The Hardest Car to Work On? 944Turbo

[944 Ecology]

Posted on Jalopnik in Response to the Question "What is the Hardest Car to Work On?"

Porsche 944T/951. It will test your supply of supposedly 'complete' metric tools. I have more cut up and shortened wrenches, allen sets, and sockets for this car than every other car that I have ever owned combined. Since it has a transaxle and torque tube, enjoy an 8 hour drivetrain pull for what used to be mundane things. (Boxster/911 guys, enjoy your drivetrain pull that is not spread out over the underside of an entire car and also attached to front suspension...). People that can thread the bolt for the dipstick tube in without loosening the intake are either wizards or are in the Guinness Book of World Records for smallest hands. Water pump replacements require pulling every single cog off the front of the engine because of a belt cover design that puts the back half of the cover BEHIND the cogs with no clearance holes. Transaxle tasks require disconnecting the differential cooler and fuel lines/filter in the rear, which on a car that hasnt been in a museum for the last 25 years usually results in fuel line replacement when the line gives before the frozen fittings. The cam cover allen bolts are recessed in the cam housing, accessible through tiny holes normally covered with plugs, and are perfectly spaced to hook your socket allen bits on the way out and send them tumbling horrifyingly into the dark recesses of the engine. The speed/reference sensors that so frequently result in rough running problems are on the top of the bellhousing snug against the firewall, and once again need wizard and/or record holder fingers to get at without spending three hours swearing, disassembling the top of the engine, and throwing parts at the walls. The bolts holding the turbo on cannot be taken out without disconnecting the steering linkage. The tacked-on turbo plumbing adds a plethora of water hoses that turn into a very clever Rubik's cube puzzle of arranging hose clamps so you can tighten them all when they inevitably start leaking after the first post-assembly trip down the road. To top all this off, the Haynes manual for the car is a flaming pile of useless **** with torque values frequently off by a factor of 2 or more, meaning that the saps that used it for their first fix turned an afternoon project into a three week downtime nightmare drilling hardened bolts out of aluminum somewhere.

A Porsche 951 problem usually meant prepwork consisting of parts, dinner to eat in the garage, a box of band-aids, a handy computer to frequently search with and scream at, and a rope and a chair in the corner as a last resort.

[944 Ecology]

Of course, it's not as bad as he says. I slot the hole on the dipstick tube so I can put the bolt in before I mount the intake manifold.

[MrAlien]

I have been working on these cars most of my life, while they are not the simplest cars, they are far from being the hardest, just ask 928 guys. for me the hardest car to work on was a 300zx twin turbo.

[cockerpunk]

nope. the mitsu 3000gt and dodge stealth are far far far worse

[Pete R]

I bought a 944 turbo thinking it would be easy after my 928... I was horribly wrong, it's also the reason I don't have it any more

[DannoXYZ]

Well, I guess it comes down to being clever, skilled and resourceful. I've found the following really helped with working on the 951:

1. I was a ricer in high-school with a Supra. Being bored in class, I'd practice threading nuts onto bolts with one hand under the desk. Not that big a problem with Toyotas as all bolts have captured-washers and nuts are welded to the backside of everything. But on the 951, there are MANY areas where you need to be able to hold both a bolt and nut with one hand and thread them togther. Such as the turbo downpipe-flanges.

2. Having the proper tools really helps too. Sockets with built-in universal joints are a major time-saver. They're shorter than socket+universal and can reach into tighter spots. Such as the front bracket-bolt for the intake-manifold. Same with the dipstick tube bolt. I just use a 1/4"-drive 10mm socket w/built-in universal. Add an 8" extension and guide it home with one of those pick-up magnet on the end of a telescoping stick. That technique really helps keep bolts, washers and sockets together going into tight vertical spots where aiming things downwards would have all the pieces fall into the bottomless dark-pit of the engine that can't be reached by hand.

[911tracker85]

well.....

I have not done a few of what you say are the hardest tasks. but can relate to many of the comments above.

started serious wrenching on an 85 911 upgrading for DE/track a few years ago.

then got an 84 928, wanted to stick with the 16V as they are not as complex. done extensive refresh work on it.

picked up a 951 project car. got with the replacement long block in the engine bay, and ALL other stuff in boxes and filled the back of my truck.

never worked on a 951 before, but had done work on a 944 NA. after several months of sorting out the old, getting new parts, and reading the WSM and PET endlessly, it fired up a week ago. still have some minor things to finish before it hits the ground.

at this point my PITA threshold is pretty high.

[running_cold924]

an Audi with a 2.7TT can be a real PITA as well...

[944 Ecology]

Originally Posted by running_cold924

an Audi with a 2.7TT can be a real PITA as well...

Strangely enough, I own three of those!

[TheRedSlantnose]

They can be driven rough, yet 944's in general can also be a bit of a handful, maintenance-wise IMO. My first Porsche was a lightly-modified '85 944, which I traded my '87 Toyota Supra Turbo for few years ago, and the very next day after I traded my Supra for it, the engine already started to sound weird. Turns out some of the valves were broken and it was running on only two cylinders. After that repair, the clutch stopped working, which I had to repair as well.

I got rid of my '85 944 a long time ago and soon got my '86 944 Turbo. It didn't need much maintenance and only major repair I had to do with it was with the cylinder head, after that it became a way better car

[Rob in Oz]

Originally Posted by running_cold924

an Audi with a 2.7TT can be a real PITA as well...

Yep - I've had a B5 S4 TT for 8 years now, and I'd rather work in my 951 engine bay than the S4's...

Rob

[bh912e]

Not easy to work on but can be made easier. The hardest part for me was removal of engine, since I pulled the subframe and suspension. A close second was the removal of turbo down pipe bolts under neath of car. An aftermarket down pipe with a v band clamp would solve that.

The 944 turbo is a well engineered car.........Work on a old Italian car to truly know frustration.....

[997Sbeebe]

i have to agree with the OP. i've owned some 40+ cars and the 951 is frustrating at best to work on. patience is not one of my strong suits, so i'm always testing that aspect with most repairs. everything seems to have the minimum of tolerance, to the point of almost having zero. i'm sure there are worse - this is the most i seem to be able to handle.

[Lawrence Coppari]

I've got a 328GTS. It's worse than my 951.

[hahnmgh63]

I used to think so until I bought my second one and now have taken both apart and back together (suspension, rod bearings, heads rebuilt, etc...). Try buy a Audi RS6 with twin turbos to work on. Almost any new larger engined car is tough to work on nowadays. Especially the models that fit V6 & V8's in the same body shell. Stuffing the bigger engines in just uses up whatever space was in there.

[Lawrence Coppari]

A clutch job is not as tough to do on a 328.

[9FF]

I work on the 951 to relax after working on the 308. As for the 996 it's a right of passage to change the spark plugs tubes or replace the coolant tank.

[333pg333]

Talk to a 944 shop about working on a rear engine car for the most basic of jobs!

[thedge]

The 951 can have some hard parts (clutch, oil pan gasket, etc). Worse I think is 300ZX Twin Turbos, a lot less accessible.


My B3 (1993/1994) Passat has some stupid ideas too. Need to take a control arm off? Unbolt one or two engine mounts and lift it up a few inches, then you can get the front control arm bolt off. Need to take the rad fans out? Oh boy, dont want to do that. One rad fan not working? Well maybe its because the tiny little VBelt that connects the motor to the second set of blades fell off. Want to put that back on? Well its between the fans and the radiator, so make sure to shrink your hands and take a Xanax.

Oh you need to replace the cam chain and tensioners because the "lifetime" plastic pads wore out and broke? Well..... Step one, drop the transmission because guess where the cam chain is? Yup, between the engine and transmission. Oh and theres two chains, so twice the fun. And people here want cam chains LOL.

And dont get me started on those evil spring clips used on seemingly all VW cooling hoses. Even the ones that are completely impossible to get at with the strength needed to get it off.

[DannoXYZ]

Originally Posted by Lawrence Coppari

I've got a 328GTS. It's worse than my 951.

Yeah! Most of the transverse V-engines needs to have the engine removed for a timing-belt change. Heck, a lot of the Toyota transverse V-engines needs that done as well. A 10-hr job compared to 1-2 hr on the 951. Toyotas typically have the highest resale-value after 5-years, but wait until the mileage when a timing-belt job is due and you see a big drop in prices...