Richard's 3.2L total rebuild
 

Just documenting the rebuild I've been doing. Just having a place to put it all down and tie all my threads leading up to this together is helpful.

This began 4.5 months ago when I brought home my 87 Targa with destroyed engine. Engine teardown is documented here.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/487948-guess-how-much-left.html

I found a replacement engine here on Pelican. It is a 3.2 out of an 86 911.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-used-parts-sale-wanted/497628-carrera-3-2-long-block-sale.html

It was completely disassembled, cleaned and all machine work done and still in pieces.

I cleaned the already clean parts, I weighed and measured all the rotating pieces I matched the pistons pins and rods together.

I bought all of the typical rebuild parts from our host. and I began...

Weeks go by. and I finally just abandon all other responsibilities to put the cases back together.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260335236.jpg

Given I cleaned the corrosion off of the case bolts and nuts, and I wanted my engine to maintain that "freshly cleaned" look, I decided to clear coat the cases. (no don't worry, I'm not clear coating the cylinders or heads)

So I masked off all the sealing surfaces and holes and used VHT brand clear coat. VHT stands for Very High Temperature. This clear coat is rated for 1500 deg F.

Here's what it looks like now.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260335719.jpg

Next is deck height and valve to piston checks.
The New 9.5:1 JE Pistons and DC20 cams are next to be test fit together.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260335835.jpg

More to come,
Richard

Measuring cleaning and documenting took more time than actually assembling the cases together.

Here's an example of Excel finally doing something more interesting than charts.

Note that I got one oddball Mahlee cylinder with the 5 KS. These cylinders were all bored and re plated by US Chrome, and came with the engine. So I closely measured every detail to ensure that one Mahle would not yield different deck heights or bore issues. As you can see though different in name, the variances between Cylinders is inconsequential. All measurements of al lsix cylinders are within one half of one thousandths of an inch. Uh, definitely close enough.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260336854.jpg

The next bit of over anal-ness was torquing, loosening, torquing, loosening then torquing to the right stretch on the ARP Rod Bolts. This proved more time consuming that I would have expected. In retrospect I guess I didn't need to document the length of each bolt at every stage of the above. But I wanted to make sure that all of the bolts acted the same. If one of them had stretched differently than the others I probably would not have used it. Never fear. The ARP bolts were top quality. Even the feel of threading the nuts on by hand was Smooooothe. It made the stock threads feel like they were full of sand by comparison.
All of the ARP bolts stretched to the correct length with a final non static torque between 45 and 50 ft lbs. This matched to what Henry Schmidt said about them, so I'm happy knowing the stock 3.2 bolts won't be an issue. (It's only money right?)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260337292.jpg

I have been watching your other threads and it will be interesting to see this one go back together.
Subscribed!

On A side note, I bought a used El Cheapo Cummins tool Sand blast cabinet for $100
I wanted to do Soda blasting with it, as soda washes away with water hence no worries about left over sand or glass beads in my engine. ( the new engine already came with clean internal parts, so this was for cleaning the parts from my original 3.2L)

I spent a few hours cleaning every grain of sand out of the cabinet it that I could, hooked up a little vacuum to it for dust control, dumped in 40 lbs of soda, and began.
BLAH! Siphon type media nozzles don't get Soda up to the needed speeds to be effective.
I spent a full minute on this piece of sheet metal, for a spot smaller than my thumb, and the soda wasn't even touching the rust.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260370004.jpg

SO I commence with attempting different nozzle diameters. The soda guys use really small nozzles) I mess with probably a dozen different combinations of diameters and none had significant improvement. Further investigations show that soda blasting uses a presurized media tank to accelerate the soda under high pressure, and really increase it's speed.

I gave up, dumped out the soda, and bought 40 lbs of glass beads. Works like a charm!!!
So far I have only done the sheetmetal. I'm thinking of finding a used dishwasher, and making it be my "Hot tank" because I still can't bring myself to clean anything more than valve covers and timing chain covers with glass beads.

Really a better (and cheaper) investment was the used Harbor Freight "40" gallon parts washer. Add 2 gallons of Purple Power water based cleaner, and dilute with 2 gallons water has done a very good job of cleaning off all traces of grease and grime.

Do ya see the dust? my little "free" vacuum was going a good job of keeping negative pressure in the cabinet up to the point where it died an overheated death. The resulting mess is the last 5 minutes of blasting I did with no vaccum system. Cheap media cabinets LEAK! I did have enough forethought to wheel the half completed engine into a closed door room, and cover it with a sheet, so the dust could not find it's way into it.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260370950.jpg

I bought a pressure blast unit from Harbor Freight and plumbed it into my Eastwood blast cabinet. I can switch back and forth between the soda blast and bead blast in about 10 minutes and can control the supply pressure to give the surface finish I want.

Works great for me.

Nice work! I have found that the glass bead does well for almost anything. I had to go to ALOx when I stripped enamel off some wheel centers. That was a pain, it went everywhere, and it is black... oh well. Now my cab is on wheels and I just move it outside when blasting.

Enjoy!

-m

Just make sure that blast cabinet is no where near your engine shop!

Media cabinets are messy. I keep mine in my shed away from the garage. I did get a little warpage using glass beads on my sheet metal, but not too bad. I don't use glass bead on any engine parts.
Good luck with the build, looks great so far.

P&Cs
 

I'm getting a bit smarter with my time.
I realized I could accomplish some tasks at home rather than trying to find the time to do it all at the shop.

Here's one of two things that usually win the competition for my time between them and the Porsche engine.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260720228.jpg

So I brought the pistons, rings and Cylinders home, measured all the ring gaps. All were within factory specs, and on the small gap side of the tolerance range. most of the compression rings had a gap of 0.2mm.
I was worried that the rig gaps were too close, and I was going to file the rings to be the middle of the range. But this thread comments from Charles at LN engineering changed my mind.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/412618-correct-ring-end-gap.html


Feel free to comment.

While sitting "watching" bad TV after the kids went to bed, I assembled all the rings onto the pistons, compressed the rings and tapped the pistons down into the cylinders.

There's a couple fewer hours I spend at the shop. Tonight I'm going to try and go get the cam carries, cams, rockers, shafts, and RSR O-rings and see If I can assemble those on the kitchen table too :)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260721114.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260721133.jpg

Richard

Moto Porn
 

SO I just couldn't bolt these on without at least a couple of shots on how pretty new parts are..

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260832113.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260832136.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260832169.jpg

WARNING: Assembling your engine in the kitchen is not advised unless you want a divorce. Make sure all the parts disappear by morning or you will learn the hard lessons I learned ;) ;) ;)

Also, red thread lok is hard to get out of white Corean counter tops... don't ask me how I know :(

Best regards,

Michael

the left side cylinders are on.

Deck height clearances are good. It's almost as if someone planned all of this. :)

I used the squish solder method, AND I measured the flat edge of the JE pistons too. I couldn't verify that the head and piston might or might not be able to touch at the flat outer edge of the JE pistons.

My "solder" was actually a bit of play dough stolen from my 4 year old. He just was amazed that I was going to fix the Porsche engine using his play dough :) I used a bit of gray silicone to stick the play dough in place. Worked like a champ.
Plenty of clearance in the curves of piston to head (2.1 to 2.4 mm)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260921505.jpg

and just the right amount in case that little flat spot on the pistons (red arrows) could touch the mating surface of the head.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260921546.jpg

Richard,

Thanks for sharing your engine build. Nice work.

Henry

Nice job Rich! Hope my work is as good and clean. Not likely...

Hi Greg!
I've seen your work. It's pretty damn close to this quality of work, Plus you seem to manage it all within mere minutes of thinking of it.. Really how many time Have I heard you say: "I think I'll adapt this engine into this car it was never meant to fit." and then 2 weeks later it's done .

I can't claim the effort of all of these shiny clean parts. I bought them all this way.

Yes I've been doing the cursory cleaning with brakekleen, and then rubbing alcohol and kimwipes. But really the media tumbling and hot tanking done at Ollies for pretty much every external engine part gets the credit.

It truly is far far far nicer than anything I could have accomplished with my parts washer. Bit it wasn't cheap. For all external parts except P&C and Heads, the previous owner spent $650 (includes $150 S&H) last year at Ollie's for media tumbling , hot tanking, R&R of oil plugs, and cleaning the piston squirters. Ouch! But I'm glad in retrospect that it was done.

Certainly I have to publicly thank DrKidneyDr (Larry Greenberg) for doing such a thorough job at getting everything cleaned, machined, and ready for assemble. Then for selling it to me for less than the sum of those parts.
Thanks Larry!

Damn I'm on the verge of having a mental picture of how much I've spent on this engine. Stop! No!!! Don't do it! Depression will set it!!

Richard

Progress Christmas week
 

Here's what it looks like right now.

I am dry assembling to check valve to piston clearance. (I guess I didn't need the air baffles quite yet eh?

So according to Wayne's book, I'm about 1/2 way done. Gah, could I go any slower??

Richard
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261524125.jpg

Nice work!! That's much better progress than I have made!

First time at setting the cam timing, and it really wasn't difficult. This was for checking valve to piston clearance assembly, so it knew it was coming apart again.

I have new DC20 cams that are backdated to the old style "big 46mm nut".

I didn't have any special tools except for a dial indicator. I used a 1-13/16 socket to tighten the 46mm nut. Of course this means I can't hold the cam steady, with the giant socket covering the end of the cam. I snugged the nut up so that the washer was squished flat, but didn't torque it to the full 150 ft lbs.
Surprisingly everything was easy.
The cam did not rotate while tightening the big nut
When removing the big nut while setting the overlap, the cam did not try and spring around.
Holding the cam steady with just a17mm open end wrench on the flats allowed me to relocate the pin to the right spot.
and spinning it around 720 degrees, everything was right on target at 2.2-2.4mm intake valve lift on the dial indicator.

That was all just to find out if the valves were too close. I shouldn't have worried.
the reliefs in the JE pistons meant for plenty of clearances.

The closest either valve came was 3.1mm from the piston. That was intake at 30 deg after TDC starting the intake stroke.

Of course it's torn apart again, because now I get to do it all again, this time with sealants on the gaskets...

Richard

CCed the heads today.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/519764-step-step-procedure-how-cc-your-head-volume.html#post5106632

Whoopiee. You would need a time lapse camera set for 1 year to measure my progress of recent. Maybe if I worked instead of doing writeups...... Oh well gotta go buy a snow shovel and clean the driveway off (Where's my Global Warming!!!!). Maybe tomorrow I'll get the cylinders sealed down and heads re-attached.
Richard

Good Stuff!

I'm close enough to having a sealed up long block to taste it.

Here's the rub, I am cleaning ans prepping the parts as I go. So just about the time I think things should hit critical mass and just start falling in place, I have to stop and clean something else, and then paint it, or clear coat it, then finally bolt it on. In retrospect, I should have cleaned everything, including hardware before starting.

For instance, I Just painted the Valve covers. I chose red.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1264973923.jpg


Still to go is cleaning the intake parts, blasting the fan, painting the fan (red), painting the Fiberglass shroud (red), Cleaning the exhaust, bolting all of that back on.

Also a word of warning to any other novices trying to glean knowledge here. Pay VERY strict attention to the order of operations in Wayne's book. I got comfortable with understanding what needed to be done, and failed to do a step by step following of directions.
My (most recent) mistake, I assembled and adjusted all of the rockers before installing the Carrera tensioners. Then when I removed my mechanical tensioning system from the right bank, the cam jumped a tooth because of all the spring pressures on the cam. So I had to re-Time the cam AGAIN. The cams had been easy to control with finger tension on the chain with only one rocker. Sure enough Wayne had Tensioners going in before the other 10 rockers.

Once the engine is together, I then need to replace CV boots, remove and clean the oil lines, oil tank, oil cooler. The list goes on and on...
Someday I might actually get to drive this thing..
Richard

Tensioner upgrade
 

Credit here for the idea:
Limiting Travel of the Pressure Fed Tensioners

And credit I beleive Jerry Woods came up with this Idea.

But having read enough to know that the Carrera oil filled tensioners can fail, I decided I would add a spacer to mine.

But before I went hunting at the local hardware store to find a spacer to buy and cut down, I thought I would check to see what I had around that could be modified to work.

Low and behold, the right inner and outer diameter was found. The oil pressure relief pistons that were replaced with new found a new job. I cut one piston using a dremmel tool into two spacers, and ground each spacer to 4.5mm length.
I was able to get the C-Clip retaining ring in the groove unlike what the above website says.

Viola! Upgraded tensioners, Zero cost.

Dimensions below are with new chains, good condition sprockets, only (.005") removed from the Cylinders, and no case machining. The length gives about 1/8" space between the fully collapsed plunger and the tensioned pivot arm.

Inner Diameter 1/2 inch (13mm for the Oil Pressure piston)
Outer Diameter 5/8 inch (15mm for the Oil Pressure piston)
length .177 inches (4.5mm)

Richard

Awesome progress. I am envious!

Can I hire you for my rebuild?

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but No. That would only end in tears and anger. I've been near both but this has been my own project, and my own money, so I've no one to blame but myself.

Besides, did you ever see the Seinfeld episode where the cabinet maker drove Jerry crazy with all the nitpicking detail questions until Jerry just told him to build it how he wanted. Which of course was not at all what Jerry was after. Yeah I imagine it would be something like that.

If you want to hire someone, seek out Henry Schmidt. Supertec performance. He's a very experienced Porsche engine builder. I'm a hack by comparison.

Richard

Sealed!
 

There are advantages to having your Engine at your office. One of which is bolting on valve covers while on conference calls. :)


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1265043808.jpg

What a shame that this shroud will be mostly covered by other things.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1265134488.jpg

closer!
 

Small progress this week. Alternator, fan, shroud and wiring harness.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1265417093.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1265417110.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1265417127.jpg

Not even in, and I'm already thinking of future upgrades
 

So if you get a moment to comment, here's my simple question:
What is the next best power improvement / Flow improvement for the $ ?

What I got.
3.2L with brand new JE pistons measured at 9.9 CR
JD cams DC-20 (more aggressive than 964 grind)
Brand new everything heads, but stock springrates, and single plug
ARP rod bolts.
Stock intake system / injectors
Stock Heat exchangers
Hollowed out Cat
Steve Kasper Custom single in monster dual out muffler
Yet to be ordered: Steve Wong custom chip to match to the parts I got.

Guessing, I's say the stock Heat exchangers are the limiting factor of flow first. Changing them to SSI or headers changes the entire exhaust, which I am ok with, but that will be much later money.

Thoughts? Limitations?

These are the parts as I got them with the engine. I just couldn't resist putting the cams in, even thought I don't have the exhaust to take fullest potential of it.

And the Stock valve springs Do they limit my RPMS? IF so all I can hope for is Midrange improvements.

Thanks,
Richard

Great looking rebuild brings back a lot of good memories doing mine. I used the DC-22 in mine and really like them. I would talk with Steve Wong and John at DR Camshafts about the rev limit but if it were mine with stock springs I would limit to 6800. I had mine set to 7200 with performance springs from John. I rarely see anything above 7000 as not much left at that point. I went with 3.4 P&C's. With stock exhaust and a euro pre-muffler I can see the effects of not having enough exhaust capacity as the AFR's are getting rich starting at about 5800 rpm. I am looking at going with the 993 heat exchanger route when I can.

I need an excuse to break out the flow bench - send me an extra head and your complete intake and exhaust and I'll get back to you next month. Heh.

Seriously, i did flow the entire intake system of a CIS injected water-cooled VW and removed it piece by piece to see what the restrictions were. Very informative.

And it's damn near ready!!!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1267714276.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1267714293.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1267714316.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1267714338.jpg

NOOO!!!! It's too wide!!!!!!!

Hmmm...
I guess this is a good reason to install a wider door. Where did I put that Sawzall??

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1267714547.jpg

Just kidding! I Measured things at least four times before putting the intake on to make sure it would clear this door. One inch on either side and it's a 34 inch wide opening

Nice work. Have you thought about leaving the deck lid open when you drive to show that baby off? I won't hold you to it, but when is install planned?

Install was planned for Tomorrow. But the oil lines have been kicking my butt. And the weekend is full, so next week evenings?

There's still so much to do...

And we are ready to go in!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1268417410.jpg

Great job Rich! Christian is likely in Kansas or close to it with his 3.2 now.

Whats that Cat doing on there?!?!? =)

Cat? That kinda looks like a cat, but it doesn't meow like a cat. Or for that matter do any other cat type things. You could say it's a bit hollow :)