SPEC 944 Engine Reseal/bearings
Going through an engine for a local SPEC racer that had a motor grenade on him after the 20 year old oil pickup tube cracked. He picked up a parts car with a running engine (and lucked out by picking up an LSD in the car as well), but it definitely needed to be resealed. We will roll in new rod bearings and install a factory new oil pickup tube which he is going to have reinforced. Hopefully that will prevent any future pickup tube failures. We did a compression test on the engine before it was pulled from the car, and it had good numbers, so most likely we will no bother re-ringing the engine.
We unloaded it into the garage. While the engine stand was getting prepped, I started to tear down the motor on the kart.
I have actually never seen a timing belt this bad….not even broken belts have been this bad. He was lucky to not break the belt on the test drive, lol.
I’m not sure what I will find under this RTV’d bolt. My guess is I will be timserting the block.
After an hour of cleaning….on this side of the engine, It was time to reseal the upper balance shaft housing and OAS.
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Inspected, resealed and back together. On to the next set of seals….
I cleaned the passenger side of the motor for about an hour as well, along with the cooling pockets in the engine. I’m not sure what has gone through this cooling system, lol, but it resembles sand.
Passenger side starting to clean up……
Pistons clean up pretty good. I always do this with the motor upside down so everything falls out to the ground.
At this point I am kind of stuck waiting for parts from the old engine as well as the reinforced oil pickup tube. We will reuse that waterpump and rollers since they were new last year, and use the turbo oil cooler (after cleaning it) as well.
5 Comments
Leave a commentJosh
August 23, 2010 at 6:37 AM
Usually check in every couple of weeks to see what new and interesting. Couldn’t help but comment on this one with a couple questions. New water pump and rollers a year ago, but the belt looked that bad?!? Also, do I see valve impressions on the piston? Hard to tell from a picture but does it look like maybe a broken belt sometime in the past? Always interesting what you might find when opening one of these old girls up. Thanks for the in depth posts.
porschedoc
August 23, 2010 at 7:19 AM
Hi Josh,
Sorry, I should have been more clear. The year old pump and rollers are on the motor that is currently in his SPEC car that shelled the oil pickup tube. This is the motor from a parts car he bought, and we will be using that motor to replace the one in the race car. The pump/belts/rollers from the parts car motor is what is in bad shape.
Also the NA engines have valve cutouts built into the piston for valve clearance. There hasn’t been any contact in this motor.
Josh
August 23, 2010 at 8:22 AM
Makes much more sense. Didn’t realize the NA piston had cutouts. Still interference engine like the turbo correct? I’ve been down that road I’m afraid.
porschedoc
August 23, 2010 at 12:19 PM
Yup, still an interference motor. The turbo pistons dished oval allowed for the similar valve clearance in that engine. The NA’s do not have the deep dish (for higher compression), so they have to include valve cutouts.