To buy or not to buy ?

[avalaugh]

Right guys, i have spent the last 24 hrs reading this site, what a great source of infomation by the way.

I am going to look at a '83' 2.5 lux tomorrow eve

Long story short it has done 112K and has been well looked after, its a friend of a friends car and he thinks the head gasket has gone ? it now wont start ? He is not mechanically minded and is just guessing .

He wants it gone soon as he has another car now and said i can have it for £500. I am very handy with a spanner and feel like taking this on as a winter project in my garage as i wont get much use out of my bike for the next few months.

What should i look out for as a general rule of thumb on these, and does it seem like a good buy ?

Thanks for any comments, and im sure ill have loads more questions soon too haha

 

[avalaugh]

another pic

 

[Riverside]

ORIGINAL: avalaugh
I am going to look at this car tomorrow eve -

For £500 I don't think you can go wrong, even if the engine is beyond repair the car's probably worth near that for parts []

If you get a chance to look over the car & work out what's likely to need replacing get some quotes on the parts before you buy. Porsche specific parts can be expensive, even second-hand. Go in with your eyes open []

 

[avalaugh]

ill update tomorrow once ive given it a once over

 

[avalaugh]

Well had a good look over it, looks like headgasket as there is little water in the header tank and it cranks over a bit fast, sounds low on compression. The owner said that the previous owner had fitted a manual fan switch as it used to get a bit hot, the current owner had always used it for long or short runs so it either didnt get hot hot, or was just cruising up the motorway.

He then got stuck in a field, (long story) and was revving it to get out when he noticed the temp gauge had gone up, he then switched the fan on but it seems the damaged had been done as it cut out and hasnt started since.

Where is the best place to buy a headgasket set from, and do these heads tend to crack ? i will have it skimmed and pressure tested but i would like to start looking for a back up head incase its fooked.

All in all car is very tidy with just a tiny bit of surface rust on the rear arches.

 

[rd944]

sounds like a nice find

im not really clued up on 944 engines/heads yet having only bought mine recently*, so dont know if its likely to have cracked .. does sound like a blown HG though .. and my concern would be the state of the cylinders if its been run like this for a while.

porscheshop.co.uk would be my first port of call for bits .. but im sure others will have various suggestions.


*paid 690 quid for this a couple of weeks back, needs discs/wheel bearings/service

 

[Fen]

Sorry to contradict, but Porscheshop would be among my last places to buy bits. They sell a lot of dealer stuff at massive markup over retail.

Try Bert at Berlyn Services and Exeter OPC saying you're from "the forum" would be my suggestion for new parts and Simon at Porsch-Apart for used stuff (and some new in fact).

 

[random hero]

I bought a head gasket from the porsche shop which was about £50 (non genuine) and it turned up folded in half !!,i rang jct600 in newcastle for a replacement and they wanted about £30 for a genuine one at the time !!

 

[edh]

Black cars obviously don't hold their price like red ones []

Fen's absolutely spot on - Exeter Porsche can sometimes be suprisingly cheap, and Bert is both good value & extremely knowledgeable. His online sales operation is pretty slick.

It would be interesting to see the "bargepole" list one day (not on this forum though [])

 

[avalaugh]

nice looking car rd944 !

Has yours got power steering ? mine hasnt and im wondering how heavy it is?

Also guys, im thinking of gas flowing the head as im taking it off anyway, i done my mx5 before and fitted a turbo and the car was good fun, but i want to keep the 944 N/A, so aside from the flowing what other tricks are there, do any other inlet manifolds fit etc or camshafts from other engines !

 

[Fen]

OT alert!

Which MX5 kit did you use? I had one with a Greddy turbo and Link management (I forget the name of the kit with the turbo and Link - unless is it is the Link kit?). Lots of fun in small doses.

 

[rd944]

yeh, mines got PAS which to be honest Im not liking very much.. it feels dead and a bit numb after my 924.. thinking about swapping out to a manual rack ..

mind im also thinking about fitting a 4.0 litre v8 from a chimaera .. but mainly because ive just been offered one for peanuts as a mate is fitting a 300+bhp 4.6 in the chim ..

if this happens my (sweet as far as i know) engine will be after a new home ..

 

[avalaugh]

ORIGINAL: Fen

OT alert!

Which MX5 kit did you use? I had one with a Greddy turbo and Link management (I forget the name of the kit with the turbo and Link - unless is it is the Link kit?). Lots of fun in small doses.

Whats OT alerts mean ?

i had a greddy turbo kit, gas flowed head and inlet, 1.8 injectors, forge I/C, FSE pressure reg warlborough fuel pump. Never got as far as management unforunatly, had to sell for the house etc etc.

rd944, thats a great idea, my father in law has a 4.0 V8 sitting in his garage, with a rather tasty S/C attached on it and Omega pistons !!!!!!!! But dont think he will let me have it haha, its going in his tasmin which he has been building the last 5 years ! he also has an S2 which is near completion and his eye out for a cerbera. Lucky sod.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Whats OT alerts mean ?

Off-topic. Dictionary definition reads as follows:

"Off-topic: When the PCGB 944 forum has received three replies to one thread it is automatically passed to Fen, who changes the subject in the most random way possible."

[8|]

 

[avalaugh]

lol i see !!!!!!!!!

Well watch this space guys, im picking it up on sunday.

Ive also noticed a lack of pic editorials regarding any work that members have done on there cars ?

If anyone lives near Gillingham in Kent and has a digital camera and a spare few evenings, then let me know and we can do a step by step guide to ripping the head off a gasflowing it........

 

[Diver944]

Welcome on board [] black is definitely the new black []

I would also recommend Bert at www.partsforporsche.co.uk , he knows our cars inside out and is not just a tele sales parts supplier. You will get the right part at a good price or he will point you towards the dealer if he can't beat them. Generally the best dealer in the network for 944's is Exeter.

Many people have tried to extract more power from the N/A 2.5 but very meagre results are always obtained as Porsche pretty much knew what they were doing when they designed it. EMC in Birmingham claim circa 190bhp for a completely rebuilt race engine, but this will cost 000's. I haven't heard of anyone gas flowing a N/A head but if you do get great flow results remember that the fuel delivery system is not super modern and dynamic and will not know what you have done, therefore you will start running lean [] Not the ideal circumstances for your new headgasket.

 

[Scorpio.72]

Has yours got power steering ? mine hasnt and im wondering how heavy it is?

Mines an '82 without PAS. It's fine once your moving (feels really light), but does require a little effort at low speeds round town or during parking.

 

[944 man]

Its the ECU that holds the car back, principally: then the manifolds and the camshaft. As Fen says, Id avoid Porscheshop like the plague (sorry if theyre members here Paul) and Id only go to Buttercup if I couldnt get it anywhere else.

I wouldnt pay anything like £500 for an old car that doesnt run.

 

[944 man]

ORIGINAL: avalaugh
...we can do a step by step guide to ripping the head off a gasflowing it...

Dont kid yourself: you wont be able to improve on the original casting/finish. If you have to mess with it them you want to try to match the inlet and exhaust manifolds to the cylinder head.

 

[avalaugh]

Well sounds like a challenge haha, ill get it up and running, with a few DIY mods and take it to my local rolling road and see what happens.

My 306 GTI-6 (its my track day toy) is pumping out 182bhp at engine advantages, and 179bhp at BD Enginering (standard 160bhp) and i flowed the inlet manifold only, it has cams (unknow from ebay) in it and a 4 branch manifold with de-cat and a custom induction kit and air feed. It is amazing on track, pulls hard right to the red line.

Im hoping to do similar things with the 944, so should be interesting ?