[Gabe.]

Originally Posted by ducatiroger

Always look forward to your updates. The scope of challenges you decide to tackle make the projects on my car look simple by comparison. This thread is a great reminder of what is possible if you can dedicate the time.

Look forward to reading about the Avocado being on the the road again.

Cordially,

Roger

Thanks, as always, for following along!

Originally Posted by LukasM

Well Gabe, that sure is a big turn of events again! But fitting a 993 lump back in there will be a project of a few weekends instead of months, and the good thing is you will always be able to sell it very easily down the road, when you have figured the intricacies of the Cup engine. I have a 7 month old at home myself and know that free time is a rare commodity that needs to be spent very wisely... ��

If you want to go with heat and AC to make the Avocado even more of an enjoyable driver, the upcoming Classic Retrofit AC + heat should be a sweet setup that is much lighter and neater than the factory systems, and it will work with your headers.

Alternatively, M&K makes a nice muffler that bolts onto the Bischoff version (not the Gillets) of the 993 heat exchangers. Those are fairly cheap and flow well, even comparable to 41mm big bore SSIs at 3-4x the cost.

Lukas, that's actually a pretty killer idea. However, it doesn't look like they've actually released their heat pump setup yet? That and it's probably like $7k-$8k which just feels like a lot.

I started drafting this update in July and got really sidetracked with dad-mode, working on my car, and enjoying the summer. Nonetheless, I just completed the Overcrest rally in Appalachia and feel like it’s time to pause and bring everyone up to date.

Getting the 993 engine installed in June was seriously wishful thinking for a handful of reasons and parts delays. I would make progress and then something unrealized, unknown, or forgotten would pop up and ruin my day (not really, it's just a car, but still...) :

• When I purchased the 993 engine, I bought it with an oil tank and thermostat included, however it wasn't sent with the engine and despite reaching out several times over a few month timeframe, I still had no parts in hand. I ended up just ordering new parts so I could move on. Water under the bridge at this point...
• Whilst planning to put this engine in and changing gaskets and what not, I took the 993 heat exchangers off to put the Fabspeed stuff on. A huge surprise awaited me in the form of oil/carbon deposits on cylinder #4 (iirc). I chipped it off and walnut media blasted all the exhaust ports. It’s possible there are worn valve guides/seals. Now that I have some miles on it, I need to take the exhaust off to check on it again.
  
• I had a 3.2 crank sensor and bracket on my 964 engine and when I swapped to the 964/993 crank sensor for this swap, the relief I clearance on the G50 was no longer enough. Material was removed, a mess was made, I was a gorilla with the G50 taking it on/off a few times, and now all is well in the world.
  
• I'd been waiting on engine mount adapters for the crossbar to be machined. Those have since been welded onto the crossbar along with reinforcements by yours truly.
  
• Once the adapters were welded on I could put the engine back into the car. It just fits but in order to do so, the engine is shifted rearward which means the rear engine tins don’t fit, I now had to fabricate brackets to push the ignition coils forward, and on the front of the engine, there is a huge gap in the engine bay skirt. This whole thing is an exercise in patience. (this is a post-rally, pre clean image, you can see how dirty things get without the rear engine tin)
  
• My plan for utilizing a 3.2 engine mounted oil cooler didn’t work for two reasons. 1. it hits the power steering blockoff. Swapping to 3.2 style cams and machining a flatter plate could bypass that problem but that's a bigger fish and more money. 2. the oil suction tube is inset on the 993 case from where it would be on a 3.2 case which would require machining an aluminum adapter and welding it to the cooler or getting smart with some o-rings. Fortunately, the single CSF cooler has been completely up to task combined with an American Volt fan. It hasn’t been crazy hot but even in mid 70s and driving it hard, it was never over 230.
  
• Oil line SNAFUs. There are ALL NEW lines on the whole car but getting the right stuff was a PITA. I was planning to use the 3.2 on-engine oil line that goes around the rear but then the new hard/soft line between the body hardline and the engine line was too short. It worked with the 964 engine but not the 993? Maybe it wasn’t as worn in as my OG lines? It was like WAY off. I swapped to an SC/2.7 style line that goes under the bellhousing and built a bracket to hold the line to the engine. All is well.
  
  
• On the initial start-up, it cranked really strong and built up instant oil pressure but it wouldn’t fire. After a ton of digging, I came to the conclusion that this ECU probably had an immobilizer built in so I ordered a chip from 911-chips. Once it arrived, I installed it and it fired up instantly
• A full three months after starting this debacle, I finally got the car started and running. On the first shakedown I cooked a brand new ignition control module because it wasn’t mounted to a heat sink. I stranded myself a mile from home on an uphill looping freeway offramp when I needed to be home to watch Piper while my wife joined a zoom meeting. No one was happy that night…
  
• It also felt pretty slow so I tested how far the throttle was opening, only 30 degrees. With a lot of dicking around I got it to 60 degrees, this just won’t do. Eventually, a friend realized I had the cable mounted to the cruise control bracket and we made some adjustments to the boden cable bracket. We’re at ~74 degrees opening and it rips but I’d really like to get to 90 degrees. I just don’t know if that’s possible with the Patrick Motorsports cable as is.
• The 993 airbox doesn’t fit in a g-body without trimming. I ran with the air filter clipped to the intake box until a Fabspeed airbox clamp showed up. Jesus this parts list is adding up $$$.
• On a longer 300+ mile shakedown the voltage regulator on my alternator died. Fortunately, I was with a friend in a Z3M roadster that happens to have the same battery so we swapped back and forth as needed to get home
  
• The longer shakedown reminded me how much I missed my 915 Numeric shifter, so I ordered a J-West from Pelican. Super easy to install once you realize you don’t have one of the bushings upside down. A sweaty several hour nightmare if you do have it upside down, ask me how I know.

What I initially felt should have been simple turned out to have a lot more complexity.

To date, the list of new parts is fairly insane: all oil lines are new, new CSF oil cooler, new oil tank, new vent lines, new voltage regulator, new ignition control module, patrick motorsports throttle cable conversion, wiring/DME harness conversion, power steering, SAI block off plugs, and engine oil feed (replaces pipe that 3.2 oil cooler would be), replaced front/rear mains, valve cover gaskets, triangle of death seals, cam housing gaskets, fuel line conversion/fittings, new Bosch starter, j-west short shifter, fabspeed 993 cup air filter cover, new brackets, clamps, bolts, screws. Overall, it was thousands in parts with spares in case things went wrong while thousands of miles from home. I wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened at overcrest last year.

With all this work, the car runs and drives but I had a shipload of anxiety about driving it on a 3k mile road trip and driving the wheels off it while at the rally destination. Last year’s experience really challenged my psyche. I truly believe these are really simple to operate vehicles and if you have spares you should be in ok shape but if something major happens, you could easily be stranded. That’s where the importance of community and friends really shines with the rally events. Everyone works together to right any wrongs but you still need to deal with whatever complexity gets thrown at you, and that can be really tough.

Overcrest rally updates soon...