My Daughter's 3.4 Build
 

Allie began the build up of her 3.4 (from 3.2) this past weekend. I have been doing the grunt work over the past month; cleaning, getting parts sourced and gathered, etc. Allie lives in DC and the engine and car are here in NY so we have to plan it for when she's home. She did well until she made a rookie mistake and broke a ring on the 3rd set of rings when installing into the cylinder. I think she got the ring compressor cocked a bit and the allowed the top ring to jam a little bit and then when she pushed a bit harder it chipped. It's not a disaster but it did keep us from getting them installed onto the rods and the heads bolted on. I have a new set for the one piston coming from JE and she will be home again this weekend for Easter so we will have another go at it.

First she measured the rod bearing thickness for the Glyco bearing thread.

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Then she got busy with chasing/cleaning out the lower head bolt threads. She made a chaser by cutting 2 slots into one of the old studs that were removed by me. She then welded a nut on top so she could run it in and out with the electric ratchet ( a WONDERFUL TOOL) and then blow out any debris.

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She wanted to do the crank measurement with Plastigauge (I had measured so I could get bearings) because she had never done this step. It measured to within the spec on the low side. Crank journals were in very good condition. We changed the rod bearings because of the scratches on the #2 rod bearing.

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Getting rods and assembly lube set up and ready to go.

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Getting the rod caps held in place with lube while the top of rod is put in place is a 4 handed job. This was a change to ARP rod bolts for the 3.2.

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Sweet. Just did that the end of last year. Still assembling. :-(

Is that going into the '76?

As each rod was installed it was interesting to feel the level of friction when moving the rod up and down changed. Most had a little bit of what I will call stiction when just tightened with the little hand ratchet. But once torqued (40 Ft. Lbs) to spec they became nice and smooth feeling with no stiction at all. Just a nice kind of thick greasy feel.

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Once the rods were installed it was cocktail time!! Pistons for the morning.

Allie set up a nice clean and well lighted work area and laid out the parts.

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She then got out the 30x oil and began lubing up the cylinders and rings and made sure everything was slippery. Get out the piston ring compressor, give a big squeeze, tap around the od with a plastic hammer to make sure we have 100% compression, set it squarely on top and give a push with the plastic hammer handle. All but one went right in.

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All done with that one, time for the next victim. Pull the wrist pin out and lather, rinse, repeat.

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New ring set will be here later this week and then she will work towards getting the top end fully built.

Love this thread!!!! very informative as I have to do mine soon

Yup, she's building a backdated 76 as a new DD to replace her 944.

Wow. You are one lucky family. As much as I tried, I could not get either my daughter or son interested in Porsches or mechanics.

This weekend was a busy one. With the Easter, Allie was able to get home for a long weekend to continue the build and keep up the momentum. She cleaned up the intake by cutting off some of the fugly lugs that we will not be using before the manifolds go off for powder coating.

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More to come!!

On to engine building. We are using Wayne's book as well as the factory manual, i think as most do. She got the Saran Wrap out and cover up all places the piston pin clip could ge to when they shoot out at the speed of light. Clean, clean, clean. She like this part as it goes well with her level of OCD. She installed the piston pins and then cut up some PVC pipe to make the cylinder holders. I think she said they were 36mm long. We left the lower studs out to make it easier to push the wrist pins in and get the clips in. She used a screw driver to pop them into place. Not that hard to do for her little hands and I have the plans for a clip installing tool found here on Pelican, if it was needed. We got one side fully installed last night and she will finish up this morning before heading home to DC later this afternoon.

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Only 10 pics per post so here are some more. She even got a pic of old dad dropping washers onto the studs. The only part of the actual build I have performed :-)

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This is absolutely AWESOME!!!!! Way to go, Allie!!

I'm book marking this for my daughter :-) Sweet!

Mike

so very cool. keep up the good work. and keep us posted.

what a great father-daughter project! Did I miss the thread where you actually started putting the case together?

Great job for a really interesting father/daughter bonding experience! Does she do Driver's Ed>?

Nice father daughter job for sure. Great attention to detail!

Regarding the rod bolts, have you previously done these via stretching? Reason I ask is because I recently did a set of 930 rods which use the same bolts. I use the ARP moly lube goop on the shank, threads, nut flange and rod surface & measured with a 0.0001" resolution indicator. At 40 lbs they were only around 80-85% of the way there based on my stretch measurements.

When incrementally stretching them to 0.0100" (do both bolts 20 lbs, then both 30, then 35, then 40 and creep up on the stretch amount) with a torque wrench, I found most of them needed at least 45 lbs to get the recommended stretch amount. Some needed up to 48 lbs and incidentally not every bolt was torqued the same amount to get nearly equal stretch on both bolts.

I recognize that the torque amount is dependent on ensuring the nut is actually rotating to overcoming force of friction, and incremental torquing has the potential for running into that frictional resistance when applying a slight increase in torque. That's why I make sure to use large enough increments to get nut rotation going before the wrench clicks. But with stretch, the actual torque amount is somewhat meaningless. As long as I hit my stretch spec at or above 40 lbs, i'm good with it. If I was less than 40 by a considerable amount, i'd discard the bolt as being yielded.

Just throwing that out there for consideration with respect to what stretch amount you can generally expect to see by just torquing them all to 40

Wow, what a fantastic thread!

wow lucky you

Great job on the build!

Great job building the daughter!

I found the same thing... generally 45-48 ft lbs to reach the stretch spec. I actually wound up using a beam type torque wrench, rather than having to reset the click-type wrench repeatedly.
I don't think you could fit a stretch gauge in the case, though... and I wonder how people use the stretch gauge without an extra pair of hands. I needed a buddy to help hold the gauge while i torqued the bolts.

Thanks for all the kind words!! I don't have any sons, so my girls have to deal with the motor head dad. Allie is the only one who is really into it.

To answer some questions:\


We didn't open the case up, so no you didn't miss that aspect of the build. We spotted some rod bearing wear so we went with new rod bearings and rod bolts from ARP.

No drivers ED yet in her 944 but she wants to start once we get the 911 together. She calls the car Scrappy.

My wife needs to get 7/8ths of the credit for raising a great bunch of kids. I'm a negative influence and a big Man-Baby as well.

We did use torque as the stretch gauge would not have fit in the case. We used a calibrated, SnapOn electronic torque wrench that allows you to hold the load and watch/feel the nut keep turning until it stops moving. This is better than a clicker wrench where you can hold the load. I think we are very good and I have read that 40 Ft. Lbs. was giving the proper stretch.

Allie installed the last 3 heads and cam towers yesterday and now we move on to cams and cam timing.

Fantastic thread! Great attention to detail Allie. Now comes the fun part, Cam Timing :-)

A quick update that is mostly pictures:

Allie inspecting something as she mounts the heads...

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She decided on a black and silver color scheme for easy cleaning and maint. I just picked up some parts from the powder coater today and threw them onto the engine to see how it was going to look.

Manifolds PC with a textured black. You can see where she cut off some of the mounting lugs and then ground them flat and dressed some of the casting partking lines to make it look better

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She mounted the fan strap in the mill and cut some lightening and racy looking holes into it so the silver of the fan shroud shows thru.

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Upper and lower valve covers were also PC the textured black. On the manifold and valve cover the black will be sanded off the "Porsche" to make them stand out.

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Powder Coater did a good job of matching the surface texture of the ground down areas of the aluminum to the original cast aluminum by using a heavier grit in the blast cabinet.

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Overall she is very pleased with her color theme.

well done loving the updates

Cool colour combo. Pretty much exactly the opposite of mine, but yours really shows off the intake better.

Agreed the black accents look really nice. I think the black fan looks great!

Did you forget to take the air guides for the cylinders to the powdercoater? That upper piece that overlays the case thru bolts is all rusty...... :confused:

I hoped to get away with the crusty air guides. Being a cheep Yankee, out of sight out of powder coat. I may take them off and do some high temp rattle can. Then again, maybe not....

More updates to come.

This is a fun thread to look at. It's the first time I've seen a cute young girl building a Porsche motor and obviously she's really into it. Cool!

I would remove the air guides while you can and use a wire brush on a die grinder or electric drill to remove the rust from them and the spring clips. Then spray them with a can of satin black engine enamel.
Hang them with pieces of wire while spraying and drying.
They'll look nice like the rest of the motor and I think you'd be glad you did.

Good luck with the project!

A couple of pics on the Powder Coating update. I sanded (Allie is at her home in DC) the Porsche logo on the valve covers and manifolds, This adds some sparkle to the all black look. 3 minutes with a sanding block. That letters on the manifold are not good. The casting molds must have been a bit worn down.

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The air guides are fugly so I have ordered a PC kit from eastwood and will give it a try to see how it comes out. PC isn't cheep and when I added up the bill so far for all that has been PC I figured I could do may of the parts at home with a beginner set and an old toaster oven

looking great!

This is absolutely fantastic! Love seeing a female getting her hands dirty. Great job, Dad! When are you planning to get it back into the car? Are you going to be doing anything cosmetic wise?

I posted your story to our FB here: https://www.facebook.com/pelicanparts

Looking forward to seeing what you and your daughter do next.

Thanks for the nice words. Allie is a real renaissance girl with sooo many fine talents. I'm a proud dad and she's having fun building her car. She's been doing the majority of her own car work for years and has been helping me with my 2 projects. An Alfa GTV 1972 and a '66 Mini Traveler Wagon. On these projects she doing most of the welding. I'm not a good welder.... She's been to welding class at McPherson College in KS for TIG and MIG training.

Thus is very inspiring, nice to see an engine rebuild mastered by a youngster.

Excellent story, pass the baton to the next generation.

Subscribing so I can hear it run!

Again, Thanks for the good words!!! It makes Allie very happy to read and be told of your nice comments.

Some mentioned the really ugly air guides and I did feel bad about putting them on but they are 100% hidden so I was going to to leave them BUT I'm project addicted and needed some retail therapy, so I ordered the basic kit from Eastwood. This kit came complete with some powders and I found a really cheep BIG toaster oven, so I set up shop.

I blasted the air guides in the cabinet and then set to doing powder coating for the very first time. The Eastwood gun and powders worked really well and really clung to the part the way they say it will. Some powder goes onto the floor like typical over spray and can easily be swept up. I had the oven pre-heated and ready for the parts once coated. I slid the parts into the oven and because they are thin the heated up and flowed out really fast. They recommend 20 minutes of cure after flow out so I set the timer and cleaned up the gun. After 20 minutes, I opened the door to allow the parts to cool and they came out terrific!!!!

I would have spent $35 to $40 at the powder coater and now the powercoating setup costs me that much less. I have lots of small parts to do as Allie builds the engine and other parts so I'm loving this set up!

Old scabby parts before powder coating. Blasting can't make the metal smooth where the rust had pitted it.

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Fresh out of the oven!!!

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Looks great. What a fantastic father!!!

Great job
 

Wonderful to see this build take place. Keep up the good work.

SmileWavySmileWavy

What a great story! I hope to do the same with my kids once they are a little older. Inspiring stuff!

That would be me, guilty as charged. SmileWavy Sorry I talked you into DIY-ing it but glad to hear it worked out for the better now and for the future. Keep up the good work!

It's a good thing you restored the air guides. If or when they rust away good luck finding replacements :)