Covid Project: Restoring a vintage 911 myself. In way over my head.
 

So when Covid hit and I knew I'd be stuck at home for a while, I finally felt up to tackling the biggest project of my life so far.... fixing my old 911. I bought this car for cheap years ago before the price boom, but then the prices went up so quickly and so much I can't afford pros to service it.

Pretty much everything was wrong with this car; it ran/drove, but the paint was shot, interior was shot, engine was... very very very leaky, transmission had grinds, suspension was worn out, brakes were seized, etc. Over the past few years I fixed the interior, suspension, brakes, but I've been putting off even basic maintenance on the powertrain because it was SO BAD.

Anyway... decided since I have a lot of freetime to do a video series on it. How is this related to eco modder?

2 ways. 1. I drive a hybrid so I can afford parts for this car. 2. Restoring old cars is super green compared to buying a new car.

Anyway... if you want to learn about these things, feel free to check it out.

Here's the intro/overview of everything wrong with my car, and my overall plans (I knew basically nothing about these engines/transmissions at this point, lol)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ_jFiTON2g

Episode 2 is dropping the engine/transmission myself, using a motorcycle jack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W870A-EizDE

Once it was out, the next steps were diagnosing how bad things are, and how much it's going to cost. The biggest thing was my engine case is magnesium, (super soft) and pulled head studs are suppppppeerrrr common on these engines. This was the video where I checked all the head studs, and found some not even attached!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0gUImuE5e0

With the headstuds all holding properly, the next thing to do was to diagnose the health of the rings/valves by doing a leakdown test. I used a harbor freight leakdown tester on this so it's a bit.... well... watch the video to find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUn1QOK5vDg

Anyway, I will update this thread with my progress as long as there's interest. Definitely learning a TON on this project!

I'll follow the story, but I'm not sure why you posted in The Lounge, which is for off-topic stuff. Conserving our air-cooled heritage would be appropriate for Central or DIY. I'm sure the Moderators would move it if you ask.

True. I'll follow too, for sure. The "Off Topic Tech" subforum might be best, since this is DIY but is an "eco" project in the narrower fuel economy sense. I think any old car reuse has at least some "recycling" cred. :) :turtle:

EDIT: and I like your choice not to open up the engine and replace the rings. It runs a d drives and is in acceptable form. Gotta enjoy the ride too, not just look at it in pieces like scupture in your driveway.

Yeah, move it to wherever is appropriate. I wasn't sure if the DIY section was only for ecomodding related content, or whatever. What's 'central' for?

"Ecomodding Central" is to "discuss everything related to vehicle mods here, from ideas to experiments to results." If you click to "forum" tab above you can see each subform name and short description. Hopefully mods will notice your request to move the thread. Even so, feel free to add to the thread until then, of course.

Yeah... but this isn't about ecomodding. Seems sort of off topic compared to discussions about ideas and experiments to maximize mpg. ?

Idk you guys are the experts. :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnnft7AEYq4

Pretty nasty.... but if you like powerwashing pron you will dig this episode. Also get to discover if I have an aluminum trans, or an ultra desirable magnesium transmission (30lb weight savings!)

Congrats on magnesium. ... 1:31... oops! But it all looks much better.

A properly-restored air-cooled 911 is always cool

Just how bad is the gas mileage on that thing? It's light and the displacement is fairly modest but the compression ratio is LOW.

It's ... not great. I try not to even calculate it, other than smiles per mile. I think when I did do it, it was around 22mpg. I do have a dragging front brake, which doesn't help. Once I fix that I would imagine it would be around 25.

Anyway, small update:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuR0jbxPbRE

Welcome to air-cooled world. Remember: antifreeze is poisonous to puppies and kittens. Consider this:

Hot VWs magazine took a Beetle from 28 to 39.9mpg with their Mileage Motor build.

It was based on work by Jon Karcey, described in a seven page The Samba thread here: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/vi...er=asc&start=0

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1820714.jpg

The work was carried forward by Jake Raby into the Type IV (912) world: Raby Aircooled Technology – The Most Advanced Aircooled Engines for Vintage VW and Porsche cars.

The Hot VWs series was at CB Performance but now it 404s: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97269. Maybe try Internet Archive.

TLDR; square bore/stroke, high reciprocating mass, Hall effect ignition, air dam, Jet-a-Vator, low-friction lubricants, 145s on the front, etc, & etc.

If you don't want to go Type IV, then the Emorys cut flat sixes down into DOHC flat fours. https://www.emorymotorsports.com/the-engine/

https://i2.wp.com/www.emorymotorspor...68%2C512&ssl=1

Best mileage I ever got with my 1971 Superbeetle was 38mpg over 1300 miles, running through Eastern Oregon in the middle of the night at 45mph, on the way to Bonneville.

Cool project. I hope your user name reflects your bank account.

I started a similar project about 20 years ago on a 1972 914. I was in a front end collision and decided to use the insurance money to to the build I wanted. What I found out in that the Porsche logo adds at least a zero to everything. I started a spreadsheet, priced out what I wanted to do - saw that it was $15,000 - and sold the car.

I kinda wish I had that car today - especially now that they went from black sheep of the Porsche family to red hot appreciation. It is crazy to see them selling for $20 - $30,000 now.

Nope, student loans keep me pretty freakin' poor until I"m about ready to retire. Hence why I am doing everything I can myself.

Updates: This video is honestly more of a comedy; the fact is the fan SHOULD have slipped off the alternator....but it refused to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhDHlgBjrrA

7:22 ... :) ... lots of patience went into that effort. 4 days?

+1 for saving and restoring the original hardware. I like the salvage approach most.

Small update: Drilled out my engine bar to make an RSR style engine bar... rennline sells these for $250. I spent... $20 on some hole saws or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29LsNfISZSE

Pretty simple stuff, using the paper template is my only protip on this one.

Modest weight reduction there. How much?

Lol, idk, I'll bring hte scraps inside tonight and weigh them for you.

I removed 8 ounces from the engine bar, and 3 ounces from the intake runners. :P

Alright... the most expensive part of my project so far, because i farmed it out: A transmission rebuild. This trans is magnesium case, so a weight savings of 30lbs over the aluminum versions (super rare and desirable!).

I go over the basics of a 915 transaxle, a cross section showing how they work, and some of the upgrades I sprung for during the rebuild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cunCDBD29M

The zoom and panned still pictures were emailed to you from behind the door?

I thought my Type I five-speed was expensive at $1500 (in the 1990s).

UHHH: $1500 WAS expensive in the '90's. I was there and remember that it was like 2 months takehome pay. You could buy 2 or 3 ragtop bugs for that much money.

Btw: didn't the news say your beloved fairgrounds burnt up yesterday?

You're right of course. $450 was for the basic rebuild. I've forgotten what I paid for my 1958 convertible but that sounds about right. I've still got the build sheet and the transaxle. It's perched on the tongue of my Airstream.

I can't find anything this morning about the OCF. The State fairgrounds (in Salem) is an evacuation center. But the Country Fair retreated into the cloud this year: https://www.oregoncountryfair.org/virtual-fair/

The Holiday Ranch fire itself is East of I-5.

edit:
Phoenix, Talent, Blue River, Vida and Detroit are gone.

More updates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oh2pmyp0Gs

So the fuel system on these cars is a CIS system, not really the best for performance, but it's what I have and it was working fine so I'm going to reuse it. In this video, I tear down the entire system, show all the deteriorated parts, smash out the fuel injection seats so I can get the runners powdercoated. Really don't know what I'm doing at this point, so just documenting the hell out of it and hoping it goes back together okay once I get all the parts back. Also planning on cleaning the injectors before reinstalling. Really want to get this together before winter so I'm going to be cranking on this pretty hard from this point forward.

Hmmm kinda looks like the bosch airtronic system. Might want to look into replacing the injectors if they are available.

They're available.... but... I'm broke from the trans rebuild. So I'm cleaning what I have.

I'm surprised more of the nuts didn't stick. I didn't even see penetrant on the table. Somebody has had that fuel regulator off before maybe. Also surprised the inserts didn't crumble coming out. A friendly caution: wear a dust mask when sanding that aluminum. The dust is toxic.

Still, removing those casting marks was a good idea... it will emphasize the curves better.

Actually I was thinking good vintage type 3 injectors might interchange cheap

Pretty quick update, just stripping parts for plating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq4DeA0efsY

Watched most of this. Good job and good luck. I have to say it has been difficult to find all the videos. Was 16 the last episode you did?

Here is a link to his playlists:

https://www.youtube.com/c/ADDvanced/playlists

Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovhYdKFrkgg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Mxo1lbFqA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4naYgSxDko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToRYPNVMBH4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu-jKlU1ad0