1975 911s 3.6L swap project, AEM Infinity, Rasant, Timmins...

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This thread is to share my 1975 911s 3.6L journey. I've always wanted an aircooled 911 and bit the bullet in winter 2015 when I stumbled across this one on craigslist only 20 minutes away from me. My past cars included a couple VW's (80 Scirocco and 95 GTi) which I've sold and I currently have a Tacoma as a daily driver. Those vehicles mainly involved performing regular maintenance and suspension upgrades, nothing nearly as involved as this project. I've always wanted fun project car that I could build into my dream car. This 911 was it and my plan is to keep it for as long as possible.

The main things that drew me to this car was that it was smog exempt being a '75 and one of the many previous owners had already installed a 930 steel wide body. I didn't care for the tea tray wing or the impact bumpers but I figured I could replace these parts with time. Paint is probably okay from 20' feet away. No significant rust besides some holes around the battery tray.

My goal with this car is to make it a modern aircooled porsche with budget in mind. I want it to be a fun, powerful, light, and nimble canyon/street car. Eventually, I'd like to autocross but don't see myself getting into more serious levels of racing for a long time. Since the car already had the wide body, there was little incentive for me to keep it stock or original.

Some photos of the car when I first got it. I believe the steel wide body was added sometime in the 90's and the original 2.7L motor was rebuilt once around that time as well. It traveled to Oregon/Washing area for a few years before it was purchased by another owner in Southern CA in 2014 or so, at which point I picked it up in winter 2015.

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I drove the car as is for almost a year. During that time, I fixed minor cosmetic and interior bits. I had some receipts but not all of it. The receipts I had indicated the previous owners fixed what they had to but didn't take care of every detail. This was hinted at in the price I got the car for, although I wouldn't consider that I purchased this car for a great deal.

Towards end end of 2016, I met another member of this form (Cameron) who helped me do a leak down and compression test. On the very last cylinder (#5), we measured no compression and very poor leak down. I started researching the cost of the rebuild and didn't feel that great about spending thousands of dollars for the HP I would get after the rebuild. A 995 3.6L long block with top end rebuild appeared in the classifieds and I went for it. In hindsight, the 2.7L swap would have been much cheaper, but again, I don't think I woudl have been happy with the power in the long run.

Between 2016-2017, I sold parts off the car to purchase to purchase other parts. Here are some photos of that progression... each sale/purchase was a project on its own.

Interior upgrades with Appbiz door cards


Rust hole near battery tray being repaired


Picked up this fiber glass duck tail from Cory in San Diego. Fits very well without any sanding.



Sold the tea tray whale tail to someone in NY. Building the box to ship it in was a project.


Bought wide body fiberglass IROC front and rear bumpers from Dave at TRE.


Saw Andrew's motor (Rasant Products) at a car show and knew I wanted his help with my project. He was different than others. Very knowledgeable and willing to help from the very beginning. I was/am inspired by what he has created.

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Photos may not be in order. Glancing over a lot of hours I spent that each photo represents.

'95 993 3.6L motor when i brought it home


top end appears to have been rebuilt per previous owner


sold the 12 plug distributor that i didn't need


needed an intake so i went with varioram. took some time to figure out the vacuum plumbing but Steve Timmins helped with this


fast forward a few steps... went with 993 heat exchangers, sanded a fiberglass shroud to fit, mounted the varioram intake


test fitting a large front mount oil cooler and realized i needed to bring the car to someone to cut into my tub and mount this. cooler came from Dave at TRE and Jerry in San Diego area helped me with the body modifications for the install.

[Tremelune]

'75 widebody coupe, man o man...Perfect base for a build. Good choice on the 3.6—it's a crime to put money into a 2.7 in a smog-free car...

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front oil cooler installed. now has two Spal finds hidden behind it that's not shown in the photo.


sold the old 2.7L motor


probably took 8 hours of scrubbing over 4+ sessions to get the trans this clean


painted the engine bay. lots of wire brushing, cuts/scrapes to get to this point


went with Clewett serpentine belt kit, along with his crank position and cam sync sensors (not shown)

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fitting fiberglass shroud. this came with the motor. i don't know how made it.


learned to paint using rustoleum and 2k clear coat spray paint watching youtube videos. will eventually get the whole car repainted but hoping this holds up for a few years at least.



993/964 engine carrier cross bar, bent by Steve Timmins so the motor mounts would line up.



I took many photos of the various engine sensors for documentation and replacement purposes.

Cam sync position sensor by Clewett



oil pressure sensor



hall effect crank position sensor, clewett. i think the bracket is installed wrong in this photo.


left is the cylinder head temp sensor



used card board to mock up a bracket to fit the two vacuum canisters for the varioram



muffler mounted (muffler and 993 HE will be for sale). Rasant's harness can be seen in the engine bay

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Bill Rader in Vegas rebuilt my trans. He happily stored and worked on my trans for at least 6 months for me to save up to pay him. I don't have pics of his shop but it is mind blowing.




993 TT Big Red brakes up front


996 / Boxter S / Cayman brakes in rear using Rebel Racing adapters. this rear brake setup cost me about $600 if i remember, with calipers, rotors, pads, adapters, and lines. i'm not sure why this rear setup is not popular.



I wanted to get my car mostly done before getting engaged this year.

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went with 930 front hubs so that the adapters that came with the 993 tt big reds would fit


while motor was out, i went through the rear suspension and bearings

previous owner had 28 mm rear torsion bars but factory sized front torsion bars i ended up putting 22 mm hollow sanders in the front and 30 mm hollow elephant (sanders) in the rear, koni adjustable sport shocks all around



rebel racing banana arm bearings



replacing rear trailing arm bearings was quite the project



replaced my mid-year non-adjustable spring plates with elephant racing version

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took a dremel to get the ball joint nut off

tried to rebuild my steering rack but went with a newer one in better condition that Tony in San Diego had

front mount fuel pump. the stainless steel AN-6 lines wreaked of gasoline and had to be completely replaced with teflon lines from Mocal

Eric at Mocal walked me through every fitting and supplied cut to length lines with fittings pressed on. the lines he recommended did not smell of gas.

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fuel system sketch to make sure i ordered the right lengths and fittings



3.6L motor going in



starter chewed up the original 1975 ring gear from a few too many tries tuning the motor. motor had to come back out.



motor came back out and we found the engine builder that did the top end rebuild didn't build time the cams mechanically correct. this was a big let down the z1 should be at 0* (tdc) in this following photo but it's quite a bit off.



cams retimed with improvised tools with the help of Adam. Very generous and helpful individual. will be buying one of his 3.6L reproduction cases when mine wears out

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skipping a lot of steps, photos, and videos, but both Jayson from AEM Infinity and Andrew with Rasant helped immensely with getting my engine management going.

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tonight, i was able to do the 20 min break in. big mile stone for me. longest 20 mins of my life. hoping i didn't upset the neighbors too much. i found a few small oil leaks from the chain box covers and right side valve cover (almost everything i put back together after redoing cam timing)

i need to dial in the idle air control valve. had this disconnected for the 20-min break in. does anyone have the settings i should be entering into the AEM Infinity Tuner software to control the 3-pin factory 993 idle air control valve?

Video of the 20 min break in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0wU9K7HSo&t=26s

AEM session and log files from the same run can be dl'ed thru my dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctjd8ctqh964ugx/2018-04-05%201803%2020-min%20break%20in%20%28no%20IACV%20and%20vario%29.z ip?dl=0

After that, I need to figure out how to actuate the varioram solenoids in the AEM Infinity Tuner software. These solenoids were also disconnected during the 20 min run.

[Cory M]

Looking great. Must have felt good, and a little nerve wracking, when you started in up the first time. The Rasant kit looks very nice. Why did you ditch the stock distributer for the JB?

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It was a roller coaster. I expected it to almost turn on and run with a few minor hiccups. Instead I hit a couple major set backs that required pulling the new 3.6L motor out a couple times (chewed up ring gear and retiming the cam mechanically).

The long block motor i purchased came with the JB distributor. I've since sold that JB distributor and I'm currently running coil-on-plug to fully take advantage of the EFI and AEM system.

[75 911s]

Awesome car, and awesome choices. Hit me up if you ever drive this monster to Vegas.

[edjrbashian]

Looking forward to seeing this beast on the roads in Socal! Awesome build

[Slanski62]

I’m interested to hear about your results when you’re finished. My wallet is currently doing a 3.6 transplant into my Carrera with Timmon’s kit. My motor is a near-stock V-Ram. I hope to be driving it this month.

Steve

['76 911S 3.0]

Hell yeah man, stoked it's finally alive! For the Varioram solenoids, we need to know what Lowsides they were pinned to and then we can get that all configured. Maybe Andrew can chime in here and let us know

[jjeffries]

Excellent project and action-packed thread! John in CT

[H-viken]

Glad to see it is alive!

Johan