hope.