I'd missed a bunch of updates. Very happy to hear. Great progress!

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What a great read to end a good day.

Cheers

Back-to-front Update Pt1 - Rennsport Reunion VI
 

Hey folks, long-time no-chat!

Sorry, it's been a hectic few months with lots of diving activities and a fantastic trip over to Rennsport Reunion VI with the Turbokraft krüe!

In fact, that's probably the best place to start this update, and work backwards(ish). First of all, it was GREAT to meet a number of you folk who are following this project, but also so many of the Turbokraft customers, existing and future. I admit to being truly humbled that Chris invited me along and entrust me with conversations about his projects.

It was an amazing experience, flying out to San Francisco on the Tuesday then driving down the PCH to where we were staying near the Laguna Seca track on the outskirts of Monterey...windows down, music playing, sun shining...perfect.

I won't bore everyone with the detail, but we had a right laugh with the four of us hanging out, Chris and Mike from the shop, and the unbelievably lovely Celina from UMS (who are just up the road from TK). First laugh of the event was trying to manoeuvre and park the million-foot long trailer that they'd towed up from Mesa, AZ; a 12hr journey and I'm sure the logistics of trying to "hide" this trailer at 1.00am in a quiet suburban estate was the last thing they needed....but unavoidable and eased with a few beers afterwards!

An early start the next morning to collect the trailer (before the Police did!) and get to the track and set everything up.

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Into Booth 9 we went, and unloaded a fantastic display of engineering.....most obviously was a customers 930 with an ITB setup that had just been rebuilt hours before leaving, following the owner missing a shift on a 1/2 mile event and buzzing the valves. No harm, no foul, car finished and sounding awesome as we reversed it off the trailer. This car attracted a LOT of attention, quite rightly, pushing 620whp to the road (about 700'ish at the crank). 180mph across the line form a standing start? Yeah, not at all shabby, eh?

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Next up were the engines; a display-only unit with the long neck intercooler fitted, along with an EFI kit that maintains the pancake intake system, plus a few other goodies that are required. The real star of the stand though, was the Gucci-tastic flat-fan ITB 3.45 litre engine that is destined for a 934 slantnose homage, being built in Florida. Again, it was a late finish on this engine before leaving for the show, so it's not yet been on the dyno. The spec is very similar to that fitted into the aforementioned car:

Carbon fibre flat-fan housing and fan, gearbox system with lubrication, drive assembly, carbon fibre shroud, alternator and alternator mounting bracket (It's beyond gorgeous)
2x Turbokraft Water > Air charge coolers
XTreme CNC heads, twin plugged with smart-coils
Turbokraft desgined CP Carrillo pistons and steel rods
GT3 crankshaft and associated oil pump
98mm LN Engineering Nickies
6 x Turbokraft Jenvey throttle bodies
2 x eGas throttle pots, 1 per bank.
Garrett GT3582R turbo with custom s/s turbine housing (T4 input, V-band output)
Turbokraft twin-scroll exhaust headers with heat, and twin Turbosmart wastegates
MoTec engine management

The only differences between this engine and the one in the car are the cooling system and therefore the intercoolers; the car uses the same IC as mine but with a divided outlet to feed the pair of plenums sitting atop each trio of ITB trumpets. The turbo's are also different, the car using a Precision Turbo. Finally, the car uses AEM Infinity management.

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So, a great event, much interest in the Turbokraft goodies, the weather was just awesome, great company, the only thing was, it was over too quickly and I'm now back in the UK typing this.

So, the reason I've gone back-to-front on the update, is that I was able to lay-to-rest a concern I've had for the last few weeks, namely what I *thought* was an unnatural vibration in my engine. Because of this, I've not driven the car much until we could ascertain what it was, if indeed it was anything at all to worry about.

When we were moving the car back into the trailer as part of the packing up, I sat in the drivers seat and immediately felt what I had been trying to describe and capture in a sound file. In other words, what I'm feeling through my seat is absolutely nothing to worry about....Chris and I discussed at length, and this really is the downside of my project taking so long, and only having driven it for 6mths before tearing it down; I do have a very sensitive ear for noises and vibrations, but I simply don't have the driving experience of aircooled motors, to be able to identify what's-what and know if it's normal or not.

You can't believe the relief of having felt exactly the same sensation, knowing that (unless I've got it really wrong) rebuild no.3 isn't needed. So it's game on, time to get more mileage under it's belt plus an oil change before next Wednesdays dyno session.

Update Part 2 - Alternator/Fan Refurb
 

In the last few weeks, it's been a case of sorting out the snagging jobs list. A few remote sessions with Sam to iron-out a few things I;ve noticed while driving, and to also enable the water cooling circuit for the turbo.

I bought an IR Pyrometer a few weeks ago, so that I could use it's laser dots to aim at the very little header protrusion from the cylinder heads, and get an idea of exhaust temps individually rather than at the collector for each bank. Quite interesting, insomuch that Nos.3&6 were running a good 70-80ºC hotter than the middle pair. The front pair, 1&4, were somewhere inbetween. With some quick adjustments to the duty cycle of the IDX1000 injectors, we've got them all a lot closer now. Whether that transpires into something we needed to be worried about, I don't know, probably not but it can't harm.

I still have a missing tach signal, which is an annoyance. More work needed to trace the wire in the harness and make sure it correlates to the correct ECU output.

If you remember back to a few posts ago, I thought I heard bearing rumble on the alternator or cooling fan. To this end, and to correct something I didn't do the first time around, I stripped the assembly and replaced all 3 bearing; 2 in the alternator, 1 on the fan. In addition, I also refurbed the commutator copper contact slip-ring, and bought a new set of brushes and regulator. I did also buy a new slip ring in case mine was too far gone and needed to be replaced; it wasn't, and being a soldered on part, I left well alone.

I must give credit to Pelican'er JWPATE who took the time to write-up his refurb project, here

This made it a far quicker process; although absolutely not difficult, knowing what will fall out of place next and potential sticking points where extra tooling may be required, was invaluable.

So, some pics of the stripdown and refurb of the slip-ring on the lathe.....

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Not too much to add to this, all self explanatory and described very well in the above linked post.

Update Pt3 - Alternator/Fan Rebuild
 

All very straightforward on the reassembly, no tricks or gotchas....

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The only pain in the bum, was that the nose bearing on the cooling fan is a right sod to get out. No traditional circlip here, instead Porsche have used a split ring that's nigh-on impossible to get out. I had a go, but damaged the waterseal on the ballrace, so a whole new assembly it is from Porsche....

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All back together and in the car, and things sound smoother.

In addition to this, my paranoia led me to checking all the plugs, making sure things look okay, as well as checking the correct firing order of all 12 plugs. A speedy purchase of a Gunson timing light (just a basic one, no timing readout required) was perfect, and allowed me to check they're all firing in the correct sequence (they were, of course).

The trouble is with plug checks, is that the whole water cooling assembly on the 1-2-3 bank needs to be removed. Such is life, but it's not a 5min job...mind you, neither is getting the tinware off, to access the top plugs from underneath!

And that's where I'm up to. Now that we've established what "normal" sounds like, I need to press on and get another couple of hundred miles - at least - under it's belt, then quickly change over to the proper oil ready for the dyno day. Gulp.

Awesome news Spencer!
[fetching popcorn in preparation for the next couple of weeks]

PS. Totally jealous, the RRVI + Turbokraft experience must've been awesome!

Satisfied to reread you Spencer, you found the morale, it's great! :)

Thanks buddy, yeah the RR6 trip was awesome, just gutted it's over and I'm back in the UK...over far too quick :(

Spenny i prayed to the Porsche gods that everything would work out for you.The look on your face knowing that you might need to go into round 3 made my own stomach sick.Thank goodness that you don't have to go down that road.It was a real treat meeting you and that goddess you were with,talk about hot chickens she is definitely a beauty.Haha.Turbo kraft was definitely my favorite places to be,with all the turbo goodness i wish for with my own build,haha someday[emoji6][emoji6][emoji6].Really nice to have finally met you,and can't wait to see the numbers with your motor.

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Hi Spence,

Great update on the car.

Also great to hear about RR. It was my neighborhood for a while, and I could see laguna seca fr my office. Great times driving over Laureles grade and into the valley.

Looking fwd to the coming updates.

Cheers

Hey mate, haha, yeah "emotions on sleeve" a little too much sometimes with regards to this engine project. Having driven another 100-120 miles the last few days on the engine, I'm still not convinced it's 100% as Chris would have it, but you know what, time to draw a line...it's going on the dyno, it'll either live or it won't....if a v3.0 is needed, then it may well include ITB's, new headers and different cams!!

Regarding RR6, yup, that was a fantastic event from start to finish and meeting Celina was a complete surprise that neither of us were planning for (obviously...that's the definition of a surprise...). But she's a great girl, I'm very lucky.

For next weeks dyno, we have a plan in place - travel up to Northampton on Tuesday and see a great customer of mine who are just down the road. It's been a few weeks since I've seen the guys there, and they've just gotten through a MASSIVE project that I've been working with them on, so it'll be great to catch up - without doubt some of the best customers I've ever worked with. A stay in a hotel overnight and I remove any risk of being stuck on the route up from my house on Wednesday morning; a good 130miles on some of the country's busiest roads.

Hey Jesper! Thanks mate, yeah I had to stretch my memory back to what I've been doing for the last few months. How very negligent of me!

That part of the country is a lovely place, I can't imagine what it must be like to live and work there....well...apart from Sand City!!...not so nice...(you didn't live in Sand City, did you?!?). The house we rented was high up on a hillside, you could see the airport one side and hear the circuit on the other, fantastic.

Thanks Pat!....yes, there's nothing like going to RR6 to boost ones spirit!

Always love these updates. Congrats on the progress!

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Cheers mate! Hopefully a decent update coming by the end of the week, plenty of photos and maybe the odd video if I remember.

Nope, I actually lived in a really nice area across from Laguna Seca. A bit out on Corral de Tierra.

Just a quick update - dyno session scheduled for Wednesday is postponed, as I'm flying back out to the US to see the lovely Celina again. Dyno can wait, some things are just more important! ;)

Spenny,you crazy son of a gun.

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Why don't you do the dyno and i will go see her for u.Haha luv struck and i can see why.

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You are well right Spencer! ;)

We stayed across the street from Laguna Seca, more or less. Just one road west, up at the top of Boots Rd. You could hear cars start and warm up in the morning from the house.
Beautiful area.

Hey folks, I'm back from my week (or so) over in AZ...and what a cracking week it was! Got to spend a lot of time with my ass on the TurboKraft sofa each day, so I could get on with my day job. Thanks Chris, for the Wi-Fi and hospitality, lol! Joking apart, it really was great seeing the guys again - Seven years into this project and we've only met virtually, then spend best part of a fortnight together in the space of 3 weeks, plus met Brady and Molly who are also part of the TK crew, as well as meeting the rest of Chris's lovely family and having a great evening out together (I'm still trying to derive the answer to his daughters temperature conversion formula homework! :) )

It was also very productive in terms of building my knowledge of what these cars should drive like. I know I've said it before on this write-up, but coming from a couple of watercooled 996's (C2 and GT3 Mk2) and then tearing down an aircooled engine a few months after purchase *isn't perhaps the best thing to do*, especially with the hindsight of knowing it would take this long and therefore how little you know about what they should feel like.

As previously written, I had detected (what I thought to be) a strange vibration, then having felt the same vibration in the bronze car on the RR6 stand, I felt a lot more comfortable that nothing was wrong with my engine. A couple of passenger rides in some of the cars at the 'shop added weight to the theory, and in fact, from this we came up with a working theory as to where the vibration is coming from. The black 965 we went out in had a similar spec build to mine and felt deliciously smooth....like...REALLY nice and strong. Exactly how I remembered my car but with another 130hp or so. Then a quick shakedown run in the Bronze car, having just had it on the UMS Tuning dyno a few days previously. Jesus H C, that thing's fast even when only on the lowest boost setting (0.7bar). Sure enough, the same sensation as I have. The difference between the two cars? The front transmission mount; the bronze car (and mine) having a semi-solid mount, the black 965 having a stock rubber mount.

Back home, and it's time to put that theory to the test. Tonights job, undo the 6x transmission mount bolts, lower and support the trans away from the tub and see what it sounds like without it being mounted (aside from the front "crash" tie bars that bolt into the tunnel).

[drum roll]....after 5mins of warming the fluids, I gradually increased the revs to about 2,000-2,500-3,000 and no vibration. Hmm, looking good...Chris on a video link, big grins, and then time to bolt it back in for a back-to-back test. Two minutes later, fire up the engine and the vibration is there. GREAT!! Absolutely repeatable.

So now that I know what it is, I'll happily live with it. It was the not knowing and my extreme twitchiness after the failure of Engine v1.0 that was concerning me. Once the full calibration has been completed, the sensation won't actually be anywhere near as pronounced. This is because the break-in map I'm currently running has a deliberately slow rate of opening of the eGas throttle body, so naturally I'm spending more time in that rev "window" than I would be ordinarily.

While the car is up on the lift, it's also an opportune time to drain the break-in oil. Easy job, just need to buy myself a decent oil filter removal tool so I can finish it tomorrow night....yes, I'm the guy who normally pierces the filter with an old screwdriver and unscrews it. This time I want to open the canister carefully and inspect the element.

awesome news here...!!!
NOW you have a real deadlime = get that car road ready for Celina visit in november...!!
She would certainly motivate me to get my porsche turbo ready for her visit...
A very pretty girl... I hope you both have a safe and fun time in England...!!
Carry on and get that car finished...!! ))

I am great satisfied for you Spencer, that good news! :)

Great to have you here, Spencer!
Your car will be right in the sweet spot, IMO, with regards to power: enough to scare you and raise the hairs on your arms, but not so much as to be undrivable or unreliable.

Cheers Chris!....Cannot. Wait. Don't know why, but this is perhaps the most excited I've been on the project....perhaps the complete overdose of Rennsport Reunion, then hanging around the 'shop for a week, then coming home and seeing mine patiently waiting there. Got the weekend to myself in a few days, time to do all those niggling jobs including the tacho. I think a trip across to Sileck may be a good idea, double-double check that everything harness-wise is correct, plus it puts on another 100miles of break-in driving.

Dyno session now rebooked with Northampton Motorsport for the 20th November, the soonest they could do.

If I were you I definitely would bring her.She would probably get angry if you didn't take her.I am glad that you to are hitting it off.


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awesome build thread

can you please post a link of what product you are using to mark the hardware
its a red dot of paint. but it doesn't look like a paint pen.

Hi, thank you! Glad you're enjoying the worlds finest cure for insomnia, lol.

Sure, here's the exact pen I'm using...the pen that never ends, one and only since Day 1 of the rebuild, although battered and trodden on, it still keeps marking.

It is just a simple pain pen....available right here >>

Ambersil Red Paint Pen

Just a quick check-in with another update. An oil change a week or so ago was done, mostly draining the break-in Millers oil (apart from what's left in the cooler and lines). No dramas there, refilled with Joe Gibbs Driven and ready to go again. Since then, another few hundred miles on the clock. Tacho still not working - it's driving me nuts (actually it's driving us nuts...Simon @ Sileck also)

If anyone has some bright ideas, would love to hear them. Here's what I know so far....

It appears the Black/Purple wire into the rev counter has 12v on it, so therefore relies on a signal to pull it down to ground, for it to register the pulse. Looking at the settings of the previous MBE ECU, we had that set to 6 pulses per rev, but with a duty cycle of 75%. I have to confess, I have no idea how a duty cycle parameter can play a part in something like a variable signal output.

The Syvecs is also set to 6 pulses per revolution, and we can drive a cheapo aftermarket rev counter that Simon has kicking around (albeit it reads too high, it came out of a V8 car, so something would need setting up or changing)....but it proves the point that the Syvecs *is* outputting a valid signal.

The obvious answer is that the rev counter could be blown. With no signal generator to apply a a squarewave to the unit, it's hard to test. But, if it's a +12v line that requires pulling down, then again I struggle to understand how I could've blown it....applying a +12v signal from the ECU would have no effect....applying a +5v signal likewise. Pulling it to ground wouldn't blow it, because that's how it's designed to work.

Annoyingly, with the MBE ECU it worked straight out of the box! Time to call Syvecs support and see if I can get anything useful out of them. Thankfully it doesn't prevent the dyno day from going ahead.

BUT...in an act of complete masochism, I've decided to pull the engine/box out again. The solid transmission mount is proving to be a little too harsh for my current requirements. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the mount itself, it was a perfect fit and "does what it says on the tin". Way-back-when, my requirements were different; I wanted something hardcore road-racer having just come from a GT3 and not (at that time) having the Lotus Exige.

However, I've got older...a lot older....and I do now have the Exige. Any brain-out hardcore road racer activity is more than fulfilled in the Lotus. The 911 is to be the continent crusher. Going out in the car at TurboKraft which has the OE rubber transmission mount reminded me of what the Turbo felt like when I first bought it (but a lot faster), and so I've decided to switch it across ASAP.

With more time on my hands than I planned for this weekend, I've decided to roll up my sleeves and get stuck-in. Gulp. About halfway through I suddenly remembered that this really ISN'T the work of 5 minutes. It's been the best part of 1.5 days to disconnect and drain everything. I'm about to take a brave pill and go out to remove the drivetrain this evening. A day or so's vacation next week will see it back in-situ (hopefully). I now have the new mount....£154!! As my best mate said to me the other evening "I'm shocked that you're still shocked by Porsche prices". Indeed.

Once completed, however, I'll have had another partial swap of oil, diluting any remaining break-in oil further still. I'm also using this opportunity to check the valve gaps (not an insignificant task with the engine in the car and water system in place), as well as tightening, if required, the head studs. Perhaps a few hundred miles too early, but it has had many many heat cycles the last few months, as opposed to a few long distance runs. A slight drip from the water circuit into the turbo housing has also just started (!!), so another job that's easier (i.e., possible) to do on the bench.

Not worth posting any pics, it's just another removal job the same as any other!

Mate, heads-up you have PM here and a DM on IG

Hey folks,

Another progress update from "The Office Of The Masochist".

I booked a few days annual leave this week, specifically to get on-top of this engine removal. The deadline of Monday lunchtime for travelling is an absolute - it cannot be changed yet again with Northampton Motorsport, for fear of my reproductive organs being (un)surgically removed using random instruments from their toolbox.

So, it never ceases to amaze me how the removal and re-install operations are never as quick as you remember them being. A trait shared with the pro's...Chris nodded sagely in agreement when we spoke on Tuesday evening!

Dad helped with the removal - my go-to engine buddy! We're getting quite polished at doing this now, this is our 4th removal....

1) Initial removal at start of project
2) Removal after the dummy-run dry fit for engine v1.0
3) Removal after engine v1.0 expired
4) This removal

Some mandatory pics....much the same as previous ones but perhaps a tidier "deck" from which we're working.

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And then the absolutely obligatory "Hey I'm standing in an engine bay" photo. Back to back with a #TB (that's Throw-Back in Instagram speak....keep up at the back) pic of me when I started this project (same pic as what's probably on Page 2). This was 7years and 1 week ago! Spot the ever-so-proud expression in Pic 1 and the ever-so-slightly beleaguered expression in Pic 2, lol. Actually, both Dad and I were exhausted at this point and relieved that nothing untoward had happened.

So, the works agenda for this exercise. First order of the day was to remove the semi-solid transmission mount, which was all very straightforward. The mount is now out and largely undamaged, just a few little cosmetic bruises on the outer edges but absolutely perfect functionally (if anyone needs one, let me know)

Getting the new OE mount into the casting? Hah, yes, not so straightforward. The delta between the ID of the receptacle and the OD of the mounting was about 0.4-0.5mm. I froze the mount overnight, then spent 20-25mins heating the casting. I certainly got it to the point where it was untouchable, grabbed the mount....and it was still nowhere near being able to insert it. Dammit.

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At this point I'm starting to sweat it a little....3 days of work getting the engine out for this very reason, and I may have to abort due to dyno day being on Tuesday. Another option could be to relocate my 20 tonne hydraulic press into the main garage, remove the transmission from the engine, lift it on the engine hoist and see if I can press in the mount the same way as the factory did (although I'm sure they would've done it into a disassembled casting)

....or....

I could use the very handy lathe, parked in the corner of the workshop. Not to open the hole diameter in the housing, but assuming I could hold the mounting in to the jaws of the lathe, then there's plenty of wall thickness to remove the 0.4mm (ish) required. Easy...mounted up with a revolving centre in the tailstock. The OD wasn't perfectly cylindrical, but after some initial cleaning up cuts, it was time to check progress in between every 0.1mm reduction.

After a few skims, I got it bang-on....some light persuasion from a rubber faced mallet, with a few firmer strokes to finally locate it, and it's in. What's more, if it ever needs to come out in the future, it won't have to be cut out.

Job 1 out of the way. Time to do the valve tappet clearance checks. Straightforward enough, Lucy helping with the engine rotation via the cooling fan (I still can't fathom why Porsche didn't put an access hole in the crank pulley cover on the Turbo's, would be so much nicer). I didn notice that a few of the clearances were tighter than I would've liked, so re-did using the Kirk tool and checking with a feeler gauge.

Next job, do a full leakdown test on each cylinder. Gulp....the test that conclusively proved that Engine v1.0 was broken. Very easy and quick test to perform, using 100psi of air. Good news, all cylinders showing between 1-2% leak....

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Finally, another oil filter swap. I didn't have anything clean enough to catch the oil when removing the engine (and somehow don't feel comfortable pouring back used oil, albeit less than 200 miles old). Unfortunately this meant another £140 in oil plus another filter, but, I've now really diluted any remaining break-in oil that was left in the oil cooler circuit from oil swap #1 a few weeks ago, so all's good. I opened up the filter again, removed the element and spread it out looking for any horrors. None there, filter very clean. Phew.

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After chatting it over with Chris, I decided not to touch the cylinder head studs on the basis that there’s no evidence of them being loose. To start tightening them would really require then to be completely slackened off, everything cleaned down and then fresh ARP lube applied to ensure correct torque. If not doing this, then you’re not torqueing correctly with the intended friction coefficient, as the properties of that original moly grease will have changed with the heat cycling.

Some cleaning up of the engine and it's ready to go back in. Surprising how grimy the engine has got already, with only 450 miles under its belt.

Cue another Dad phonecall for a second pair of hands and eyes.

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A couple of hours later and it's back in ready for connection, which I did last Saturday. Now, we've all had bad days in the workshop, thrown the spanners, sworn like a sailor, etc....but it's really nice when everything completely goes your way. Full of energy, enthusiasm and smooth running...that was my Saturday. Well, almost. In a bid to make a great day even better, I thought that if I could get the clutch slave cylinder installed before going out for the evening, that would be awesome.

For some reason it didn't feel nice when trying to offer-up the cylinder onto the transmission, I had my doubts as to whether the pushrod was aligned correctly to the socket on the release arm. Upon trying it (glad I did before building everything else back), the pedal started to feel ok, then a snap could be felt and the pedal went to the floor. Goddamn it!!

Removing the slave revealed that indeed it appears as though the pushrod has over-extended after slipping out of a mis-aligned receptacle socket. It's torn the rubber boot and the rod won't now retract. Oh terrific...this is very bad news. No parts stores open on Sundays (well, not any that would stock the cylinder)

Long story short, I managed to get one today (Wednesday); dyno session postponed again, until the coming Tuesday, 27th. Northampton Motorsport have been completely brilliant, very accommodating and understanding for a 3rd time now.

In the meantime, I've now done as much as I can without installing the slave cylinder. The oil system has been refilled, all other fluids topped up, and I got it fired up on Sunday afternoon before going over to Rachels house (new GF) for a delicious roast dinner! ;) It sounded very sweet indeed, although I only kept it running for 2-3mins, so only idling speeds.

Tomorrow evenings job is to get that cylinder in, LH driveshaft fitted and then all the inner arches, then take it for a drive!

Well, a quick update as I sit here in my hotel room...counting down the hours until we get the car onto the rollers for the dyno calibration runs.

I drove the car up to Northampton today, late morning to avoid the Monday morning rush hour traffic. As it happens, the timing of my planned (day job) customer visit in the same town meant that going directly to the 'shop and dropping off the car first, made sense. The guys at Northampton Motorsport were happier if I could remove the rear bumper, just to avoid any silliness with melting plastics or damaged paint; perhaps a little over-cautious, but for the sake of 45mins work (I'm getting quite quick at removing 964 bumpers now!), we can also eyeball things a little closer as well, with the turbo, water cooling and oil drain being exposed.

So, the car is now ready for the rollers first-thing in the morning, a 9.00 start, hopefully without any issues. Engine's now done almost 650 miles, with todays 145 mile trip being the longest single drive I've ever done in this car (on some of the UK's busiest roads...not at all brave/stupid)

Will keep you all posted how we get on. Hoping to get some GoPro footage, but assuming it's all going well, I may even Instagram Live a few minutes towards the backend of the (UK) day.

Hello Spencer,

I am great satisfied for you, make us a very beautiful video, not too short! :D

Pat

I hope all went well on the Dyno. I'm looking forward to your results and maybe some video.
Mike

I love the before and after photos. First one shows defiance, triumph. Second one shows the confidence of a man who has done the round trip MANY times. I've had the 901/05 lump in my green car out 4x to fix oil leaks. . . these days the look is "OK here we go again. . . "

I think a 75% duty cycle is too much. Can you try a 63% duty cycle? A 50% duty cycle would be appropriate for a four cylinder car. Here's my logic-- the old "dwell" period for inductive ignition, giving sufficient time to charge a coil, then discharge it, between ignition events, was 38 degrees. 38 degrees times six ignition events per distributor rotation is 228 degrees of point closure, out of 360 degrees of rotation, is 63% of MARK time, with the rest being SPACE.

Now of course all your stuff is controlled by the ECU which fires the COPs, but the 964 tach doesn't know that, it thinks you're still running Motronic. Motronic, so says the Internet, uses a fixed-duration pulse for the coil (4.0-5.0ms) which means a variable duty cycle with engine speed. And in fact this is true, our old friend Chris Bennet measured it years ago.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/202003-tachometer-pulses-per-rev.html

You can see how the teeth of the square wave get narrower as the RPM rises.

EDIT: Forgot that a 964 TURBO does not use Motronic, it uses a Bosch EZ69 control unit (like a Mercedes of the period). Still, I am going with the constant dwell idea for this box- this was after Bosch invented current-limiting of the coil feed in the old BIM 124 ignitor/coil driver.

Hope this helps. Love the progress updates. Can't wait for the Dyno!

Shouldn't it be set to three pulses per revolution, not six?

Six Cylinders, four cycles, so three ignition events per crank revolution. Would be six ignition events per DISTRIBUTOR revolution but a distributor runs at half engine speed.

Again, all your stuff is electronic but mimics the old dizzy world.

What's happening? I hope all is well.

I've been following this thread intermittently since the beginning, and am fearful there has been another twist.

Likewise for me, I hope all is well Spencer. ;)

Thanks guys, appreciate you both checking-in and enquiring.

Well, as you may have guessed, the news isn't great. The dyno-day up at Northampton Motorsport took place; I travelled up the day before so that I could a) meet some of my Customers who are about 3miles down the road, and then b) remove the rear bumper in readiness for getting the car onto the rollers first-thing in the morning. (we removed the bumper as a precautionary measure, to prevent any heat damage, but it actually proved useful in other ways...)

The car made it up to Northants just fine - it's the single longest drive I've ever done in the car, even when it was running CIS! There's nothing like a 150mile journey on one some of Europes busiest motorways (the dreaded M25 and the M1) to get you crossing your fingers and praying to the Petrol Gods!

All good so far......the next day I arrived bright and early, we got the car strapped down, hooked up with an auxiliary knock detector...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_5460.jpg

....and then was rudely interrupted by a visit from the Health & Safety inspector. Upon activating the half of the dyno cell extraction system that never normally gets used, an errant piece of heat protection matting then got sucked up into the fan 20ft up in the air, and stalled the fan. Some grim faces from the NMS guys, followed by an hour delay to dismantle and clear the blockage. Thankfully the fan didn't burn out, and we resumed shortly after. Phew. I'm sure that's the last thing Troy and Steve wanted to have happen on the day, it's just one of those things, absolutely no harm done (and a little bit of ribbing along the way!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_5456.jpg

So, the engine warmed up, telemetry all set up and ready to do the first run of the day...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WwI98CupPWc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This was more of an exploratory run; at this stage we hadn't set up a cooling hose to the intercooler, but despite this, at 0.7bar boost it made 409hp & 359lb/ft with very conservative ignition timing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_5465.jpg

Next job was for me to be a crash-test-dummy and stand behind the car with the hose aimed at the IC...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_5482.jpg

And after I practically melted my trainers, we then got the special stool ;) ...

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...6F489C815C.jpg

All along the way, Troy was constantly tweaking the calibration, taking stuff out, adding stuff in and making it a nicer, smoother engine to drive on the road. More of this later.

Next job was to wind the boost up to our theoretical max, and see what she does. So 1.4bar, and....Not. That. Much. Only 425hp, but again running very safe ignition timing. Along the way, however, some observations were made....

1) The vibration I had felt all-along was still very much there. The transmission mount wasn't the source, it was merely amplifying something else. This concerned Troy greatly (and me, of course), as he said that it felt like an "unwilling" engine. His comment was that "for a reasonably large capacity, 6-cyl turbocharged engine, it should be extremely smooth...but it isn't...it feels reluctant to rev cleanly". He perfectly described it as a harmonic.

2) For some reason, the fuelling compensation required at idle was massive. The Syvecs does a great job of auto-compensating and masking this issue, but when you observe the live compensation, instead of being +/-2-3% (typically), at best we were seeing 5% but at worst, after doing a run on the rollers, it was as much as +/-30%! It should be the simplest thing to set up and leave, but instead it required constant tweaking.

In a bid to try and rectify, we checked a few things out. Could it be the Lambda sensor? ("oh no, not the Lambda again!!!") Well, Troy and the guys are big fans of the commercial off-the-shelf NTK sensor, but to see what's what, we installed their calibrated lab grade NTK probe into the system (hence a good job that we removed the rear bumper). It did read ever-so-slightly different, but nothing that was unusual. We then welded on a second Lambda boss, so we could install the two probes adjacent to each other. Any difference we did see was consistent across the run, and could be compensated for with a trim map. But we proved the probe I was using was indeed functioning correctly.

As always, Chris was extremely helpful, as we called him a few times to bounce ideas off of him (Northampton Motorsport aren't Porsche specialists, but they have done a number of high profile air cooled 911's). Of course, always a difficult ask to try and remotely diagnose problems from 5,000 miles away, but certainly very useful nonetheless. Thanks Chris!

After discussion, and checking that the ignition baseline was as we expected (not a case of the advance angle being added to an existing offset), we then dialled in more ignition advance. This proved a little more successful but still nowhere near where we'd expect to be. We eventually got it to 525hp & 521lb/ft but that was with borderline detonation, so of course, absolutely not a safe state of tune to run with. As a reminder, "Engine v1.0" made 544hp 3yrs ago, so clearly not a good result.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...1164D0D996.jpg

Next check was ignition...Time to get the timing light out and make sure everything is firing correctly. All cylinders and top/bottom plugs appeared to be firing, and in the correct order.

By this time the day is really getting on, from memory it was about 9pm and the intake system is now in pieces (to access the CoP's), and the bumper is still removed. A decision was made to run with the safe 409hp calibration, in order for me to drive the car home that night. In the end, I left I left Northampton Motorsport at 10.30 that evening.

As a side note, it also sounds like my front Bosch 044 fuel pump is about to expire. I thought it was perhaps vibrating against the access cover or the chassis, but upon checking it, it isn't...but it is making a horrid coarse vibrating noise. Likely a bearing about to seize.

Immensely frustrating to not come home with a fully tuned, big horsepower number. But at the back of my mind, I wasn't entirely surprised when I still heard that harmonic after swapping the transmission mount. I kind of knew something wasn't right.

A three hour drive back home gave me plenty of time to think....firstly the positives...

1) It drives beautifully now....significantly different from the running-in (break in) calibration. Troy has done a superb job of taking Sams initial calibration and tweaking it for road use. No more horrible kangaroo'ing with light throttle and low speed. No more stalling when reversing up a very slight incline (ie. the entrance to my garage). It also starts perfectly from stone-cold. Previously it would always stall the first time after about 3-5secs, then fire and idle on the second start. Not the end of the world, but niggling nonetheless.

2) Despite the roads being treacherously wet on the way home, you could feel that even with a pathetic 409hp, it felt mightily strong, some really nice low down torque. I didn't get anywhere near 65-75% throttle, just too risky for the road conditions...but it still felt entertaining.

Laying in bed that night I had a lightbulb "eureka" thought. When the intake system was apart to check the ignition, we noticed that there was a lot of steam vapour coming from the dry sump tank breather system. If you remember (probably not), I over-engineered a catch-tank arrangement to try and replicate what the Factory did on the stock engine (feed the breather hose into the air box, pre-filter side). With my setup, the tanks breather hose enters into an air/oil separator tank. The output hose from this tank then feeds into the inlet tract (after the foam air filter) to the turbo. I wanted to keep the engine bay clean, no oil vapour floating about....but of course, this hot, dirty, oily air can only serve one purpose...reducing the effective octane level of the intake. No WONDER we couldn't add more ignition advance, it was probably the equivalent of running donkey fuel sourced from the middle of Mongolia!

It also probably explains why the huge amount of fuel compensation was required after a dyno run....of course, the oil being returned to the tank is way hotter than at idle, and is being pumped at a higher rate, therefore far more dirty oil breathing is happening, therefore really contaminated air being sucked into the engine....at least until a good few minutes later once everything stabilises again (and then the fuel trim returned back to 5-10%, with just the mildly contaminated air!)