Mission impossible:

[Henry Schmidt]

Your mission Mr. Schmidt, [should you choose to accept it] is to return this sad little RSR engine to it's previous glory............
After spending more than a decade in the middle of a 914 conversion, it will be our job to bring her back from the dead for installation in an appropriate 911 chassis. With the help of Ken at 911 Vintage Parts we stand a pretty good chance of pulling it off.

Over the next few weeks I'll post the progress and offer some suggestions as to how you might improve your engine project.

[Walt Fricke]

Lots of nice RSR parts.

I hope that rare flywheel can be reused. Did it come with the RSR ring gear? I cried when a tooth broke off of mine.

Weren't the RSRs MFI? Was this converted to carbs? Do my eyes deceive me, or do I spot some variation in the heads at the intake port?

[DSPTurtle]

Nice eyes Walt. #6 appears to not be a proper MFI head.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Walt Fricke

Lots of nice RSR parts.

I hope that rare flywheel can be reused. Did it come with the RSR ring gear? I cried when a tooth broke off of mine.

Weren't the RSRs MFI? Was this converted to carbs? Do my eyes deceive me, or do I spot some variation in the heads at the intake port?

At some point, the engine lost a connecting rod and my guess is that explosion took out a head and who knows what else.
The # 6 head is mismatched, the case had a magic window, the cam is sans MFI drive and so on.
A close look will also show a broken, fiberglass sleeved Dilivar stud. It is a sad little engine but we will bring it back to life.

And yes it was running Webers in it's most recent configuration.

[Trackrash]

Can you give us some background on this motor? Any known history?

2,8? Sand cast case? Bore? etc, etc.

[Walt Fricke]

The real treasure would be 2.8 heads, wouldn't it?

[Henry Schmidt]

At this point we have no idea what size the engine is but there are a great deal of cool part unique to the 2.8 and 3.0 RSR that we would expect to find.
Heads are just one item we might discover. Judging by the magic window my guess is the RSR crank is long since departed. We can only hope it was replace with the correct crank.
This case is a replacement case (no numbers) so it was probably built with spares making it difficult to really know the history beyond anecdotes passed on by previous owners.
The case is unique (sand cast with unique stud spacing) so we hope the internals are as well.

[Walt Fricke]

A quick Anderson review shows that all the cases up to the 3.0s had 80mm head stud spacing, 2.8s included. The 3.0s went to 86mm. The 3.0 RSRs had 83mm spacing, which was unique to those race motors. Parts for the 3.0 RSRs must be really hard to come by with that spacing, as no production car could donate cylinders or heads.

If this has something different, it might properly be said to be unique (only one of its kind).

[Henry Schmidt]

Here's what we found.
Good:
Bosche twin plug
Factory oil filter console
Factory small diameter fan and housing
RSR crank
late 3.0 RSR case with 86mm stud spacing
5 RSR twin plug heads (12m spark plugs)
98 mm Malhe pistons and cylinders
Polished steel rods
Aluminum cooling tin
Aluminum 908 style (SC) oil pump

The Bad:
One head made form production head.
One cylinder modified to work around damage
Three journal cam towers (bad choice with heads)
Case repair
Two different length valves
Stock case through bolts
No MFI drive

Ugly:
Because the cam towers are 47 mm (three journal) the base circle on cams is designed for 2.7 valves (longer than 3.0) That meant lash caps on intake valves.
Exhaust valves are 43 mm made from 2.7 (46mm) intakes, creative but....yikes
Old school fiberglass coated Dilivar head studs (two broken)
Mixed and matched rockers, some forged some cast.
Poor quality solid tensioners
Strange spacers on the cylinders??

[Trackrash]

Looks like a fun project. What was the purpose of those spacers? To make up for other machining?

[Henry Schmidt]

The spacers were an attempt to set proper deck height/ engine dimension so I assume the cylinders were cut for another project.
The height of these cylinders is approximately 82 mm and the generic cylinder height for early 911 engine is approximately 85.5mm. IIRC.

I just noticed 3 a star thread rating??? what, an old RSR engine build just isn't cool enough?

[tharbert]

Sub'ed - I think it's cool...gave it 4 stars but didn't seem to help.

[Henry Schmidt]

As ugly as this thing looks, the owner claims it ran and ran well........

[Lapkritis]

You're not usually looking at the mantle while you're poking the fire I guess.

[jbell959]

Subscribed... what a cool project. I'm assuming this was the engine the guy called you about when I was down at your shop.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by jbell959

Subscribed... what a cool project. I'm assuming this was the engine the guy called you about when I was down at your shop.

We get a lot of calls but it could be....
It was in a 914/6 GT. Does that ring a bell, Mr. Bell ?

[fanaudical]

Cool project - I love "forensics" like this.

[infraredcalvin]

Very cool project, looking forward to the build.

Btw, what happened to the 914 it came out of? Surely the owner could care less about an old VW tub...

[Turbo_pro]

Always enjoying watching you do your magic.

[apsal]

anyone know where there is another RSR case for sale?
regards
albert salvatore
apsal@bellsouth.net