Neglected 951 redemption thread

[ColinGreene]

I bought this car a while back out of West Burlington Iowa, for 4750 dollars.
Having had it a few years I have gone though most systems but the motor is really in bad shape.
Really I don't always make the best choices so I have scored bores and a 3.0L crank.
its about to get interesting.

[Tom]

Looks great for a sub-$5k car! Don't let me talk you out of building a 3 liter turbo -- I'm a big fan -- but that scoring doesn't look so bad in the picture. I ran my old 2.5 motor for years with way worse...

[ColinGreene]

Main issue I see is that its using a quart every 200 miles or less. and if it goes into boost it creates a huge cloud of smoke from oil.

Originally I had bought a white over burgundy 86 NA that had 88k original miles on it. I worked on it, i drove it for just over a year when I found this car, So i bought this car then sold the white car. the white car was really nice, this car not as much.

When buying the car I asked the previous owner when the last time he did the water pump and timing belt and he said he had owned the car for 15 years and had never done it, faced with a 5 hour drive home i did the only thing I could and drove it. Turned out fine, and when I went to change the belt it was not terrible looking.
The previous owner also indicated it did use "some oil" and that a mechanic told him it was the head.

At the same time this was going on I was helping a friend re assemble a 87 951 that he picked up for 900 dollars and it had a non running VW turbo diesel in it. we decided that was too weird and were working on putting a factory motor back into it. The motor he got was something that needed pretty much every seal, I did do that along with all of that work I convinced him to send his turbo out to evergreen. He picked the raptor turbo and not one to be left out I decided with a bunch of miles on my car and the turbo looking grim, I bought a raptorX.
Now, did i have a plan on how to tune this or check the motor condition before i bought it? No.
Should I have known better? Yes. but where is the fun in that?

So the turbo got installed while I did the following other things

Koni shocks all around
Front rotors
Fuel pump (more on that later)
Fuel filter
all rubber brake lines, and the clutch line.
The brake booster went pop one day driving to the airport so that also.
Any seal i could find in the area of the water pump timing belt and front of the motor.
Fabspeed midpipe and downpipe.
venturi delete kit.
new tires.
misc. interior stuff
sport seats.
batwing and under engine tray.
door and hatch seals.
Deleted the light bar.

I also really like having AC so new Shrader valves and a compressor,
then tested to see if it held and filled it with R12 that was cheap and plentiful in MN.

In the process of that i was nearing the end of my time in MN and planned on driving the car home to California.
However when I went to pick up the car from the AC shop it was making a bad knocking sound from the front of the motor. I thought this was a bad ac compressor but ultimately the car quit running. Faced with no time to fix it I shopped the car home.
I wound up pulling the head leading to me finding the scoring.
I also picked up a vems that the jumper harness was a bit of a mess and ive been working on that.

[ROB III]

Nice to see the safety wire job. I'm old school and consider safety wire and its proper application an art form.
Looks like you are clearly making progress.

[ColinGreene]

I have worked in aerospace on and off over the years so its a skill I wanted to learn as a engineer to be able to know if it was done right and then be able to do it right rather than just complain about it.

One day the brake booster went pop so it got one of those also.
I really like the car but its been a lot of work.
the odometer took several tries to get it working. I even sent it to someone in new jersey to have them fix it because I was frustrated and ultimately that did not work.
I wound up making shims to keep all the gears aligned, its not working perfectly.

I need to troubleshoot why my heater wont work. I did use Toms hvac troubleshooting guide to establish all the flaps do work when you apply voltage to them so i am thinking its possible its in the control board.
and I have no power to the constant power for the clock light when the key is on, I am not enthusiastic about tearing the dash apart to trace that wire.

and I need to get the front wheels straightened.
If i do build a motor Id like to find out if the factory diff can be freshened up.

then i have to decide on a compression ratio.

[944m3]

Will be interested to hear what compression ratio you settle on. It seems 9.1 is widely accepted. Wondering what a good compromise is for a fun daily driver that might see a track once a year or so.

Btw these guys still do Alusil reconditioning or reboring using Sunnen equipment https://teterauto.com.

[ColinGreene]

I was thinking 9:1 but was not sure if that was too aggressive for the turbo and the two valve head these motors have.
Another thing I really want to add is piston squirters. I really don't know why Porsche did not include them in the motor to begin with. From what I have seen its relatively straight forward to add them but Ill need to ask machine shops if that's something they have experience doing.

Since the car is a 86 it had all the wild venturi stuff, so when i smoke checked it, it showed signs of not being fully sealed.
So that all got deleted for a late style set up.

but it still occasionally leaves me stranded and I am not sure why.

Right now my main issues are vems wiring, clock wiring and solve bent wheels.

[Tom]

Great progress -- we all live vicariously through these pics, keep 'em coming!

You might start by checking the fuse for the clock, fuse #11. It shares that fuse with the glove box light and cigarette lighter, both of which can be efficient little fuse burners. The glove box light 12v tab can short to ground when being removed, if you don't pay any attention to what you are doing, which will blow the fuse instantly -- ask me how I know.

If testing shows the climate control unit is bad, I believe @j.samper is selling rebuilds these days. Could be wrong about that, but I stumbled on an eBay ad that seemed to suggest that.

[j.samper]

Tom, I was selling, but truth is only like 20% of cores could be refurbished. And people want insane money for busted units to get.

[ColinGreene]

Someone I know is loaning me a known good one, to see if thats my issue.

I do have the cigarette lighter and glovebox light out, I dont know if that has anything to do with why my clock is not working.