3.2 engine rebuild and mod advice
 

so my beautiful 87 Carrera will be needing a top end soon. Its never smoked but burns a quart of oil every 450-500 miles. I want to add power but not break the bank. I plan to keep this car forever even if I win the lotto and can afford a 997 Turbo and Lamborghini. It's never seen a track but I plan to change that. Mainly, however, it's a daily rig.

The car is stock aside from turbo tie rods, turbo valve covers, momo wheel and H-4 headlights. I'm told it will be around $4,000 for a basic top end. John Walker here in Seattle will do the work and he's great so I know it'll be done right.

I'm thinking hotter cams a SW chip and a duel outlet exhaust without cat should do the trick. No ssis and not sure which exhaust. Changing to Mahle 3.4 pistons would add 4-5k to the bottom line so I doubt I'm going there.

What would you do/what did you do? What's it like to drive? How much $$$?

Thanks all!!!

I wish I lived up there...that's about half what I was quoted here for a top end. To be honest, if you're going to keep it forever I'd go ahead and do the bottom end to since as many pointed out before, your practically there with a top end. I did mine myself and ended up going all the way down to the crank but sent the heads off to Walt at Competition Eng.
You'll get a lot of advice for increasing power but if you do that you may want to upgrade your con rod bolts.
Good Luck

I don't know - I kinda like mine.

If your on a budget, like some of us, then I would not split the block unless you have over 150k, or you have run low on oil, hot, low oil pressure etc etc.

Assuming you are less than 150's, do the heads and rings (if your pistons/cyl are still in spec) , and do rod bolts. These can be done without splitting the case. Then at 300, do the complete engine.

Performance: I'd do a chip, exhaust, and SSI's, and if you have the money a larger throttle body. Open up the air cleaner if you want to hear the cool sounds of the throttle plate.

Your gonna get alot of opinions on this, so just pick and choose what you and your mech feel comfortable with.

Good luck.

my engine has 100,000 on the odo, runs great and has new clutch. I hear I can go sometime without rebuilding because the burning of oil really won't hurt anything. I don't think ssis will be worth the money on a 3.2 liter so am looking for alternatives - hopefully less expensive ones.

I wouldn't go by oil consumption. I was burning quart every 350 miles, but the car was running strong. Decided to do a compression and leak down test. Cylinder #5 showed 100% leakdown. Here is what I found:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1066528393.jpg

Talk about dodging a bullet! By the way, I sent my heads all the way from Missouri to Seattle to let John Walker do the work on them. Did the rest of the rebuild myself.

Somewhere in the last couple of weeks someone posted a chart showing what horsepower you can expect with different exhausts and chips. I did a search, but can't find it.

Is 911 strange? crack valve like that and still running strong?

my car has 100,000 miles on the odo so I think I have time before a rebuild. It pulls strong in every gear and has a new clutch.

I doubt I want SSIs because I hear they do very little to a 3.2

SSI/early style exhaust is a definite improvement on the SC's and Carrera's. I've driven both before and after, you can feel it.

Did you miss my last post? My 3.2 had 133,000 miles on it and I had just come back from a round trip 1200 mile trip and ran it hard!

If you are burning as much oil as you say you are your valve guides are shot. Your top end needs a rebuild now.

Now if you are referring to the bottom end, then yes I suspect you have many more miles before you need a rebuild. I completely rebuilt my engine. However, everything was in spec and I could have just done a top end rebuild.

mine had 56000 miles and my layshaft bearings were showing copper. My goal was to do it right - and do it just once.

Dropping a valve can get expensive - Kurt dodged a bullet

But he said his car doesn't smoke and has good power.

I agree that his oil consumption is high, but if his guides were shot wouldn't it be blowing lots o' blue out the back? And down on power?

I think the layshaft/counter shaft bearings for these cars shows copper really early - like maybe after 2 weeks even.
-Chris

My 3.2 did not blow any smoke. Why? Because the exhaust guides were shot and all the oil was getting sucked into the heat exchangers. They were almost completely caked dry oil.

Like I said I had just run my car hard 1200 miles round trip. Ran great.

Rebuild
 

I had a situation similar to you. My 1987 had 72K on the odometer but I was burning a quart of oil every 5-600 miles. My compression test and leak down numbers were excellent. I shopped around and talked to many engine builders. It turned out my minimum bottom line price was $8000. With 100K on the clock you are going to have to re-ring at minimum. If you have Allusil cylinders, which is very, very likely with an 1987 model, you are going to have a hard time getting a mechanic to re-ring these cylinders. If that is the case, add another 3.5K for new Mahle P/C's. Once you get into the motor you find items that need to be replaced and those that you want to replace for reliability or performance purposes. Anyhow, assuming the mechanic pulls and installs the motor back in your car I would plan around 8K without performance mods.

Also, I have dyno results to prove that SSI's are slightly small for a modified 3.2L motor. I have SSI's, Custom SW chip, extrude honed intakes, 964 cams and a performance valve job with a professional rebuild. I am making only 192HP at the rear wheels. We finally figured out it was the SSI's decreasing flow at upper rpms.

If going to the track, find out what the classes are like. If you mod the motor you may end up in a much faster group than needed.

A stock build with good rod bolts, exhaust, custom SW chip, and light weight sport clutch is tough to beat.

If P&C's good would have to reuse.

If no smog requirement, would look for cams that make HP peak at 6500 for that early 911S experience. Something like a 3.8 RS sport cam. Then add ti valve retainers and sport valve springs and have pistons clearanced for the higher lift cam. SW custom chip to make is all work. If pistons shot, 3.4 slip ins.

1 5/8's headers best. SSI ok for around town but not best for top end.

An all out build would be a reground crank and CE Nickie P&Cs for a 3.75. :)

How about getting a compression/leakdown test done on your engine before you decide what to do?

How does one know if pistons are Ausil or Nikasil? VIN? Anyone? Leakdown was within new car specs at 85,000.

Excellent advice! That is how I discovered my problem.

That could very well be true, as both cars that I drove before and after were completely stock with the exception of the SSI's and dual inlet/outlet muffler.

100,000 miles and only burning a quart every 500 miles is still a good motor and that level of oil burning is very much acceptable.

I would not toutch anything unless you have a bunch of leaks and need to do a reseal. Spend you money on exhaust and suspension.

Our P&C's are almost indestructible and I am not an exert but with that mileage I would not disturb the pistons unless you are going to become a track king and or run a high rpm chip. Then the reason to touch them becomes the want for stronger rod bolts. To me the risk of braking a fin or not getting a good seal on the new rings is not worth it.

There is really nothing wrong with the stock rod bolts if you keep close to the stock rev limits.

Again, a quart every 500 miles is considered in spec. Especially you use the car for short runs around town. In a motor like ours we will always get a little oil burn on first start up.

You could get someone that really knows 911's and has and educated touch to check the valve guides by side loading the valve stem and check the play and have a leak down done.

I would not distrub a 100k motor without cause.

good point that it's not enough oil burn to really disturb anything. There are zero leaks. And at new, the factory said 750-800 miles per quart was within spec. I'll be waiting till it burns like a quart every 3-400.

Here is my 3.2L setup:

Euro PCs
WebCams 20/21 grind
ExtrudeHoned intake manifolds (flowed intake)
SSIs with 2in2out M&K pipe

Stock Motronic with stock AFM
Car pulled about 223HP at the wheels on the dyno

This setup required a custom tuned chip to get the most out of the mods but the car is a screem with incredible throttle response via Steve Wong chip.

What kind of gas are you running in it? I was under the impression that Euro pistons yielded too high a compression ratio to use with pump gas, unless you twin plug it and retard the timing.

I run 93 octane all the time and the car runs just fine. I also have driven the car at WOT from 1500RPMs to 6800RPMs (about 25 runs) while tuning the WOT Fuel Map and have never had any issues.

If you are still concerned, ask around to folks like Steve Wong and others who have more experience with this type of setup.

Good luck.

IMO other than a performance chip and exhaust I would not do any performance mods to the engine that will bump you out of class. On the track the small gain in power is not worth it. I would focus on durability upgrades. Losing weight will give you a more significant performance upgrade. Even under track conditions these engines really don't wear out, they mostly get damaged by missed shifts, so anything you can do to give yourself a higher rev limit before damage will pay of. This would mean new rod bolts, performance valve springs, and titanium spring retainers. With this you could safely hit 8,000 rpm without hitting the valves (I have already tested mine ;-). FWIW my 911 is an '87 and I had Nickasil cylinders.

Rick, I can see your point here. Not really sure what diffrent cams would do in terms of HP? By my bet is your not going to gain all that much. The best improvement is the exhaust but the SSIs are not the best choice for the 3.2L, the are to small and you are better off with some bigger headers. My car came with the SSIs and I'm looking around for a better Header solution (bigger) that still supports heat.

Bottom line is that Headers, new pipe and chip should be a very good improvement. Then +1 on dropping pounds from the car.

Sal, my car came with a Ruff Euro pre-muffler and a Ruff twin outlet muffler. I don't know about the power increase, but it sounds great. The previous owner paid $2400 for the parts in 1996. My SW chip is tuned for this exhaust. As long as I put the factory chip back in I can pass the smog inspection without the catalytic converter.

Good luck,

Rick,

There is a dyno compairison running around that has your comb.

A stock Carrera dynoed at 217HP, the RUF muffer system at 229.2, and an SSI with sport muffler at 229.9. at 6000rpm.

Matched the SSI/Sport everyware except right at 3500rpm where stock/RUF/SSI-sport was 115.3/118.1 / 124.6.

Wow, thank you, I had not seen that before.