Engine Rebuild Outcome
 

Hey guys:

I thought I’d share my driveline rebuild experience (including cost and dyno results) and other upgrades to my ’69 911T. The engine and transaxle was rebuilt by expert Porsche mechanic and cool dude, John Holleran. The pics are after-shots of my car and John’s shop in Pinole, CA.

Total cost for the engine and transaxle rebuild was $10.6k and does not include bolded items. This is a list of the more major stuff and does not include the obvious items like new gasket sets, etc.

The motor:
Case – original (oil bypass mod with larger case squirters)
Sump pickup – used 3.2 Carrera type
Crank – original
Rods – original (rods and pistons balanced)
Pistons – new Mahle, forged aluminum-alloy at 2.2L
Cylinders – new Mahle, aluminum-alloy/Nikasil lined at 2.2L
Heads – rebuilt 2.2L 911E
Cam housings – original
Cams – new “solex” grind
Chain, ramps, and tensioners – newish (already done by John Holleran 1 year prior to rebuild)
Valve covers – aluminum (uppers), 930 aluminum (lowers)
Fan shroud – later 73.5T with improved cooling duct
Fan and housing – original (finished in natural magnesium-alloy)
Intake manifolds – original (powder coated)
Weber IDTP/3C carbs – original (rebuilt by a different John at John’s Fuel Systems in Hayward CA. They required the larger throttle shaft upgrade among other things). Stay away from this guy. He is an idiot and a criminal. John Holleran and I ended up fixing many of his mistakes after I paid JFS $1.6k.
Heat exchangers – new SSIs
Muffler – original (will replace soon)
Alternator – original (rebuilt)
Distributor – non-original Bosch (will rebuild soon)

The transaxle:
Case – original
Parts – new input and output bearings, new 1st and 2nd synchros, dog-teeth, and drive flange bolts

Summary: This is my daily driver with approximately 5k miles on the motor, and so far it’s clockin’ like a Rolex, and doesn’t drip a drop of oil. The gearbox is also performing perfectly. Ordinarily, I don’t like mechanics, and as such had to learn how to work on cars myself. However, I feel totally comfortable leaving my car with John Holleran for jobs I haven’t the time or experience to do.

Interior:
Seats – recreation Recaro Sport Seats (GTS classics car seats) Like John Holleran, Stefan at GTS is totally cool. You can definitely feel comfortable doing business with him.
Seatbelts – later model used retractable Porsche belts purchased at EASY in Emeryville, CA. Jim at EASY is the best. We in the San Francisco Bay Area are lucky to have him.

Re horsepower curve, the only change I made after the dyno run was to increase the air-correction jets to 180 in an attempt to raise that dip at ~4500RPM.

--Cheers

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I like that picture with the SSIs, your engine looks really nice!

Are your pistons stock T or did you bump the compression?

Thanks, Jess. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. These are pretty amazing little cars. Compression is 9.1:1. I was not wanting a track car, and what with today's 91 octane gas, this seemed most reasonable.

I'm still not sure where I can set the distributor for max ignition advance. I think I have it at 35 degrees at 5000 RPM. As you know, the more advance, the better it runs...to a point. Too much advance and I risk detonation. Any thoughts?

Jeff

Way cool. Nice work.

87 blk coupe

Any shots of the whole car? Looks great.

Now just go raise your rev limit to about 7100 to take advantage of that still rising HP curve. The tq curve has not even started to fall off yet.

I love the flat torque curve. Should be fun to drive.

Strange, I've had the car for ~4 years and I don't have any photos, other than the ones depicted above. The body is straight, never wrecked, with minimal evidence of rust. The paint is pretty bad though--totally oxidized. I'll paint it someday...after I recover from the engine/trans rebuild, seats, etc.

Re rev limit, I have a 7100 RPM rotor in there. I think John Holleran didn't want to beat up on the motor too much (on the dyno) until I break it in some more. You're right though, the RWHP was still climbing.

Jeffy cool engine! I'm about to do the same, E set-up, p/c, heads with solex cams.

Glad to hear it went GREAT...!

SmileWavy

John