Yup and I am back to where this all started last April! See https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/1160979-its-time-air-box-replacement.html#post12240127

But it will be easier now since all hoses were replaced, frozen bolts replaced and torqued, etc. Now the issue is the weather since my garage is unheated and I have to work with the door open since it is on my lift.

How do I get this nut on and tightened! ?
 

Well, I am back at it today on a not-too-cold Saturday morning. As I discovered last Sunday, the outermost nut attaching the #6 intake was not even snugged down. So the plan was to tighten that and run another smoke test. I went back in with lights and a mirror to pinpoint the nut and was able to get a view of the inside-most nut that holds intake #6. Guess what, it is completely missing! The washer is there but no nut and no sign of the nut anywhere. He used new copper nuts so they are easy to spot (but not magnetic).

I'll need to find a replacement nut somewhere, not sure how long that will take. But, I went ahead and tightened the outer nut using a 1/4" flex 13mm socket and long extension. With just this one #6 intake nut tightened, I ran the smoke test. The amount of smoke was significantly less (coming up through the fan) but enough to be problematic most likely. So now I need to figure out how to get in there to install that nut. I'm going to remove an easily accessible nut from one of the intakes on the left side (1 thru 3) to use on #6 so I can get that locked down and retest.

However, I can't even get my hand in there to feel it. I can see the stuff looking under the #5 intake though but it is tucked back pretty far.

This is an 83 CIS system with all of the extra goodies on the right side like the AAR and AAV. I need every trick, tip, and recommendation available to install this nut. What can I do? This would be equivalent (I think) to re-installing a new airbox in the car. All of the intakes were cleaned, new hardware (so none of the buts/bolts are locked). I am not sure if the CIS with intakes is re-installed with the AAR and AAV attached though - would removing one or both of these give me access to the nut?

I'm at the end of my rope and just need someone else to finish this off. I'm really overwhelmed with what was done/not done to my car.

I did remove the AAR and disconnected and pushed the AAV out of the way. I still couldn't access that stud to put a nut on. After reading a bunch of posts and looking things over, it seemed that if I could get the #4 intake off, I might be able to get the nut on from underneath #5. I pulled #4 injector and discovered that the O ring was not replaced nor was the injector shroud (I knew that and I had asked the shop to replace them with the Porsche parts I provided). Even though the rubber intake sleeves and clamps were replaced and accessible, the studs are too long to remove the #4 intake so I loosened the nuts on #5 but still not quite enough room to remove it.

In all of this today discovering that the injector O rings had not been replaced, the #4 injector is really nasty looking (carbon and discolored) and several other bracket nuts/bolts missing, I've decided to find another shop to do the work. I got recommendations for another well regarded shop and will have the car transported there on Friday and have them go through everything.

One thing I did not mention but it is gnawing at me - the original shop owner that had the car all summer passed away on Nov 5th. His funeral was this morning. I really liked him, he was knowledgeable, friendly, and had a very strong following of happy customers all over New England. He passed quietly in his sleep. He was only 2 months older than me. I don't have any bad feelings and have never gotten angry or upset with him all this time. I know he appreciated and respected that. A part of me wanted to find and fix my car to show him how much I care about it and to share what I learned with him. He has replied to all of my emails over the last 5 weeks that I've had the car back and discovering things. I sent him an email last Sunday about the loose #6 intake nut but unfortunately, he had already passed away.

I am going to admit defeat on this one and try another shop. I'm 99% sure that the last problem is the vacuum leaks at #6 intake but I just don't have confidence that there are no other issues hiding and I don't have the time or facilities to do this one on my own. I will report back and close out this thread once the car is running as it used to.

Tough situation for sure and a lot you will probably never know from his side of the story. Seems odd that he left so many things undone but its pointless now to speculate. You obviously know your car and have a long history and attachment. Hurts to pay for something twice but probably your best option now. Best of luck and let us know how things work out.

I agree. If you don't have the time to continue to find and fix things that were not done right, It's best to try a different shop. But, when you take it to another shop, clearly explain what happened, what's wrong, and judge whether they will provide a better result.

As much as you want to take it someone and just be done with it, one of the reasons I do my own work is that I've had so much poor work done by supposed "professionals." It ends up saving me not only money, but more importantly, time and frustration.

I hear you. I’ve been on Pelican for 22 years and have never had a car worked on in a shop. I rebuilt MFI in a 70S, went through CIS on this car several times too. A bad back and really bad knee makes it much harder for heavy wrenching now at 66. I love it but I also don’t have as much free time as I used to. Rene was a highly respected Porsche specialist. And highly recommended by my buddies. I’ll never know why my car and experience was not good. To his credit, he did not want to charge me but I insisted on paying for parts and the original airbox replacement. I’ve checked the new shop out too and he has a similar high rating. There is a review from this summer from s guy with an 81CIS Porsche that he apparently did great on

I just wanted to follow up with an update. After much research and talking to local Porsche folks, I decided to take my car to Randolph Racing in Stoughton, MA. Kevin (the owner) has an excellent reputation and experience with SCs and many other Porsches. In fact, he was rebuilding an engine on another 83 Cabriolet. I had the car flat-bedded to his shop and filled him in on this backstory.

After looking the car over he called me with not entirely unexpected news. The engine has been developing oil leaks and with 191K miles on her, I've know for a while that a rebuild was probably in the cards sooner than later. Kevin confirmed that and believed that several head studs were broken and the cam tensioners were shot (which I was aware of and had on my list to service asap). And now the fun begins...

I could have just had a stock rebuild, but what's the fun in that? I've always wanted a more performance-oriented Porsche so I opted for a performance rebuild. So here are some of the upgrades: a 3.6 964 crankshaft with cross drilled center main bearing for improved lubrication, WEB-CAM 20/21 cams, Mahle 10 to 1 98mm pistons and cylinders (3.0 t0 3.5l upgrade) Wavetrac diff, hydraulic chain tensioners, SACHS Performance clutch, and a Billy Boat header and muffler (and oh does she sound sweet!). Of course I got the sheetmetal powder coated, new trans/engine mounts, and lots of other details while "we were in there".

I got the car back on Friday late afternoon and, or course, it snowed Friday night and Saturday and rained Sunday! I only got to drive the 65 miles home mostly on the interstate. But, boy was that fun (even keeping below the 4000RPM break in period). I get to put 300 miles on her and then back to the shop for head stud retorquing and valve adjustment and swap out the break in oil and I want to have her dyno'd then too just to see what I really have for HP and torque.

Kevin was great on the communication and invited me in to see the rebuild several times over the winter and he actually drove to my house unexpectedly to show me his work and let me take it out for a short spin around the neighborhood. Overall, I put some money into the rebuild but it is a completely different car now and I anticipate it to be worth every penny! I can't wait to start racking up more miles, I put about 100K of the 191K on the odometer and bought the car in June 2008 - so we have a bit of history together!

Hey, that's great news and a good story. But please tell us about your air induction and fuel injection with this new 3.45L engine. Surely, you aren't still using the CIS intake runners and Fuel Injection system?

I wasn't ready to take the leap to EFI so it still has CIS intake runners and CIS.

Well, then- that's interesting, and maybe even a bit unusual. Did you do anything special with the fuel delivery, heads and exhaust? I'm asking because in my 3.2SS project, my research was 'generally' pointing to my intake air and fuel delivery being pretty much at maximum capacity. I say 'generally', as I haven't seen any hard rules or evidence of just how much displacement can be obtained from CIS. But 20 years ago, one or two Pelicanites successfully got somewhere around 3.5L, I think. One went by the name of Dane, as I recall.

When you get well acquainted with your engine's characteristics and performance at different rev ranges, could you post your detailed impressions? I think that would be both valuable and interesting. I'm specifically wondering how much performance you are getting at, say, 4500-6500, where the demands should be greatest. Thanks for sharing. This thread might keep going for a while with folks wanting to better understand specific results of the engine formula you have.

911MANN, when I take the car back in for head stud retorque and valve adjust at 500 miles I'll get the details on the injection. Kevin at Randolph Racing has been doing this a long time and I saw the dyno results from a 3.0 he completed before my engine and it looked good. I am going to get my car on the dyno when I take it in and I'll report back. Happy to share info as it comes in.

Sounds good. I bet the torque is impressive!

Did that non-OEM copper (?) nut work itself loose due to expansion ? I assume it was installed "tight".

It was not installed tight (there was 15 miles driven since it was installed at that time) and the inner most nut was completely missing.