Head Removal?

Here I go again, wanting to put more money into the car. I've decided instead of putting $5K into a paint job, I'm going to have the small problem areas fixed, especially since 90% of the paint on the car is perfect. I'm going to take some of the advice I received earlier, and get the car reliable from a mechanical perspective so at least I can enjoy driving it!

With the engine out of the car, my mechanic said he doesn't mind me coming down and tinkering, so I planned to remove and paint the air shroud, engine metal and clean things up a bit. I also had the bright idea of pulling the heads, being that the engine is burning a little oil, and having them redone.

Is this a difficult task? Can I get away with simply pulling the heads, and having them redone, or do I have to replace all of the head studs?

I don't know that I'm interested in going to the extent of installing new rings, or dealing with pistons and cylinders. Is doing only the heads worth the time, effort and money, or should I just leave well enough alone? Finally, what is a worst case cost on having them redone?

Thanks!

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Michael
'78 911SC Euro

if you have someone do the whole job, it will cost $2500-$3000 incl. R+R eng/trans. you can cut it in half if you do it yourself. a shop doing the head work will cost you $600-$900 depending on how many valves are replaced and if they have to be flycut. it's a 30 hour job at a shop, and you need a lot of tools. i'm sure the board can walk you thru it.

Hey! Wait a minute!

Lets stop spending money on this beast right now!

Why are you going to remove the heads? These engines use oil, and unless you're getting clouds of blue smoke following you all the time, why not just drive the car this summer? I've never seen a 911 that didn't leak a little oil, or a use a "little" (actually quite a lot by most people's standards).

Before you do anything to the damn heads, why not get some simple diagnostics done first? A leak down or pressure test should reveal any serious problems.

By the way, don't be too bothered by out of spec readings - my car has covered 40,000 miles with nearly 30% leakage on two of the cylinders and low oil pressure - the factory recommendation is 5% leakage max - which is what you would expect, as they demand perfection, or close to it!

Please - I think you're getting very obsessive about this car and seeing problems where there really aren't any (or at least aren't serious).

Even in the worst case scenario, its not too expensive to drop the engine again - most good Porsche mechanics can achieve this task in a few hours, often less.

Enjoy your car!

- roGER

Listen to roGER, don't fix what isn't broken. Drive and enjoy.

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Allan Broadribb
'70-911E, 2.2l with Webers
http://www.cheaterswayside.com/uploads/Mvc-002s355.jpg

how much smoke is to much, mine smokes on start up for a minute then stops.

Am I in this group? Mine smokes at start up and goes away but then smokes a little 20 minutes down the road and then goes away to come back 20 min. later. I was considering dropping 4500$ to get the valve sleaves done and such but after reading this post I wonder. I use a quart every 5-600 miles what is the boards recomendation? Its an 86 3.2L with 104k