I found a bit of time over the long weekend to plod away on me engine. I've been wanting to clean up the cylinders, so that's one thing I tackled. I degreased them, blasted all the exteriors with walnut shells, and then went at the bores with red sctotch brite pads. I'm not sure my photos will do them justice, but they look really nice. Now I just have to measure the bores, to make sure they're in spec...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622548612.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622548612.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622548612.jpg

Here's a question for the pros.
I disassembled the fan/ring/alternator assembly.
As you can see from the picture, the top fan blade is broken. I'm not all that concerned about the reduction in cooling, but how sensitive are these things to imbalance? I seriously doubt that the small amount of mass will have a significant effect, but feel I'd be a fool for not at least asking...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1622559743.jpg

MB911 I believe is the guy that can repair your broken fan

I'd like to give a shout out to Auto Electric International of Southfield, MI - 248 254 2082.
My alternator had a lot of axial play, so I took it up to AEI Thursday to get it rebuilt. I set it on the counter and the guy said matter of factly, "Oh, I think I have one of those on the self." He wandered off, and half a minute later was back with the remanufactured example you see here. I didn't even have to tell him what it was...
$132.50 out the door. Pretty cool.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1623072994.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1623072994.jpg

Love local shops like that.

I used to have one long ago. I walked in and he said... "what year 911?"

Well, progress has been slow, but not non-existent. I've got some of the bits such as the fan ring cleaned and stripped of paint/powder coat, so that they may be Cerakoted.

I also tracked down some suppliers for part machining/refurbishing. Craig Garrett will be doing the heads for me, as well as a few other bits. We had a chat the other day. Nice guy. And being in Grand Rapids, I can drop off the parts on my way to the family cottage.

The crank was done by Moldex Crankshaft of Redford, MI.
https://moldexcrankshaft.com/

What a cool place. Joe, the owner, told me they've been there for sixty years. They specialize in making cranks from billet. For anything. He showed me around the small shop. There are no NC machines, just monster war era Monarchs, etc., and cranks of all sizes and configurations in process. As it turns out he even used to build prototype cranks for my old Advanced Engine group at GM...
Anyway, I dropped mine off last week for a mag and polish. Picked it up yesterday. Hundred bucks.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1624542758.jpg

Nice build, thanks for sharing. Mark

3.0 Build
 

Craig did my heads a few months ago, he did great work. I have an ‘82 SC and sourced early large port SC heads for my pending build. I am using WebCam M1 cams (William Knight suggested) and sent the specs to Craig so he could put in proper springs. He used TRW parts and checks everything that goes in due to some lame “OEM” or factory parts that have popped up recently (rocker arms come to mind).

I am on a budget as well and I have been sourcing parts for several years to ease my “rebuild” pain. I plan on asking John Walker to perform most of the delicate assembly work and to check the critical parts specs since he has a well earned reputation for expertise, quick work, and for being very fair in his pricing.

Good luck with the build. These cars great fun, that’s a beautiful 914, 5 spoke Fuchs complete the “power look” on a 914. I had a ‘76 914 2.0 in the 80’s, great little car.

I wouldn't typically get excited about a box of fasteners, but the Supertec head studs that arrived yesterday represent a pretty significant investment. I was therefore rather delighted when the big brown Oops truck rolled up to the end of my driveway.

Thank you, Henry!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1625052720.jpg

My lava flow like progress continues...
I disassembled the heads over the 4th of July break. Not because Craig Garret, who will be rebuilding them for me, requires it -he doesn't, but because I wanted to see the ports. I figured that they'd have have a sharp edge between the cast ports and the throat cuts. My intent was to smooth out those transitions. To my surprise, however, Porsche did a really nice job blending that transition. I guess you can do that at the relatively low volumes that these cars were produced.
Something else that surprised me were two broken intake springs...
I figure I'm going to replace all the valve springs at this point. Any recommendations? Pelican appears to offer a few variants with a wide range in pricing. I haven't determined a cam grind yet. They will be lumpier than stock, but nothing too racy. Valves will be stock or similar, so valve train mass won't be significantly different to how it rolled off the line.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1626280029.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1626280029.jpg

My friends dad owns a shop like that in SA.

Rebuilt mine for $120 out the door.

All new bearings, custom slip rings, new voltage reg, new hardware, and bead blasted and had it done in a day.

It's about time for an update...
 

So, apologies to anyone who was hoping to learn something from this thread back when I started it two years ago. I work slowly. And, as it's been a "budget" build I've spread all the purchases out over time, so as not to completely exhaust the bank account.
I now possess most everything required, have been restoring/rebuilding various sub-systems, and over this 4th of July holiday actually commenced reassembly...
Thanks to a few folks who've helped get me this far.
Henry Schmidt, Glenn Yee, and Paul Abbott all have all been gracious enough to provide their time and advice without any guaranty of financial benefit. And then there are the multitude of others who've supplied parts and/or services. It's taken a village...

Some pics of this week's progress...

A local outfit called Moldex magnafluxed and polished the crank for me. Craig Garrett resized the factory rods.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689007904.JPG
The oil pump was sent to Glenn Yee for rebuilding/porting. He also supplied the gears and timing chains.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689007904.JPG

A few more pics...


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689008581.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689009591.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689009895.JPG

Hmmm... I attached three, but only one showed up...
Methinks they're too big to post.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689010850.JPG

Okay, I've reduced the file size...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689014188.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689014188.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689014188.jpg

The pistons are Carrillo. I've no idea how people typically install the wrist pin retention rings on them. Those little buggers are stout. I couldn't install them by hand even on the bench. There's no way in hell I'd have accomplished the task in amongst all of the head studs.
After pondering the issue for a spell I turned to Youtube. Thankfully, Mahle produced a video showing how to install their circlips. They're fundamentally the same as Carrillo's though a lighter gauge wire. The guy used a tool which I was able to machine up on the lathe (and mill). It worked awesome, though I had to then create an extension for it as the engine stand's yoke prevented access to the wrist pins from that end...
Making the tool cost a few hours, but it was well worth it.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689015098.jpg

The circlip installation tool...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689015098.jpg

nice!

Good to see you posting progress again! I've been following this post for a while and your progress with it.
As a fellow Detroiter & 3.0L owner, it would be good to have a local resource to ask questions to when I get back into town.

I also have had discussions with Craig on refreshing heads. He seems like a great choice. Is that who you went with?

Looking forward to more updates, keep em' coming.

@AcidGypsy, yes. Craig rebuilt my cylinder heads as well as resizing the rods. I bought the valves and springs from Henry at Supertec, and had them sent straight to Grand Rapids. He did a lovely job.
I sent him the heads with the head studs still installed. I left the studs in the cam boxes and case halves when I sent them out for cleaning also. Everything came back beautifully clean, but all the studs were stripped of their plating. I had been drooling over the pictures of motors that Henry had posted, and thought, 'I can't spend all this money and put it back together looking like that!' So, I pulled every stud on the thing, and sent them all out for plating. It was a beast of a job, but cheap. Replating everything on this engine cost sixty bucks. The results are well worth the effort.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689073276.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689073276.jpg

Here's a before, during, and after of the cam boxes...


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689074460.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689074460.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1689074460.jpg

Pretty. But don't get too enamored of making everything pretty or this project will take even longer. BTDT.

Eric, since you have mentioned that your work is designing engines for GM, have you started or added to any threads here where you discuss that? I'm an ME myself, although most of my engineering work involved analysis of weapon systems. Of course, being a life-long gearhead, I've always wanted to know more about the challenges and tradeoffs in designing engines.

@PeteKz, I have not started any threads relating to engine design. I've commented once or twice on other's threads where I thought I had something to add to the conversation, but otherwise...
I'm really trying to keep this build thread going in part so that I can ask questions, but mostly as a "pay back" for all the info I've gleaned from this forum. It just seems to me unfair to not give something back, however small. I'm not the social media type though, and keeping up with it is a struggle.

That said, if you or anyone else has questions specific to the design of internal combustion engines, I'm happy to provide my thoughts. I've been a designer at GM now for better than twenty years. Another half dozen before that as an illustrator. I started on the production side, and then moved to advanced engine design. I'm now Base Engine Diesel Architect - Design, so design responsible for any new (or significantly redesigned) diesel that comes out of GM. If you like engines it's the holy grail of jobs in my book. Okay, race cars sound sexier, but I've done that. The fun part is the problem solving. Designing an engine to be as inexpensive as possible for example, can be just as challenging as eking out a few more grams per second of airflow from an intake or exhaust port. I like that.

This is the first engine I've ever fully rebuilt, or will have been once I complete it. I should have started with a small block. It'd have been way easier, made more power, and cost a quarter of this thing! But, my parents were English. I grew up liking sports cars, not muscle cars. And it's been interesting learning how Porsche did it. These motors are very Teutonic.

Beautiful!
So where did you send the case, heads and cam towers for cleaning? They turned out great.

That must have been a bear to remove all the studs for recoating, but Man, that looks killer.

Keep the progress coming and thanks for the info!

Steve

Eric, great! So you were responsible for the new 3.0 I-6 diesel? From what I've read that's a great engine design. FYI, I bought a 2021 Ford F150 with he 3.0 V6 diesel 2 years ago. I looked at the GM at that time, but really didn't like the "big wall of chrome" front ends of 2 years ago. The GM engine has been getting great reviews, better than the Ford version, but the Ford V6 actually started life about 15 years ago, and even though it was changed significantly for the F150 application, it wasn't a clean sheet design. If I had my druthers, I'd prefer an I-6 to a V-6.

But I do have a question on which you could shed some light. I'm very curious about oil specifications for diesels, and gasoline engines generally. I doin't want to rehash the "which oil is better" arguments, but to get some insight into what's important in oil formulations and how manufacturers decide on specifications. I know, that's a big question, so if you could provide some comments and point me to online resources, I'll do more homework. I'm already familiar with the PQIA site, "Bob is the oil guy," and "540 Rat".

To bring the discussion back to our 911's, I saw some wear on the rocker pads on my engine, and then decided to switch to an oil with about 1500ppm phosphorus and zinc. That seems to be working well now

@AcidGypsy, thank you. I will do my best to keep the updates coming. Unfortunately, it's going to be a couple more weeks before any further progress. I'm headed to Florida for a spell.

@PeteKz, I really can't help you regarding oil formulations. We've got technical specialists that dive into that kind of minutia. What I can tell you is that we try to use as light an oil as possible primarily for fuel economy. There are a lot of factors that go into it though. Tolerancing, aeration, cost, etc. We won't know exactly what oil we'll use for a given engine until thousands of hours of testing. Durability, especially for a diesel, is number one.
And, I did not have anything to do with the design of the L6 diesel. That was done in Italy before my time. I've only been in this particular role for a few years.

I finally made a bit more progress last night. The heads and cam boxes are on. Temporarily at least. Per Wayne's suggestion I'm assembling it to the point that I can check the piston to valve clearance. I don't think I've ventured too far into the unknown in terms of engine modifications, but it's probably best to check. And, I figure it'll be good practice before doing the job with sealant...


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690401054.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690401054.jpg

Detroit, are your aluminum parts cleaned with a Vapor Hone? Also, I see your Yellow Chromate over Zinc plating is very nice. Are you doing both yourself?

@porschedude996, yeah, the aluminum was vapor blasted. I did neither it nor the Zinc plating. I think I posted earlier that replating everything on the engine cost $60 at a local plater, Wolverine Plating. Though now that I'm thinking about it, it might have been two batches, so twice that.
The vapor blasting wasn't terribly expensive either. A guy in Grand Rapids did it for me. I've used him several times since to do some carburetor sets. Super nice guy. I had the block steam cleaned at a local machine shop first. It degreased it, but did nothing to the Locktite, discoloration, or other sealants. The parts looked brand new when they came back from vapor blasting.
However... It strips the plating off of any steel part, which is why I ended up replating everything. Well, that and Henry Schmidt's pictures. And, the process uses a grit. That's my biggest fear with this thing. I cleaned all the parts no less that half a dozen times. Pulled and cleaned gallery plugs, chased threads. I really don't feel I could have cleaned them any better, but I still worry about grit having been left behind.
Fingers crossed...

Here are a couple of pics of some carburetors. The first is of the castings prior to and post vapor blasting. Then after restoration...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690457815.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690457815.jpg

Great thread, been enjoying your slow and steady progress.

Detroit, I thought I recognized the outcome of the process. I rebuilt a set of Dellorto carbs and a set of Cater AFB’s. In addition it zinc plated the steel parts.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690504707.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690504707.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1690510834.jpg

Man, I'm glad my plater doesn't make me wire all the bits together!
Pulling all the studs, etc. is kind of a pain, but replating all the hardware transforms the overall appearance. And, it's so inexpensive... This motor is going to be buried in the back of a 914, so one can question the necessity. For me, however, it makes reassembly much more enjoyable.

On an unrelated note, for whatever reason, this site make me re-login virtually every time I change pages. I have to copy whatever I write, because it'll take two or three tries to post things. Each time I click 'submit reply' it sends me back to the login page, and I lose what I write...
I've fumbled through the user settings, but can't find anyway to fix it.
Any thoughts?
I struggle enough to keep this thread up to date.

Write everything out in Word or similar then copy paste into the site.

Detroit, you’re starting to inspire me to delve deeper and overhaul my 3.0. Right now, I have the eng/trans out for a trans overhaul. The engine is partially disabled to cure some leaks and install chain tensioners. After seeing your spectacularly pretty engine, it makes me want to continue my disassembly and… “##>€^%#|%|>%~€~ MUST CONTROL URGE”

I’ll continue on with my existing plan of leaks, tensioners, sprockets, sprocket supports, chains, front and rear seals. But it’s nice to follow your build.

And one can spell check.

Well... So far it looks great. I've no idea whether or not it'll run.
But thanks.

Cool thread. Good work! Saving for the future!

I work for an Engineering company that does vacuum impregnation on lots of automotive/motorsports castings. I'm in Cleveland so maybe I can bring my 2.7 engine down if you want more experience refreshing one of those too :D SmileWavy

Question to you and the community. Why Supertech vs. ARP? I’ve used ARP on several US V-8’s and though they were high quality. The price that i’ve found was a tad cheaper.