Ragpickers Leggy 986 S.. first real problem: page 9

Cheers BHZ!

So these arrived today:

The two engine mounts are actually the gearbox mounts and the other bushing is the engine mount... If you follow me.

In other news the Oil filler pipe is bone dry and my indy thinks the huge oil leak is actually the RMS which has been flinging $hit up everywhere over the months making it look terrible.

Based on this, the paranoia and the lack of timing tools I've booked the car in with him for a clutch, flywheel, RMS, IMS and removal of the exhaust manifold bolts next week.

I'll be kind to him though and free off the rest of the exhaust bolts this weekend so at least he can get the rest of it off and spend his time on the manifolds.

I'm actually disappointed in myself for not doing this myself but the car is my daily driver and I don't want to end up rogered with a gearbox off, struggling with the cam timing and several sheared manifold bolts. I can see that being a real ball ache and rendering the car off the road for a few days.

Another day and another string of delivery drivers who Mrs R is now on first name terms with... :hand: Steady lads, not in that way!

Anyone care to guess whats going on here? This little lot will be another couple of weeks before its done. The engine mounts etc are going on this weekend and then I've got to spend the week down in Birmingham on business. If there are any 911uk guys down in Birmingham near the Radisson Blue then give me a shout :thumb:

Whats this contraption?




Or this:






But you will definitely know what this is:



Another update coming on Sunday after I've tackled the engine and transmission mounts...

Its a coffee machine or some spare parts ? .. cant quite decide !

just my guess anyways

Small update this weekend. I didn't have as much time to do things so just cracked on with the jobs. I was interested to see that after pretty much cleaning everything off the crankcase there was no new wet oily areas on either side of the engine. Underneath the engine was covered though and this extended half way up the bell- housing making me think this large leak is actually all coming from the RMS.

First up was changing the gearbox mounts which involved removing the transmission protective plate which is under the rear of the car. As you can see this thing was absolutely covered in oil and is evidence of just how bad the RMS leak is.



The gearbox is held in place by two 911 engine mounts on either side. The mounts are held onto a bracket which is attached to the gearbox.


After a bit of jiggery-pokery this comes out


And you simply swap the old mount out for a new one which is held in by a huge torx nut (fortunately a 12 pointed 20mm socket does the job just fine!)

Old vs New


Reassembled


Repeat on the other side. The mounts which I removed looked to be in great condition and had hardly any movement in them, but at least now I know they have been done and done well.

Next up was to fit this little lot:


I was hoping that the hesitation I have been feeling on acceleration and part-throttle (which almost feels like a misfire) would be due to the old coil packs.
As expected, the packs which came out look like they have never been changed. They were absolutely caked in crud but came up ok when doused with brake cleaner


When it came to refitting the ignition leads onto the coil packs I came across one which has the locking tab broken off. I wonder if this has been the cause of the random hesitation - if the connector has not been securely in place then the spark may not be as strong and thus the hesitant feeling? :?:

Anyway, I wrapped some locking wire around the connector and then around the coil pack bolts. This will secure the connection in place until I can get a new connector put on.

Before re-fitting the transmission plate I used the opportunity to change the rear ARB which was so rusted that the bushes were not in contact with the bar anymore! The diameter in the rusted areas was 16.5mm instead of 18mm in places! Needless to say with the replacement bar and bushes on it all looks much healthier, although I forgot to take pics of this bit.

I then turned my attention to the engine bay and had another look for air leaks which could have been causing the symptoms. After 30 mins of the car running, prodding and poking, pulling and twisting every vac hose, oil filler pipe etc I could not find an air leak.

Driving the car following this round of fettling was much improved! So far I haven't had any hesitation or lumpy idle. Also it seems to pull much harder to the redline than before. There is less body roll too when coming on/off the throttle in the bends or when changing gear which means the new gearbox mounts have actually been worthwhile.

I didn't have time to do the engine mount, and as I only bought the bushing I didn't want to risk being unable to press it into the mount because I need the car to travel to Birmingham in the morning. That job can wait for another week or so.

:thumb:

EDIT - just been through the receipts to find that the coil packs were last changed in, wait for it......... 2004!

The clutch was last changed in........ 2005! :duh:

:thumbs:

Good work - love to see the DIY stuff done properly. :thumbs:

If you look at the 2 mounts you can see the rubber / stud protruding out of the mount more than the new one , thats an indication of partial collapse .. and that pict is with out the gear box hanging on it so it will be further extended then.

A quick way of checking is just to look at the tail pipe .. if it looks low .. as if it need adjusting then its probable the mounts have started to collapse .. at least thats what i do .

Same for 996/997 and boxster/cayman.

If you can replace the plug connection then thats great .. not normally much room to get in there and remove the old connection .. a quick fix for anyone else in tha same situation ( a bodge but better than engine lowered ) is insert clip , pull boot over , loosely put a cable tie around wiring above boot , feed 2 cable ties each side of coil and then a fourth linking side ties together under coil and tighten enough to hold.

Im thinking with the loose connection the coil would either work or not work , if it was loose enough to jump out / break connection then it would misfire , code logged .. so im not sure .. possible i guess though ..

I think new coils is probably the reason its better now .. 1998 coils .. ive never seen original coils like that before .. very good going .. oil leaks have probably been there for ages to have protected them this long lol.

Im a little concerned about the leak though , you said it was dripping i think ?

If it was me i would tend to have a look at that soon ish .. if its just the RMS seals then fine .. but the cases can go oval .. not seen it in a very long time but there was a tool to check for it at OPC .. ill not go into the bearing .. i just wanted to point out its what i personelly would be looking at next

The modified air box and houseings .. that is like the Cayman throttle mod ?

Im afraid the moding side of these cars is new to me ( not done at OPC ) and im interested now to learn what i can.

All in all this is an excellent write up , im enjoying reading it and considering what i do for a living then i hope you take it as a compliment

EDIT .. strange the date stamp looks like december 1998 .. oh well .. still dam old !

Thanks for taking an interest Demort! I do indeed take it as a compliment - if you are interested in what I'm doing considering you do it all day every day then I must be doing something right!

Yes, the TB and plenum are off the 987.2 Cayman.

Basically (as i'm sure you know) the 3.2 M96 boxster engine shares the same crank, cylinder heads and camshafts as the 996 3.4 yet produces only 251bhp.

The reasons for this are - that porsche didn't want the boxster encroaching onto 996 territory as the 911 had to be the flagship model;
- the 986s has an air filter which is the size of a postage stamp
- the airbox leads to an intake tube which is 76mm diameter
- which then is tightly bottlenecked at the TB which is 68mm diameter and then into the plenum.

With the 986s 550 anniversary they put in the airbox out of the 987 and mated it to the 68mm TB. This led to a power output of 284bhp.

The 987c 3.4 uses the same intake but mates it to a 75mm TB and produces 295 (ish) bhp as standard. Admittedly there is also a much larger piston area in each cylinder in the 3.4 engine which certainly plays a big part, but these are stock figures.

So my plan is to mate the 987 airbox via a 76mm intake path to a 75mm TB and then through into an oversized plenum. Coupled with some free-flowing exhaust mods and a bit of remapping and I am hoping this will result in 290+bhp.

I did it before in my old 986s and managed to get 290 but that was with a cone filter and a slightly smaller TB and with standard cats.

Coming back to the oil leak, I have arranged for my indy to change the RMS, IMSB, clutch and flywheel on Friday for me. I was going to do it myself but I really don't have the time for a job which can end up costing me days when I need the car. Hopefully then I'll be able to put this leak thing to bed once and for all!

As the car had a new engine I was asked to find the engine number so we could work out what kind of bearing was needed (single or dual row).

Its a real PITA to read the engine number, but what I did was to clean all the oil off, paint it with hammerite black paint, then once it had dried I used some emery cloth to remove the paint. This left a lovely engine number visible as the paint was still in the indented dots used to scribe it onto the crankcase



For those engine number anoraks out there, this one means that the car has a single row bearing :wink:

Aghhh it makes sense now , i didnt understand the 987 air box but the larger diameter and filter would obviously allow more air flow ,engine would compensate with lambda / maf for fueling with the increased airflow without the need to map ... but obviously that would be of benefit.

30 ish BHP on just that is pretty impressive , taken the liberty of printing this for future reference .. thank you.


The sizes are interesting , i didnt know any of that .. but i was kinda aware that they didnt want the Boxster or indeed the Cayman to encroach into the 911 area .. dam shame but i guess from a business point of view they couldn't .. would have been embaressing to say the least !

I did actually get to drive a Cayamn mod on a Boxster last week .. my first .. the low down response was very good .. it made tha car feel much better ( couldn't drive it hard though , not my car ! ) .. i was impressed and this will take it further .. should be good !

Good to hear about the oil leak though .. was begining to worry me.

marker pen on the engine number then sand off .. often have to do that to try and read it lol .. glasses on at that point !

This is one of the few threads that i follow .. excellent work

The update this week centres around work done by my good friend and Indy.

First job was to remove the original exhaust manifolds and replace with the ebay £200 ones which are equal length and miles better. Plus they are also very shiny!

As I'm sure you all know whenever you remove the exhaust manifolds, there is a real risk of one or two bolts snapping off and then needing to be drilled out and possibly helicoiled.

I received a text from the mechanic filled with expletives and things which cannot be repeated. The end phrase read 'I feel sick' and was followed by this pic:


As you can see, every single one has snapped on this side! Fortunately the other side wasn't as bad and only 3 went.

However, he's dead handy with a drill and helicoil, so after a while I got this pic:


Much better!

I went down to watch him ID the oil leak, change the clutch and IMS today. Basically there was two reasons why the whole side and underneath of the car were absolutely pitted in oil/grease. The first reason was that at some point the car has had a new CV boot. This was put on badly, tie-wrapped in place and subsequently came loose and emptied its grease everywhere:


The second reason was that the IMS seal was leaking so badly that oil was coming out through these holes in the drivers side of the bell housing....:

...and subsequently covering the drivers side of the engine in oil.

As you can see in the following picture, the inside of the bell housing is covered in oil. This area should be dry as a bone and covered in dust from the clutch. Often there is a damp area at the bottom from the RMS leaking, but this is something else:



Old clutch:


Removed:


Cleaned up:


Old bearing:


This is the original bearing in this replacement engine. The engine was replaced at approx 20-30k miles in 2002/3. It is now on 133k miles, so this bearing has done over 100k miles.

It was like brand new. No play whatsoever. No grating when rotating. Seals intact. No signs of wear. Clearly the seal from the IMSB cover was shot, but the bearing was immaculate.

So, new bearing went back in, outer cover removed


new seals put on, RMS seal replaced, reassembled, transmission back on:


and its another job done!

Nice one RPU :thumb:

Why the outer only and not the inner? What volume of oil circulates by undertaking that option? :?:

Really enjoyed the most recent chapter ragpicker. Keep up the good work :thumb: by the time you are done it will be a superb car.

Brill work dude! :thumbs:

Cheers guys! I'm thoroughly enjoying this project. Particularly because at the moment whatever I do to it has an instant impact on the way the car drives.

Still got several things to do:
1) Remove old intake, install new air intake, TB and Plenum.
2) refurb wheels
3) Full re-spray (done myself )
4) Decide on shockers / springs (ie keep whats on or replace)
5) Remap
6) Have bypass mod done on back box
7) Repair leather seats
8) Improve speakers
9) Replace Litronic levelling arms front and rear
10) New xenon bulbs

I'm sure there are other things but thats all i can think of at the moment.

Re the outer IMS seal: This side of the bearing is exposed to the oil in the casing which the chains run in. The other side of the bearing is into the intermediate shaft itself which doesn't get that much oil in comparison. So I would imagine that its not worth removing the other seal, but you are now testing the limits of my knowledge!

ragpicker said:

Cheers guys! I'm thoroughly enjoying this project. Particularly because at the moment whatever I do to it has an instant impact on the way the car drives.

Still got several things to do:
1) Remove old intake, install new air intake, TB and Plenum.
2) refurb wheels
3) Full re-spray (done myself )
4) Decide on shockers / springs (ie keep whats on or replace)
5) Remap
6) Have bypass mod done on back box
7) Repair leather seats
8) Improve speakers
9) Replace Litronic levelling arms front and rear
10) New xenon bulbs

I'm sure there are other things but thats all i can think of at the moment.

Re the outer IMS seal: This side of the bearing is exposed to the oil in the casing which the chains run in. The other side of the bearing is into the intermediate shaft itself which doesn't get that much oil in comparison. So I would imagine that its not worth removing the other seal, but you are now testing the limits of my knowledge!

Click to expand...

Makes sense. :thumb: