Two Engine Rebuild-Related Questions..

[M491Cabriolet]

Hi. I've also posted this in the engine rebuilding forum, but since there aree 99 people viewing this forum and only 6 in that one, I thought I should post it here too/instead.

Background: I have my 1972 911T's original engine out of the car, and another 2.4T engine in the car now running. I am about to hand my original engine over to a mechanic to rebuild, and I want to be sure of what I am giving to him. I don't want to tear it down though. It will be helpful to him to do that himself. But I don't know if this engine was ever rebuilt. If so, I think there is the possibility that it might have been upgraded to S or E internals, or even to 2.5 or 2.7.

The original engine has been sitting for about 20 years (installed in the car), hostage of a mechanic in an incredibly long mechanic's lien case. I bought the car from the mechanic not too long ago, feeling bad for the original owner, but happy for me. The car was basically a time capsule, but after so many years of disuse, the engine was toast. I put the current engine in so I could drive the car.

Now I began just yesterday to strip the original engine down to the longblock in preparation for the rebuild. I just noticed that it has Carrera chain tensioners and SSI heat exchangers on it. To me, this means the previous owner was the kind of person who might perform some interesting upgrades to his engine. Consider, these visible upgrades were already made in 1989.

Question 1: Is there any way to tell from the outside of the longblock if cylinders are 911T or 911E or 911S? I mean, would 911T cylinders, being cast iron, look all rusted and scaly and alunimum finned 911S and 911E cylinder fins look clean/uncorroded? All I see is that they are Mahle and free of rust.

Question 2: Is there any way to pull off the cam tower and heads without removing the cams? I literally just want to have a peek to see what kind of pistons are inside and put it back together. It should be obvious from the shape of the top of the pistons and their valve pockets whether these are the stock 2.4 911T pistons, or something else.

Thanks for reading this far. Any information and detailed instructions would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[M491Cabriolet]

Anyone, please?

[viejopatron]

Well, I'll bite...

Q1. If you can spot the jug part number that would work. Iron or Aluminum? Try a magnet.

Q2: I think so, but the main thing is you have to dismantle the drive chains. Not a simple thing. Or you can try a bore scope in the spark plug hole to take a peek.