964 Engine Rebuild - slideshow
 

Here are the pics of a 964 engine I just completed.. from stripping, inspection and rebuild.
Reason for rebuild? leaking lots of oil.. but when I received the car, I found that oil pressure was extremely low.. at full temp, the pressure at idle would reach 0 on the gauge and the warning light would come on.

Now, we have excellent pressure, and not a single drop leaking after a few hundred miles of running. Hope you like the pics.


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Very nice.
You are a brave man with some cash to burn and lots of elbow grease to spare.
My 1993 is not quite there yet for a rebuild.
Hopefully not in my lifetime. Maybe my son or grandson will.

Thanks, I think..
Actually not my car. Surprising how doable it is when you take your time. This PP community has helped me a lot over the years

I also hope never to have to do this, but good to know it can be done without paying someone else to do it for you. But what a lot of work. Well done and great slideshow! If only we could work that fast.

Did you buy new heads for it? When the ceramic liners fail are there any rebuild options?

Hi
from my research, it seems the heads are not really rebuildable when the ceramic goes. I was able to source some fairly priced heads in good condition. The ceramic in those is not perfect, but I would say 95% perfect.
Other shops I spoke to said that I 'could' run the heads with the failed ceramics but it would mean uneven gas flow and of course, would be much less than ideal.

2 of the heads were unusable.. 3 were perhaps OK to reuse and 1 was near perfect.

Hi Mike, nice video of slides. Is this your vehicle or someone else's you did? My ,90 is in a bad condition of leaking also.(maybe not as much as yours) The motor runs well (no smoke) but just to much oil on the floor. I was wondering why you didn't go for the 3.8 since all the work you did? I'm either going to sell mine the way it is. Probably regret it. But if I can't get the money I need I'll keep her. Already had her for 12 years. I've got quotes on a 3.8 conversion 320 horsepower for $23,000 us from a reputable guy on the East Coast here in the US. I can do next year. He can also do a 993 Vairo Ram for around $38,000. Way out of my price range. Anyway your rebuild sounds really nice running. Have fun,
Dj

My 92 964c2 now has 280,000 miles and still running as strong as new. No oil leaking yet. Porsche built to last!

hi Dj
the car belongs to someone else.... he didn't want any more power, happy with stock. As it was, he was running well below stock power.. but now, it is performing brilliantly.

23k for a full rebuild with upgrade to 3.8 sounds pretty fair to me!
you can see some of my other builds on www.aircooledporsches.com.au

280k MILES and no oil leaks? wow! I'm thinking this should be in the Guiness Book of Records! Nice one.

That's strange. My 93 with 90k miles leaked oil at the power steering camshaft housing o-ring and seal and the chain tensioner cover gasket.

Have you removed the engine under cover? The oil leak is probably getting caught there. Just a guess.

I enjoyed watching that slide show - thank you!



Andreas

Hi Mike,
Looked at your website "very cool". That's great that you help out your Porsche community in Australia along with satisfying your hobby. Most of us don't have setup to do this kind of work in our garages. Wish there was someone like you in Southern California. I had to go to the East coast to find a reasonable rebuild. Most of the indies here are as bad as the dealers nowadays. You drive into a European car repair shop with your 911 and you can see the dollar signs $$$$ rolling in their eyes. Well anyway kudos to you.
Dj

cool
hope you gave the video a 'like'!

I like how clean everything came out. When you zinc the cam towers, do you avoid zincing the journals? I would think so but yours looked a similar sheen? Maybe just pics.

Hi,

I agree with you! I waited about 12 months and did some extensive research including Beck in AZ and some east coast shops. In the end I asked a top machine shop here in SoCal (Competition Engineering, Walt is an old friend) he recommended a shop in the South Bay, happy to share if you are interested, and the motor is apart, in my wagon to be taken to CE for the machine work. Owner is on a Porsche IMSA pit crew and very familiar with 964s, worked with Redline in Santa Monica when Pete Zimmerman owned it. I won't have a final price till everything is back from CE, may need new P&Cs but so far everything has been ultra professional and thrifty on my behalf. Going stock.
(The best known Indies here are either too busy to take good care of you properly, or bill padders, or both).

Amazing rebuild. You took me on a roller coaster ride. The lows of all the issues, then the highs of new parts, cleaned parts, assembled parts, then assembled engine, then running! Wow. Thanks for posting.