Few more projects knocked out….

Yesterday I finished a 60k service on a 996 C2, which was pretty straightforward.  Plugs, filters, serpentine belt, and a lengthy inspection was involved.  Somehow I deleted all the pictures off my camera unfortunately, so I’ll have to provide some on a different vehicle in regards to the plug change, etc.

 

Today I needed to finish up a fuel rail install on the Dragon.  I had it torn apart which was making my garage and driveway access a little rougher with a non running car, so today I finished the install of the fuel rail, lines, and fuel pressure regulator.  The stock fuel rails are notorious for cracking and leaking, and having gone through a couple of rails with some various issues, I decided it was time to upgrade.  A leaking fuel rails is NOT what you want with these cars.  The aluminum fuel rail is a very nice piece of work from Dave at CEP (Custom Engineered Performance).  Without a doubt, the nicest rail I have seen for a 944.  Unlike some vendor’s rails, CEP’s has 4 mounting legs to secure the rail to both the intake and the cam tower, just as the stock rail is.  What I like is that is seems like it is a very low profile fuel rail.  You have a choice of running a manual fuel pressure regulator, or keeping your existing FPR using a saddle adapter.  I came up with a solution for mounting the saddle adapter, and will be building a nicer permanent mount in the near future using the current location.   Once I got the car running, I dropped the water out of the system, and filled with antifreeze for the winter months.  A new AC delete belt rounded off the maintenance for the time being.

 

And yes, the car is a mess from the last track event.  The strut braces clears the rail with tons of room, I just haven’t reinstalled it yet.

 

 

 

 

Next up, blacky the 951.  I am thinking SMT6 to fine tune the maf, boost controller, maybe hallow out the cat or install a cat bypass pipe, fix a few oil leaks and see what we have.  We might be looking at a turbo rebuild on the K27, but I’ll know more when I get in further…..stay tuned!

Tool Selection

I see a lot of posts online on the forums about the average guy trying to repair something on their car, and they have been at it for a couple hours and are completely frustrated with the job.  It usually ends up something like “changing motor mounts sucks,” or I can’t get my CV axles out.  I usually shake my head, and think to myself, it isn’t that the job is impossible, it is that you probably don’t have the correct tools to make the job easy on yourself!  There are also a lot of posts about “what tools should I buy to work on my car.”  Well, I’m going to give you my answer.

 

First off, I don’t have the $10’s of thousands of dollars that most professional mechanics have.  What I do have, are the right tools for the jobs I do, and the brand of tool is reflected in the amount I use that tool.

 

1.  I always tell people that if they are going to work on their own car to save from paying a mechanic, that they need to start with a good basic set of tools.  This means a quality set of wrenches, sockets, various ractchets, screwdrivers, and extensions (you can never have too many extensions of various sizes).  Make sure to have various pliers, hammers, dykes, wire strippers, etc.  Also, if you follow the rule that every time you work on your car, you buy a new tool, your assortment will grow quickly.  It doesn’t need to be an expensive tool, it can be a sub $10 wobble extension or wobble socket…..something to put in the box that might be useful in the future!  You’ve saved yourself a bunch of money by changing your front wheel bearings, now add something to your arsenal.  I started asking for tools for my birthday and christmases when I was about 6 I think.  I still have almost all of those tools today, and not all of them were of high quality either.

2.  Tool brands:  There are a ton of tool brands out there.  You have the chinese knockoffs, standard craftsman line, all the way to the professional snap on line.  What I can tell you……you will break tools eventually, no matter what brand it is.  No brand is impervious to failure.  The key, is to by good quality tools for the ones you use the most (ratchets, sockets, wrenches, etc).  Not only for quality of tool, but more importantly for ergonomics.  Good tools are ergonomic and will not cause your hands to die a slow death from arthritis.  For those tools you use once a year, you can probably get away with a chinese knock off.  I have mixture of everything.  Sears tools are very easy to replace when they fail….walk in to a store, trade it out.  Snap On/Mac/Matco tools have the same warranty of course, but tracking down a local rep to swap out a warranty return is a little harder on average than finding a sears.

3.  Here are some of the simple tools that I think will really make working on a Porsche a lot easier on you.

First, we start with a clean work environment.  Cheapest and most efficient way of doing a job.

Tools……

A.  Starting at the top, we have a 944 pulley tool and a 27mm wrench for adjusting timing belt pulleys.  To the right of them you can see a 968 flywheel lock and a 944 flywheel lock.  You 911 guys can ignore these, but every 944 owner should have these in their box.  www.arnnworx.com for a great deal on these tools from Bruce Arnn.

B.  Then on the left you will see some various universal sockets in 1/4″ and 3/8″ drive.  The 2 on the right are the life savers.  1/4″ drive, 10mm and 13mm wobble sockets (sub $10 sockets).  Makes those hard to reach nuts a breeze.

C.  Below the universals is a 1/4″ drive snap on ratchet.  Ergonomic with a swivel head.  Favorite ratchet.

D.  Next to that is the Reversible Ratcheting wrenches.  A must have set in everyone’s box.  My set goes from 8mm to 19mm.

E.  Next to that:  Hose clamping pliers.  Pinches coolant hoses shut so you can remove cooling system components without draining the coolant entirely.

F.  Hose pick tools:  Craftsman has a 4 piece set for getting those stubborn cooling hoses to break free from their fittings.

G.  To the right:  Flexible nut drivers.  I have 6mm-8mm+ 10mm.  These come in so handy you can’t imagine.  Makes hard to reach hose clamps a breeze.  Forget ever using a screwdriver on a hose clamp again.  This is a cheap ebay knock off set for under $25 bucks.  Snap also has a nice set of Hazet’s which are about 5x a much.  What do you use a 10mm for?  All those little black plastic nuts seen every where on Porsches.  Don’t bother with the fixed metal shaft nut drivers.

H.  To the right:  Various allen sockets in 1/4″ drive 3/”8 drive.  Common sizes are 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, and an occasional 10mm.  The one long allen I have is a 6mm for the 944 cam tower (amongst other things).  Buy GOOD brand allens.  Do not buy cheapos, you WILL strip heads.  Snap on bits do not strip heads and will make your life so much more enjoyable.   After a ton of use if the head shows wear, have snap on install a new bit into the socket.  Takes seconds.

I.  Triple Square/Cheesehead bits:  8mm, 10mm, 12mm (not shown).  Again, buy Snap On/Mac/etc bits!  You WILL NOT strip cheesehead bolts with a good bit!  You WILL strip every cheesehead bolt you come across with a cheap bit.

J.  1/2″ torque wrench.  I use it every day.  My 3/8″ wrench gets a lot of use as well.

K.  Bosch drill and 1/2″ Cordless Impact (360ft/lbs torque):  Once you go cordless, you will forget about your air tools for 95% of the jobs (don’t believe me?  Get a good quality cordless impact and try it….i didn’t believe it either).  I absolutely hate using air tools and dragging a hose around now.  The bosch impact gun makes removing wheels, wheel hubs (yes the ones torqued over 350ft/lbs), struts, etc apart easy.  The bosch was around 240 bucks shipped to my door off ebay…..3 year warranty of batteries.  The smaller drill seen is something I love using on interior fasteners, screws, and 6mm and smaller bolts (10mm head size).  The torque of the thing is pretty damn impressive, and makes a breeze of a lot of jobs).   Chinese knock off cordless tools tend to have really bad batteries, so buy a good quality tool.  I would put the Bosch on the same level as the Snap on after having used that extensively.  They also come in 3/8″ drive which is fantastic as well.

The last thing……an organized tool box.  Spend some money on decent organizers.  There are multiple solutions out there.  For tools you use a lot, keep them clean and organized.  Those tools you use once a year can all be thrown in a drawer without much thought.

Wrench organizers:  Earl’s brand IIRC, off ebay.  Cheap.

The greatest socket organizers ever.  Mechanics Time Savers (MTS).  Magnetic and makes grabbing sockets quick and painless.  I spend about $150 from sjdiscounttools, and it was well worth it.  I had the homemade wooden dowel system for years and just couldn’t get over paying for good organizers.  Since I did, I haven’t looked back.  SJ was the cheapest source I could find, and they were cheaper by a significant amount.  I looked at sourcing plastic blocks and making my own, but found you couldn’t do it for what you can buy these for from SJ (no affiliation, just a happy customer).  They come in a ton of different colors.  I ordered blue to keep my standard sockets in, and red for the metric stuff.

One other tool I didn’t mention is a set of Torx bit sockets seen in the back left.  Since they typically aren’t under a lot of torque, I picked up a set of evolve (sears’ cheaper line) and they have worked great.

In terms of tool boxes.  If you are at that point in your life where you have stopped moving around all the time, then buy yourself a good quality tool box.  You can pick up some SMOKING deals on lightly used snap on/matco/mac/craftsman boxes on craigslist in your area.  You are still going to spend some good money, but you will save a bunch versus new.  Get a box with good ball bearing drawers.

That’s it for now.  Tool Article #1.  I have a LOT of cool tools for various jobs that I will share on the blog on a regular basis.

Updates…….

Been banging away at the cars in my spare time.

Our 968 braking issue turned out to indeed be front warped rotors even though they only had 2000 miles on them.  Lesson learned here is that when common sense and experience tell you something is broken, don’t look past it just because that item has been replaced recently……new parts fail, rebuilt parts fail, new rotors warp, stuff happens.  The calipers had been rebuilt recently thinking it was an issue with the braking, and it may have been…..a caliper could have been hanging up which heated up the rotor on that side causing the new rotor to warp.

Parts finally came in for the 996TT project.  With the car supported and on jackstands, I could go after the transaxle mount and coolant lines.

Supporting the transaxle, you can lower it down and remove the front mount….

New transaxle mount and new coolant lines installed.

Old transaxle mount……ouch.

Once that coolant leak was cured, a test drive around the block popped up another leak which we had known was a incoming issue.  The passenger and center radiators had a slight weep at the end tanks.  Well you seal up one leak in the coolant system, and the system pressure increases…..guess what happens……..you got it……an increase of leaking of the radiator end caps.  The fan blade on the passenger side auxiliary fan also separated from the motor, which means we will need a new radiator fan on that side as well.  When it rains, it pours.   Well, might as well get all our winter maintenance done before winter sets in, lol.

Also brought in an extremely nice low mileage (under 80k) 951 for its annual maintenance and to diagnose a smoking issue.  Looks like bad turbo seals are getting contagious.   While the car is dusty from being in storage, I assure you, this is one extremely nice 951 with some great upgrades……..

968 Maintenance

Another 968 in the garage.  I am doing a full timing belt/waterpump/roller service, swapping in a resealed PS pump, Camshaft pads and chain change, all new coolant hoses, new expansion tank, speed sensor, and trying to figure out a braking issue.

Getting ready to tear it down…..

Front end apart, going after the cam pads and chain…..

Cams out of the car…..

Exposed cam followers.

Old pads and chain that need to be removed

New pads and chain installed, and cams back in the head.

Almost back together.  A few coolant hoses still needed to be done at this point.  Currently working on diagnosing our mystery braking issue…..

997GT3RS

Call came in this morning of a friend in dire need of a rear brake pad change.  We met up over lunch, and got the rear pads knocked out quickly so he could get back on his way.  The PCCB’s on the 997GT3RS now require you to remove the entire caliper to replace the pads.  A little more work than just popping a pin out and swapping pads, but still a pretty quick job.

996TT Service

Had a 996TT come in this week with a dislocated intake plenum, and an issue with the engine moving around under hard cornering at the track.  With the car running bigger turbos and more boost, the intake plenum boot just didn’t hold under the added pressure.  As you can see in the picture below, the right plenum boot has shifted, allowing the intake plenum to rise upward on the passenger side.

The intake plenum boot was cleaned up, reinstalled, and secured with a little more pressure from the hose clamps.

Next we had to address the engine movement.  The rear motor mounts looked to be in decent shape, but much more tracking, and we will need to upgrade to the Motorsports rear mounts which are solid rubber rather than hydraulic.  What was bad though, was the front transmission mount.  The rubber holding the transaxle to the mount had deteriorated on both sides.  Somewhat of a known issue with the track cars.  The new updated 997TT mount is more solid, and we may reinforce it with 3m window weld to cure this issue from happening again.

I’ll update once I have the part in hand.

With the transaxle moving around, it actually made contact with the coolant hard lines underneath it, causing a rub through the line.  The result was a pin hole leak in coolant, which had been covered up by the lower belly pan.

89 944TS

With the 88 out of the garage, I had a good friend make his way down from South Dakota to fix some oil leaks on his Alpine White 89 Turbo S.  We tackled the belts and front engine seals on this trip, hung out with some good friends and just had a fantastic weekend.

Yup, that is an engine Jones……

Removing the cam gear.

Steve N. holding the car up, lol

Back together after the front end seal and belt job….

No more oil leaks…..

And some final cleaning and adjustments to the hood latch mechanism.

We were even paid a visit by local celebrity Stephen Kaspar, lol……in a suit no doubt!

88 944TS

Had a rare black 88 Turbo S (one of 60ish 88’s in black) in the garage for some maintenance this past week.  We repaired a non operational sunroof, camtower leak, oil cooler leak, lower balance shaft housing leak, along with a new timing and balance shaft belt and few other misc. items.  The car was leaving a pretty good puddle of oil under the car after being driven, so it was time to get a few of the more major leaks sealed up.

Pulling the cam tower to reseal it: 

Front belts off…..

Oil cooler off and getting cleaned up……

And back together again…….

Waiting for the owner to pick it up…..

DE Tech Inspections

A little late with this (I have been horrible about not blogging for the last month, I promise to fix that, lol).  The October PCA Driver’s Education event is coming up this weekend.  As always, feel free to give me a shout this week to have your Pre-inspection done.  No cost, just give me a shout and we will get the car checked out and ready for the track.  If you guys are already to go, I’ll see you this weekend at the track!
Remember to get those brakes bled!

Piggyback Tuning

Since I put the new motor in with larger injectors to deliver more fuel, I have really put off getting the car tuned properly.  The problem was, with the bigger injectors, it was running so rich, it was actually causing the plugs to foul on wide open throttle (WOT).  Needless to say, the fuel economy was horrible as well, lol.  So I finally got around to installing a Vitesse Racing SMT6 piggyback tuner.  Since I am already running his MAF and chipboard, the piggyback was a perfect match.

The piggyback unit installs into the vehicles engine wiring harness at the DME.  It involves splicing in about 8 different wires to the existing harness to allow the piggyback to control the tune.

First thing to do is to pull out your DME and locate the wiring harness.  Then wire in the piggyback controller to the harness.

Wired in and ready to test…..

Once the piggyback is wired in, you can load the tuning software on your laptop and connect the piggyback via the serial cable.   Then comes the tuning portion.  Using the AFR gauge, you can fine tune each RPM level by fuel and ignition and throttle input.  Ideally, a couple hours on a dyno is the safest way to tune the car.  Or, you can use the poor man’s way, and go out and tune on the road.  Your local law enforcement will probably not like you a whole lot, but what the heck.

I chose option B:  I went out and tuned by myself.  If you are tuning on the street, it is best to have the passenger tuning while the driver drives.  Doing it by yourself involves driving the car, watching the AFR’s, and trying to enter data in the laptop on a spreadsheet like program…..I got the rough tune done with, and will use a 2nd person to help me do the fine tuning, as it is just too hard to watch everything at once.

Here is an example of the basic tune.   The the values started at 0, and you can enter a postive number to add more fuel to the car, or enter a negative number to lean the mixture out.

There are multiple options out there for wideband gauges.  You can tune via a permanently installed gauge, or a portable gauge.  Either way you go, check out innovate’s products.  The new LM2 portable AFR gauge works great!

There are a lot of capabilities of the SMT6 that go beyond just tuning the car to run correctly.  This is just the tip of the iceberg for now.

If you are looking for upgrades for a 951, contact John at Vitesse Racing out of the Atlanta area.  Not only are is products top notch, his customer service is the best out there.  Having installed many different performance products on 951’s, I can tell you that his stuff is the best out there.  He has everything from basic chips for a 951, to big turbo kits that really put down a lot of power!!  His website is www.vitesseracing.com