Out with the old

Closing down to the end of the year here, so it's time for a progress update.

New rollers and belts added. Balance belt and Timing belt adjusted and set up.

Wiring harness and vacuum lines in progress.

Can't completely finish up the motor yet as I plan to use various bits from the 2.5 currently in the car. Like the 1 year old clutch, fuel rail, headers, reference sensors and the like. They were on the original 2.7 motor and got moved to the 2.5 as they are new or relatively new.

So here's the motor as it stands. The next phase is pulling the 2.5 out of the race car.

The last motor I pulled came out of the top. That was the 89 with auto tranny with the scored block walls. That went reasonably well, so I thought I'd try coming out the top this time.

The advantage of coming out the top means I don't have to do a bunch of work dropping the cross frame, disconnecting the shocks and brake calipers. Off with the hood and start disconnecting everything.

And through the magic of internet time, the end result.

Well that was not so much fun. I can tell you that the new motor is going in from the bottom this time.

The next few days I'll move parts from the 2.5 to the new motor and prepare it for installation. But for now, it's time for ibuprofen and beer. Happy holidays!

Build Progress

Time for another update.

A fair amount of progress has been done in the last couple of weeks even though I've been taking it slowly. Let's review.

Here's a look at the Lindsey Racing oil pan modification. The hinged door prevents the oil from sloshing all to one side of the pan during hard cornering, leaving the oil pickup tube uncovered and sucking air. This, the cross drilling of the crankshaft and 3 sacrificed squirrels in the back yard are to guard against the dreaded 944 #2 spun bearing issue. When that happens, a frequent outcome is a connecting rod and piston thru the block if you don't catch it in time. My last big boom was something completely different, but you do what you can.

Now the bottom end of the engine is done, so add the oil pan and seal it up.

Oil cooler and engine mounts now attached.

Head with the priceless 2.7 valves now securely bolted down. The bolting sequence is kind of unique. Instead of bolting to a specified torque value, you use degrees. The bolting sequence is in 3 steps. All steps are done using a specific pattern. The first step is a light torque to settle everything. Wait 15 minutes, then turn the nut 60 degrees. Wait another 15 minutes and then again turn each nut 60 degrees. Sounds weird but that's what the factory manual calls for.

Bolted various bits to the front of motor. Attached the balance shaft pulleys, making sure they were aligned correctly using the obscure Porsche marks as they need to be 180 degrees out of phase with each other when running. Added the spring tensioner device which will be used to tension the timing belt later. The main crank pulley was added. The bit of red tape is to remind me I need to torque the bolt to 150 ft/lbs later. With it on the engine stand there's nothing to stop it from spinning when I start to tighten it down. I'll get to it later.

Later came today. I had to use my engine hoist and pull the motor off the stand so I could add the rear main seal and attach the flywheel. The spot of yellow paint allows me to see the timing mark through a little inspection hole when the motor is all buttoned back up in the car.

Once that was done, I hoisted it back into the air and back onto the engine stand. With the flywheel attached I could use my little homemade tool and lock the motor and keep it from spinning. I made short work of torquing down the crank bolt and that red tape is now gone.

But just because I threw that red tape into the trash doesn't mean we are done with the color red. Meet Ms. Camtower, all prettied up in her holiday fashion.

Getting close to the end of the mechanical work now. It's starting to look like a real motor now.

2.7 Build starts

Well the motor in the car I bought thru ebay turned out to be toast, head warped, cylinders scored, etc. But at least there were a good full set of the unobtainium 2.7 valves, so I got most of my money's worth out of it. A fellow racer, Big Joe (aka Chef Joe of 944 Cup) sold me a good block. I had already taken the various bits from multiple dead engines to my machine shop guy, so he could pick out the best of the lot, plus do some other tasks. A call to the shop revealed that, of course, they weren't done yet.

I've learned that machine shops, like mechanics, need to be lied to when they ask the question "When do you want/need it?" If it's anything other than 2 or 3 days, all they hear is "Sometime in the future". So if you say, my first race is on X, they hear "Oh, I can start working on it on 2 weeks before X". It's not really their fault, they can't help it. So just lie. Need it for Road Atlanta in April, tell them "my first race is Sebring in February". Chances are you'll get it done in March. Everybody happy. But I digress.

The machine shop hears "by Thursday" and by Friday, I have my bits back and it's time to start.

First order of business is to clean up the block and paint it. My pal Joel gives me grief about it, says it retains heat, but I believe the benefits outweigh any downside. The only time my car came close to overheating in the last 5 years is when I had to bypass the external oil cooler and race in the high 90s temperature. A clean engine not only looks good, but makes it easy to spot minor leaks and other issues before they become major. Plus I like the juxtaposition of the flat black stealth car and having a nicely detailed motor hidden inside.


I bought some engine paint from Eastwood and got to work. This is a race motor not a concours queen so I applied it with a foam brush. It makes the block, smooth and clean and much nicer looking than that mottled, oxided aluminum.

Cross-drilled crank and crank girdle attached. Oil pickup has the Lindsey Racing adapter welded to it.

Pistons going in ...

Upper Balance shaft mounted using the high dollar Locktite orange goop. All new bearings of course.

Oil pump and new water pump

Lower balance shaft, and power steering mount attached. If you look real close you'll notice a helping of Hi-Temp permatex gasket sealer on the end seal. Porsche just put a rubber donut around the plug and after a few seasons, this shinks and you get a good leak from back there. This is a huge pain in the ass to fix in the car due to it's position. So a little dab right now will nip that right in the bud.

The Lower balance shaft covered was the first minor bump in the road. When I got the block it was missing the cover. These blocks are aluminum and cast as one piece. The covers to the balance shafts are then sawn off, so the covers are unique and matched to the block. When I went back to get the cover from Joe, he handed me a box of covers, and said try these, these are all I got from Steve. "Don't worry, just goop it up good". I've been down this road before so I was dubious. And I proved prescient.

I picked what I thought was the best and possible match for the missing cover. After torquing the approximately 135 bolts in the approved pattern for the 1st step, the balance shaft is binding. Not good.

Take it all apart and redo. Still binding, this isn't going to work. Pull it all apart and clean all the hi-dollar orange locktite I just wasted, plus the permatex sealer. I sort through my collection of balance shaft covers and try them until eventually I was able to find one that worked. It was a long process, but I trimphed in the end.

Goodbye 2010, Onward to 2011

I gave the 2.5 motor a final spin at the NASA NJMP Thunderbolt track on Halloween weekend. I just went for Saturday. The goal for the day was to just have some fun at the track. I was reasonably quick a couple weekends ago at the Delaware PCA DE but as we shall see, a DE is not a race. I headed to the track nice and early with the temps a frosty 38 degrees when I got there. My battery wasn't holding a charge so I had to jump start the racecar to get it out of the trailer, and for every session after that. We had about 5 or so who showed up in 944Cup, and a couple more in SuperCup so there was somebody to race with. Practice session I was surprisenly on top in class, probably because I had just been there. Qualifying I was 3rd I believe - I'm too lazy to look it up. By the afternoon, the temps were moderate and it was time to go racing. There was a split start with the slower cars like us, in the 2nd group. Got a good start, held my own for a bit. After a few laps the faster GTS cars from the first group started coming through the pack and lapping cars.

Here's where the weekend starting sucking for me. I didn't contest those cars, would give them the inside, wouldn't block them. But just because they were fast doesn't mean they were good drivers. Since my car was still way down on power, it dyno'd at a blistering 120 hp at the rear wheels before the event, and I was still running 2.7 sized weight - a 150 lb handicap, my only way to a good lap was making time thru the corners. If I lifted I was dead, there was no "go" when I pressed the go pedal. So anyhow, bombing down into turn 1 or 2, I'd courteously give the inside corner to the much faster cars. And courteously in return they should do the pass, tuck to the inside and let me be on my way. But lap after lap, they would dive in, not hold the line and drift out up against me pushing me wide, or making me lift to avoid hitting them. Dickheads!

After the 3rd time of being pushed off the track and onto the outside nasty rumble strips in turn 2, which really, really vibrate the car, my inside Wink mirror mount cracked and broke. And since I could not longer see shit it was time to call it a day. I came in, rolled into the trailer and turned off the motor. As I stepped out of the trailer, I noticed the track had gone full course yellow, with a pile up in turn 1. The pack circled the track for several laps and finished under yellow.

But I was happy, car in the trailer, no body work to do, got as much racing there was to get, it was a brilliant fall day, and I was home and munching on pizza and beer by 5pm. Time to build the 2.7L motor for 2011.