work being carried out in 2017 [mot in a couple of weeks]

[Dan944t]

Hi blade7,

yes the boring of my cylinders out and having dry liners fitted wasn't out of choice as I did tones of work a few years back and spent just over £7000 on all the parts I discribed above plus quite a few mods that I waited years and years to warren the cost!

what happened was that with all this extra power was absolutely stunning for about 2 months maybe then a head gasket symptom happened where I had loads of steam bursting out of the bonnet as I came off a motorway slip road. the water pipe that connects the top of the water pump to the metal water rail that goes around the side of the engine had burst open. After installing one temporarily from my non turbo, it kept bubling air and I could not bleed it out of the system. Having not long reb the top end myself I couldn't believe that it would have blown the gasket as everything had been changed. So it broke my heart and I couldn't bare to look at it for some time!

When I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself, I began to tear into the top end with a head gasket failier in mind. it's a long story but basically the head gasket was perfect as was everything I rebuilt as I had everything checked and I dug a bit deeper to find one of my cylinders had basically split right through hence wanting them removed and new wet liners installed, as I wanted to keep my engine numbers but obviously at a pricey cost which I just hope is worth it!

as long as it all works out in the end I am happy as throw money at a car that I cherish doesn't bother me it's just when things like this happen especially when you have spent 9 months on your back diung all the labour to find out you now have two choices look for a second hand engine which on any car is a risk, or pay through the nose and rebuild the one that's broke and because I can do it myself I chose to do this as I would rather it cost 5 times more than a second hand engine but keep my original as it's more sentimental to me and keeps it original if you understand where I'm coming from.

If if I could not of done this rebuild myself and had to pay a speacialist, I doubt I would have been able to afford it for at least another 10 years from now with the amount of labour charges it would entail! So I must thank my lucky stars that I'm capable.

Daniel

 

[PSH]

Regarding the scraper and my sump, I think I may have those flaps to scrape the oil but this crank scraper is much closer fit and will make a much bigger difference because of it, it seems? (Thanks Pete you made me purchase this from America after reading your rebuild And I'm really looking forward to feeling the difference)

Daniel

Oh dear....me bad....

 

[blade7]

Hello Daniel,

I understand now. Though if I was buying new pistons and rods anyway I'd use the better 2.7/3.0 block and build a conventional 2.8 or an offset ground hybrid. I wouldn't worry about the matching engine numbers, just keep the old matching block for posterity. What engine management were you using when it failed and what are you going to use after the rebuild ?

 

[Dan944t]

I was just running JMG latest chip, jmg 55 injectors, jmg waste-gate, jmg larger intercooler, jmg mbc, ect

I was so impressed with the way the car felt and ran, it was smooth as silk and a real animal I just couldn't believe how fast and the amount of torque when the boost kicked in. It's just such a shame and believe me hit me hard when this happpened as I saved for years getting all this stuff and the great feeling didn't last long at all, hence the reason I'm going f it now as I really want to illuminate anything like this happening to me again?

 

[PSH]

Hi Dan

Just noticed your last reply to Paul re JMG, I have no experience of them but note you said JMG chip?... does this mean that it was an off the shelf chip programmed for the parts fitted or was it a custom map done on the dyno? If a matched chip can I suggest that you go the custom map route this time around, talk to Wayne Schofield, he's the best. I note that there isn't a MAF or MAP unit in your list, I'd suggest that you add this to your shopping list, the standard AFM unit isn't the wisest thing to use on heavily modified cars. There are a number of types available these days, personally even though it's been going some years now I don't think that you can beat a Vitesse MAF+ kit+piggyback, tell John the spec of your car and he will write a chip that the car will run on perfectly first time and will be safe until you can get it custom chipped properly. I still haven't got around to seeing Wayne for my tune, however, the car runs perfectly on John's map with masses of power and a perfectly even idle. One day I'll get around to fitting those 80lb injectors , switching John's chip for mild modified ignition(there are 8 maps on the chip, one says 'aggressive'...) and get Wayne to custom map it on the dyno for max power. .

That's assuming I don't get too old first....

Pete.

 

[Dan944t]

Hi Pete,

yes if im honest I don't know enough about the piggy bank system but have thought about it before and also getting a different Afm system like the as you say. I actually asked a few very well known specialists name no names and they both said it's not worth it???

i was indeed hoping to see this Wayne wizard I've read so much about.

I had had my car there as the car wasn't idling well on the setting on the Ecu with the 55 injectors so I to get the car trailered to jmg as it had a lot of there running gear so they wanted to have a look. They traced it to the switch in the ecu had a break in the board so I found another ecu in the same year as mine and it sorted the problem, but there was also another issue with my Afm not being in correct calibration so John finally sorted this out also and fitted his own chip as he wasn't sure that the Promax chip would run in sink with his products so I also bought those off him and he installed them as I just wanted everything to be ok.

The car car was a different machine a real weapon On the roads and I never got sick of feeling the transformation.

in a way I would have loved to just fix the bores and put everything back as it was because it was better than I could have imagined, but due to the pistons being scratched and pitted, I've had to change for after market race types and to be honest I'm slightly worried as it's standard Porsche piston and I'm now quite paranoid about if the material will hold up but that's just because what's happened to me But John at serdi said these pistons his selling me will work well with the wet liners his installing so fingers crossed.

Are you running a vitess maff Pete? If so how have you found it compares in lag time and any other changes you've noticed. I see there very expensive which if I had the money and I knew it would make a massive difference I would definitely put it on my list for after all is sorted. It's just off putting when a few people say there not worth it for the difference they make but maybe that's because I'm not at the 450 plus bhP even though I've never Denied my car it sure feels like it's got around 350 -400 but the torque is huge and aggressive and only running at 18psi.

Daniel

 

[PSH]

Hi Pete,

yes if im honest I don't know enough about the piggy bank system but have thought about it before and also getting a different Afm system like the as you say. I actually asked a few very well known specialists name no names and they both said it's not worth it???

i was indeed hoping to see this Wayne wizard I've read so much about.

I had had my car there as the car wasn't idling well on the setting on the Ecu with the 55 injectors so I to get the car trailered to jmg as it had a lot of there running gear so they wanted to have a look. They traced it to the switch in the ecu had a break in the board so I found another ecu in the same year as mine and it sorted the problem, but there was also another issue with my Afm not being in correct calibration so John finally sorted this out also and fitted his own chip as he wasn't sure that the Promax chip would run in sink with his products so I also bought those off him and he installed them as I just wanted everything to be ok.

The car car was a different machine a real weapon On the roads and I never got sick of feeling the transformation.

in a way I would have loved to just fix the bores and put everything back as it was because it was better than I could have imagined, but due to the pistons being scratched and pitted, I've had to change for after market race types and to be honest I'm slightly worried as it's standard Porsche piston and I'm now quite paranoid about if the material will hold up but that's just because what's happened to me But John at serdi said these pistons his selling me will work well with the wet liners his installing so fingers crossed.

Are you running a vitess maff Pete? If so how have you found it compares in lag time and any other changes you've noticed. I see there very expensive which if I had the money and I knew it would make a massive difference I would definitely put it on my list for after all is sorted. It's just off putting when a few people say there not worth it for the difference they make but maybe that's because I'm not at the 450 plus bhP even though I've never Denied my car it sure feels like it's got around 350 -400 but the torque is huge and aggressive and only running at 18psi.

Daniel

Hi Daniel

Yes I am running a Vitesse MAF and have been since IIRC 2007. a little history, prior to that the car was using the normal AFM with Promax chips ( early promax when Andrew Sweetenham owned the company and you had to change the fuel setting on the DME via the switch), Lindsey DPW, MBC and cone filter. I then contacted Wayne ( i had been following the cars that he tuned for the PCGB championship for some time) and came down to me to tune the car on the rollers at Power engineering Uxbridge, it just happened that he had a race car to deliver to Brands Hatch for that weekends racing and I was working at Pinewood studios which is but a stones through from Uxbridge. He met me at Pinewood, left the race car in the car park and took my car on the trailer to the dyno. He set the switch back to 0 and mapped the car, 282bhp and a similar amount of torque was the result, iirc the graph is still on rick's site.

The car ran like this for some time until I went to Vitesse, I can't remember the exact timing of my mods but the larger turbo and stage 2 head was fitted before Vitesse? Anyway, after contacting John at Vitesse and giving him the spec of my car he sent me the MAF kit + piggy back system, my son helped me install, well actually he did all the work as he's so bloody good at it...we did the MAF kit first, leaving the piggyback for later. The car ran straight out of the box , a good sign that Vitesse knew his stuff, move on a little and my son wired in the piggyback and I took the car up to Wayne in Rochdale. Wayne spent the good part of a whole day tuning the car, final setting being 368bhp/382torque, a few weeks later on the rollers of truth as we called them, the car made the same bhp but down a little on torque, the dyno operator only did one run after detecting a slight hesitation at WOT. Interestingly that morning on starting the car it made what I thought was a stuck lifter noise which took some time to clear, I didn't discover the true reason for this until some time later, a lump of ceramic had broken off No.2 iridium plug and had been smashed to pieces between piston and head, the hesitation felt during the run was due to the plug breaking down at full power. BTW, I discovered later that some rolling roads refuse to run a car with Iridium plugs fitted for this very reason, I still use Iridium plugs today but only top brands like NGK, iirc iridium was a new concept back then?

Move a few years and I had the problem of the pully bolt coming undone and not switching the engine off quick enough resulting in worn main bearings and thus the big rebuild began, this time I went a little made on the mods thinking that i didn't want to do this again and wanted the engine to be very strong for any future mods one of which was to get John at Vitesse to upgrade my system to MAF+ which included a MAP sensor allowing me to finally adjust the timing and not just rely on fuelling, however like I said I have still to throw the jumper switch over to a setting that allows this with the bigger injectors. A mistake that I made which my son keeps reminding me of is that I only asked John to write running in maps for the 55lb injectors and thus I still have the joy to look forward too of his maps for even more power when I fit the larger 80lbs, luckily he did include in one of the 55lb maps the extra features, including a true boost limiter for the ecu.

Lag is reduced with any MAF unit, when I went the Vitesse route it was the best around, it's still highly rated today although things progress as time moves on, Vitesse has improved too, I still need to get John's knock detector system for even safer driving, mind you as my wife keeps reminding me..I drive like an old man thses days so why bother?....

Regards

Pete

 

[Dan944t]

Hi Pete,

i cant believe the massive jump if power he extracted just by remapping it !

Your story actually makes me feel like I'm not the only one that's had to go through this rebuikd and expense through something damaging the engine, and in a weird way makes me feel better.

The one one great thing I did ever since I bought my turbo is promise myself that I wouldn't start modding for more power until I replaced all the running gear to make things run right which bar some things like the water pipes ect, I have replaced all the gear that would make future mods safe and reliable.

regarding the vetess maf can you believe that I once bought one from Ebay some 12 years ago when I wasn't really knowledgable about these things and I couldn't get the thing to work ( it had to be set up by someone that knows how ) well unlike most of the stuff i purchase if not used I decided to sell it along with the chips it came with ect for £200 Now wanting one again I find that for the amount they cost I will have to now wait to save or sell a few of my other toys in order to raise that sort of fund and the running that would needed after.

As as you say, my car started out bog standard and since reading if mods years ago and purchasing my very first go faster mod which was the Promax boost ingancer, well that is the bate that had me hooked ever since, and I truly can not wait till the day I can get in it again and go for a spirited drive because I miss it so much that I actually try to blank it out!

how much rough do you think the wizard would charge to set up my car once I finish as it is withought the vitess just so I know if I may be able to afford it when the time comes, as I havnt a clue what I'd be looking at?

thanks

Daniel

 

[blade7]

With an AFR gauge fitted to check the fuelling you probably wont need hours on a dyno to fine tune the MAF kit. The cracked cylinder sounds like a heat and or detonation issue, what did Jon Mitchell say about that ?

 

[PSH]

Well don't forget that the jump included getting the full use of the bigger turbo and stage 2 head, the EBC made a big difference too at top end, the MBC looses boost high up the band... plus with the AFM you can't do a proper tune, it doesn't recognise gradual signals as the throttle increases...think it goes in stages...idle, half and full...i could be wrong but recall something like that. This means that if using say 80 % throttle the ecu is still pumping in 100% fuel and thus running rich, not good for a highly modified car and very power sapping too.

BTW if I remember correctly Wayne isn't fond of using the fuel switch to increase fuel, he did explain why but this was nearly 15 years ago and my memory isn't great these days.

I'm not surprised that a second-hand Vitesse didn't work correctly, it would have needed John to rewrite the chip to match the parts on your own car.

Ahh the good old 'boost enhancer' the first mod that Andrew Sweetenham brought into the country under his 'Promax motorsport' label, I had one too, picked it up from Andrew's house in Milton Keynes....fond memories, I used to follow Andrew around the race circuits when he ran his 944T in the Porsche Michelin Cup, later Perrelli or was it the other way around??

Having a custom map isn't cheap, Wayne's two sessions were £400 for the first and £500 for the second about 6 years later, the last was nearly 10 years ago now so expect it to be more now, one of the reasons that I haven't had mine done yet, technically I'm retired these days and money isn't as plentiful as it once was.

I wish you well with your rebuild, you're in safe hands with Serdi, John supplied my pistons which are IASA but perhaps your's will be different with new sleeves depending on material. Mine are full race, not much lighter but smaller, slightly larger recess for the chamber and most importantly race spec rings which are very thin and have 1 extra too. As

As I stated before I can't really quantify what's made the biggest difference to how the car is today, far too many mods done this time around but they all add up to a very nice package.. oh and she sounds great too...just come back from Sainsbury's, even my wife comments on how many heads turn as I drive down the road.......

Pete

NB: If you did go the Vitesse route at some stage you won't need the car mapping straight away, John will custom write the chip with a number of maps to suit your needs and mods fitted and the car will run fine. Do buy the piggyback ready for installation later, once this is fitted, then is the time for Wayne to work his magic.

 

[Dan944t]

Thanks Pete,

i now understabe about the standard Afm if it reads as you say in 3 stages that's not good for an upgraded setup. Such a shame I sold my vitess back then Oh well

so if I was to get one I could call him to do a chip for the mods I have? If this is so it sounds great.

And on the piston note, that's the ones I am buying from john at serdi, the IASA ones .05 larger diameter. These are what I was concerned about how the material would hold up as I don't know anything about them? I'm glad to hear that's what your running though, that makes me feel allot better.

hi blade 7,

unfortunately john wanted to have the car and the engine parts when I had stripped it down , but it was very awkward for me to get the car there and to be honest I was very very very upset about it all as I'd just paid allot of money and had allot of stress getting the car back from there. It's a sore subject mate to be honest and I cant really go into it. I've since then calmed down and am just taking the path to fix it right by reinforcing it and rebuilding the lot myself so I know what's what in there. (Obviously if I had shed loads of money it wouldnt of bothered me that much and I would have no problem letting John Mitchell himself though rebuild it for me, but unfortunately I don't have shed loads of money like I once had in my younger days)

Im not at all blaming Jon Mitchell for what happened and respect the man and actually liked him so much I gave him my old injectors to say thanks after I paid the bill. And to add I was super impressed with the outcome it's just real crap what happened as it's left me with no car and obviously the £6000+ bill of parts to find and that's withought any labour, so it was a real bad time for me, and I still have the car on stilts taking up most of my garage with parts all over the place, but life goes on and we have to deal with what's thrown at us or give up, and I don't ever and won't ever do that

Daniel

 

[PSH]

Thanks Pete,

i now understabe about the standard Afm if it reads as you say in 3 stages that's not good for an upgraded setup. Such a shame I sold my vitess back then Oh well

so if I was to get one I could call him to do a chip for the mods I have? If this is so it sounds great.

And on the piston note, that's the ones I am buying from john at serdi, the IASA ones .05 larger diameter. These are what I was concerned about how the material would hold up as I don't know anything about them? I'm glad to hear that's what your running though, that makes me feel allot better.

Daniel

Well, I'm going from memory on the AFM which as noted can be a little dodgy these days, damn meds...lol If you do go for a Vitesse, John will ask you for a list of what's on your car.... turbo, head, injectors etc. Plus he will then write a chip suitable for your car (all in price)and include any special wishes that you ask for... for me that was safe maps for running in on 55lb injectors and then various ignition changes when using the 80lb injectors, plus he added a map for E85 fuel not that I'll ever use it.

You'll like the IASA pistons, a nice piece of kit that's a big jump from standard and who have a very helpful helpline which I used to good effect to confirm my calculations for ring gap according to power/heat range aimed for. I had planned to modify the pistons by machining small recesses around ring no.1 which holds more boost as it forces the first ring out against the bore, I did this for my son's cossie to great effect but decided not to bother with IASA due to the extra ring/race spec already there. If building yourself, you may find my build thread helpful if for no other reason than to confirm what you're doing, print off a copy of the relevant Porsche manual pages for torque and procedure's, they will help greatly and above all else ensure everything is spotlessly clean, use a good engine assembly gel too, this will protect the engine greatly when first priming the oil around the engine.

Pete

 

[Dan944t]

Yes will do thanks Pete, I'm just waiting to get some conrods of some sort as John wasn't happy with my standard ones unfortunately for me they had Miss matching numbers on the bottoms and John said that he would go for a racing spec to go with the pistons so the saga continues and as we say never seems to end Poor wallets

I will be having another read through if your build for sure and I already have most of the torque specs from when I did the too end rebuild. Also I bought some good assembLy lube from America a while back, just have to sort out loads of little bolts and pieces!

Daniel

 

[jasonp]

Please forgive my ignorance and having never owned a turbo 944 and looking at the prices of low mileage cars i wanted to ask that after you pay a huge price from say William Crawford for a turbo,,,,

would a person then need to spend ££££ having it modified to make it "ok" to use on a daily basis or weekends? or is a stock "basic" turbo perfectly ok to use on that basis? ,,,,,,,jasonp

 

[blade7]

I've been there and got the T shirt Daniel. A lot of years ago I pulled the perfectly good engine out of my 3.0 S Capri and amongst other things had it bored to 3.1 by a well known engine builder/machine shop in Oxford. Not long after running it in it started knocking and I had to pull it out again. Turned out no. 3 cylinder had nipped up and made a mess of the piston and bottom of the cylinder. When I spoke to the machine shop they let slip their modified 3.0 S that had been featured in CCC mag had done exactly the same thing. []

 

[PSH]

Please forgive my ignorance and having never owned a turbo 944 and looking at the prices of low mileage cars i wanted to ask that after you pay a huge price from say William Crawford for a turbo,,,,

would a person then need to spend ££££ having it modified to make it "ok" to use on a daily basis or weekends? or is a stock "basic" turbo perfectly ok to use on that basis? ,,,,,,,jasonp

hi Jason

A stock turbo is a great daily car, the mods don't make it more reliable, if anything it would make it less... well not less reliable but it's life may be reduced slightly depending on power achieved... this is all dependent on how well the mods were fitted, how good their tune is and of utter importance how often they are serviced... I change oil more often that Porsche state, same goes for belts etc to allow for the higher power output. Turbos are very reliable cars whether standard or modified, in a couple of months time I would have owned my own for 18 years, most of which was in some form of modification, the only reason that it failed on me was due to me not turning the engine off quick enough when the pulley bolt came undone.... I have a theory for the cause of that which may be the same for other car's problems, the bearings on my alternator and A/c were shot causing some drag on the belt and I wonder if the frequency resonating from this matched the engine frequency and helped undo the crank pulley...well it's a theory at least.....

Pete

 

[Dan944t]

Hi blade7 ,

yes it is a bloody heartbreaker and trying to persuade the wife it's not a bad car these things can happen but she can't understand how I just spent over £7000 on mods and parts and 9months hard work in the garage every other evening and how this could happen sometimes this was harder than how it actually made me feel, as my first non turbo that I stupidly bought when I was 17 was a real money pit (because I didn't take an adult with me, thought I was clever asking to hear the engine and looking at the tire treads)

hi jasonp,

in answer to your question, not at all, it's purely horses for courses, if your careful and purchase a well looked after example you definitely don't have to mod things like allot of us on here! That's purely because we're all guilty of being petrol heads in one way or another and have chosen the 944 turbo and mod it because theres so much you can get out of it power wise if you wish but as they say you do need very wide pockets especially if you can't do most of the labour yourself.

Each is individual to that person, some of the people on here have seriously gone to town and some only done a few extra mods for a little more power.

BUT....... if you don't know already you must budget for certain things such as rollers new cam belt balance belt, tensioner if it has not been changed for the set time which I forget now? Someone will know and say. for me personally this is a must whenever I buy a second hand car even when I know it's been done a few years ago. ( but that might just be because I can do it myself, but trust me its not worth risking it, it's happened to me with my non turbo and cost me allot to fix the damage it caused )

then it's also a good idea to change the water pump oil change, plugs, air filter basically a good full service as these are all old cars and don't like to be left standing for too long, but this is my opinion, and this is what I did to mine when I bought it and in standard form it performed perfectly for many years, but obviously when you start stressing the engine like allot of us have done by highly modifications for more power! we are always looking at old engine parts which can get damaged unless like I'm having to do get new cylinders fitted for the extra power as mine split right through And unless you totally rebuild you can't be sure what's inside and in what condition.

if you are not a petrol head and you just appreciate a good 944 turbo and just wish to service and enjoy it in standard form then as long as you have it checked out and get a well looked after example then you will be absolutely fine they are real solid tanks and you will love it!

hope this has not scared you and hope that it helps.

Daniel

 

[jasonp]

Daniel,,,,

thanks for the reply [same name as our lad] and am now on my 2nd s2 after a relapse with a merc SL for a couple of years[] but was curious re modifications,,,,,,

i just realized i think i have another year on my belts,,,,,4ys or 40k? and its only done a few 1000k miles since the last change and the belt looks new so i will have them changed before xmas instead of before summer and concentrate on the fuel filter/lines and having the few bits painted and the interior bits sorted ,,,,

yes i would consider myself a petrolhead albeit one that only puts pressure in the tyres and water for the wipers so my cars are often overserviced in all honesty,,,

if you dont do your own spannering then it can be expensive sometimes but more then worth it imho and big bills are to be expected as when i sold my last s2 to a forum member i had nearly 6k of work done before jon took her so am aware of what it needs to keep the car "proper"

never thought about buying a turbo but never say never and i will not be without the 944 model again ,,,,,,,

cheers jason[

 

[Dan944t]

Hi Jason,

i shoukd have have opened my eyes more as I didn't see that you had two 944s already

I can can tell you one thing I fell in love with my non turbo at the age of 17 as you can imagine but it was always something going wrong ( just s bad one ) but at the age of I think 28 I bought my turbo and have never drove my 944 Lu ever since which is weird as I'm no snob it's just I love the power delivery and how smooth it drives that it's just so effirtless to drive especially long 150mile trips which I preferred to my BMW 530t in auto and that's smooth and comfortable but not as nice as my 944t

Daniel

 

[jasonp]

I am 52 years old and fell in love with a 924 martini,,it just looked so different in the very late 70s to early 80s and after my football career ended i worked on my mates dads car site and ended up driving an a brown 924/944 for a few months that we couldnt trade for ages and nobody else wanted to drive her cos of the colour[],,had the same a little while later when i got to drive a 928s for several weeks as other people didnt want to keep filling her up ,,arena red with black and white pasha interior but god! she could drink around town,,,,

so my love for front engined porsches was set in stone all those years ago,,,,jasonp