Time for a brain dump.
I’ve been tinkering on the Avocado here/there which has been made easier via moving it from Garage Gruppe back to my house. That was an ordeal by itself because of the slope of our driveway and positioning of our garage.
In the last post, I mentioned that I had ordered a bunch of stuff. Well, some of it worked out, some of it didn’t but in any event, the fuel system is complete.
Neither of the Staubli quick disconnect connectors worked, this setup was a PMNA specific piece that ended up being ordered from 311RS. With that out of the way and a few incorrect fittings ordered/reordered I mapped out the hose routing. This setup will use both the original style fuel filter and return line with a single outlet to the returnless setup that the cup engine uses.
With this wrapped up, I knocked out a few other random things: replaced an oil pressure fitting that had broken in the accident, replaced o-rings in the oiling system, cleaned and reinstalled oil supply hard lines, and attempted to replace the oil pressure return spring guide tube.
I say attempted because once I unscrewed the fitting, the original spring, spacer, and bent guide tube weren’t in there. I scoured my garage and have yet to find the damn things. Those parts are dealer only, Pelican had to order from Germany so I ended up ordering direct from a dealer instead. Still waiting on them, we’ll see if they ever arrive.
The other, more major problem that has been lingering has to do with the crank sensor. The problem is two-fold:
- The 991 cup clutch/flywheel is a lightweight, multi-plate unit with a much smaller diameter sensor ring than the usual g50 aircooled/mezger/GT3 ring. It uses a longer sensor that has a specific deutsch connector. This can’t be used with the current setup. I need to repin either a 3.2 or 964/993 sensor to the deutsch connector style depending on which sensor bracket fits the best. All said, this is surmountable.
- The location of the crank sensor on the bellhousing is in a different location which means the crank trigger offset is different. This could be a problem. On a standalone ECU this is an adjustable, but a set it and move on, start-up setting. On the Porsche-specific Bosch Motorsport ECU, this may not be adjustable. I have a small thread going in the Rennlist Cup forums to see if anyone has knowledge on that subject. This may be one of many reasons most have suggested going with a standalone ecu. I’m not opposed to it, this project just has so many other wild cards that I would have like to have tried to just get it running on the original ecu to see if it will even work, since I have it.
- I could machine the bellhousing of the G50 for the 991.1 cup crank sensor location but the bracket for that sensor has also been lost in my garage. Probably in a bag with the oil pressure return spring. This would also require removing the engine and separating the trans, which was probably inevitable but ugh.
Through this whole process of Q&A going on in my own head, the multitude of questions marks, lack of time due to work, parenting a one-year old, and other life stressors I’d been seriously regretting selling the 964 engine.
So when an opportunity presented itself to pick up another 3.6, I decided to go for it. A month or so ago, a 1995 993 engine with ~133k miles showed up on a pallet at my house.
In my infinite wisdom, I sold all the oil lines, oil coolers, thermostat, oil tank, and throttle shaft/cable when I sold the 964 engine. I waffled on doing that but ultimately told myself I’d committed to the cup engine and all I’d be doing is storing stuff I don’t need…
While I’ve been knocking things out on the cup engine, I’ve also been cleaning up the 993 engine and replacing seals/rubber to get it ready for installation.
With the engine/trans coming out anyways, it makes sense to get the 993 engine installed since that’s a recipe I’m familiar with and I can hopefully just enjoy the car for the summer and at the very least, hope to feel the love again.
The only major change I’m planning to make between the 964 setup to 993 is to adjust the plan for oil cooling. The 993 case can use a 3.2 engine-mounted oil cooler in lieu of the oil filter housing with the 3.2 fan shroud (all of which I randomly still have). And I picked up a CSF passenger side mount oil cooler. I’m hoping this is enough cooling compared to the dual side mounts I had before.
I’d also love to use the GT3 muffler, but making that mount to 993 heat exchangers doesn’t seem to have been done. I’d also really like to have HVAC in this iteration, which I have only had fully working with the OG hot rod 3.2 I had in here years ago. To at least get this mounted up/driving, I found a local selling a 993 fabspeed header/muffler setup. Unfortunately, it’s sans heat exchangers so if using this long-term, I need to find a different solution for heat.
This brings us up to speed as to where we’re at as of today. The 993 engine is on the stand and getting torn down. If I can make progress this weekend I’d like all seals/cleanup to be done by EOD Sunday and I can proceed with removing the cup engine and getting this one slapped in next weekend.
Fingers crossed.
