An over ripe banana

[Jaffar]

Coastr: it is a V6.

944s2cab: the sump is in two pieces, upper and lower. The oil pump sits in the upper sump and is immersed in oil. The lower, smaller sump houses the oil pick up and oil level sender. I am not worried about loosing the sender as there is also a dip stick. I do need a low area for the oil pick which  is at the rear of the sump. These motors do not carry a lot of oil and the pump operates at low pressure for efficiency. I am looking at putting an accumulator in the post pump pressure side of the oil circuit to supplement the loss of some sump capacity and guard against starvation due to surge in the small lower sump, although I will also have some baffles welded in at the time. There is a oil cooler take off on the side of the motor which is on the pressure side of the circuit which I can use for the accumulator and a bigger cooler as well. The whole system being at lower pressure make the set up easier, I think, and the accumulator will protect the motor in case I have my thought processes wrong. 

Hence I think the firewall is the easier option. I think it will also look like it was planned rather than shoe horned in..

I have attached an image of the oil system in the motor from an Audi introductory presentation. 

 

[Jaffar]

Update.

Front bumper, spoiler and fenders now removed. That was quite an easy task. Where ever there was a Porsche installed bolt it was not rusted in. Where the bolts and nuts were from elsewhere there were some problems. Looks like the banana has not been in any major accidents, just a few parking dents. The front right fender had a little rust at the bottom but other than that and a bit in the passenger rear it looks rust free.

 If anyone would like any of those removed panels for a more than reasonable cost please contact me.

Have now organised new temporary premises with access to lifts etc so the work can proceed in earnest, albeit very slowly.

Have decided to put in a 924 Carrera GT badge panel to go with the CGT spoiler and fenders and managed to get the vents from the UK on Ebay. Now all I need is a fibreglass nose panel and apart from the hood all will be lightweight panels. 

A bit of extra measuring leads me to believe the engine mountings I planned to use may be too wide. Now looking for some bulkhead mounts, there are thousand to choose from just need the correct thickness and orientation.  

 

[Jaffar]

Update before the Xmas layoff.

Have stripped the interior, dashboard out and taken off the front panels. This has enabled a bit more accurate measurement of the engine fit.

1. A pedal box will be required for brake, clutch and may as well do the accelerator at the same time The motor is a bit too wide to refit the brake booster comfortably and place the clutch master in the correct location. Probably a better solution in any case and I will use a remote booster.

2. I think I will modify the front cross member rather than the engine sump. The engine will be mounted to the front chassis frames so this will reduce the load on the cross member so I think it can be re engineered to give the necessary sump clearance without loss of integrity.

3. New power steering rack has arrived. Have also decided to mount that on a separate cross member in order to correct bump steer when the suspension is lowered. Will talk about the rack separately.

4. Will probably have to go with a Motec ecu as finding someone in Australia to crack the Audi/Siemens ecu to deactivate the immobiliser is impossible. Most tuners do not know what I am talking about. At least the Motec makes the integration of the 944 instruments easier. Worst part about it is the ecu will be by far and away the most expensive part of the car. I would love to do this myself but at this time it has defeated me. No hurry but is looking a bit forelorn.

5. Have picked up the early 944 seats ready to be modified to resemble sports seats plus full like keyed lock set and other bits and pieces from the donor car I purchased.

6. 4  brake calipers and 2 discs are on their way from a PFA member.

7. Air conditioning was aftermarket and shot so I will replace it with a modern/compact system which weighs as much as the original heater system.

New year will see the removal of the drive train.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bergerac]

Are you able to get it emissions certified with the motec? or is this just going to be a track car?

[Jaffar]

Just back from the southern ocean.

The car is over 35 years old so should be ok with either. I just have to comply with all the safety requirements of that period. I think!!

I am conflicted on the ecu. If I can find a 3.0 ltr TFSI motor and use that rather than the 3.2, then the Motec would be useful to extract bags more kw but with the with 3.2 there is little up side, maybe 10% and so the Motec is overkill, but it may be the only way to get the engine going considering the immobiliser. To get the 3.2 operating with the standard ecu would be very cost efficient. I guess it is not the most urgent decision.

 

As an update I am now collecting all the bits for the drive line, alternator, starter, gearbox bits to get ready to renovate and do the swap over. Does anyone have any good advice for cleaning the corrosion from aluminium casings? I do not want to strip down the starter, alternator and a/c pump if possible. Also the engine needs a bit of a corrosion clean.

[Jaffar]

Joy, the Audi gearbox spacer plate turned up from the UK. This was the second attempt at buying one on Ebay. First purchased ended up in a refund. Moving forward can begin.

I felt I needed it to sort out the adapter plate for the 3.2 to the 924 bell housing. Quickly got to it to see whether their were some corresponding bolt locations and yes there are enough. The CNC company can use the spacer and the bell housing to construct the adapter plate.

First photo shows that adapter on the motor with 6 corresponding holes.

Second shows 5 corresponding holes on the bell housing and third shows the whole lot matted together. 

I have 50mm to make up between rear face of the motor and the torque tube and will allocate 20mm to the Adapter and make up a 30mm spacer between the bell housing and torque tube. 

I will have to use a 30mm longer drive shaft and so will use the auto drive shaft cut down at the gearbox end and re-splined.

Note that the bell housing still has the cable clutch mechanism installed. I will leave it there until I trial fit the motor as it is one of the options for clutch operation. A bit ancient but very positive. I have all the bits to install it including the sleeve that will need to be welded to the firewall.

I intend to have the bell housing and the aluminium spacer welded together. I can get at all the engine bolts from the bell housing side. 

I have also been looking for a compatible, non dual mass flywheel. Eventually I think I have found a replacement in a VW Golf/Corrado/Passat VR6 setup. They have the same 10 bolt crank attachment and a similar diameter. I am looking to see whether I can find one with a flat back in order to mate to the Audi flex plate and thick enough that it can be machines slightly to accept the pilot bearing carrier. There are many available in lightweight chrome molly or alloy and capable of taking 450 lb/ft torque. They are essentially much cheaper than having a custom solution made.

Tried obtaining some thickness dimensions from 5 manufacturers but it appears as if this is secret men's business.

Next wait is for an Audi/VW starter motor to turn up from Germany. Note that the starter will be mounted in the normal location rather than underneath the car and mounted arse about face on the gearbox. Using the Audi flex plate and the starter in there normal position should alleviate any compatibility problems.

[Rob]

Hi Jaffar

Your mention of re-splining a driveshaft reminded me of the @Jason E  944S2 when we replaced the TT bearings , shaft and TT because we were chasing a "ghost" noise (which didn't go away after the fix).  Because the S2 shaft has a lengthwise split, apparently to reduce resonances, and which makes them apparently unsuitable for "Black Sea" bearing replacement, we obtained a Turbo TT and shaft.  Inspection showed the spline on the engine end to be FUBAR so we thought we'd get the spline repaired and re-cut.  Not rocket science, right?  Wrong - no-one wanted the job, but one would have a go, no guarantees, for $1200.  We didn't do that, unsurprisingly, and removed the S2 shaft from its TT and used that.  I'll be really interested to see how you fare "over there" with a similar request.

[Jaffar]

Well that raised my anxiety levels a bit. Quickly got on the phone and confirmed they could cut the spline but could not harden it. Gave me the number of someone who could and they can do cut the spline and harden but not on a spline that has been previously hardened. That was a bit disturbing but then remembered that I am using the 944 drive shaft in a 924 snail shell torque tube which is 500mm shorter. The 944 shaft will need to be shortened and the new spline will be cut on the shortened end. All good, phew.

[Jaffar]

Just pulled the bearings from the G31 torque tube. What a beggar of a job. At least I now have some experience for the extraction of the drive shaft and bearings from the 944 tt. I found a rather large lump of cast iron with rubber retainers on either side in the middle of the tube. Can anyone tell me what it is for? When I see the You Tube videos of refurbishments  none look to insert it or discuss it.

Received the starter and alternator from Europe. $150 for the lot with 5500 klm on them. Nice thing about VAG parts is they are plentiful and interchangeable. The starter is really small. 

I can now add the starter mounting holes to the modified template and send the template, bell housing and CAD drawing of the template to have the adapter made.

Finally trying to get any dimensions from the ally flywheel manufacturers is impossible. Will have one custom made by the firm doing the adapter, found that I can use a Mazda RX7 pressure and clutch plate in this application. The plate has the same shaft and spline count as the 944. Very handy. These are cheaper and available with lots of different configurations.

[Rob]

Certainly no such lumps in S2 or 944T torque tubes.  We used a 2M length of threaded rod and a drill to extract and insert bearings in Jason E's torque tube.  A bit tedious and hard on the drill, but not exhausting in comparison with the hammering out method.

Keep up the good work! 😉

Edited 4February, 2019 by Rob
"not", not "now"

[Jaffar]

Had another fright when someone I was corresponding with in NZ mentioned that the TT on a 944 was larger in diameter than the 924 TT. Took a bit of research to ascertain the they were the same. If they were different then there would have been a few problems mating the 944 drive shaft into the 924 TT. All good.

The spacer/template returned for a bit of modifying to get the clearing bubble for the starter sorted. That is now done and the whole lot is ready to go down to the CNC guys for the bell housing to be made.

I took the gearbox to the repairers I had used on my Lotus for an inspection. They stripped it apart and here is the bucket of junk:

There is quite a bit of work to be done including all new bearings, 3 new synchro rings, 3 new dogs and a shift sleeve, plus seals etc. All the gears, shafts and the CW&P were good.

It was at the point of no return as the shift fork had loosened and was about to fall off. 

All the parts required are surprisingly available through Porsche or aftermarket. A firm called Catellus in the US can supply the whole lot. It is, however not cheap. The bearings are the biggest cost at nearly $US 2000 as they are Porsche items. I am currently contemplating whether it is worth proceeding with this gearbox or just finding a rebuilt 944 item in Australia. It appears they are up to $AU 5000 to buy and the rebuild will be a similar cost, if not more, but a lot sexier. I want to throw a LSD at it as well. I though the ecu would be the big cost but this is close if not more.

Tomorrow is take the intake manifold off the motor day and see whether it looks like a 40,000 klm motor as I was advised when I purchased it. Will also clean the intakes, as being a DPI motor it will have some carbon build up and pull off the timing chain covers to see if there is any damage to the chains and tensioners. These are the big maintenance item on these motors. Change the oil regularly and the rest looks after itself.

[Jaffar]

A further look at the motor did not turn out well. One of the tricky intake cam shaft features (dual lobes to change the degree of lift) had seized and caused quite a bit of internal damage. Not worth trying  to save the motor considering what I purchased it for and so out it goes. And that is the reason why it was so cheap, could of at least told me. I guess I was a bit naive.

I have been looking for alternatives and think the best bet will be home grown. Will follow up on that in a few weeks.

The gearbox will end up being by far the most expensive single item of this project so before I pull the trigger on buying all the parts will look at the engine swap in some more detail to see if it is all worth the pain.

Have mocked up the brake caliper adapters and that all seems to work. I will go through this once the bits and pieces are machined up but I am a bit surprised about some of the dialogue over brake conversions.

Also have rough fitted the Carrera GT front end. That all seems to fit without too much pain. There will be some fibreglass repairs but not that difficult.

[Jaffar]

Things have been moving forward. See photo of front subframe and steering rack.

As opposed to making up a complete new front cross member a little mod enabled the rack to fit nicely. Give the crossmember a shot blast and a spray of silver paint and you would knot know anything was done. The rack required the mounting lugs to be removed and a bit of grinding at some of the webs and it could then be mounted with the 944 saddles using the Mini bushes. The arrangement will need a bracket to stop any possible sideways movement, but there is a lug on the rack to facilitate this.

I had a pair of new arm's made up to adapt the rack to the ball joints. Interestingly the whole lot was the same threads.

The biscuit engine mount is from a Landrover and the steering U joint is from Borgeson in the US. I am replacing the whole of the steering shaft with Borgeson parts which then adapts to the 944 steering column. Their stuff is really nice.

The front wishbone is Mazda RX7. Will be using a early 944 ball joint with fabricated alloy plates to hold them. The length of the front wishbone is correct and it looks like a Whiteline poly bush from a Toyota  Landcruiser  will adapt the wishbone to the rear wishbone mounting. Unfortunately one of the mounting bolts was sheared at the chassis rail.

Does anyone know where I can get hold of the very heavy washers that are used on the rear wishbone mountings?

Tomorrow the old motor comes out and trial fit the new.

[Jaffar]

Engine out, test fit crossmember and oil pan and all fits nicely.  In fact the pan looks lost in there.

[Jaffar]

One of the jobs I was not looking forward to was the replacement of the bushes on the rear torsion bar carrier (if that is what you call it). Ended up being easy, just heat it up as below and a give them a twist with a large set of adjustable pliers. I have read some of the most epic efforts of butchery to do this.

 

Test fit of motor. The alternator was a bit close and needed a tweek to the bracket but the rest is pretty good.

Purchased a tubular exhaust but found it needed a bit of adjusting with a oxy torch and a hoist.

Exhaust still has a ground clearance issue and will require more brutal intervention.

Next step is the adapter plate. I found most of the Porsche dimensions on US web site and only had to supply the clutch housing and the required thickness. Once I have ascertained the adapter plate is ok I will pull out the auto trans and install the manual and the refurbished rear suspension.

Does anyone have any suggestions of sound proofing for the fire wall and interior?

 

 

Edited 5September, 2019 by Jaffar
Double up of photos

[LeeM]

On 05/09/2019 at 00:40, Jaffar said:

 

Does anyone have any suggestions of sound proofing for the fire wall and interior?

 I fitted some Dynamat I was given for the 912 (expensive), though the similar building stuff from Bunnings would be cheaper and do the same job

 And PLEEEEEASE edit the title of your thread to 'AN' overripe banana. It's doing my head in 😂🙄😫😥

[Jaffar]

Not sure how to edit the title. Aggravates me as well, and I did it.

[LeeM]

53 minutes ago, Jaffar said:

Not sure how to edit the title. Aggravates me as well, and I did it.

😂 I'll have a look and get back to you, though I reckon just look for the edit button on your first post, and that might allow you to edit the title

[cyberpunky]

Have you considered VEMS for engine ECU. Very popular in Europe. I have  plug and play setup in mine. Good chance they have been hooked up to these motors too as the V in VEMS stands for versatile and anything in Audi is common there(EU)

[LeeM]

TITLE HAS BEEN EDITED!!!! 

I can now sleep again. Thanks @Jaffar👍👍

[Jaffar]

It fits.

Adapter plate has been machined up and fitted to LY7 clutch housing. I used  an automatic housing as it was smaller and lighter than the manual and I am using a concentric slave. Engine fitted to the torque tube in 2 hours. Nice when all the planning for nearly a year comes together first time.

The tolerances are a bit tight and will require a small amount of grinding at the crossmember and the top of the adapter plate.

Motor mounts have been roughed out and are now being welded up. I hope they fit as well as this has.

Have  been busy in the meantime also constructing a new inlet plenum (about 7kg lighter than the stock item and takes a 92mm throttle body), refurbishing the suspension and bearings and refurbishing the dash, centre console and sun visors.

Next up is to swap over the gearboxes and drive shaft to the refurbished items and then get the car back on it's wheels. That will probably take about another 9 months although with the Covid - 19 issue things have gone along a bit quicker as I have a bit more spare time.

I'll post pics of the sun visors as I think they are turning out very nicely.

 

[Timm]

Nice work.

There's enough room in front of that engine for an extra two cylinders 😉

[cyberpunky]

For sound deadening I'd go a MLV (mass Loaded Vinyl) rather than dynamat(btw never use the hardware tape, its not the same and stinks).  Dynamat type products(I recommend Dynamat extreme) are to remove panel resonance, so great for large panels. What you want on a firewall is a barrier layer and MLV is the go for that.

[LeeM]

14 hours ago, cyberpunky said:

MLV (mass Loaded Vinyl

 Thatd be a helluva name for a punk band! 😁

[deano]

28 minutes ago, LeeM said:

 Thatd be a helluva name for a punk band! 😁

Funny, I thought exactly the same thing.

Jaffar how do you know this stuff? I take it your not a wedding celebrant or dental hygienist for your real job?😉 

It spins me out how much knowledge some people have.