3.4L Motor Swap Underway!

[BYprodriver]

Porsche used blue paint to mark M96 cases with problems before remanufacturing.

[insite]

Originally Posted by BYprodriver

Porsche used blue paint to mark M96 cases with problems before remanufacturing.

good to know; thanks.


they apparently also used to used blobs of welded aluminum to mark them........

[insite]

a little more progress this weekend. i did the IMS retrofit, stripped down the old motor, removed the water pump, oil pump, etc. from the new motor, & did a few misc. other things.

MOST of it was smooth sailing. i have to admit, i was nervous during the IMS retrofit process. i locked the motor at TDC & removed the tensioners. since i had the engine on a stand, i had to rotate the engine a bit to get to the IMS. i was a little afraid that twisting the motor on its side would make it more prone to jump time, so i kept it as close to level as i could while the tensioners were out.

the old bearing was VERY easy to remove (double row). i just cranked down on the LN tool until there was a slight pop; continued to twist until it came out. the old bearing was in GREAT shape (the new one, even better!). i must say, charles' design is really good. the new bearing is a beast. after i removed the old bearing, things got a little trickier for me. first, the center piece got popped WAY back into the IMS; i had to fish it out with a magnet. frustrating! second, i couldn't find a piece of the old retainer ring! the piece circled in red seemed to disappear after i removed the old bearing:







i was afraid it somehow wound up inside the motor.......i cleaned up the shop a bit & found it, thank god, so all is well. installing the new bearing was a little tough for me. i wound up using the bearing driver tool & GENTLY tapping with a metal hammer; dead blow & plastic just weren't getting it done. the new retainer clip is a spiroloc; never used one before! seemed like a total pain until i figured it out; then it just went right in. from there, it was a snap. installed the flange & tensioners, rotated the motor a few times, & checked the cam indexes. all looks well!






i did rotate the motor up on its side later to gain better access to the exhaust manifold studs. MAN were they corroded! i hit them with penetrating lubricant & significant amounts of heat to no avail........two for twelve!!!! that's right, i have twelve studs stuck in my block:



the combination of annealing that comes naturally with the heating & cooling of exhaust bolts along with lots of corrosion & sitting on a shelf for years just wrecked the properties of the bolts. i tried hardening one to see if it would help. nada. since they're all so soft, i think my best bet is to anneal them all, grind them flat, & drill them out. there are about 3/8" of stud protruding from each hole, but the metal is so soft & the corrosion bond so strong, i think i'd just be wasting time trying to extract them this way. ugh. at least the motor is out of the car. maybe i will try a little dry ice before i start drilling.....

one oddity: after having the motor on its side for awhile, some engine oil came out of the spark plugh holes! the old plugs look great; not oil fouled or anything, but having the motor on its side certainly allowed some oil into the combustion chamber. it seemed like a lot more than would normally seep past the rings.....hopefully not an omen.





i had planned to button up the front of the motor, but i'm waiting on my chromoly oil pump drive from LN engineering; they left it out of my box. no worries; charles overnighted it today. here's the front of the block all cleaned up:








finally, i deleted the secondary air system. the RoW DME program i will be running does not use the secondary air injection system. accordingly, i will not be installing the ancillary check valves, solenoid & plumbing. porsche actually makes blocker plates for the openings:





this will save money & headache in the long run. i will be removing the pump from the car, as well.



total time this weekend: 6 hours. most of it was cleaning, removing gasket material, & trying to extract the exhaust bolts without snapping them off. FAIL.

[Pat]

Thanks for taking the time to post about this. Good stuff.

[clickman]

So with the secondary air system missing, you must not have smog checks where you live?

[insite]

there are definitely smog checks where i live. the car will actually pass emissions just fine without the secondary air system. it may fail in areas where they do a complete visual inspection. here, they only visually inspect the presence of the catalytic converters.

the RoW DME program removes the clutch / start safety switch, ignores the secondary air system, and ignores the post-cat O2 sensors. so, by doing this, i remove the secondary air headache, program out to O2 sensors, and get rid of the logic that won't allow the car to start without the clutch pressed.

[blue2000s]

Have you ever tried bolt removal bits? You drill into the bolt and then use a bladed bit in the bolt that bites as you back it out. The added bite of the bit and torque of the drill can sometimes back out a headless bolt.

[Stroked & Blown]

This stuff may help your stuck bolts: http://www.loctitefreezeandrelease.com/

Never thought about this before (the direction of the headers tipped me off), but the accessory drive in the boxster motors is on the 'front' of the block and in the 'back' on the 996. Makes sense given the access.
Is the boxster engine installed 'backwards' vs. the 996?

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Stroked & Blown

.
Is the boxster engine installed 'backwards' vs. the 996?

Yes, the flywheel side of the engine faces the front of the 911 and the rear of the 986, note the location of the transmission.

[clickman]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

Have you ever tried bolt removal bits? You drill into the bolt and then use a bladed bit in the bolt that bites as you back it out. The added bite of the bit and torque of the drill can sometimes back out a headless bolt.

"Sometimes" being the key word. More often than not the removal bit has broken when I've tried.

[BudmanV24]

Whatever you do, don't snap a bolt remover off in one of those broken header bolts. Otherwise you'll be in a world of pain. Don't ask me how I know that. The corrosion looks very typical of auto parts from up north. I got a jeep transmission from new york once that was completely rotted through between the transmission and the transmission mount. A hand held wire brush rubbed right through the case. How much is evoms charging you to build an intake...could you PM me?

[insite]

@blue:

absolutely i've used EZ-Outs. they're great in some instances. unfortunately, i've had limited luck with them when the corrosion bond is this strong & the metal is so soft. the key to successful, painless extraction is a little recon & a lot of patience.

in my situation, i know i have two primary problems: a VERY strong corrosion bond and a VERY soft metal. if i choose to drill, i want to either leave the bolts as-is (soft!) or to anneal them further to simplify drilling. if, however, i feel confident i can break the corrosion bond & successfully apply torque, i want to HARDEN the bolts by heating & rapidly quenching. if i mis-plan, i may have to drill a hardened bolt. if i anneal & then try to use an easy-out, the metal may be too soft for a high-torque bite.....

analysis of THIS situation has shown me that i have to do both: eight of them will be hardened and the last two will be drilled out. first, i want to try to break the corrosion bond. heat will work, but the problem here is that the head is aluminum, which is a MASSIVE heatsink. it will be hard to get enough heat into the surrounding metal to really assist me, esp. considering my only torch at the house uses MAPP gas. the alternative is to cool the fastner with some dry ice. the rapid contraction is frequently enough to break or severely weaken the corrosion bond. it can even make some more 'room' for penetrating lubricant to get down in there.

once i've broken the corrosion bond, i will remove 8 of the fasteners by hardening the metal & twisting them out. i will do both at once: i will weld a nut to the protruding stud & quench the pair. after that, they should twist right out. the wire-feed welder will get the bolt MUCH hotter than my little MAP torch.

the remaining two are really already annealed & very soft. i will grind them flush with the head, center punch them, & drill w/ left-handed bits. it's possible an EZ-out will back them off. otherwise, i'll have to drill up to 7.5mm & then dig out the threads & chase with a tap. in the worst case, i'll drill oversize & helicoil.






@stroked:

never seen that before! makes a lot of sense, although i don't know if it will work as well as dry ice. i'd be willing to try it, but i can't seem to locate any that i don't have to special order......




@clickman & bud:

i have snapped of EZ-outs before. NOT GOOD! at that point, i'd just haul the block to a machine shop & let them deal with it. best to know when to cut your losses. the trick in that scenario is to vaporize the EZ-Out with a plasma cutter & then drill out the remainder. i have muppet fingers & would probably melt the head. that falls under the category of 'pay the guy'.




@pat:
anytime! i can't take credit for the REALLY good stuff; tholyoak has helped me tremendously with understanding the DME & various program parameters.....

[insite]

did a TINY bit more work last night; my starter showed up from ******************************** AZ. my old starter is fine, & i also have the one from the 996 motor, but after seeing how buried that thing really is beneath the intake manifolds, i decided to go ahead, spend the $$$, and do the preventative thing.

the Bosch re-man comes in this nifty little box:







if you look CAREFULLY, you will see that i get a bonus! free roadside assistance, 24 hours......per month? WTF?

[insite]

Originally Posted by BudmanV24

How much is evoms charging you to build an intake...could you PM me?

Bud -

Cloudsurfer talked me out of the Evoms setup. of course, Evoms didn't help themselves.....they wanted ME to basically do all the design work, asking for diameters, etc. I got the feeling very quickly that they don't actually design a complete solution, rather, they just slap some stuff together. at $450, they were only planning to give me the MAF housing, a cone filter & some sheet metal.

someone, either Jaay or Blue2000s, let me in on the fact that there's a BMW MAF housing identical to what i need. i'm coupling that with the BMC DIA airbox & some silicone tubing. i will detail the whole thing, along with photos & cost, as i fab it up.

[stephen wilson]

Sometimes a broken EZ-out can be removed by using a center punch. They're very brittle, so you can break them up, and pick out the pieces.

[chaudanova]

Originally Posted by insite

Bud -

Cloudsurfer talked me out of the Evoms setup. of course, Evoms didn't help themselves.....they wanted ME to basically do all the design work, asking for diameters, etc. I got the feeling very quickly that they don't actually design a complete solution, rather, they just slap some stuff together. at $450, they were only planning to give me the MAF housing, a cone filter & some sheet metal.

someone, either Jaay or Blue2000s, let me in on the fact that there's a BMW MAF housing identical to what i need. i'm coupling that with the BMC DIA airbox & some silicone tubing. i will detail the whole thing, along with photos & cost, as i fab it up.

Hey Insite, thanks again for taking the time to document your entire motor swap journey. I've been following along, and living vicariously through you with this swap!

What you said about the Evoms intake setup: I couldn't agree more... I feel like the Evoms and Agency power "intake" setups are exactly how you described, with a maf tube housing, cone filter, and some (poor) fitting sheet metal "heat shield" box. While I have an AP setup for the heat shield, etc, it fits so poorly and leaves so many gaps for hot air to enter. The Evoms box is pretty much the same... I'm looking to redesign this or go with something else soon.

Looking forward to your documentary for the BMC DIA airbox setup... That BMC unit has always interested me, but I never took the plunge in trying to get it set up to fit into the 986 properly.

[insite]

Originally Posted by chaudanova

Looking forward to your documentary for the BMC DIA airbox setup... That BMC unit has always interested me, but I never took the plunge in trying to get it set up to fit into the 986 properly.

the EVOMS guys didn't even want to supply the plumbing. mine will probably come in about the same price. cloudsurfer has been great through all of this; i feel pretty confident this will work quite well.

i plan on doing a mock-up this weekend while the motor is out of the car. i'll take pics of the setup during the process.

[manolo]

Im not saying it will solve your stud problem, but just for reference i keep a couple cans of freeze and release in the shop and im a firm believer. Ive seen it free up some very stubborn axle nuts on other vehicles that i absolutely could not get with an impact or big breaker bar and my fat ass standing on it. CRC has a version also, i think they call it Freeze Out.

[Cloudsurfer]

Looking good there my man! That REALLY sucks that you have all those stuck studs in your heads I think you're going to have to drill, but who knows, you might get lucky.

Be careful with the oil pump housing removed, as that supports the front of the IMS shaft, and the chain tensioner in place on the 4-6 bank as it's yanking the end of the shaft toward the head. You'll almost certainly have to remove the tensioner on that bank to get the oil pump housing back in.

As to intake stuff, I will never give any of those companies a dime of my money. I've installed plenty of those things on various cars, and I can assure you that their profit margin is fantastic for the crap engineered stuff they sell.

Removing the secondary air BS and running RoW software is one of the best things you can do on these cars I swear.

[insite]

@manolo:

that stuff sounds promising; it's a REALLY smart idea. anyone know if any of the major retailers carry these? i haven't been able to find them except by mail order.




@stephan smith: WTF?




@cloudsurfer:

you're right on the oil pump drive; that think is pulled WAY over to the right. i'd planned on putting the new drive in right away & reassembling. didn't realize my oil pump drive wasn't in the box........

that having been said, i am actually shocked by how ****************ty the whole design of the IMS is. i can't believe porsche spent so much time on it rather than spending time figuring out how to eliminate it.....

the last piece of my intake should arrive today (samco 135 elbow). i'll post mock-up pics this weekend.