Ideas for Tired 3.2 Engine?

[bento]

Hi everyone,
I have an 88 carrera that i am trying to keep happy on a limited budget. i am a law student and i have been doing my own maintenance on the car during the year. i currently have a summer job and can finally address the engine, which at 173K and untouched, is starting to burn oil at a more alarming rate. I have spoken to a few mechanics in the SF bay area and there seems to be three schools of thought: 1) do a top end 2) rebuild the whole engine 3) swap in a rebuilt or low miles 3.2 and sell the core.

my gut feeling is that option #1 is not a good idea because of the infamous 3.2 rod bearings. I would think that if i was to do the top at 173K I would have to do the bottom as well. this brings us to option #2 which seems cost prohibitive. i don't think that I can swing up to $10K for a stock 3.2 rebuild. so i'm currently leaning toward option #3 and I have a few questions: are there any issues from using a earlier 3.2 (i.e. pre 87) in a newer car? would you recommend any places for finding a recently rebuilt 3.2? are there any disadvantages to buying a euro motor from harald or another supplier and bolting it in (my uneducated thoughts would be that smog would be an issue plus the exchange rate is pretty unfriendly right now)? what would you expect to pay for a 3.2 (i was recently quoted $5500 for an 80K mile engine with good compression and leakdown)?

thanks for all help and leads.

the broke law student,
david benett

[Rot 911]

What is an "alarming rate?" Are your plugs fouling with oil? Are you blowing clouds of smoke during normal driving?

[bento]

alarming rate = 1 quart every 3-400 miles. fouled plugs on three separate occassions in the last six months or so in the #5 and 6 cylinder. since i'll be back in school in a few months i gotta take care of this sooner rather than later.

db

[masraum]

David, good to see you've still got the car. I remember your "should I keep it or sell it" threads from a while back, that was on the Rennlist board wasn't it?

Just some other thoughts. I think with the engine out you could get to the rod bolts/bearings without having to split the case, so I think you could do the top end, pull the cylinders and then get to the rods, but I am not 100% positive on that. I think I have heard that it is possible (not necessarily easy).

[scottb]

Time for a 3.6?

[bento]

steve - yeah, still dealing with the realities of not having positive income and having the full blown porsche virus. i have been feeding it oil and changing plugs as necessary but the time for action is quickly approaching. just talked to Easy Porsche Dismantlers and Parts Heaven, not super encouraging, but still plugging away.

thanks

david

[bento]

scottb - no doubt, but i don't think i will have enough disposable income for that type of project. my goal when i bought the car was to track it really agressively. since that time i have gone back to school and the parts bills that used to be considered "part of the game" are no longer easily dealt with. my goal is to use the summer job money to get the engine straight, another set of wheels and tires, and back to the track. car already has autopower rollbar / 5 points, bilstein HD/sports, turbo tie rods.

if you want to sponsor the project though, feel free.

db

[Dan Owens]

Dave,

You're asking the 10K question here. If you buy a used low mileage (unknown) engine for 5K+ and it craps out on you for some unforeseen reason you're screwed. Even in selling your old one as a core you're right back where you started at. Unless you get lucky and find a rebuilt in decent condition from a known source then I think I'd pass on the swap given your limited cash. If you can't afford the bottom end rebuild but can do the top end now, that may be the way to go. Normally you want to do both if you can swing it but it's 10k unless you're doing the work yourself. Why is it burning oil, worn out valve guides?

[bento]

i presume (could entirely be wrong) that i have wearing valve guides and that the piston rings might be at issue. don't really know but the car does have 173K on it and my spidey senses are telling me that i really ought to do something before i have a meltdown (particularly because i want to track the car and i am currently not doing so in fear that it will accelerate wear).

db

[jhugh]

Definitely no reason to do option #1 alone. I went with option #2. If you rebuild the engine yourself it's not that expensive. But an excellent machinist is required to do your heads and check everything out. Ted Robinson of German Precision is the man.

[echrisconnor]

On your question of putting a pre '87 engine in an '88 car. Most states require that when you do an engine swap you do so with a newer engine than the the car itself. They frown on putting an older engine in a newer car. If you go for the earlier engine, you'll likely get nabbed by the smog police.

[kstylianos]

Do option #1 with new rod bearings (~$80) and ARP bolts (~$200). C-rods and bearings are definitely serviceable w/o splitting the case. The main bearings should be in decent shape, even at 173K miles.

[Rick Lee]

I did option #3 - put a rebuilt and modified '85 3.2 into my '87 Carrera. My "new" engine has WebCam 20/21 cams and pulls super strong. I got the engine for $4500 with 8k miles on the rebuild, know the seller and had been around the donor car before it was totalled. So I was sure it was a good engine. I did the swap myself and sold my core for $2200. So that sounds like a great deal at $2300 net out of pocket. But the new engine had some issues too and I've spent about $1300 sorting them out. So I'm about $3600 net cash into the engine. Yeah, now my car has more stories behind it, but that thing screams.

[Wayne 962]

Dan is right - all used engines are question marks. Who knows what their service history was, or if they were over-revved last week? I'm not a fan of engine replacements, unless you can drive the car with the engine you're buying in it.

That said, it is possible to rebuild a 3.2 for $2K-$3k - if you don't have to replace your pistons and cylinders. In your case, I can almost guarantee they will be worn out. Add another $3K onto the budget, bringing the total to $6K, not $10K. $8K or so if you have someone else do it for you, or simply spend $34.95 on my Book/CD and save $2K.

Your $10K figure sounds high to me. Also, as Charlie pointed out, you can do the top end rebuild and replace the rod bolts and bearings without touching the bottom end. In fact, your original post makes an incorrect assumption - that doing the bottom end is much more expensive than just doing a top end rebuild - this is completely false. There is no intelligent reason why anyone would do just a top-end rebuild - the bottom is so simple and easy, the top is 85% of the work...

-Wayne

[bento]

richard,
your numbers are more in line with what i was hoping i could pull this off for. i was wondering where you got your engine from, what avenues you pursued in looking for your engine and what the various things that you had to sort out with that $1300 you were referring to. seeing as you are the person on the board who was most recently in my position, your advice is much appreciated.

can anyone back up kstylianos that a top end with rod bolts would be adequate?

thanks
david

[bento]

wayne, why do you assume that the pistons and rings will be shot? i guess i was just hopeful in light of superman's experience of being able to retain his original pistons in his rebuild.

db

[kstylianos]

Bento......

Maybe Tony Kelly will jump in. He just recently did a 3.2 top end rebuild w/ about 150K on his engine. Think he also replaced the rod bearings/bolts. I'm currently doing the top end (w/ rod bolts and bearings) on my 3.0 w/ around 75K miles.

Depending on the previous maintenance, those could be 175K easy or hard miles. The bottom end could be perfectly fine or in need of some work. I just know of a few who have done just the top end with good results. When you start tearing into your engine, you'll get a good idea of the life it lived. The rod bearings will be a very good indicator if you should dive in deeper.

[1fastredsc]

Just for piece of mind, you should check the breather vac hose coming out of the case for any oily residue ( with your consumption rate, i'd say a large amount of trace ). Usually blown piston rings will allow blow by during combustion and with overly high pressure in the case, the oil will be forced into the intake and therefore combust with the air and fuel. Worn valve guides can only be diagnosed with the heads out and disassembled. But if a leak down test comes out positive, then it will prove that you have good valve sealing and good piston rings leaving the guides to be questioned. It would be good to check these things for diagnostic purposes, or you'll feel like an idiot if it's just a simple head job from worn guides. From what i'm told, it's not uncommon for well taken care of SC or 3.2 motor to go far beyond 200,000 miles without a rebuild. (Unfortunately because of head studs, my motor isn't one of them)

[Rick Lee]

My "new" engine had (I think) approx. 140k miles on it when it had a top end done. PO is a Pelicanhead, who is a pro wrench by trade and a really good guy. He told me when he tore the engine down, the P's&C's looked new and the the cylinder walls still had the factory cross-hatch pattern to them. So he got away with reringing. EBS did the heads. Again, I knew this guy and he just happened to total his car when I was seriously considering Bill Verburg's 3.6. When his car flipped, it cracked the fan housing and distributor - don't know how that's all it was. So I had to round that stuff up. Once the swap was done, the engine ran very rich. Turns out the AFM was shot too. Then it turned out cam timing was not perfectly matched. In diagnosing all this, I started losing my passion for the car. I threw on a set of Magnicore's, since the original wires looked beat. Still, it ran rich and smelled like it. Finally, I put the stock chip back and that solved everything. The chip I pulled out of there was supposedly Autothority, but the label fell off of it and it ran like $hit. So I don't know. It runs great now, is just a tad rich and has slightly lumpy idle because of the cams. If I were keeping my car, I'd take it to Autothority (15 min. from my house), have it dyno'ed and get a custom chip mapped. But still, with the stock chip this thing cooks! So I can just imagine what a custom chip would do. Anyway, I just lost patience with it and got a 993. Yeah, life sucks.

[ischmitz]

David,

Finding a good used 3.2 engine is a gamble. The going rate is around 5K. I would only buy from one I know. If they come from a 3.6 project I would ask twice for the reason of the swap. If the previous engine was tired you'll end up where you started. If someone did the swap just for kicks you might be O.K. If the engine comes out of a totaled car it's always a question of trust as to how many miles the engine had on the clock. And how would the dismantler know its condition and service life? Swapping a different speedo into the wreck is a two minute matter...

Harald supplies 3.6's mainly but the exchange rate sucks these days. A 3.6 swap will easily be 10K by the time you are done with you doing the work.

It seems your best bet is to start working on your engine like 1fastsc and kstylianos lined out. Make sure you have the right tools, Waynes book, and an experienced mechanic close by. Tools are expensive but you can sell them after the project.

Ingo