Machine shop advice please
 

I have decided to rebuild my 1973 911T CIS engine. I live in south central Kentucky and would like to find reputable and therefore knowledgeable machine shop to do the necessary work. Anywhere within a day's drive would be great so that I can meet and discuss before committing.

Any suggestions that this forum has will be greatly appreciated.

Recommended machine shop........
 

Search for CGarr (Craig Garrett) in the Engine Rebuilding Forum. Send him a PM for his telephone number or email address. He is in Michigan and long drive from Kentucky. Nice guy to do business and he is very reliable. Pack your stuff in a well built shipping crate and you are good. I like to deliver my stuff personally but can not do that all the time because of the distance between PA and MI.

Tony

Ah, the old flyover state problem. Bruce (Flat6pac) lives in N.C and is a regular contributor here along with Craig. He'd be a good guy to talk to about where he sends his stuff as he's pretty close to you, relatively speaking. I believe he does some of his own machine work in house too, I think.

You're mag case will require some very specific work. It will get $pendy very quickly. Brace yourself.

My pick for a mag case is Ollie's or competition engineering. Ollie's is a bit less expensive. Both have capability to probably line bore your case back to standard so that you can use standard bearings.

what shape is the motor in? are you looking to just refresh a running engine? like heads, rods, crank refreshed, cams, rockers and such? or do you expect the case to need to be redone? or is that just a standard in redoing a mag case??

Thanks for the interest and helpful comments so far.

The engine has at least 100k miles on it. Compression test shows 5 cylinders at or near spec. # 6 is below spec but not disastrously so. Leakdown indicates valve wear on #6.

Smokes quite heavily at start up but does not burn oil. Starts right up every time even after a winter under covers. No oil leaks and it does not look like the engine has ever been opened.

Still has plenty of power and runs willingly. Oil pressure meets specs.

All in all I think that it is a tired but unstressed engine and a refresh is what is needed.

Spendy it is likely to be. The decision to rebuild has been made after thinking about replacing the car with a 2009 or later Cayman. But after looking at a few and driving them I have decided to go this route. Nothing compares to the pure pleasure of this car doing all that is asked of it. So instead of being spendy on a Cayman I will put the money into this project.

I will do to it what needs to be done, hence my eagerness to be able to consult with the rebuilder to understand what is best for it.

I don't know KY, but I think William Knight (Knightrace on the forum) is located there. I'd not hesitate to have a conversation w/him about your rebuild. There are lots of other options if you want to ship parts & pieces around the country... It's worth it to spend some time doing due diligence on whomever you'd like to end up working with - posting here is a great start. It's not rocket science, but it will be $$$ and having to go back & redo things that weren't done right the first time will take away from your enjoyment and cost even more $$$... I speak from experience : ) : )

I started on a 2.7L rebuild last Jan. - tore down the engine & sent a lot of parts out for inspection, cleaning & machining etc... It's been 6 months and the only thing I've received back is the case from Ollies. Shops are busy, so plan accordingly.

Best,
Tom

you might get away with doing just the top end from what you've described. tom is right on most of the good shops/machinists are very very busy right now and will likely get even more busy when the race season is over in late fall.

As a data point on shipping a case to the machinist:

I built a nice crate thinking I would get to reuse it for other motors. I sent it to the machinist and got back a bubble wrapped case in a cardboard box. "Where is my beautiful crate?!!!"

Turns out that UPS/Fedex tends to destroy rigid crates. The machinist told me that excessive bubble wrapping is the way to go. They told me that once they got just the cover of a crate - the cover had the Send-To address.

best way to ship a case and the cheapest is get a large cooler remove the studs, them wrap it in cardboard. place in the cooler then close it with metal bands.

William Knight is in Tennessee.

A crate only works if you ship it ltl on a pallet. For small parcel service, as mentioned, super bubble wrapped is the way to go.

If you pull all the studs as Ken suggests, ship the studs too. They will need them for align bore.

I'm sure he meant the *head* studs. They stick out the sides quite a ways making a larger box necessary and subjecting them to sticking through the box and/or getting bent.

I meant the head studs, and all the others sticking out the sides and top. You know for the chain boxes and oil breather return. I think also for the oil cooler. depends on what cooler you get. But it's less than buying a wood crate or even materials to build one and protects the case really well.

:eek:

Did you get bumped by the other customers ?

As he mentioned, but you didn't quote, many top vendors in specialized fields have long lead times. Weidman is over a year to get Fuchs restored. Aase and other top engine builders frequently have a 6 month long line. Guys used to buy and sell options on Raby type IV builds.

Understood shops are busy but it wouldn't surprise me if one time DIYers like folks here get less allocated time than or get triaged by regular and higher volume customers, some of whom are bound by fixed external schedules.

My question was whether that's the case here.

Ah, I see. What you said and what you meant were two different things.

I couldn't say. I am definitely a VERY junior customer and I suspect my stuff isn't shuffled immediately to the front... I say that not with ill feelings, but with realistic expectations. It's hard being a little guy sometimes, but it is what it is. I chose to work with high end shops and thus am willing to trade some patience and some $$ for the expectation that my pieces and parts will come back as good as they possibly can be.

Some of these places do A LOT of work and a lot of that work is on high dollar projects and restorations. A $20K++ engine rebuild is barely a blip on their radar... sad maybe for the little guy, but reality.

With Ollies for instance, where I sent my 2.7L case, I'm pretty sure they wait until they have a bunch (I don't know how many a bunch is) of similar cases needing similar work so they can do them all at the same time. With all the jigging and set-up time on their machines, it makes sense to do it that way so they can be more production oriented and efficient with their set-up time etc... So maybe you get lucky and your case is the last one to officially deem it a "bunch" or maybe you send your case to them right as they are finishing the "bunch" of similar cases, so you have to wait for the queue to fill back up...

I'm sure there are shops that do great work with less lead time, but if you want to work with the established, reputable shops, this is likely something you'll run into. Same in just about any industry...

Tom

I find it really funny some of you guys think that machining Porsche parts is a black art.

Your high end Porsche machine shop is using the same equipment your local machine shop does, possibly lesser stuff.

Go support your local machine shop and enjoy life.

It's not a rocket engine going into space travel requiring a clean room to handle it's parts..... 😂

There is so much wrong with this statement.

Probably not untrue. Given the time, energy and expense of dealing with messed up stuff, I'd rather go with a known, experienced (on porsche stuff) operator of that equipment. Having choices is a good thing though - it's what makes the world interesting.

Not to start an endless debate, but kind of relevant comparison: I am an architect. There are significant snow and seismic loads that must be accommodated for when designing & engineering structures where I live. I see a lot of plans from non-local offices that are not aware of this (whether they should be or not is a different discussion) and it ends up costing their clients a lot of time & $$ to bring their building up to speed. A little local knowledge can go a long way sometimes... Same with engine building I think.

Again though, choices are good!

Tom

On a certain level, I agree. I would trust a local shop to condition my crank and rods. Yeah, there's no rocket scientry there. A magnesium case like the OP has is another thing altogether. If you walk into a machine shop that has never done one, they wouldn't be able to evaluate the case and tell you what it needs, much less have the jigs and tooling needed to get everything right out of the gate. Ollies does nothing but air cooled Porsche. So, which machinist would you like to have, the one who does what you need done 3 times a year or the one that did it 30 times in the past 2 weeks?

And, yes, assembly does need to be in as clean of a room as you can make it. At least, that's according to Wayne's book anyway.

Not saying every Billy Bob's machine shop should touch a 911 engine, but there's nothing special about the machine work involved.

There isn't a small village in Germany that makes machines to only machine 911 connecting rods, or special machines for cleaning up the parting lines of the case havles, or to put in a timecert.

I've built 1000's of jet engines that have had people's lives at risk, and I read here how some people feel they are building a rocket engine in regards to how much emphasis is put into certain things that are over the top.

In regards to the clean room, I'm not talking about assembling. I'm referring to machining the parts in a clean room.

Machining is a dirty job. That's why you clean your parts after machining.

It's not a skill thing, it's an *experience* thing.

For example, your local machine shop can "put in a timecert" as you say, just fine - but maybe they shouldn't have. The head studs use another type of insert. I love my local guy for rebuilding rods and checking cranks but when it comes to preparing a magnesium case, I send it to someone who knows enough not to use a Timecert in that application, who has resized a lot of these cases, who includes the correct thickness base gaskets to compensate for the resized case dimensions, etc.

There is the single most component that has not even being mentioned here.

The machining tolerances that any machine shop can hold.

Whether its your corner machine shop or specialized shop, the work going out the door is only as good as the tolerances the shop is prepared to hold or can hold. In a lot of cases street machine work the tolerances held are a lot bigger than what is generally accepted in performance work. In just about all cases, the work is never checked after it leaves the machine shop.

Rocket work its not, but having it done correctly should never be assumed. You get what you pay for. For example, anyone rebuilding rods for $25.00 ea is not rebuilding them properly.

So no other motor outside of Porsche motors require tolerances in the 4-digit range passed the decimal for the reciprocating parts?

We all know here you'll wipe a bearing quick without being in very tight tolerance of nominal.

I don't believe many machine shops would last if they couldn't maintain a given tolerance based on the parts they're machining.

We seem to disagree on a lot. I guess each has to set the quality you expect and understand where to obtain that level of work.

For me, a local machine shop is not where I would take my parts. If it was a 65 chevy rust bucket that needed to be a runner , maybe, but for an engine I place a lot of value on, that would not be my choice.

I believe quality is set by the type of work performed. If the shop is doing all street work and the majority older domestic, then the quality of what goes out the door is based on what is accepted at that level. Take in your Porsche engine and expect that level to change is a little naive in my opinion.

Some of the shops doing Porsche work have shown that quality is secondary over price and turnover. I have seen many photo's of heads that have just returned from being rebuilt and the valves have been sunk really deep into the heads. If that shop cared about quality, they would understand quality is not just about the actual machine work but the performance results after machine work.

A very well known Porsche machine shop lists rebuilding many parts at a cost that when configured into a reasonable cost per hour, shows many steps must be overlooked and not performed.

You get what you pay for. You require high quality work, you will pay for that. To expect high quality work at Walmart prices is naive in my opinion.

You have great patience, Tom.

Personally, I'm fine with shipping parts out if there's some definite time commitment as to when the parts will be done, 6 months - 9 months sounds reasonable. The advantage of a local shop is that I can walk in and speak to someone about it if there's an excessive delay.

So you're saying even Porsche shops tend to overlook critical details?

Which machine shops should we go to then?

Sounds like you expect space critical tolerances or F1 level machining on a 110 to 200hp 911 motor.

Let's look at facts. All machine shops use mostly the same equipment. I mean, there isn't a ton of machine shop equipment manufacturers. Some older, some newer. Starrett measuring tools are the same no matter what machine shop uses them.

Only thing I think of you're referring to is the machinist themselves in regards to quality.

Please fill me in, I'm really, really struggling here.

When I worked at Carquip we used a local machine shop to prep our cases and do all our rods and cranks for stock builds. All of the local air cooled shops used the same guy. And we were doing a lot of numbers matching 356 and early 911 work.

When we had a race build, the case went to Ollies and the crank went to Armando.

It's not rocket science but I would say that there are grades of things. I do think many here get caught up in having THE MAN in the field do the work. That's fine if you have the time to wait and don't mind dealing with the shipping piece of it.

you know it's who you are comforatable sending your engine and money to and What you are looking at for performance. Basically stock rebuild is much different than A huge hp and high rpm engine. Also pay attention to details like getting cylinders replated, IE e race engine shop will not have them finished to the same spec as a shop that does them for street engines. One will design it to break in in a few hours and it will need reringed in a couple seasons the other will take 500 miles to break in and will be good for at least100k miles. I spent a lot of time on the phone with several places both local and various places in the country. Questioned prices and the different ways of doing the machine work. But I tried finding the best place for each of the components for me. like the cylinders instead of the place actually doing the work they went to L&N who did a bunch of extra measurements that the plating place doesnt normally do. They also found issues that needed addressed. And it was all for the same price. Just do your research before you decide. It's your motor and your money.

Well put, Ken.

I'll never forget the time awhile back when someone had a transmission that they insisted on sending to you for rebuild. You said something like, there are other rebuilders right near you, you can use.

Much respect on that reply.

Would I love to send everything to Ollie's? Sure, but it's far cheaper local and I'm supporting a local family.

I fear shipping companies damaging my parts more than a seasoned machinist. :)

I suppose if you have the time, knowledge and do enough motors, you can "train" your local guy to do what you want. I do this myself when if/when I can. [I did this for an alignment guy I used to use until he left to work someplace else.] I'd prefer not to have to ship my parts someplace.

When I'm too ignorant to do that (which is um, usually), I send it someone who knows what they are doing. Take an early 911 case, my local guy wouldn't know if it needed the oil pressure relief mod - and neither would I. My local guy isn't going to have the jigs or whatever to twin plug 911 heads. I know just enough to be dangerous so I send things like 911 cases and heads to places that specialize in that sort of thing.

I can't take too much respect for saying that since I stopped offering rebuilding services shortly after I acquired GT. But that said, I almost said something similar here regarding engine and gearbox builders when Pmax remarked about being able to locally monitor the project.

If it's a weekend driving 915 or G50? Have your local guy do it. Same usually goes for engine work.

I guess you have to decide what you consider "right" to be. Right is not based upon the use. Right is right, is it not?

Some of the shops doing this work have decided for you what your 'right" should be. There are some out there that actually do the work correctly. And there are others that do only enough to satisfy the customer with clean looking parts.

Take cyl heads for example. Why have so many that have been photographed as "look at my nice newly rebuilt heads" posted here, have the seats almost through to China. These from shops that seem to have great reps on this forum. If they cared about the performance of your engine they would not keep drilling the seats deeper and deeper.

Its because they have decided what you should expect as right without even considering your cars performance. If there is another reason I'm open to hearing it. You get what you pay for.

I have never found my "right" in a local machine shop. I have found " kinda close" and "really, that's clean to you", but never right.

A lot have gone out of business because they ended up chasing the low ball price to stay in business.

As for the machinery. Its only as good as the operator. Unfortunately a lot have old worn out machines that even the best operator cannot hold low tolerances with.

Find a clean, with modern, well tooled machine shop and you will not pay the prices that most local shops charge. Those are the places that take pride in what they do and those are the places that actually do work most of us DIY's have no idea is required.

Exactly. That has been my point all along in regards to local machine shops.

Nearly every city has a Porsche engine rebuilder which in turn means more than likely a local machine shop will know how to properly handle Porsche engines too.

M42racer, you have me intrigued because I understand 100% what you are talking about. To properly setup a fully tooled machine shop requires around $1M to start. This is probably more than your standard auto/diesel machine shop would need to start. But, each require different machines. So, you're saying you should use a standard machine shop that uses standard CNC mills, lathes, and grinders to perform reciprocating part and case machining?

Of course that'd add a lot more labor hours not having a purposeful machine to say, hone big ends of connecting rods after shaving the caps or turn a journal of a crank that a standard auto/diesel machine would have dedicated equipment for.

Yes, the bill would be way higher due to having to fixture these parts and locate the origin every time for every new part.

Curious if that is what you think is the right way?

Yep, and for that reason I suspect the local cars n coffee or monthly pca club meeting is a better place to get beta on a local machinist than Pelican. OP has Kelly Moss and Accumoto in his state. Theres gotta be at least a couple guys one can dig up with a little looking.