Crazy eh?
 

Gents,

First of all yes I know I haven't been around the forums for quite some time. Not because I got rid of my beloved Boxster S; just because after almost 17 years without kids wife got pregnant and we had a third one that keeps me busy to this day (now turning 2 in August). Add to that a couple other cars acquired that demanded my time and you have the reason for my absence.

So back to the title of this post, I got my "S" three years ago with 30,000 miles and up to today has been a pleasure to drive and extremely reliable. Not even a single problem. Just your typical maintenance, oil changes, breaks etc.

Last week when I was away my son, the older one, now 18, tells me he got an engine light when starting the car at home. As he is mechanically savvy he turned it off, got the ODB scanner and saw there was a misfire on Cylinder 5.

He proceeded to change spark plug, coil and still misfiring.

Today we were able to do a compression test and put a camera inside the cylinder and guess what? Cylinder wall is cracked. :(

After some debating on what to do next we looked at our options:
- Buy used engine that of course we will know nothing about how it was used/abused and will carry at the most 3 month warranty.
- Buy new engine from Porsche. Yeah, right. I appreciate the fact I have two kidneys and have no plans of selling one to get the new engine.
- Bring to my loyal mechanic that has been super all these years for a rebuild.

Guess what? We decided to rebuild the DAMN THING AT HOME. :eek:

I know as much about Porsche Engines as I know about Lawn Mowers what means nothing. HA! :D

Thing is I do have an engineering degree and that comes with a tinkering mindset and as I told my wife this is a car at the end of the day and not the Space Shuttle. It is made of parts built by humans and not using Alien technology so no matter what, it can be rebuilt with patience and time.

As I have five other vehicles (and a scooter! YAY!) the fact the Boxster is not running does not affect me at all and I have all the time and patience in the world and more than that, I am in no hurry whatsoever. Plan is to start next week and hopefully have it all done before end of fall.

I will certainly need your AWESOME help and input along the way. I decided to take pictures for every single step and potentially record on video everything and later post all this as a nice PDF guide and as a website (for the videos) so the whole community learns along the way.

And before you ask, yes, this will be the first thing ever that runs on gas that I tear apart and rebuild. If Germans can do it, so can I. LOL

Wish me luck and keep an eye on a thread I will probably create just for this. And if anyone decides to visit Ottawa, Canada and give a hand/some advice, feel free to let me know and stop by. Beer is on me.

Cheers.

CR

PS: Sorry for the loooong post.

I think this is where you are going astray, right there. It is worse than Aliens, it is built by Germans. Germans are just like Aliens, only more precise and with less humor*. Plus, they have crammed everything in there, in the smallest possible space, so it is a lot like fixing the plumbing under the sink. But with the added interest of possibly being electrocuted.

And all these guys here on the forum? The ones doing all the fixing and upgrades? They're just NUTS! :eek:

(*BTW, I can say this, because I am German. ;))

Hey we're not nuts... maybe a little crazy at times :D you'd be amazed the crap you can fit into that engine bay... its like diggin your way through from the bottom up... LMAO

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1369882371.jpg

Yes, yes, YES! That's the attitude! We're all right here with you. Post up pic's and keep us up to date on your progress.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3669bf6a.png

I've never liked an inspirational photo before now. Thanks for that. Moving forward confidently with my new S, with great expectations, or a great attitude; whichever is needed. :)

Best of luck OP. I bet you can figure it out, and have a rewarding time in the process. Plus, you'll know the car so well, you might as well get a p-car tattoo, cause you'll be IN for life. lol

While you are in there... 3.6, 3.6, 3.6, 3.6!!!
The cost is reasonably close to a thorough rebuild of your 3.2. Adding 100hp seems like a slam dunk to me.

I have rebuilt a bunch of motors over the years but never an m96. It looks a bit finicky and time consuming compared with the Chev, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Lycoming motors I have been through. The bottom line... they are all lawn mower motors of some sort. As always, take your time and pay attention to details for a good result.

Have fun exploring it with your son!

I'm confused. :confused: Which part is crazy, cracked cyliner wall, trying to rebuild an M96 engine with no prior engine building experience, or having another kid after a 17 year break? :)

You may find this guy's site to be of some use. He rebuilt his engine too.
986fix.com - home

I've got nothing to offer -- but I am rooting for you. Please update us with progress.


For what it's worth, your not exactly the first person to put a replacement engine into a 986...it's a feature of these cars.




/

Video and picture document as much as you can. Will you have access to a lift or going the jackstand route?

No lift. :(
Jackstand it is. LOL
And plan is to produce a PDF and DVD on how to rebuild the damn thing from scratch like I am doing.
At the end of the day if I can pull this off, anyone can really.

CR

That is great! Will certainly help. Thanks for the link.

CR

In order of craziness:
#1 by far: having another kid after 17 years.
#2 Cracked Cylinder Wall. How often this happens? HAD to happen with my car.
#3 Rebuild an M96 engine with no prior engine building experience. Not the case. I have NO MECHANICAL experience. Way different things. LOL

But again if Germans can do, I can do. According to the wife I am way crazier than Germans so...

Pray for me people.

CR

Crod, looking forward to your progress! I too would vote for the 3.6 but hey, it's not my money. A kid after 17 years? Yes, that is crazy! But look what he/she is going to have in the garage - lucky kid.

And what's with all the German bashing on this thread? They still made an incredible car! Oh, and I'm German too but all I know is "ein a bier bitte". Did I spell that right? Seriously, this is a great forum and I love coming on here to see what others are doing, great stuff!

Good luck dude. Hopefully the engineering degree won't be too much of an impediment to the success of the project. (I work for an engineering firm and I bet you know exactly what I mean!)

100% certain that everybody here is following your progress! I would love to try this myself.....

Have you considered a Chevy V8?

But if it was, I am here to help.

Crod,
I admire your attitude. "What the heck, it's broken & what is the worst I can do?"
Keep us all posted on your progress, I'm interested in seeing how you do.

I love these kind of threads. Good luck! Will be keeping up with your progress. Pictures please. Lots of pictures please. :cheers:

Good luck! Subscribed to this thread!

Exactly. Cannot get worse than this. Even if I royally screw up there is always the used motor route. Sure I will save money if I do it myself and do it right but money is not the main driver here. I want in a way to demystify he whole thing about Porsche engines being out of reach to the lay men out there and show that someone with no knowledge whatsoever can fix something this complex.
So my goal is to learn about the car now that I have some time to do it.

Could it be worse than this? Yes, if my Lambo had such type of failure. Money wise I guess that would be in a whole new level to fix it. :D

CR

Awesome, appreciated.
I am sure I will need help along the way and if anyone is indeed willing to help, remotely or in person, that will be great.
Even a Skype call can get many things sorted out. :D

Thanks for the offer Jager. I will definitely take it.

CR

I know, right? I'm pretty sure I can fix one of those! :cheers:

Doing this is the true essence of pride in ownership. If you successfully do this you get the pride factor. In my eyes when someone compliments my car, If all I'm doing is making the payments and paying a mechanic to fix it well my pride factor is low.
But with each job, repair, service and cosmetic refresh I do, the pride factor increases

Go for it

What's the plan? Are going to sleeve the cracked cylinder? Is that even possible depending on crack size?

UPDATE!
Gents first of all I did not die. Yet. Today we finally took the heads out so we got to the cylinders. Guess what? THERE IS NO ****************ING CRACK.
I will post pictures later but all there is on cylinder 5 and 6 is simply a little wear on the wall. Really minor stuff. We will check what the tolerances are and where we stand at.
That puzzled us. We know there was no compression so we started looking at the gaskets, carefully looking at the cylinder wall, piston head, etc. Nothing. Next we started looking at the head itself and I do believe we found the culprit. I will post pictures later.
All I can see is on cylinder 5, between the exhaust and intake valves it seems there was a crack at one stage that was repaired. Now looking at the space between the valves we can see a piece of metal, like a rubber band, right there. The valves do not seem to be completely closed and that I do think is what is causing the compression to fail. Once you guys see the pics I think it will be easier to understand.
The engine was clearly open before and work was done on the heads for sure. The guy I bought the car from what the second owner and I truly believe he was not aware of that. Probably the crack happened after warranty was over and the owner tried the cheapest fix possible and then dumped the car. The next owner drove it for 10,000 miles and sold to me at 36,000 miles. That is what I think happened. But I may be wrong.
A couple notes to everyone out there thinking a Porsche Engine is some mystical thing forged with Unicorn blood by Elves.
It is not.
It is an engine and once you see everything apart it makes a lot of sense and my understanding of mechanical things in general increased tenfold. If you take your time and do it with patience, it can be rebuilt by anyone. And smaller jobs like head gaskets, etc are a piece of cake once you do something like what we are attempting.
I must give all credits to my son. He has been doing 99.9% of the work as I have to pay the bills but every once in a while I step in.
Like this week when he snapped two head bolts and we are having to drill them out. :-)
Lesson learned here: these are one time use bolts (Torque to Yield) and to take them out you simply hammer them slightly on the head and then use a wrench and slowly take them out. Once I told him that we was able to take all the remaining 22 of them out. To replace these, they go for $10 EACH. So right there $240 on bolts. LOL

On brighter notes: I do miss the damn Porsche a lot and has I had to get a summer car going I purchased a Lamborghini Gallardo. Arrived at the port in Montreal past Thursday. Canadian customs is doing the clearance and I should be picking it up by Friday hopefully! So I will have another summer car in the meantime. YAY!

My daily driver, the V12 BMW 750iL has been going strong. Finished the work on the headliner (redone by professionals) and got the leather repaired (minimal) by another professional and it turned out perfectly. Car is a beauty and in MINT condition. LOVE IT.

Cheers and keep tuned for more updates!

CR

How do you rebuild an engine with a cracked cylinder wall? It's not like an old VW where you just bolt on a new cylinder. Seems to me that you MUST get another engine because if your cylinder wall is cracked on this one, you are screwed. Unless some of you know how to repair a cracked cylinder wall!

You can actually replace the cylinder liner on the Boxster engines so it is not like you need a new engine if that ever happens to you. There are many options out there. One for reference is shown here:
Porsche servicing, repairs, engine rebuilds, reconditioned wishbones and cars for sale - near Bolton, North West England.

In my case the issue ended up being on the head itself, no cracks anywhere on the cylinder sleeve.

CR

Ok as promised some pics.
First the cylinder walls on #5 and #6. Some normal, expected wear. Nothing that would create problems or fail a compression test.
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1374600172.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1374600194.jpg
Now showing the previous repair attempt on the actual head. Note the "little" metal band between the intake/exhaust valves. This of course is preventing the valves to sit and by simply pouring brake fluid we can see it leaking (what should not happen). The solution now is to take the head to a machine shop and get it fixed (yes, can be done). Or buy a new head (if you are paranoid). After going through this, now that we know the steps required, I honestly do not give a crap. If it happens again down the road we will tear it down AGAIN and fix it AGAIN. So far US 1 x Porsche Failure 0. :D

Here are the pics:
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1374600363.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1374600389.jpg

So that is it dear friends. I am now confident the car will back on the road by early September! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!

CR

reminds me of this

Intermix/Cracked head repair - Rennlist Discussion Forums

986fix.com - home

Congrat's! You and your son deserve a big round of applause! :cheers:

And gald to hear that no unicorn blood was shed during the teardown. :D

No Unicorn blood but our own. Damn engine is a PITA to work on at some spots (to the point of having to buy a wrench and "adjust" it to fit with a Dremel...). Of course we got some cuts and bruises but overall it is a DAMN ENGINE. Almost like a lawn mower engine, just bigger. LOL

CR

UPDATE:
This is unbelievable. The picture you guys saw showing that metal piece between the intake/exhaust valves, guess what? It was just a metal piece STUCK right there. Somehow that piece got sucked into the engine and stopped right there between the two valves. That was preventing them from closing properly and therefore the compression test was showing no compression on Cylinder #5.
We are doing a little more investigation but it seems like we are all good to go! Just a matter of getting new gaskets, etc and as we are at it, doing the water pump and IMS/RMS plus a new clutch that I already had in place.
It seems this was just bad luck that somehow something made its way through the K&N filter (the original air box/filter was removed by the first owner - GRRRR).
All this work opening the engine due to a stupid little metal piece! Crazy eh?:D

CR

Woo Hoo! Hopefully that takes care of it! Always love good news:cheers:

That is excellent news however a little selfishly I was looking forward to a complete PDF of pictures on how to dismantle and repair a 986 engine ;) - maybe next time :)

Any pictures that you have of removing the engine and heads would still be interesting though :D

I would love to do a project like that - it's been a few years since I rebuilt an engine. Unfortunately my "garage" isn't really suitable (infuriating UK green belt restrictions...)

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1374687491.jpg

Well the reason why I did not take many pictures is simple: the work done at Pelican Parts or 986fix.com is simply top notch and they documented the whole procedure inside out. That is what my son was following and he had no problem whatsoever disassembling the engine. Really great sites with all the info we need there!

CR

Final Update! YAY!
 

Gents,

Ok I just want to put a close on this thread and explain what happened, what we did and what we learned. By we I mean myself and my son who did most (like 99%) of the work on the car. So here we go.

What happened.
I was with the wife in Europe. Son usually drives the cars I have and he was out with the Boxster. Driving home he gets an engine light. Stops at home and scans the car. Misfire on cylinder 5.
He goes through the normal troubleshooting procedures. Swaps coils, check spark plugs, etc. Issue is always with Cylinder 5. Camera goes in and everyone around things there is a crack of some sort on the cylinder wall. So it does need to be opened up to see what the hell is going on. No compression of course on Cylinder 5.

What we decided to do.
As I do have several other cars the Boxster was not really needed so we did not care about how long it would take to get it back on the road. As we want to learn more about vehicles in general (well my case; he knows a LOT more) I tell him we will rebuild it at home. As I do not have all the required tools/lift one of my friends, a Porsche trained mechanic (he even took Raby's class in the US!) takes the engine/transmission out for us at his shop and I bring it all home. Tearing down the engine starts. Keep in mind this is the first Porsche ever we do that. I told my son, this is made in Germany not made by Aliens so if they can fix it, so CAN WE.

Some stuff We bought along the way.
To make things easier I bought an engine crane, an engine stand, the whole Porsche 986/996 timing tools, a dremmel and some other minor things. Did not keep track of how much I spent on tools as if there was a record and my wife found it I would not be here today typing this.

What actually happened?
So here is the deal. First of all tearing down this engine is NOT hard at all to be honest. With the GREAT guides and videos available on YouTube, PelicanParts and on the Internet in general, if you TAKE YOUR TIME and have patience, anyone can do this. Even though my son did most of the work, one thing teenagers lack is patience and that is where I had to step in a couple times (i.e. when taking the head bolts off). Again if you are not in a hurry and want to learn along the way anyone can do it. I am 100% convinced after going through all this.
Once we got to the cylinders this is what I saw, after looking for a potential issue (the things we thought were cracks in the wall were nothing but scuff marks, normal after 56,000 miles on any car, just part of regular wear), attached.
Some metal piece made its way to the combustion chamber and got stuck between an intake and exhaust valve. So the valves were never fully closed what of course led to no compression on that one cylinder. Once we took it out the valves closed perfectly as expected. We poured steering fluid on top to see if it would leak and nothing. Perfect seal.

What we did then.
Well as the whole damn engine was already apart I told my son, let's do whatever we can now so we do not have to touch the internals on this for another 100,000 miles. So we got new IMS bearing, new piston rings, new water pump, thermostat, the obvious needed stuff (seals, bolts, etc), new clutch I had sitting around, etc. I am probably missing some stuff but I will check with my son and update this thread one more time trying to get a full list of parts.
We then sent the block/heads to a company to get them fully cleaned, remachined, checked, etc. They were the ones that then put everything back together for us and did the timing. We did that just for convenience and not because we thought we could not do it and I must say here it was a mistake. And I will explain why later.

Then
Finally once we got all back it was time to go to my buddy's shop to put it all back in the car and try the damn thing!
Once it was all there we tried to fire it up. Puffing, smoking, and.... NADA.
Time to troubleshoot what the hell was going on.
Timing was checked and seemed correct. All electrical fine. So where the hell was the problem? My buddy, being very experienced with these cars, starts troubleshooting it and finds the cylinders on one side (1-3) where on the same stroke as the ones on the other side (4-6) so the engine was fighting against itself. :D
The morons that put it together messed up. Once my buddy rotated the cam 180 degrees (and checked everything else like how many chain links, etc), he put all back together (by the way no need to take the engine down again for this) and it fired up on the first try! So the little Boxster S lived for another day!

What have we learned along the way?
The first obvious thing is, it is possible for anyone to rebuild such an engine at home these days given the amount of information out there, the amount of people willing to help (like all of you, the guys at the Pelican Parts forums, etc). It is all a matter of taking your time and going through all the material available. And of course getting the proper tools.
What I would have done differently was to put all back together at home and not relying on the company that re-machined the block/heads/etc for us. Just to learn even more about these engines.
The other interesting thing was seeing the IMS after 56,000 miles. I have it on my desk and it looks new. No signs whatsoever of wear. But as I said we replaced it. And I am doing it as part of a clutch job every single time from now on. An extra $600 in parts is nothing compared to the peace of mind you will get out of it.

Resuming: took us a year pretty much to get this sorted out/done and we learned a lot along the way. Definitely something that is doable by all of us. Huge thanks goes to all of you that post on a daily basis all the DIY stuff that allows people like me, with no previous mechanical knowledge to learn more every day and to be able to tackle something on my cars when they need work.

Cheers guys! Appreciated.

CR

Excellent update and well done on the rebuild. Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun doing it. Glad the result was worth it :)