Cairo's Six - Ready for the Next Evolution?, 3.2 Gone; 3.6 going in. Options

[Cairo94507]

Hi Everyone -

Some may be aware I recently bought the '95 993 3.6 motor Chris (Tygaboy) had for sale. I must have looked at his ad a 100 times (IMG:style_emoticons/default/drooley.gif) and finally could not resist. Had it not been Chris and pretty local to me I probably would have passed.

The 3.6 has approximately 18K miles on it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/piratenanner.gif) and came out of the 993 in 1997 following an accident. The engine was properly stored with rocker arms loosed and oil poured in the cylinders and turned over regularly. I pulled the plugs and it turned over like a new engine. Squirted some oil in, reinstalled the plugs and have turned it over a few times since it came to my garage patiently awaiting the swap.

Greg T. (master mechanic/technician/body man and painter) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif) and a very good friend agreed to tackle this project at his garage. So on Friday (2/16/24), we drove to Greg's (it ran great) and a short 5+ hours later the 3.2 was out. We took our time and the biggest hassle was pulling the wiring harness for the 3.2 out of the car without damaging anything. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The next day we trailered my Six in Greg's enclosed trailer, pulled by his wife's beautiful Dodge Ram diesel, to the Red Barn! Yes, Chris, (master fabricator if ever there was one) another great guy and good friend @Tygaboy agreed to do some metal fabrication as a part of this swap. After seeing Chris' skills on multiple projects, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif) I knew if someone was going to be cutting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif) and welding (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif) on my car. I really wanted it to be him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif)

After looking at the current oil cooler setup, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) it was decided to leave my existing GT style oil cooler and add the 2 Spal 6.5" fans and see how that works. My 3.2 stayed cool while driving unless I got in stop 'n go traffic (What? None of that in the Bay Area!) and then the temperature would creep up. We will relocate my oil cooler thermostat from the front trunk (where the factory installed them in the GT cars (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) ) to the engine firewall- where we all agreed it belonged. I have to give Chris credit for this plan as I originally was going to swap in a larger oil cooler and open the nose panel of my car up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif) to mate to the new cooler with a nice duct (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif) . Chris pulled me back from the edge and said he believed cutting the nose panel out may not be necessary once the fans are installed.

Of course that is not all Chris is doing. My car has factory, non-retractible, seat belts and my brother and I prefer retractible belts. So we are installing retractible belts. Chris will do the fabrication; he did this to his LS car and it works flawlessly.

OK, here are some pictures to get this thread rolling; I hope you enjoy following along as this stuff happens.

Again, a sincere thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tiphat2.gif) to Greg T, Chris B., my brother Bob, HB (2 914 owner and good friend), for their support and encouragement. And thanks to anyone who has done a 3.6 swap into a 914 and posted about it so we have a road map. I will document our project to hopefully make it easier for others to do the same.

Cheers- Michael (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)