944 Turbo Mini Restoration

I'm back again :mrgreen:

Hopefully will get the car MOT'd later this week, been busy when I've been able to!

First of - repaired the broken hinge on the glove box lid with my favourite Araldite. Did a heath robinson style affair of masking tape to hold it still whilst the araldite set.



Next I set upon sorting out the interior a bit more and before I could fit a new moisture cover on the door I had to remove all the old glue. WD40 did this job superbly and dissolved the glue nicely with the aid of lots of paper towels. Then a quick wash with some Surfex HD to get rid of any WD40 and remaining gunk.

BEFORE



AFTER



Got the drivers door cleaned up as well and managed to fit the membrane on - haven't finished the passenger side door as I need to fit the door catch still.





And then yesterday the car got some pampering and a good wash and degrease with some Surfex HD followed by a hand wash with BH Autowash. After this I was able to fit the new number plates from Porsche Exeter and took it for a quick trip to the village hall (to dry the brakes off).













I also bled the cooling system after I'd replaced the water with some G48. Got the cap and bleed valve mixed up and opened the cap first by mistake and the car then wet itself on the drive, managed to stop it quick when I realised my mistake :floor:

No pictures today but I've fitted all the standard stone chip protection, rear turbo badge and rear lower spoiler trim piece (with new seal). Also a bit of polishing of various light scratches from being in the garage.

Also realised I hadn't repainted the rear wiper arm! :eh!:

Missed it completely as it was on the back of the car so that will need to come off at some point as it is letting down the rest of the car!

Looking forward to getting the doors finished, MOT and longer journey.

Hi Folks,

So I was on the way to get the car a fresh MOT today and the oil cooler hose decided to blow off at the oil filter housing. Luckily I was just bimbling out of a village and first sign was a cloud of smoke and then the 0 oil pressure reading on the dash. I stopped the engine which sounded fine and coasted luckily down the hill into a driveway for recovery.

The hose and fittings were new and purchased from Motamec so I'm a bit concerned how they would fail in this manner. The engine bay and underneath of the car is a bit of a mess as its now coated in oild that should be in the sump...

Looking around I quickly found the culprit - see below, I understood that these hose and fittings were fine for oil coolers and saw the same setup in a thread on rennlist.



As you can understand I'm pretty scared to use these hoses now I've had a failure (luckily I've still got the original Porsche hoses if I decide to refit them).

These were the original pictures of the hose assembly...





I've emailed the shop I bought the fittings from as I'm not sure they should fail like this...

I now have a right mess to clean up :x

I cant really see what holds that hose on it looks like its just a push fit ? does that small red collar get crimped on to the pipe ?

bummer by the way having that lot to clean up

Gazc2 said:

I cant really see what holds that hose on it looks like its just a push fit ? does that small red collar get crimped on to the pipe ?

bummer by the way having that lot to clean up

Click to expand...

Yes they are just push-fit fittings they were extremely tight and the ridges on the fitting were sharp enough to hold. Had to use the hot water method to get the hose on the fitting in the first place.

I'm wondering if the hose isn't really suitable though and due to its proximity to the exhaust, it could have got hot enough to slip off under pressure?

https://www.motamec.com/info/motamec_hose_fittings_size_techspec_guide/

Website says it is rated up to 93C and working pressure of 200 PSI...

Well I managed to remove those aftermarket bits of rubbish from the oil cooler and inspected my original Porsche OE oil cooler hoses - the top line with the solid section looked OK apart from the fact the flexible piece is stuck onto the solid section (not that it matters unless I wanted to separate them). Refitted the top section after much fiddling, cursing and getting pretty frustrated.



Now I turned my attention to the lower pipe and found that the adapter that attaches to the oil filter housing was seized onto the pipe. Took it to the local garage and they managed to undo it in a vice but the threads were so corroded that they had disintegrated on both the pipe fitting and the adapter. So as I was in a hurry and not in the mood to mess around with trying to get another custom hose made I bit the bullet and ordered a replacement from Porsche for a crazy price (had to wait for the hose and adapter to ship from Germany).



I have similar AN fittings with push-fit hose on the fuel pump to filter line so I put some hose clips on those as a precaution - will probably replace with the genuine hose at some point but this should be good for now (no extreme heat here).



So I took it for the MOT last Friday and the indicator stopped working on the way (I had a spare but hadn't got around to fitting it) so replaced that on Friday evening (managed to get it out without having to remove the entire bumper which was lucky.

The internals of the indicator were badly corroded due to the seal failing some time ago and letting in water. Looking on PET2 there doesn't appear to be a part number listed for the seals in the indicators unfortunately. The spare I got off ebay for peanuts and it is in nearly new condition compared to my grubby old one!



Been watching the Bilstein shock absorbers on Amazon for some time waiting for the price to drop and it hit my purchase criteria so picked those up.



Only issue from the MOT was some wear on the edge of one of the front tyres and the CO / HC is a lot higher than normal so I'm currently investigating a fueling issue.

I've ruled out the DME temperature sensor which I checked yesterday evening and was performing within specification, so my next test will be to check the fuel pressure at the rail to determine if the FPR has gone bad. Only problem is they no longer appear to be available (mine is the later threaded connection versus the push fit connection on the earlier FPRs), I guess I could retrofit the older style push-fit hose if I need to get an FPR of the older type.

http://www.clarks-garage.com/pdf-manual/elect-19.pdf

Ambient temp (approximately 17.6C) = 2.85 k-ohms
Engine at first white line (80C) = 267 ohms

I also cleaned the AFM wiring connector as suggested by someone on tipec - the blades did look pretty dirty and I got quite a lot of dirt off with some Deox Gel and several cotton buds, also the spring on the connector wasn't located correctly so also sorted that and now holds on more securely.

Ordered a cheap fuel pressure test kit from Amazon - will see what adaptors come with it but as I said above I may be sending this back and making my own if none of the adaptors are correct size.

US PRO 20pc Petrol and Diesel Fuel Pump Pressure Tester Meter Kit Set 0 - 1... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076HYQ77P/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_MfFqDbEWFKJVE

Also picked up a vacuum tester seeing as it was only £12 and will test for leaks.

Wh1t3Kn1ght said:

Ordered a cheap fuel pressure test kit from Amazon - will see what adaptors come with it but as I said above I may be sending this back and making my own if none of the adaptors are correct size.

Click to expand...

I bought one of those to fit my fuel rail but I don't remember if it fit straight out of the box or not, I'm sure I had to do/buy/make something for it to fit but once it did fit it worked perfectly.

infrasilver said:

Wh1t3Kn1ght said:

Ordered a cheap fuel pressure test kit from Amazon - will see what adaptors come with it but as I said above I may be sending this back and making my own if none of the adaptors are correct size.

Click to expand...

I bought one of those to fit my fuel rail but I don't remember if it fit straight out of the box or not, I'm sure I had to do/buy/make something for it to fit but once it did fit it worked perfectly.

Click to expand...

Yes I needed a M12 x 1.5 to hose tail adaptor, going to cut the end of the hose that came with it and clip it on to the adaptor...

Only me!

So I've been working hard trying to solve my rich mixture and also sort out an intermittent loss of power (car doesn't feel as punchy as it used to at WOT 100% of the time).

As above I started off with checking the DME temp sensor.

I also went throught all my old MOTs and put the CO data into a table for reference -

Date Mileage CO % vol HC
17/03/2008 147294 0.49 51
18/05/2009 157164 0.512 61
08/05/2010 167141 0.597 55
14/05/2011 178494 0.11 55
12/05/2012 190364 1.746 53
10/06/2013 201814 2.43 140
22/05/2014 204929 0.432 55
26/07/2019 205058 3.104 165

I had an issue with a rich idle in 2013 when the car was with Promax and I seem to remember they replaced all the vacuum lines and also disconnected the O2 sensor (sticking the correct bridge plug in its place to make the DME run in open loop). This appears to have sorted it but now it is back with a vengeance!

Checked the fuel pressure using my cheap pressure gauge from Amazon with an adaptor off ebay -



With the Fuel Pump jumpered and the engine not running = 2.6 bar

With the engine running = 2.2 bar

Leakdown test it held 2.4 bar for 20 minutes after the fuel pump was shut off

I also removed the fuel rail and put each of the injectors into a container to ascertain if one or more were leaking, I pressurized the system via the fuel pump and then switched it off and left it for a good 2 hours and all of the containers were dry apart from a tiny bit of dampness in injector #1 container but that may have just been a bit of oil that was on the o-ring.

I also removed the vacuum lines from the FPR and FPD and they were bone dry with no fuel dribbling out or in the line.

After my brief test drive I thought the car needed a pair of engine mounts so I ordered a pair at eye-watering cost. After checking my existing ones against specification and then trying over the course of 2-3 evenings to remove the drivers side mount I gave up. There is not enough room to remove both of the top bolts from the mount on the Turbo due to the exhaust manifolds. So they will have to wait until such time as I either have the engine out or the exhaust manifold removed.



I changed the air filter and went for another drive and although it drove OK it still smelt very rich and hesitated a little (tiny bit). Car did boost fine and several times shot off like I remember :grin:

So next on the list was to check the AFM after some pointers from the guys on tipec who had similar issues with their Turbos.

BINGO! :thumbs: I found an issue with the AFM when it was fully open at maximum air flow the voltage dropped completely moving from about 99% to 100% open and was repeatable. I'm guessing this is the cause of the intermittent power loss at WOT. I got my trusty pencil eraser out and cleaned the track on the potentiometer. Also gave the metal contacts a good clean with some 5000 grit paper and it was fixed and now reporting highest voltage at fully open and increased gradually with no flat spots between 0-100%. The air temp sensor also checked out OK reporting the correct k-ohms for the ambient temperature (2.17 k-ohms).



I used the testing guide from Clarks Garage which utilises a 9v battery for power source -

http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/elect-22.htm

Next jobs I have is to fit a new Bosch O2 sensor I ordered from Opie Oils, test the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) and adjust the idle mixture on the AFM.

If I still have an issue then I will suspect the injectors and get them sent off for testing and refurb.

I have been through pretty much the same problem with the 924s including sending the AFM away for a refurb it comes back sealed and if you open the seal to take the lid off it invalidates the warrant however we had checked everything else and the problem was still pointing to the afm and sure enough once we had opened it up and adjusted it we got the emissions right down to within spec however now its been running for a few weeks its still not quite right I have a sooty tailpipe and getting an occasional backfire on lift off when giving it full beans so need to check for a vacumm leak first then maybe back to the afm.

Well I've been busy again tinkering :floor:

I forgot to mention before I also changed the high pressure power steering line as it appeared to be dripping from the crimped end that attaches to the pump. Got a cheaper reproduction hose from http://www.powersteeringstore.co.uk/ hope it holds out as long as the original Porsche item.



New one on the left, old one on the right.

Next job was testing out the throttle position sensor and luckily it tested OK - although I did find a procedure someone else had done to take it apart and clean the internals. New one runs several hundred pounds from Porsche!

http://www.arnnworx.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=page&id=2&chapter=1

http://www.clarks-garage.com/shop-manual/fuel-06.htm

DME readings
Closed = 1 Ohm (0 - 10 Ohms)
Open = infinity

KLR readings
Closed = 0.57 k-ohms (320 - 670 ohms)
Fully Open = 4.07 k-ohms (2.7 - 4.7 Kohms)

I noticed on my most recent adventure (did a local loop of about 20 miles) that the fumes in were coming in from the exhaust. Usually on the 944 this is because of the seals around the boot area. I knew the boot seal was good as I replaced this earlier on and also the boot lock seal was new. The incompetent guy that messed up the other jobs had refitted the tail lights and I decided to remove them as I guessed that they may require proper sealing. My suspicions were confirmed when I found that the original butyl seals were still on (in places) and a few small strips of new butyl seal had been added but there were gaps all around the lights! Absolute cow boy material.... so I cleaned off all the old butyl strips and purchased some new butyl strip and also some neoprene sealing strip (6mm x 10mm). Once the lights were cleaned up the neoprene sealing strip did a great job and I checked that it was a very snug fit into the light aperture in the rear. Hoping that has sorted the fumes problem out, I've also ordered a new bonnet seal in case I have a slight leak in the engine bay.







Next jobs are to replace the O2 sensor (got a Bosch universal one) and then check the idle mixture setting is correct.

I've also started repainting the rear wiper arm which I forgot about when I did the front ones!

TTFN

Good job!

I had no idea there was a section in here with a 924/944/968 community among the other classics, not sure why I have never looked in here!

But then again, even though I joined 911uk years ago, I have only looked around it in the last few months over the summer.

I think I might need to check in here more often, seems like a really nice community going on with a good feel, not just this corner, but the rest of the forum also.

But again, really nice job, love seeing the transaxle cars getting love an attention.

Hey Jon :thumbs:

Thanks - I've jumped over here when I bought my 996, I used to be a regular on the PCGB forum, titanic mailing list and Tipec forum. Went quiet for a bit when my Turbo was off the road waiting for bodywork and repaint.

So first weekend of September I more or less finished the major work! :thumbs:

Got the new Bilstein rear shock absorbers fitted (this was by far one of the easiest jobs on the whole car).





Used a little technique I read on another forum to cable tie the spanner to the shock absorber so the nut on the inside of the shock didn't spin when undoing the bolt.

I then fitted the side bump strips (after referring to the workshop manual to get the correct height measurement from the bottom edge of the door).



Gave the tailpipe a thorough polishing!


Along with the rest of the car :grin:







Outdoor pictures were taken just before heading off to the Shelsley Walsh Breakfast Club. I've been out since for some spirited drives and the car is running great at the moment.

I have very slight play on the drivers side front wheel when held at 12 and 6 oclock, so need to investigate the cause of that but otherwise great :thumbs:

It cleans up very well.

...how does it compare performance wise to the 996 ?