wierd things I'm finding inside my engine
 

I'm in the process of tearing down my Porsche (who knows might be the 500k'th post) engine and I've found a few oddities.

first, only the bottom head studs have had case savers installed. and to top it off they put dilavar studs back in. On the up side no pulled or broken studs.

then I get to looking at the cylinders, and this is no lie, 5 ks alusil, 1 mahle nikasil. needless to say I'll be replacing them with a complete set of mahle p&c's

anyone ever seen this kind of half a$$ed work?

whats supprising is that this motor was running pretty strong. I just have some worn guides that were making a lot of noise and it was burning a lot of oil. since I've found these things I'm going all the way. I guess I'll pay the price and cry once.

Al what you describe is not necessarily half ass work. Depends on what year it was done and how much money the person had to spend. The bottom studs are the most likely to pull and Porsche seem to think dilavar was the cat's ass through the '80's so the rebuilder probably thought so too. As to the cylinder, probably just had one bad one and found a mahle to replace it.

Good-looking and mechanically sound are different things. Under the glitzy paint of a race car, they're usually pretty ugly.

Well said Superman!

Heh, and our rally car rarely even has glitzy paint! ;)

I'm glad he said usually. You can eat off mine.

Seldom is a project as easy as it seems on the outset. I try to hold back and always get way too involved. I think that's the norm here. ;)

ok half ass was harsh.

the motor did run very well. I have no idea how many miles ago the thing was built, many years I'd suspect and it did hold together quite well.

the top ring groove clearance is way out of spec on all the pistons and ther were a couple of broken rings that have scored the cylinders, so I'm definately going with new p&c's.

but now you've got me thinking. it held together with the lower head studs only having case savers installed. should I bother having the uppers done?

I have heard that the p/c's are designated by weight groups, my 2.7 had alusil on one side and nikasil on the other. I think it was said if the weights were the same, it would work. That is what the number stamping is on the jugs.

beamonk, do you mean height groups?? The number stamped inside the triangle is the height group. This is so the cam towers seal properly. If the cylinders are different heights, then the heads will be too.

The rods have part numbers based on weight group.