Thanks (again) Tom! Appreciate the assist.

So, now I need to drop some cash on a piston ring compressor. Does anyone have one of these types? Do they work?

Sears.com

How about this one?

Sears.com

Regards,
landon

Short block complete
 

So I read a quote in The Book of Wayne: "The completed short block is indeed a fantastic site."

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1388029499.jpg

Finally done.

Next up, pistons and cylinders. I bought the compressor in the first link above. Haven't used it yet; just staring at it a lot and contemplating this next step.

Landon,

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier. I just put my pistons in the cylinders. I put my pistons on the rods first and then slid the cylinders on the pistons. If you do it that way you cannot use the compressor in the Sears link. You cannot get it in or out. To use that one you bought, you will have to put pistons into cylinders and then connect to the rods. I did not explore that technique. Others on this forum know the ins and outs of either technique.

To do it the way I did, you need a banded compressor. It looks something like an oil filter wrench and is used for VWs. It is not expensive (though you can pay more for a pro tool) and the band is about 1.5 inches wide. It will slip out from between the cylinder and the case.

Good luck, I can take a picture if you want.

Bob

Time for a celebratory Diet Sprite. Pistons inserted into cylinders. Nothing broken as far as I can tell.

I ended up using the Sears ring compressor from the first link above and slipped all the pistons into the cans first before putting them on the rods (which I've not done yet...). Thanks for the inputs Bob.

I'd say the only advantage to the compressor I ended up using is that you can slowly compress the rings (one click at a time like a ratchet) while checking that nothing is binding. It won't slip back off the compression as you check things out. Then once everything is good and tight, the whole piston/compressor assemble is easy to work with while getting it lined up with the cylinder.

Next up, deck height check.

Landon

Deck Height check
 

So I followed the Book of Wayne's technique to check deck height. 3mm solder stuck on the piston with some curil-T; bolt the head on; run the piston through TDC.

Results = nothing. Didn't even touch the solder; I didn't feel any resistance when the piston went through TDC.

Either my clearance is > 3mm or I did something wrong. I'll go back and check my procedure, but in the meantime, are there any rookie mistakes that I might be making? Only had the 0.25mm gasket on the cylinder so no shims. Head torqued down to 32 Nm.

Landon

JMHO...make sure ALL cylinders spec out the same = either by the solder squish method, and/or measuring all the individual components thkns & adding them up...= make sure 1 head is not differnt = thinner or thicker than the other heads...that the base gaskets are ALL the same thkns, ect...you do not want any binding or miss alignment of anything when you go to actually assemble...

Landon

Try using a vernier caliper to check deck height at the piston edge. Measure the distance from the edge of the piston to the sealing surface of the cylinder. Take extra care to be sure that the piston is at TDC. I use a dial gauge on the piston crown to be sure.

Tom, will this method work for high dome pistons (i.e., 2.4S pistons)? Since I've never done this, I'm only going by what's in Wayne's book -- which suggests that this is not the preferred method for these pistons.

Sorry for the ignorance here. Your method sounds infinitely easier.

Thanks
Landon

Landon

This will work for 2.4S pistons for deck ht. Make sure you measure from the piston edge (lowest point) to the cylinder sealing surface and that you have the piston at TDC.

For piston to valve clearance you can use the method described in Wayne's book where you count the turns on the valve adjustment screw until the valve hits the piston.

Here is some more detail on the subject

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/566123-deck-height-dilemma.html

Thank you again Tom. I had suspected someone encountered this before.

Landon.

As stated above, I've got 2.4S pistons on what appears to be a T engine.

The way I understand it, the heads (among other things like cams, MFI) need to match these pistons. Is there a way I can check to see if the previous owner modified the heads to match the pistons? A measurement I can take?

Landon

Landon

The difference between 2.4S and 2.4T heads is the port sizes. S heads would have 36 mm intake ports. When using 2.4S pistons, you should have either E or S spec cams and the intake ports should be opened to either E spec (34 mm) or S spec (36 mm).

Tom,
Where in the Workshop Manual is this data?

Can you open T heads to E/S port specs? I couldn't find this procedure on Ollie's price sheet. I measured what I think is the intake port on mine -- came out to be 33mm but I was rushing. It's definitely not 36mm.

Landon

In order to take advantage of the higher CR from the 2.4S pistons you ideally should use cams with higher lift and more overlap than the stock T cams. You also would want to use bigger inlet ports than the stock T ports. If you use stock T cams and and heads you will not take advantage of the increased power available from the higher CR 2.4S pistons. The E and S engines came from the factory with more aggressive cams and bigger inlet ports as compared to the T. Given that your engine was already rebuilt in the past as evidenced by the replacement pistons, you may have a set of E or S cams and your ports may have been opened to E or S spec. Do you know which cams you have?

All that said, the engine should run OK with T cams and ports but you will be leaving top end power on the table. Let us know what you find for cams and port sizes.

Cylinder install
 

To answer Tom's inputs:
My cams are mismatched according to Ollie's. I forget what the specs were but they weren't anything George could trace a couple years ago. So, I'll need new cams (or maybe get the old ones ground??).

The intake ports on my heads look untouched. I'm not sure how to check for sure though. Any one have any pictures of what to measure and what that measurement should be?

Finally, new question from me.

I got cylinders 1-3 installed tonight. Ended up using the caliper method to measure deck height (as opposed to the solder smash method which didn't work for me). I had to remove the .25mm copper gasket and go with 2x1mm shims (2mm total in 2 shims). Does that sound reasonable? When I measured the deck height, it came out to be in the range 1.5mm to 1.6mm around the piston at TDC (as measured with a dial gauge). I'm happy with that -- it's not a racing engine or anything.

BL: 2x1mm shims on each cylinder to effect a deck height of 1.5mm to 1.6 mm. Does this sound OK?

2 mm is a lot. A deckheight between 1.0 to 1.5 should be enough. With this set up you should check if the chainhousing still lines up wth the cams.

Landon

A hand held vernier caliper is sufficient to check the inside port diameter. Check it at the inlet to the intake port.

Thanks again fellas.

Heinz - my deck height was 1.5 to 1.6 mm as measured around the perimeter of the piston. I used two 1mm shims to effect this. I was wondering if using two 1 mm shims sounded reasonable.

Tom - what measurement should I get (T = ____mm, E/S = ______mm)? From the workshop manual, it looks like T and E heads were the same (32mm intake and exhaust) while S heads were 36mm intake and 35 mm exhaust.

I am speaking with another Pelican person about some 72 E heads. It would seem that E heads wouldn't make a difference.

Landon

Here is a 911 cylinder cross reference. It appears that your heads are the 2.4T version. These would have 30 mm intake ports if no porting work had been done on them. You can see that the E and S heads have the larger intake ports. I have a couple of sets E heads available but you might be better off sending your existing heads back to the machine shop for some porting work if they have not been ported.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1395146383.jpg