Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Finally got round to pulling the head off.

Doh...didn't mean to submit..

Started cleaning up the head but found some corrosion. Looks pretty deep to me. Can it be skimmed out???

I reckon you'll need a skim otherwise you've got a weak spot just waiting for a chance to blow...

Isn't there a marker cast into the sealing face of the head that shows the maximum amount that is allowed to be skimmed off?
So long as it it still visible after skimming the head is still ok.

That's looking quite close to kaput in my opinion. Both head and face need some love imo.

Probably worth trying though. Do you have a good engine bloke?

I took 6thou from my head (never been skimmed before) and that worked fine with a Reinz Turbo HG.

Take it along to a decent engine machinists/refurbisher's for an opinion on the skim and if any repair is required. It looks like it may need work on that one corner, but the rest should skim out. Alloy heads should ALWAYS be skimmed when changing the HG IMO; I learnt the hard way as a youngun' on this.

What does the block look like underneath the old HG?

Haven't taken the gasket off the block yet. Will try and have a look at that later today.

Cleaned the head a little more and that corner seems to be the worst bit.

I notice a small circular indent in the face of the head - is that the max skim marker? If so, I could be in with a chance as the corrosion isn't as deep as that.

Hope it is repairable - its a 2.7. Spent a small fortune already!

Hi, I have had similar with an S2 head which I had the head welded before being skimmed came back like new, as long as the corrosion is not within the firing ring.
Vulcan engineering have just repaired another 2.7 head for me, you can see the video on you tube under ' porsche 944 head repair' which had a lot more damage than this.

Thanks for that. Watched the video - there's hope for mine yet.

Looking at the old head gasket today, it is totally shot. Its peppered with quite few holes...

Started cleaning the head up. Is the small round circle in the photo the marker for skim limit?

Yep - as was said above - weld up the corroded sections before skimming. I weld a good few heads like this for a local engine builder.

1st picture post hope it helps

GT

Thanks very much for that info. Very handy

Haven't had the chance to do much at all recently due to work but hope to push it on a bit over the next couple of weeks.

Hello,

What is the consensus on different head gasket types? There is the wdefire, the cometic mls or stock to consider from what I can tell.

There is also a victor reinz kit, with many gaskets for a top end rebuild. I'm not sure on the quality of this brand though, any experience? I've had bad luck with previous "oem" stuff.

I believe the victor reinz kit is oem and have just fitted this kit myself and is of very good quality,and if you go to the kimber friction website it's only £77 the cheapest you will find anywhere

Just to make you feel better...!

I've been preparing an 8V competition engine and we just started working on the head. After a quick media blast we found this:





When we opened up the block there was chewed up corn husks and mouse crap and slash in the bores. It seems that mouse piss is pretty corrosive stuff as it's killed the head! The piston faces and valves were fine, just the very soft alloy of the head suffered.

We're scrapping it - well, I'll be using it as a screwdriver holder in the garage!