Hi, hello from a newbie to the forum and PLEASE HELP if you can:)
I bought my Feb 1987 (220 BHP with ABS) 944T back in 1988 so have owned it a few years now! It had a head gasket done back in 2001 by Strasse in Leeds. Last year it popped its head gasket for the second time. I got the head skimmed and it is just in tolerance but on cleaning the surface of the block prior to refitting the head found that there is a crack in the No 3 Cylinder:( I have called a dozen or more Porsche breakers, e-mailed a dozen specialist Porsche dealers, read 100s of posts on forums and looked on flea-bay for a good block or short engine.
Some views as to my best plan of action from a very reputable specialist:.......
1. Used engine.
As you indicate in your email, you have to be sceptical with used engines, a 944 turbo engine will run even with a heavily scored bore, but it's time on this earth will be limited, yet a private individual or even your average scrap yard will advertise it as "Running" or as a "Good engine", without running a compression, leakdown test and taking the head off to inspect the bores, you will never know how good it is.
The other thing with a 944 Turbo engine, as you are probably aware following 27 years of ownership, sometimes the cost of keeping an engine in top form can be very expensive. A used engine could well do with new gaskets, belts, belt tensioner rollers, oil seals, water pump, thermostat, valve guides. So you might be able to get an engine for £1000, but getting it up to scratch before installing it, may cost another £3000 on basic maintenance before it is installed, without even completely rebuilding it, just by replacing all the parts mentioned here.
However a used engine, could be installed "as is" and would by far be the cheapest option, or even spending £3000 on that engine to make it a good one would cost half the cost of a basic complete rebuild which usually would be £8000 plus £1200 for the repair to your crack in your block.
2. Rebuilding your engine. The £9200 Option
944 Turbos in the future, I am sure, will be worth a fortune, especially if they are what the classic car industry call "Matching numbers" where the engine number is the original one from the factory put into that car when it was built.
The only true way to preserve this will be to rebuild your engine. Expected cost of this would be £8000, plus an additional £1200 to repair your cracked bore. The repair would involve installing all 4 cylinders with a modern technology dry liner, as used in modern engines, plated with a Nickel Ceramic coating which would be more durable than the original Alusil, but also the dry liner would make the bores stronger than original. Some places may offer to apply something similar to just the effected cylinder, but that would mean you would have one cylinder which is not thermally balanced with the rest, which is bad engineering practice.
3. Building a new engine using a combination of your old parts and a Lux block.
This can be done and lux blocks are plentiful, but to build the engine you would need to replace all the parts you would need to rebuild your current engine, swapping only the cost for repairing your block, for the cost of preparing the lux block, which would cost a minimum of £600 if you were to stay with Alusil bores... In many ways, depending on the crack in your current bore, having a thinwall liner in your current block, would be worth the extra £600 on the cost over a basic prep on a lux block.
This prep work would be needed because new piston rings would never be able to bed into a used bore which would be polished with age, causing the engine to be an oil burning engine. The other problem is that this prep would make the bores larger, which in turn would mean you would need larger pistons, which in turn would cost more than the £600 difference in cost.
If your crack is too far gone for repair, I would probably recommend the lux block is used, and then the block is prepared in a similar way to how your crack could be repaired, but with the bonus that this method allows the use of your current standard size 944 turbo pistons.
Anybody know the location of a good Short/full 944 Turbo Engine with some guarantee? Preferably not the "only done 98,000 miles with one careful owner guv" (+ 200,000 miles with the other 8 and there was only a little bit of a fire, and BTW it has only been on the scrapyard for 10 years!) rubbish I have managed to find so far.
My old engine is now out of the car from underneath
Lots of bits to come off but no massive dramas, will attempt to add some pics to my second post....
GT